Christopher Nolan reveals how The Odyssey was filmed on IMAX before it nearly got destroyed

We already know how massive Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is, but he recently revealed just how much work went into filming the epic and how it almost got destroyed.

The director has spent years pushing IMAX technology further than anyone else, and The Odyssey became the first feature film ever shot entirely using IMAX cameras. But getting there wasn’t actually easy. Nolan has now explained how new technology had to be invented just to make the film possible, and how, at one point, the footage almost ended up being destroyed.

Speaking on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Nolan pulled back the curtain on exactly how he made one of the biggest films of his career. He explained that filming every single scene on IMAX had been a dream of his ever since he first saw the format as a teenager.

“I first encountered IMAX when I was a kid. I was about 16, and I went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, saw a documentary shot on IMAX,” he said. “And right then, I was like… if you could ever do a feature film that way, this would be the format to do it on.”

He actually started experimenting with the cameras years ago on The Dark Knight. He used them for moments like the Joker’s bank heist and the famous truck flip. But the cameras were simply too loud to record dialogue.

They had to invent brand new technology for The Odyssey

Rather than accepting the limitation, Nolan said he went straight to IMAX and challenged them to fix it.

“On this film, I finally called IMAX. I’m like, ‘Look, if ever there was a story that you were going to try and do every frame in IMAX, it would be The Odyssey. So can you find some way to help us, you know, record the dialogue?'”

The solution was something called a “blimping system”, which is basically a huge soundproof housing that fits around the camera.

But solving one problem created another. The camera became so massive inside the housing that actors couldn’t actually see each other during close-up scenes.

Nolan explained exactly how they worked around it. He said, “My director of photography, Hoyte van Hoytema, he’s a great artist, but he’s also kind of an engineer. I said, ‘Well, what if we use two mirrors and do some kind of periscope thing?’ He and his guys found a way to do it.”

He added, “So the actors can make real eye contact and actually perform together.”

And shooting entirely on IMAX also meant getting through an absolutely enormous amount of film stock. When Fallon asked how much they used, Nolan simply replied, “Uh, two million feet of film.”

Then the footage nearly got ruined

As if filming wasn’t stressful enough, Nolan also revealed there was one moment where the production nearly lost part of the film before it had even been developed. During Fallon’s “Christopher Nolan myths” game, the host asked whether airport customs agents had almost destroyed the IMAX footage while the crew were travelling.

“That is true,” Nolan admitted. “Yes. Painfully true.”

He explained it happened while the production was travelling to Scotland. He said, “It was a massive amount of film cans, and they did not actually expose it. We were able to rescue it.”

Fallon asked whether he had been panicking and Nolan replied, “Oh yeah, big time.”

Everything was filmed for real wherever possible

Nolan also explained that he wanted audiences to feel like they were actually travelling alongside Odysseus. So loads of the film was shot practically instead of relying on CGI. The production even tracked down a real Viking ship in Stavanger, Norway.

“We found a Viking ship that had been built exactly according to those ancient specifications. And it was very much the whole shape and the rig that we needed to do a Bronze Age ship,” Nolan said.

Instead of watching from another boat, Nolan was actually onboard with the cast and crew while filming. The actors also had to learn “how to row the ship” properly and “work the sails”.

He added, “We put their crew all in our costumes. They became part of the movie crew, as it were. And Odysseus’ guys, the actors, joined in with them. And they figured out how to raise the sail, how to rig it, how to row, all of this stuff. They were on there for months.”

Nolan also said that everybody felt like “they went on their own odyssey”.

I totally get why so many people want to work with him. I would too.

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