(film projector whirling)
-People often wonder, what exactly is IMAX?
Short for Image Maximum, the format was developed in the late 1960s
by Canadian filmmakers looking to simplify and elevate large-format cinema.
Debuting in Japan in 1970, the massive
high-resolution image immediately made an impression.
Through the ‘70s and ’80s, IMAX found a home in museums
and science centers playing educational films.
By the ‘90s and 2000s, it made the leap into commercial
theaters, with filmmakers like Christopher
Nolan helping bring IMAX into the blockbuster era.
Lead projectionist David Dukart takes us inside the projection
booth with a behind-the-scenes look at how the technology works.
- Hello, I'm David, and welcome to the PACCAR IMAX Theater's projection booth.
So here we have our amp system that basically powers our,
5.1-channel surround sound inside of the PACCAR Theater itself.
There are four amps on this side and then two amps on this side.
We have a dual projection system.
Each one of these contains a lamp that is 6.5 kW.
So when we play a digital movie, we get hard drives from IMAX.
You can see we got The Revenant here.
This is the SMS.
It is essentially the control center for the entirety of the IMAX system.
It tells it to use play, to pause, to stop what volume it should be at.
This is our old IMAX film system.
Essentially as opposed to the SMS.
Everything was controlled right here.
We get this all turned on.
Once it was time for the show, we'd press projector run.
We tell it was up to speed,
open the douser to let it run for the length of the movie.
So here we have examples of our IMAX film that we still keep on sites.
This one for in particular is Greece.
It was the last film that we ran
when we had the Pompeii visiting exhibit.
And this unit is called The Brain
because they're supposed to make sure
that the Platters are running
at a consistent speed because this up.
And then we would take this over,
run running through all of these reels.
So standard 35 millimeter film
is about the size of your thumb, roughly.
And then IMAX film,
a single frame is about the size of your palm.
So going back to the film itself,
this may look like a lot of film.
It is a lot of film.
This is only about 40 minutes worth of IMAX film.
The IMAX quality as far as image goes, is bar none.
I love it more than anything
I have ever seen on screen.
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-Watch CityStream Tuesday nights at 7 on the
Seattle Channel, or find us anytime online at SeattleChannel.org.
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