IMAX Study Guide

This study guide had been designed to enhance the IMAX viewing experiences of Year 3 – Year 8 students. The information and teaching and learning activities provide a broad range of options from which teachers can select to suit their particular students need and interests. Material has been developed with opportunities to develop learning outcomes across the Key Learning Areas of English, the Arts, Mathematics, Science, Studies of Society and Environment and Technology.

An IMAX film experience involves visual and aural effects that go far beyond normal movie viewing. IMAX is an incredibly large and exciting film format. With images that are up to up to eight storeys high and ten times larger than traditional cinema format, an IMAX film experience draws you into the screen with images that are so close, so clear and so powerful, that you feel part of them. A screen this large fills the whole field of human vision. Of course, sound is also central to the IMAX experience. Soundtracks are delivered through an incredible state-of-the art 15,000 watt digital surround sound system.

Since the beginning of large film technology in the 1970s, half a billion people throughout the world have enjoyed a large format film experience.

Conventional films are shot on 35mm film. Large format films are shot on two main varieties of 70mm film, 8/70 and 15/70. 8/70 films are set up vertically with eight perforations per frame, while 15/70 film is set up horizontally with 15 perforations per frame.

IMAX films are shot and projected on 15 perforation/70mm film. This is the largest film format in existence; ten times larger than standard 35mm format. Large format films can only be projected successfully onto the huge IMAX screen because of the amazing high definition and clarity of the huge film frames. These huge film frames that are at the key to an IMAX cinema experience. Three times larger than traditional 70 mm cinemascope frames they have pushed the quality of motion picture images to new heights.