It appears that it’s not so simple to make an 18K film for the Las Vegas Sphere. You can ask Darren Aronofsky, who is the first filmmaker who shot for the Sphere with the Big Sky massive camera, on a data rate of 32 gigabits per second! Plus, read a few more intriguing facts about the Big Sky camera.

Shooting for the Las Vegas Sphere

Darren Aronofsky (1969) is an American filmmaker. He studied film and social anthropology at Harvard University before studying directing at the AFI Conservatory. His feature film debut, the surrealist psychological thriller Pi (1998), was produced for $60,000 and grossed over $3 million. Aronofsky is best known for Black Swan (2010), and The Whale (2022). His most recent project, Postcard from Earth (2023), is a 50-minute movie – Bespoke production for the Sphere, which is a domed screen towering more than 35 stories high. For that, Aronofsky used the Sphere Entertainment in-house developed 18K camera, Big Sky. Read the articles below that explain more about that camera:

• ALEXA 65 and Big Sky Cinema Camera to Shoot First Film to the Giant MSG Sphere
• This Is The Sensor of the ‘Big-Sky’ Camera
• Meet ‘Big Sky’ Cinema Camera: 316MP 3” x 3” Sensor, and 18K Resolution at 120FPS

18K goodness: A few interesting facts

“Sphere is a temple to the arts. It’s not built for sports, it’s built for performance and for this new moving image medium: this experiential cinema. I can’t wait to share Postcard from Earth with the world” said Aronofsky. Moreover, in an interview for Late Night with Seth Meyers, Aronofsky sheds more light on the shooting process, accompanied by a few interesting facts:

1. The camera outputs 32G/b per second (4,000 Megabytes per second).
2. It took about 12 people to turn the camera on.
3. There are some big fans in order to deal with the overheating issues.
4. The final file of the film is half of Peta Bytes. Peta is 10¹⁵ (one thousand million million).
5. What we’ve all seen in the Las Vegas strip screened on the dome, is 2K image. That’s it! But inside is 18K.
6. Shot for a domed screen towering more than 35 stories high (towers 366 feet over the venue’s floor level).
7. When people saw the movie inside the Sphere, their jaws were dropped. They were all pointing at different places on the screen.
8. In the interview below, Aronofsky talks about the process of shooting Postcard From Earth for the Las Vegas Sphere, how he pieced together images to be viewed in 18K resolution, and attaching a camera to a helicopter in Oregon.

Explore the interview below: 

Final thoughts

Postcard from Earth is a portrait of our planet, re-imagined as a sci-fi experience. The film brings audiences on a voyage spanning all seven continents, deep into the ocean, high into the mountains, into the eye of a storm, and out into space. The film takes full advantage of Sphere’s experiential, next-generation technologies to transport audiences and engage the senses, making them feel like they have traveled to new worlds without ever leaving their seats in Las Vegas. Postcard from Earth is also the first production to feature the venue’s multi-sensory 4D technologies. This includes immersive seats with an infrasound haptic system that will use deep vibrations so guests can feel the experience – such as the rumble of thunder or a soaring rocket launch. Sphere also utilizes environmental effects to rouse the senses – the feeling of a cool breeze and familiar scents – which help audiences conjure the feeling of being there. That’s a definition of Experiential Cinema, or as we defined it, an IMAX on Steroids. BTW, during the production, the mighty ARRI ALEXA 65 was used as well, but only for a portion of the movie, which, according to the production, was not screened on Sphere.