And Nolan has reached another fete with IMAX technology as Interstellar reached over $100 million profits through IMAX cinemas, and grossing over $185 million worldwide last month. This milestone has only ever been reached by three other films – Avatar, The Dark Knight Rises and Gravity.
Paul Franklin, Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor who's worked with Noal on numerous occasions, said that it used all four IMAX cameras in existence to film over an hours worth of footage of Interstellar (with the fifth destroyed during the filming of The Dark Knight). He said that "there's no visual system that comes close to [IMAX]. We chose IMAX because it's the biggest canvas we could to be able to tell the biggest story that we were going to tell".
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Journey Through Space: Interstellar IMAX Featurette
What is IMAX?
IMAX is both a film format and a projection style that allows for a much higher resolution. IMAX cameras use a much larger film than the standard film camera, allowing a lot more information and detail in its images. As a result, when projected in an IMAX cinema, these images can be displayed on a much larger screen without losing any image quality. IMAX film cameras use 70mm film which is run sideways as opposed to normal film cameras where it’s run vertically.No feature films have yet been filmed entirely using IMAX cameras (but IMAX has been making short documentaries since the 70s). One of the reasons for this is that compared to a typical 40lb 35mm movie camera, an IMAX camera weighs a total of 240 pounds that requires special support and rigging to move it around. The 70mm film means that the camera can hold only a three minute reel, taking 20 minutes to reload. It is also extremely noisy whilst it’s running, and most sound has to be done in post-production as a result.
The average IMAX screen is 16m high by 22m wide, although they can be much larger - the largest IAMX screen in Sydney, Australia is almost twice the size standing at 30m high (equivalent to 8 storey's!) and is the largest format at the moment in which film can be shot on and projected in.
Although the average cinema screen serves the acoustics in the room, with the screen angled down towards the audience and special speakers behind the screen to enhance the sound, IMAX seems to offer much more than that. Each individual IMAX venue has custom, patented speaker systems in which there are a higher frequency response, meaning that higher highs and lows so low they’re as much vibrations as sounds. They also use Proportional Point SourceSound technology so that loud speakers emit greater energy to more distant seats and lesser to closer seats in order to ensure that the ‘sweet spot’ is enlarged to cover the whole cinema rather than just hovering around the centre of the room.
IMAX is not only restricted to flat screens but it has developed the technology for Dome screens, usually situated in museums, which allows for a truly immersive experience, mimicking the average human vision.
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IMAX Dome 101. How it works
A new Genre?
The IMAX experience is something that no other type of cinema can provide. It’s almost as if it has set its own characteristics of film making and consumption, creating its own style of cinema. Sitting in an IMAX cinema is not just about the spectacle but is an entirely different experience to a normal cinema (even if it as at a higher price than the average £6.54)
Of course there is the larger than life screen which provides a spectacle like no other, however it's also the seating, and the acoustics. They not only allow you to listen to the film, but also feel it. The style of the large film and big screen distinguishes it from other types of film consumption. You are forced to sit extremely close to the screen, meaning you have to move your head around to catch what's going on on the other side of the screen.
In light of the constant improvement of technology at home, as mentioned in the previous post, IMAX is arguably becoming one of the only places where you can fully immerse and view a film in this unique way, which consciously chooses content that utilise the epic style and tone of the cinema with which the technology permits.
Of course there is the larger than life screen which provides a spectacle like no other, however it's also the seating, and the acoustics. They not only allow you to listen to the film, but also feel it. The style of the large film and big screen distinguishes it from other types of film consumption. You are forced to sit extremely close to the screen, meaning you have to move your head around to catch what's going on on the other side of the screen.
In light of the constant improvement of technology at home, as mentioned in the previous post, IMAX is arguably becoming one of the only places where you can fully immerse and view a film in this unique way, which consciously chooses content that utilise the epic style and tone of the cinema with which the technology permits.
People actively make a decision to view a film in an IMAX, and likewise, IMAX specifically chooses which films, and now TV shows (with Game of Thrones becoming the first TV show to ever be screened on a an IMAX screen), to show on their big screens. Additionally, using their own technology to create some of the films to exhibit in their theatres is beginning to establish a set of 'conventions' of what an IMAX film should entail, almost creating it's own 'genre' of cinema.
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