Never has a film been shot entirely in the large-scale IMAX format before. Many films have shot sequences in IMAX, or significant portions. But never has every single image of one single film – whether a jaw-dropping landscape, or a close-up of a face – been captured on those super-sized cameras. Until now. Of course, Christopher Nolan was the man to do it, in his latest collaboration with master cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema. Yes, The Odyssey is the very first film shot front-to-back on IMAX cameras – and it was a new bit of kit that made it possible.
To prove it would all work as intended, van Hoytema delivered Nolan a little bit of David Bowie magic (for more David Bowie magic, see The Prestige). “I presented Chris with a very big close-up of a child on the IMAX screen, reciting David Bowie’s ‘Sound And Vision’ from a piece of paper,” van Hoytema tells Empire. “It was very touching: that level of intimacy in both image and sound, fused together, projected in the theatre.” The results blew (blue, electric blue) Nolan away. “It was electrifying,” says the filmmaker. “We never would have been able to get those shots before.”
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The thing that made it possible? A casing called the ‘blimp’, which significantly reduces the considerable noise the IMAX cameras produce. “The blimp system is a game-changer,” Nolan explains. “You can be shooting a foot from [an actor’s] face while they’re whispering and get usable sound. What that opens up are intimate moments of performance on the world’s most beautiful format.”
Get ready, then, for an all-out IMAX extravaganza. And no, no IMAX cameras were harmed in the making of this motion picture. “I did not destroy an IMAX camera on this film,” Nolan declares proudly. “I have destroyed several in my time, but these ones survived The Odyssey.” This tech is officially Cyclops-proof.