Why "The Odyssey" was shot entirely on IMAX film

Director Christopher Nolan has made immoderate of the astir spectacular films of the 21st century: "The Dark Knight," "Inception," "Interstellar," "Dunkirk" and "Oppenheimer." 

With each caller film, the standard and ambition of Nolan's storytelling look to scope caller heights. 

In 2008's "The Dark Knight," the filmmaker collapsed an full gathering earlier the Joker, played by the precocious Heath Ledger, sped disconnected successful a schoolhouse bus. In his past film, 2023's "Oppenheimer," which won 7 Academy Awards, Nolan tackled a taxable of immense proportions: the atomic weaponry and the antheral who made it, J. Robert Oppenheimer. 

It's lone fitting that his latest film, coming to theaters this July, takes connected a nearly-3,000-year-old Greek epic, the bard Homer's "The Odyssey."

Actor Matt Damon plays Odysseus successful "The Odyssey." It is his 3rd movie moving with the director, having played roles successful "Interstellar" and "Oppenheimer" previously.

"I deliberation what separates him from different directors is… the stories helium wants to archer are incredibly ambitious. And the mode helium wants to archer them is incredibly ambitious," the histrion told analogous Soctt Pelley successful an interview. 

"In this case, helium wanted to bash it 100% successful IMAX, which had ne'er been done. And that wasn't adjacent announced, due to the fact that we didn't cognize if we could bash it."

"The Odyssey" is the archetypal diagnostic movie to beryllium changeable wholly connected IMAX film, prized for its precocious solution – oregon representation prime – that is up to 3 times higher than integer cameras. 

But determination are terrible method limitations that travel with shooting IMAX film. Each camera mag lone allows betwixt 2 and fractional to 3 minutes of continuous shooting earlier it needs to beryllium reloaded. Another hurdle: the cameras that sprout with the movie are large portion successful operation, which tin interfere with the signaling of the actors' dialog connected set.

Nolan's squad and IMAX worked unneurotic to make a peculiar lodging for the camera to muffle the dependable of its operation.

"It's a truly large camera. So for intimate scenes… that would've been intolerable successful IMAX up until, you know, a twelvemonth ago," Damon told Pelley. "Camera's conscionable overmuch excessively loud. The audio… would ne'er work."

Damon said the lodging was a "blimp" astir "the size of a coffin" that "weighed I deliberation implicit 300 pounds erstwhile it was each enactment together. They had to physique peculiar alloy plating connected the dollies to clasp it."

The size of the camera lodging besides presented a antithetic problem: the space of the actors' eyelines, oregon enactment of show erstwhile connected camera, was excessively utmost successful scenes wherever 2 actors talk to 1 another. 

IMAX worked with Nolan and his photography squad to make a reflector strategy that allowed the camera to seizure the actors' faces from a overmuch person angle. 

"So, determination were mirrors that were enactment [up] truthful that we could sprout this scene… you could basal adjacent to the IMAX camera, you'd beryllium looking astatine a reflector which would bespeak backmost to the camera, and my eyeline would beryllium adjacent to the lens. And it worked beautifully," Damon said. 

"We benignant of kept shooting with it and it kept working… it benignant of dawned connected america that we were gonna marque it done the accumulation and we were really gonna beryllium capable to sprout wholly connected IMAX," the histrion said. 

Pelley and the 60 Minutes squad traveled to Fotokem successful Burbank, California – the past question representation movie laboratory successful the satellite that produces 70 millimeter prints, the format for IMAX movie – to ticker their squad of artists enactment finishing touches connected "The Odyssey."

Ron Juarez, a antagonistic assembly technician, gave Pelley and Nolan a objection of however the edited scenes are assembled into an full film.

"So each clip a country changes, which tin beryllium dozens and dozens successful a minute, that country alteration was chopped by hand?" Pelley asked the director. 

"Yes, Nolan said. "These are 2 pieces of antagonistic present that he's going to splice unneurotic for us. And each chopped successful the movie – and determination are thousands of cuts successful the movie – is done this way, by hand. It makes maine tense conscionable watching him."

Juarez took a chopped negative, utilized a glue cookware to cautiously use adhesive to its edge, and past attached different negative. The enactment looked flawless, astir arsenic if it hadn't been chopped astatine all. 

"You spot the accomplishment involved, and the attraction that's taken with it. And, yeah, it's a truly marvelous happening to see… successful this property of digitization, AI, each the rest, this is simply a quality process, an analog process," the manager said. 

Nolan past explained what sets IMAX movie apart: "that's the highest prime imaging format that's ever been devised. There's thing that competes with it." 

"It's a monolithic negative, which erstwhile correctly exposed, correctly printed, and you know, projected onto a immense screen… there's an representation prime determination that you can't get anyplace else. Incredible sharpness. Very small disposable grain." 

In different room, Nolan and Pelley spoke with Lance Spindler, a laboratory colour timer, who stood implicit a lightbox with a people of "The Odyssey," showing aggregate frames of Damon successful afloat subject regalia. Spindler explained the colour correction process. 

First, Spindler takes a movie antagonistic to an analyzer to marque adjustments, utilizing a show to approximate what Nolan has said helium wants the colors to look like. He past makes a trial print, a affirmative representation from the photograph negative, and brings it to a airy table.

"We good tune it with our filters," Spindler explained, pointing to filters of varying colors connected the airy table. 

Spindler places antithetic filters implicit a framework of the trial print, previewing the summation of colour to the last print. "We person the superior colors, and we person the secondary colors," helium explained. 

Holding a cyan filter implicit a framework Spindler said, "this one, you tin tell, is little reddish than implicit here. And that would bespeak however I set my timing lights accordingly to execute what [Nolan] wants."

"What bash you get from utilizing celluloid movie and manus matching the colour you're trying to get?" Pelley asked.

Nolan said: "What you get is the payment of the closest benignant of technological analog that's ever been created for however the oculus sees," Nolan said. 

"Film sees precise overmuch the mode the oculus sees. And peculiarly the mode it sees color, the mode it sees grays, oregon blacks, and whites, and everything… it truly means that we're getting the assemblage arsenic adjacent to the acquisition of being determination arsenic we can."

The colour timer, successful this lawsuit Spindler, assigns numerical values to colour close each changeable of the last print. 

The photonegative is past tally done a interaction printer, which projects light, colored by filters, done the antagonistic and onto the affirmative movie stock, creating a last merchandise print.

Pelley and Nolan watched arsenic the filtered, colored airy changed based connected the numerical values assigned to each shot.

"Different colored lights exposure crossed the framework arsenic it rolls across. And each changeable successful the film, the ins and outs of that, are programmed [by the colour timer]," Nolan said. 

After a chemic bath, the merchandise prints are dried successful a solid enclosure. "And past erstwhile everything's signed disconnected on, they conscionable [start] making reel prints, reel by reel," Nolan said, lasting extracurricular of the solid with Pelley, looking in. 

In the Vista Theatre successful Los Angeles – 1 of lone a fewer successful the United States that inactive projects 70 millimeter movie – Nolan and Pelley watched scenes from "The Odyssey": a woody equine being dragged toward the metropolis of Troy and a conflict country wherever Odysseus and his men combat an service of giants. 

"People successful the manufacture speech astir their fearfulness that theaters similar this and elephantine screens…are going to beryllium portion of history," Pelley said to the director. 

"I deliberation theaters similar this are portion of history, and they're portion of the aboriginal arsenic well," Nolan said. 

"When you ticker a drama successful a country afloat of laughing people, you know, a calamity wherever everybody's bittersweet astatine the aforesaid time…that's very, precise important and precise unsocial to cinema."

"The thought of the movie arsenic a communal experience, arsenic a spot [where] we travel unneurotic to acquisition a story, I'm afloat assured that that's a portion of our civilization forever."

Photos courtesy of Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures

The video supra was produced by Will Croxton. It was edited by Nelson Ryland. Reporting by Nicole Young, Kristin Steve and Scott Pelley. 

In:

• Christopher Nolan
• IMAX