Innovations Spotlight Day – Saturday, September 20, 2025 – Fort Worth, TX
Innovations Spotlight Day - Saturday, September 20, 2025 - Fort Worth, TX
Embracing the Immersive Future
Embracing the Immersive Future Presented at the 2024 Filmmaker Symposium Moderator: Michael Daut, Michael Daut Productions Panelists: Dani LeBlanc Dan Neafus Kate McCallum Dan Tell Ryan Wyatt Description: Currently giant screen technical specs live around 4K resolution and 24 fps. There are some exciting exceptions, especially in the immersive dome world. The advent of LED domes and the impact of the MSG Sphere on the cultural Zeitgeist has changed audience expectations and the ways they consume entertainment outside the home. In this session, we will [...]
Funding Giant Screen Films
Making Making a Giant Screen Film Presented at the 2024 Filmmaker Symposium Moderators: Christian Fry, CVF Productions Michael Daut, Michael Daut Productions Panelists: Kevin Clark, Ph.D., National Science Foundation Michael Dalton-Smith, Wild Imagination Films David Gross, Definition Films Shaun MacGillivray, President, MacGillivray Freeman Films Description: Peter Jackson once said, “No matter the project, you will never have enough time or enough money.” In this session we will look at ways filmmakers find funding for their projects from sources that do not have to be paid [...]
Making a Giant Screen Film: Topic and Subject
Making a Giant Screen Film: Topic and Subject Presented at the 2024 Filmmaker Symposium Panelists: Myles Connolly, 360-Media Michael Daut, Michael Daut Productions Christian Fry, CVF Productions Description: The best giant screen films are more than just big, beautiful images. It’s the stories we tell with those images that inspire and resonate with audiences. But what makes storytelling on the giant screen unique? How do filmmakers approach scriptwriting? How is shooting, editing, and scoring different from other media? Which topics and genres have worked, which [...]
Camera Assessment Test (2023)
In July 2023, the GSCA Innovations Committee conducted a test to show the strengths of six higher-than-6K-resolution cameras to show filmmakers how each performs in challenging situations. Under the direction of GSCA Innovations Committee Co-Chair Michael Daut and with renowned cinematographer James Neihouse, ASC, serving as director of photography using a wide variety of cameras, lenses, shooting situations, and locations, this test will provide invaluable information to filmmakers as they decide which equipment to use for different types of shoots. This is a follow-up to [...]
Camera Tests
The Background A keystone of the Giant Screen Cinema Association’s (GSCA) strategic plan is to build a pipeline of quality educational and entertaining content. To fulfill that plan, GSCA, through its Technical Committee, has conducted a number of tests in the past four years to help filmmakers capture the best images possible for the giant screen. It started in 2014 with two iterations of Bring Back Our Wide Shots (BBOWS), with the main goal of testing whether images from the latest 4K digital cameras could [...]
Focus on Film Scanning
As part one of a session to be continued at another time on the giant screen, we explore the challenges of capturing high-quality and high-resolution digital scans of 65mm film. Four companies, including FotoKem, IMAX, Prasad Corp, and MacGillivray Freeman Films, share their techniques, innovations, and unique approaches to digitizing film. In part two, when we are able to meet in person, we will see examples of scans using the same film source in a head-to-head comparison in 4K, 8K, 11K, and 16K scans on [...]
High-Resolution Camera Shootout
Led by Pawel Achtel ACS of the Innovations Committee and shot by a team of ACS cinematographers, we evaluate the performance of the following state-of-the-art cameras: RED Monstro 8K, ARRI LF, Blackmagic Design 12K, Canon R5, Achtel 9x7. We see each camera’s performance in dynamic range tests, rolling shutter tests, zone charts, resolution charts, and real-world shooting locations. In part two of this session, at a future time when we meet in person, we will see the footage compared back-to-back on the giant screen. The [...]
Navigating the Complexities of the Giant Screen Postproduction Pipeline
Producing a giant screen film is a complicated and intricate process that is made even more challenging, not simpler, by the variety of digital technologies in the production pipeline. In this webinar, our panel of filmmakers, postproduction experts, sound designers/mixers, and distributors will pull back the curtain on the process of preparing a giant screen film for distribution. There are many steps and a multitude of formats that filmmakers must create to accommodate wildly different projection systems that require their own specialized picture and audio [...]
New Directions in Giant Screen Films
How do we keep giant screen programming relevant in this digital age? What market trends can inform us about what today’s audiences are seeking? How do we best position our theaters in this new, post-pandemic era? These questions and more will be explored, guided by recent case studies from films such as Mesmerica and Superpower Dogs that reveal the unique power of giant screen cinema to deeply engage and inform audiences. Presented at the GSCA 2021 Virtual Conference Session organizer: Ed Lantz, Vortex Immersion Media Presenters: Jonathan Bird, President [...]