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Film Format Facts

•  Giant Screen 4The 15/70 IMAX® film frame is ten times larger than conventional 35mm film, providing projected images that are ten times sharper.

• The sheer size of a 15/70 film frame, combined with the unique IMAX Theatre projection technology, is the key to the extraordinary sharpness and clarity of all MacGillivray Freeman films.

• The images are projected onto giant IMAX screens up to 80 feet tall and, in IMAX Dome Theatres, onto domes as large as 88 feet in diameter.

• The average IMAX Theatre screen is 4,500 times bigger than an average TV screen.

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• The images are enhanced by a superb six-channel, multi-speaker sound system
designed in a surround sound pattern so that every moviegoer can hear even the smallest sound effect. A network of 44 speakers bathes every seat in 12,000 watts of sound.

Giant Screen 6• Giant screen filmmakers use special IMAX cameras weighing up to 100 lbs. which move the 65mm film horizontally through the camera at 24 frames per second. The IMAX 3-D camera weighs 240 lbs.

• The size of the 15/70 film stock is so large that one 40-minute film is approximately three miles long or 15,840 feet!

• The 15,000-watt IMAX projector light bulb is so bright that it can be seen with the naked eye from the moon!

• If a large log were held in front of the light beam from the projector, it would spontaneously combust from the heat.

• Most educational IMAX Theatre films run 40 to 50 minutes and show every hour in theatres.

Giant Screen 3• The innovative IMAX Theatre projection system has its roots in EXPO ‘67 in Montreal, Canada where multi-screen films were the hit of the fair. A small group of Canadian filmmakers (Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroitor and Robert Kerr), who had made some of those popular films, decided to design a new projection system using a single, powerful projector, rather than the cumbersome multiple projectors used at that time. The result: the IMAX motion picture projection system which would revolutionize giant screen cinema. IMAX technology premiered at the Fuji Pavilion at EXPO ‘70 in Osaka, Japan. The first permanent IMAX projection system was installed at Ontario Place's Cinesphere in Toronto in 1971. OMNIMAX® debuted at the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theatre in San Diego in 1973.