The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Most of the final fight in The Dark Knight Rises between the Gotham Police Department and Bane's army is shot in IMAX, and that's when Nolan destroyed his second IMAX camera.
Obviously, such fears turned out to be unwarranted. With Nolan's three-hour Oppenheimer, shot entirely in Imax and 65-mm., and his 2020 action thriller Tenet returning to Imax, it's worth looking at how we got here. Hollywood began releasing big features in Imax in the early 2000s.
Using IMAX MSM 9802, Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2, and Hasselblad H5D-50c cameras alongside 35mm film, Nolan crafted awe-inspiring visuals that brought the vastness of space to life.
In a departure from his usual filming style, Nolan employed a multi-camera setup for this stunt, using the four existing Imax cameras. However, when the truck flipped over, it unfortunately (but a bit inevitably) landed directly on one of those cameras, resulting in the complete destruction of this valuable equipment.
“Oppenheimer” was shot using some of the highest resolution film cameras that exist. Like “Dunkirk ” and “Tenet,” “Oppenheimer” was filmed entirely on large format film stock, meaning a combination of IMAX 65mm and Panavision 65mm (think David Lean/"Lawrence of Arabia"), that's then projected in 70mm.
As a movie shot entirely on 70mm film or 70mm IMAX film, Oppenheimer is available in a much higher resolution than others. A movie like Avengers: Infinity War, shot on IMAX Digital cameras, maxes out at 2K or 4K resolutions. But anything shot on 70mm film has a digital equivalent of 6K.
Tiger Child, the first IMAX film, was demonstrated at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan. The first permanent IMAX installation was built at the Cinesphere theatre at Ontario Place in Toronto. It debuted in May 1971, showing the film North of Superior.
Another negative is that because the 15 perfs of film need to run through the camera so much quicker than regular 4 perf 35mm, Imax cameras are incredibly noisy when shooting. This makes it difficult if not impossible to record clean sync sound audio without hearing the whir of the film running.
Each Imax camera is said to cost around $500,000, which leads us to the incredible story of how Christopher Nolan destroyed three of these amazing cameras, totaling a whopping $1,500,000.
Why is there no blood in Christopher Nolan movies?
Nolan deliberately avoids using gore so the viewers will be able to focus on the important bits of the story. Imagine if Tenet had more bloodier scenes, would there have been any different effect on how the audience viewed the entire film?
I like to use the performance that was given in the moment rather than the actor re-voice it later, which is an artistic choice that some people disagree with, and that's their right. Nolan's other excuse is that the IMAX cameras he uses for his movies can be noisy, interfering with quieter scenes.
Filmed for IMAX, "Dune: Part Two" was shot entirely with IMAX digital cameras and features IMAX-exclusive 1:90.1 expanded aspect ratio, as well as IMAX-exclusive 1:43.1 expanded aspect ratio in select locations.
Nolan has long deployed IMAX cameras to achieve his vision, from the streets of Gotham in his Dark Knight trilogy to his war epic Dunkirk to his time-skipping head-tripper Tenet.
Nolan is well known for his innovative use of sound, so I should have been aware going in that the movie would be loud — in the general decibel level of 74-104.
Denis Villeneuve, J J Abrams, Michael Bay pioneered, james Gunn all these directors also use IMAX camera for their making movies. But among other directors, the one who has used IMAX cameras the most is Christopher Nolan.
In 1994, investment bankers Gelfond and Bradley Wechsler acquired IMAX Corporation through a leveraged buyout and publicly listed the company on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
What was the first movie to be filmed entirely in IMAX?
The process they developed used a single projector, a single camera, and a single large format screen. The first IMAX film was titled Tiger Child, and was shown at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan.
