Have you ever wondered how to load 15 perforation 65mm film into a (real) IMAX camera? We found a cool video that shows you how to do it. Check it out.

Loading 65mm film into an IMAX camera

We wrote before about the design of the IMAX camera and how this beast was planned to consume and ‘eat’ the precious 65mm 15 perforations film stock, which BTW, costs around $1,500 for 3 minutes of shooting in 24 FPS. Also, we talked about the noise derived from the vacuum and the fast running speed of the film, as 15 perforations go a lot faster than the film inside ARRIFLEX. Then we presented the new Nex-Gen of IMAX film cameras and how they were developed with special high-tech materials in order to mitigate the noise so that those cameras can be utilized on dialogue scenes as well. Anyway, we found a very neat video demonstrating the film loading process into IMAX cameras, in that case, the MSM 9801 model. Although the 9801 is a rarer model compared to other more popular IMAX film cameras like the MSM 9802 (Christopher Nolan’s favorite), the loading process is quite similar. The video was uploaded by ‘muk CameraService’ and it shows not only the loading part, but also the recording part in 12, 24, and 30 fps.

Have a look at the video, and notice the differences in noise level when shooting on various FPS (frames per second). Just a thought: Imagine the noise when shooting on high-speed IMAX (720 PFS). In that case, the film will run out after just seconds, and the sound will be like in a construction site. In that scenario, the camera operator will have to wear earplugs. Anyway, explore this cool video below:

So how cool is that?