What does it mean when a film is shot in Imax?
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It means it’s shot with special high-resolution cameras meant to capture enough fine details that it can be shown on a huge screen and still have a very sharp image. Today there are high end digital cameras that are imax-approved but not that long ago imax was always (and still often is) shot on 70mm film cameras where the film moves sideways so the 70mm film width forms the shorter (vertical) dimension of each frame. Each imax frame was like 6x the size of a regular 35mm film frame and IMAX film cameras capture more detail than even the imax digital cameras.
IMAX is a particular film stock that is much larger than the traditional 35mm film size. 35mm film has an image size that is roughly 22mm wide and 18.5mm tall. in IMAX film, each frame is 70mm wide and 48.5mm tall. The larger film stock produces a much higher resolution image – considerably higher than any digital cinema camera and also higher resolution than any other cinema film stock.
ELI5… Imagine that you wanted to draw a picture. If you were to draw it on a blank postage stamp, you could make it look pretty good but fine detail might be challenging. Now draw that same image on a blank business card. The stamp is 35mm film and the business card is imax. When viewing your drawing with a magnifying glass (the projector), you can see a lot more detail and make the image larger without distorting it when looking at the business card drawing.
Another question is why do we film onto iMax instead of digital?
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