IMAX films think big. Really big. Their images contain 10 times the amount of information of a standard 35 millimeter print.
But the 30th anniversary of IMAX raises the question: Are they still the unique, eye-popping experience they used to be?
The answer is an undeniable “yes.” Increasingly sophisticated home theaters have helped wrestle the movie-watching experience away from the cineplex, but nothing can replicate the overwhelming spectacle of IMAX.
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is betting that fact will draw crowds back to see their favorite large-format movies when it launches an IMAX film festival on New Year’s Day. A poll on its website chose the six entries, which span 20 years and every square inch of the planet.
“I have strong beliefs that IMAX can teach far better than any other medium, except a teacher standing in front of you telling a great story,” said director Greg MacGillivray. “IMAX is so lifelike and real with the clarity of image and the feeling of being somewhere. It’s far more memorable.”
MacGillivray, a veteran producer and cinematographer, has directed more IMAX films than anyone else. His love of the medium comes from working with – and innovating – the format as long as it’s been around.
The 1976 film “To Fly!” introduced IMAX to the world via the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Since then the heavens, oceans and tallest mountain ranges have fallen under its huge lens.
“It doesn’t just repeat things that people have seen over and over again,” MacGillivray said. “You really have a chance to grip people and move them emotionally toward the love of a subject and point of view of the filmmaker.”
IMAX easily stands apart from any other filmmaking enterprise. The $400,000 cameras are held steady by complex dollies and gyrostabilizing mounts. They shoot on massive 70mm stock. Film cartridges on the 110-pound machines only last three minutes, so they need constant replenishment.
When edited and set to a soundtrack, the film is shown through a $1.5 million projector – the Rolls Royce of film equipment. The audience sits much closer to the nearly vertical screen than at a traditional theater, and the image is sharper, brighter and steadier.
Sure, it’s still 24 frames per second creating the illusion of motion, but the illusion is like no other.
“I always tell visitors to think of it in terms of an old VCR,” said Toby Winsett, IMAX operations manager and chief projectionist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. “Your tape could be used for either a one-hour or six-hour recording. At six hours, the image is grainy, but at one hour it’s crystal clear because the tape has more information. IMAX has a clearer, sharper image.”
In September, Denver’s IMAX theater was voted the best in the country by the Giant Screen Cinema Association, an industry group that hands out its own version of the Academy Awards each year. Curious visitors at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science’s IMAX theater can even look through windows to see the projection equipment and statuette.
The films the public chose for the festival are “Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure” (2001), “Everest” (1998), “Dolphins” (2000), “Africa: The Serengeti” (1994), “Blue Planet” (1990) and “Seasons” (1987). Each will run every day until March 15, so hardy visitors can see all of them at once. Schedules and prices are available by calling 303-322-7009 or visiting dmns.org.
Each movie uses the wide screen to explore and instruct on topics of environmental importance, whether they’re migratory patterns, the health of the world’s oceans or human endurance at the highest altitudes.
“I try to engage the audience more with real characters in nonfiction storytelling,” said MacGillivray, a 61-year-old former surfer. “We don’t just do animal movies or movies about places, but movies about the values each character brings and the stories they have to tell.
“It gives kids a real chance to identify with people whose careers they may want to emulate.”
Bringing IMAX’s larger-than-life images to the screen takes a gargantuan effort. MacGillivray, twice Oscar-nominated, knows well the perils of filming at 29,000 feet or hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface.
“Shooting film with IMAX’s 1570 cameras is kind of like going back to film school all over again,” he said. “You have to learn a whole new vocabulary of shooting, editing, developing characters – everything.”
He estimates that filming in the IMAX format takes up to 50 percent longer than a Hollywood movie, and the projects require constant technical innovations to complete. MacGillivray’s company, Laguna Beach, Calif.-based MacGillivray Freeman Films, has had to build IMAX steadicams, wire rigs, mounts for helicopters and Blue Angel jets and slow-motion cameras. He has personally shot more 70mm film than anyone in history, but he says the value of IMAX doesn’t lie in the technicalities.
“Emotional engagement is what people really crave, more so than a spectacle or facts and statistics,” he said. “We just want to open the oyster a little wider for them.”
Staff writer John Wenzel can be reached at 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com.
IMAX Film Festival
FILM | Denver Museum of Nature and Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., daily through March 15 | $6-$8 | 303-322-7009 or dmns.org for times and prices.
