Matt Damon had to investigate how to perform for an unusual medium when Christopher Nolan cast him in the film The Odyssey. The Oscar-winning actor recently discussed some of the difficulties involved in making a picture entirely on IMAX cameras, which had never been done until the Nolan-directed rendition of Homer’s epic poem from the eighth century BC.
He stated on the New Heights podcast, “On this one, it was 100 percent on IMAX. It was the first movie that was ever done all on IMAX. IMAX cameras are really loud. It sounds like a blender, like a Cuisinart in your face when the camera’s close to you. So there’s never been these dialogue [scenes in Imax]. We couldn’t have this conversation with a normal IMAX camera because you wouldn’t be able to hear us.”
He added, “They built this giant thing around the IMAX for those dialogue scenes and a system of mirrors so your eyeline would be close to the camera and you could talk to the other actor. The amount of work that went into figuring out how to do [that], because he wanted to do 100 percent Imax, and he did it!”
Rich Gelfond, the CEO of IMAX, previously stated that Nolan got in touch with him approximately a year before filming and expressed his desire to shoot The Odyssey entirely on IMAX. Gelfond added, “That couldn’t be done for a lot of reasons. There were lots of issues.”
According to Gelfond, Nolan said, “I’m going to give you a challenge. If you can figure out how to solve these problems, I’m going to make Odyssey 100% film with Imax cameras,’ and we’ve solved his problems. So, this will be the first film ever, at least filmed 100%, with IMAX cameras.”
