While 3D is often billed as the ultimate cinematic experience, any fool knows that for a truly thrilling and immersive big-screen outing, the IMAX is where it’s at.
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan is fully aware of how the format can create stunning vistas and an inimitable sense of grandeur, and his final take on the Batman myth, The Dark Knight Rises, features over an hour of footage shot in IMAX (by comparison, The Dark Knight contained 28 minutes).
On Friday evening, HeyUGuys were invited to London’s Science Museum for a viewing of The Dark Knight Rises in that very format, following a brief chat from the film’s Academy Award Winning visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin. Providing a slideshow illustrating the various IMAX cameras used during production (one mounted on the front of a helicopter held enough film for a mere two minutes worth of shooting), Nolan’s insistence and adherence in using this cumbersome shooting style has been a mighty undertaking, but has ultimately paid off handsomely for the director. The results are simply stunning.
Created way back in 1969, there are only nine IMAX cameras in existence, all of which were used in some fashion during the production. Nolan’s crew worked with the IMAX corporation to modify and refine the cameras so the director could realise his vision (one was even attached to a Steadicam rig). What was always destined to be a thrilling conclusion to a beloved trilogy, IMAX has allowed the filmmakers to take things even further into truly game-changing territory. Spectacle cinema is alive and well.
The Dark Knight Rises is currently showing at the Science Museum (incidentally, a venue which houses one of the five 70mm film projectors found in the UK). Information and viewing times can be found here.
