Sound Team realizes Karajan's vision in Dolby Atmos

Karajan Cinema Classics bring concert films of the renowned conductor Herbert von Karajan to the cinema in a sound quality never heard before. ARRI Media took care of the entire audio processing in Dolby Atmos, and other services.

Unique films of concerts conducted by Herbert von Karajan can now be experienced in unprecedented audio quality in cinemas in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as from March 2018. To make that possible, Karajan Cinema Classics GmbH and FD-Film GmbH have had the original soundtracks intricately reworked with the immersive sound technology Dolby Atmos.

"Karajan Cinema Classics serves up an entirely new dimension of sound, realizing Karajan's dream of making the music experience of a concert hall accessible to a broader audience, and our fans of classical music are going to love it," says Matthias Röder, Managing Director of the Eliette-und-Herbert-von-Karajan-Institut and Karajan Cinema Classics GmbH.

Fritz Deininger, Senior Director Cinema Products EMEA and India at Dolby Laboratories is also overjoyed about this "music experience that gets under your skin": "Dolby Atmos has now made Karajan's vision a reality. With this technology, sounds can be placed precisely anywhere in the room."

The post-production company ARRI Media took care of the entire audio processing in Dolby Atmos, the color grading of the picture material, which came partially from film and partially from video, and the key management and distribution for the DCP mastering. "At ARRI Media we are very happy to have the opportunity to work on this unique project. Together with sound engineer Chris Heil and music editor Carl Schuurbiers, our goal was no less than to take Karajan's dream of making classical concerts accessible to everyone and make it a reality," says Daniel Vogl, Head of the Sound Department at ARRI Media.

In addition to Dolby Atmos, a solution created together with Gunter Engel from Müller-BBM and sound consultant Norbert Zich was also used, which enables the cinema audience to hear the music in the same quality as if listening to it live in concert, instead of in the otherwise muted surround sound of a movie theater. "In order to fully exploit these technical possibilities, we needed access to the individual tracks of the original recordings," explains Daniel Vogl. And: "The original tapes weren't allowed to leave the archive in Vienna. So with the aid of Gustav Prohaska, we moved the entire technical equipment to Vienna, in order to obtain the original tracks from the Sony DASH tapes."

It was worth all the effort, because the Karajan Cinema Classics are an acoustic cinema music experience that audiences can fully immerse themselves in.

Find out more about the selected cinemas and tickets at www.karajancinemaclassics.com.

The photo shows part of the ARRI Media Karajan Cinema Classics team (from left): Selina Titz, Manfred Turek, Babette Fürbringer, Chris Heil, Daniel Vogl, Marko Krinke and Markus Kirsch