IMAX CHAIRMAN GREG FOSTER TALKS SUPERMAN RETURNS IN 3D
posted by: George               source: iF Magazine

As posted in iF Magazine:

Greg Foster, Chairman and President of Filmed Entertainment, joined IMAX Corporation in March 2001.  Based at IMAX's Santa Monica office, Foster's primary responsibility is overseeing all aspects of the company's global filmed entertainment activities, including creative, production, film distribution, business affairs, marketing, sponsorship, studio relationships and the revolutionary IMAX DMR® process. Fosters biggest challenge this summer, however, has been to take one of the biggest movies of the last decade and turn twenty minutes of it into IMAX 3D.  SUPERMAN RETURNS will be the first live-action IMAX movie, and iF got the scoop straight from Foster on what comic book fans have to look forward to on July 4th weekend.

iF MAGAZINE: How much of SUPERMAN RETURNS is going to be in 3D?

GREG FOSTER: Its about 20 minutes of key sequence that weve converted.  Its the first live action 2D to 3D conversion that weve done.  Weve done it with CGI animated movies before like THE POLAR EXPRESS.  SUPERMAN RETURNS is the perfect title to launch this new technology with.  We are enormously pumped about, probably no one more than me on account of Ive just seen ten minutes of it.

iF: Where did the idea to make SUPERMAN RETURNS a 3D IMAX experience come from?

FOSTER: Really it came from all three important constituencies, which are the filmmaker  (particularly Bryan Singer),  Warner Bros. and IMAX.  Its the ideal title.  When we pick pictures, we have criteria: is it the right audience for IMAX, is it a visionary filmmaker, is it the right kind of film that really lends itself to what we do?  That means from a technology point of view, from a scope point of view.  Then we ask: does it have the right release date, is it a studio partner that really understands IMAX?  An iconic movie like SUPERMAN flying over audiences on July 4th weekend in 3D in our theatres is what weve been building up to in the past few years.  Weve been Hollywood-izing, for lack of a better word, for the last few years, and weve been very careful about what weve picked to do.  This movie is right in our sweet spot.

iF: How long does it take to convert a movie to IMAX?

FOSTER: Its an evolving process and its one that Im quite proud of.  We get better and better with more experience.  The first title that we converted was APOLLO 13 in 2003, and it took us over three months to take this two hour movie and turn it into IMAX.  We will take 2D title in less than two weeks now, and thats purely because of the efficiency of the process.  3D it takes longer, because its a first.  It will take us about six to eight weeks to convert these twenty minutes.  In fairness, we wouldve done it quicker, but the final visual effects shots were just delivered to us on Memorial Day.  Were working through the efficiency issues, and we are much better at it in terms of speed today than we were a month ago.  A year form now well be even better at it and well be in a position to do forty-five minutes instead of twenty minutes.  Maybe two years from now well be able to do the entire movie and make day and date.  The key for us is to make day and date.  That is because the efficiency of piggy backing IMAX marketing on the back of the traditional marketing campaign providing a two-for one if you will.  We are tagged by our friends at the studios on their 35mm marketing campaigns so they dont have to have a separate campaign.  If youre watching television commercials for SUPERMAN at the end you will hear in theaters and IMAX 3D.

iF: What is the visual cue for the audience to put on their glasses to watch the 3D segments?

FOSTER: Bryan has specifically designed the cue.  There will be a pair of IMAX 3D glasses as an icon that will appear onscreen flashing in green for five seconds. The audience will have been made aware of this at the beginning of the movie; an usher will get up in front of the audience and say this is how the filmmaker has designed the process.  Youll see flashing green IMAX glasses on the screen at the beginning of the sequence, and at the end youll see flashing IMAX red glasses for five seconds letting you know to take them off.  Our glasses that are the polarized comfortable; the same ones we used for POLAR EXPRESS or DEEP SEA 3D that Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet narrated. 

iF: Have you given thought to something like the proposed STAR WARS 3D?

FOSTER: Were really not into library titles.  Our focus is on day and date mainstream blockbuster films that have current technologies and big fifty, sixty, seventy million dollar marketing campaigns.  Thats what the consumer seems to be very focused on.  Were finished for the next eighteen months.  We havent announced everything yet, but our next five titles are 3D titles all in 2006.  We have one every six to eight weeks starting with SUPERMAN, and then we have ANT BULLY a Warner Bros. 3D title with the voices of Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep and Paul Giamantti.  We then have a Sony movie OPEN SEASON, and then we have HAPPY FEET, and then the re-release of POLAR EXPRESS.  We couldnt really do anything else even if we wanted to.

iF: How closely did you work with Bryan on this 3D process and how was it working with him?

FOSTER: We worked very closely and it was just fantastic.  He is exactly the kind of filmmaker that we are looking to be in business with.  Bryan understands the melding of storytelling, technology, and show business.  He recognizes that this has to be a cash flow positive business and he recognizes that sometimes to do that you have to be a showman.  We would love to continue to work with him.  He embraced us about a year ago.  We showed him a test the 3D version of the teaser trailer and hes talked about all of this quite publicly.  He was as he has said in print many times truly blown away by it, by what the team could do.  Hes designed the IMAX release around this 3D element. 

iF: What scenes were converted for 3D?

FOSTER: There are four of them and three of those are action scenes.  One of them I wont talk about, but its less on action and more of an emotional sequence in the film.  Its almost as compelling as the action sequences.  There is an intimacy that 3D is able to provide that you dont necessarily expect until you see it, and then when you see it, it blows you away.  You are connected to the character in a way that you dont expect to be in what might be perceived as a popcorn movie.  I think the 3D provides an extra layer of connection that Im really happy about.

iF: Do you find yourself leaning towards the superhero genre as you forge ahead?

FOSTER: We have a really simple kind of key thing.  It has to appeal to our core audience segments.  One them is our tried and true family audience and the other is a really important audience of the allusive fifteen to twenty-four year old boy.  When I was a kid that was the audience you knew you had.  They were the audience that automatically went to movies on Friday. Saturday, and Sundays.  I have two of those fifteen to twenty-four year olds in my house and a third one thats a couple years away and theyre too busy playing sports or playing video games or watching DVDs.  Theyve kind of stopped going to the multiplex with the same frequency that they used to.  Were able to bring them.  They get what we do.  If we get a movie that takes you somewhere that you dream of going, whether that is to the moon or flying with SUPERMAN or going to Hogwarts; then thats a movie we will probably get involved with. Some will be like SPIDER-MAN that has been mentioned if you want to read between the lines, and some will not be superhero movies.  It may be titles like a HAPPY FEET or a HARRY POTTER.

iF: How many IMAX screens will SUPERMAN play on when it opens

FOSTER: It will likely be the widest release weve ever had.  Eighty or ninety screens to begin with, and maybe more because the movie itself works.  Its an awesome movie, but once it opens it would not surprise me if we exceed that number.  This movie will play for months in IMAX.  Hopefully it will continue and come back for a second run. 

iF: If the first run is successful would the second run include more 3D sequences?

FOSTER: I think thats a good thought, but well have to see how it goes.