Digger opens today in true VistaVision
Warner Bros.'s Digger opens today, Friday 02 October, in UK and US cinemas.
Alejandro G. Iñárritu's film reunites him with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, the pair behind Birdman and The Revenant, in his first collaboration with Tom Cruise. The film was shot on VistaVision, with Cinelab handling film processing and scanning throughout the production.
VistaVision runs 35mm film horizontally through the camera rather than vertically, with each frame spanning eight film perforations instead of the standard four. The larger negative allows for roughly double the resolution of conventional 35mm, with less grain and a brighter, more detailed image. Introduced by Paramount in the 1950s for films including Vertigo and North by Northwest, the format all but disappeared after 1961 – until The Brutalist, followed by other productions including Bugonia and One Battle After Another brining it back to cinemas for the first time in over sixty years.
There is the opportunity to see Digger screened in a very rare VistaVision presentation: it's showing in the format at just a handful of cinemas worldwide: London, Boston, Los Angeles, New York and Melbourne - with ODEON Luxe Leicester Square the only UK venue.
Cruise has spoken about the level of craft behind the format: watching Lubezki work, he said, came down to "the level of detail, the skill, the layers of making this film," adding that neither he nor Iñárritu had made anything quite like it before.
For US audiences only (shame, we love these!), there a limited set of eight Digger lobby cards, available at select screenings while stocks last.
