The Cinematography of The Odyssey: How Hoyte van Hoytema Shot an Entire Feature on IMAX Film

Updated July 27, 2026 — contains minor visual spoilers

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is the first narrative theatrical feature photographed entirely with IMAX film cameras. That statement is more specific than the marketing shorthand “shot in 70mm.” Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC captured the film on horizontally running, 15-perforation 65mm negative. Selected cinemas project the resulting image from 15-perforation 70mm IMAX prints at 1.43:1.

The scale of that achievement is difficult to separate from the cinematography itself. IMAX cameras had previously been too loud and cumbersome to use for an entire sync-sound drama. Making The Odyssey required a new camera generation, a huge soundproof enclosure, a mirror system for actor eyelines, three-minute shooting intervals and a full photochemical infrastructure extending from Kodak’s factory to FotoKem’s laboratory.

The result is not simply a sharper version of a conventional epic. The capture format affects the lenses, depth of field, blocking, camera distance, lighting, exposure and even the rhythm of a performance.

This article separates confirmed production information from visual analysis. Where the filmmakers or suppliers have not published an exact focal length, stock assignment or scene-specific exposure method, the gap is stated rather than filled with an assumption.

The Odyssey cinematography: technical summary

The production and laboratory credits above are supported by IMAX, FotoKem and Panavision.

Why shooting an entire feature on IMAX film was different

Nolan has used IMAX film since The Dark Knight, and Van Hoytema has expanded its role across Interstellar, Dunkirk, Tenet and Oppenheimer. Those films still combined 15-perf IMAX with quieter formats. The IMAX camera could capture aerial work, action, landscapes and selected close-ups, but its mechanical noise made intimate sync-sound scenes extremely difficult.

The film moves through an IMAX camera at roughly 5.6 feet per second. Each frame spans 15 perforations, so the movement has to accelerate, register and stop a very large piece of film 24 times every second. The resulting sound was famously closer to industrial machinery than to a modern sync-sound cinema camera.

That limitation mattered for The Odyssey because Nolan did not only want IMAX for spectacle. He has said that the way the format rendered Cillian Murphy’s face in Oppenheimer convinced him it could be equally powerful for performance. Large format would be used for Odysseus at sea, but also for whispered dialogue and the emotional distance between Odysseus and Penelope.

The new camera did not make those requirements easy. It made them possible.

65mm capture versus 70mm projection

The terms 65mm and 70mm are often used interchangeably around the film, but they describe different stages.

• The camera negative is 65mm wide.

• A film release print is 70mm wide.

• IMAX runs the film horizontally, using 15 perforations for every frame.

• Conventional 70mm runs vertically, using five perforations per frame.

The full IMAX presentation is therefore commonly called 15/70: 15 perforations on a 70mm projection print. The photographed negative is more accurately described as 15-perf 65mm.

This matters because “70mm” alone does not identify the same experience. A conventional 5-perf 70mm print of The Odyssey is an optical reduction presented at 2.20:1. It is still a high-quality large-format film presentation, but it does not display the full height of the 1.43:1 IMAX composition.

The official format guide lists the principal versions:

The 1.43:1 version shows more image above and below, but that does not make the other versions accidental. The cinematography had to protect compositions across all of these frames. WIRED reports that the digital, 35mm and 5-perf 70mm versions were deliberately composed and overseen rather than treated as unsupervised crops.

The new IMAX Keighley camera

IMAX began developing a new fleet of film cameras with input from filmmakers and support from Kodak, Panavision and FotoKem. The Odyssey became the first feature to use the resulting next-generation camera.

The camera was later named Keighley, in honour of IMAX quality-control pioneers David and Patricia Keighley. David Keighley supervised IMAX post-production for more than five decades and reviewed the film’s dailies before his death in August 2025.

The Keighley retains IMAX’s proven film movement but rebuilds the surrounding camera. Its documented changes include:

• A redesigned body using a metal structure and carbon-fibre components

• Greater resistance to corrosion for difficult location work

• A brighter optical viewfinder developed with Panavision

• A five-inch colour display

• A 4K video-assist feed for on-set monitoring

• Modern telemetry and connectivity, including Ethernet, USB-C, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

• Lower operating noise than legacy IMAX bodies

IMAX describes the camera as approximately 30 percent quieter. Van Hoytema has given a more conservative real-world estimate of roughly 15 to 20 percent. The important point is that the Keighley was quieter, not silent. Dialogue still required an additional engineering solution.

According to CineD’s production breakdown, the camera package comprised seven IMAX bodies: two Keighleys and five legacy cameras. The new bodies account for a reported 15 percent of the finished film and were especially valuable where their smaller, lighter construction made a practical difference, including work aboard the ship.

The sound blimp that made intimate IMAX possible

For close dialogue, the camera was placed inside a purpose-built soundproof housing, or blimp. Published weight figures vary depending on whether they refer to the enclosure or the complete operating rig, but the assembled system was roughly in the 240-to-300-pound range. It required reinforced dollies and a dedicated team to reposition it.

The scale of the blimp created two different cinematography problems:

1. It put a large physical object extremely close to the actor.

2. It blocked the actor’s view of the scene partner on the opposite side of the camera.

The first problem was accepted as part of the process. The second could damage a performance, particularly in close dialogue where a correct eyeline is not the same as genuine eye contact.

The production solved it with a double-mirror periscope attached to the blimp. The actors could look through the optical path and see each other while the IMAX camera remained between them. It is an unusually literal example of camera engineering serving performance rather than image quality alone.

Nolan has described the blimp as the change that made usable whispered dialogue possible with an IMAX camera close to an actor’s face. Van Hoytema called it the production’s most essential piece of technology. The achievement of The Odyssey is therefore not that the new camera suddenly behaved like an ARRI or Panavision sync-sound body. It is that several imperfect tools were combined into a workable dramatic system.

Three-minute magazines changed the set rhythm

A 1,000-foot IMAX magazine lasts only about three minutes at 24 fps. That is not enough for long, exploratory digital takes, and the limitation remained in place even with the new camera.

For the actors, the end of a magazine created a hard stop. For the camera department, every stop meant handling and reloading expensive 65mm negative. For the director, it required rehearsal, concise coverage and a clear idea of what the take needed to achieve.

Nolan described shooting an eight-page scene between Odysseus and Penelope by keeping the actors in place and in character while the camera team reloaded. Instead of allowing the technical pause to dissolve the dramatic tension, the set remained quiet and resumed as quickly as possible.

The constraint is easy to romanticise, but it has a concrete result: the capture medium imposes discipline on performance and blocking. It also helps explain how a 91-day production could expose approximately 2.1 million feet of negative. At IMAX speed, that quantity represents much less running time than the number suggests to anyone accustomed to 35mm.

Camera movement: large-format intimacy rather than distant spectacle

Van Hoytema’s IMAX work is defined by proximity. Large format is often associated with monumental landscapes photographed from a safe distance. His approach also brings the camera close to faces and physical action, allowing wide spatial context and intimate scale to coexist.

That continued on The Odyssey. Van Hoytema operated IMAX cameras handheld, as he had on Tenet and Oppenheimer. Behind-the-scenes material also shows Nolan physically helping to support the camera during crowded handheld work.

The production’s real locations were central to the camera strategy. Principal photography moved through Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland and Scotland, with additional stage and tank work in Los Angeles. The company spent months on water using the ocean-going longship Draken Harald Hårfagre. Nolan told the Los Angeles Times that they photographed the ship material “like it was a documentary”: the actors learned to row and sail, while the vessel’s crew appeared within the scene.

That choice gave the cinematography events to observe rather than simulate. Wind changes fabric and posture. Swell alters the horizon. Reflections move across faces and wood. Rowers lose perfect synchronisation. The camera records a physical system whose small irregularities would otherwise have to be designed.

The same principle shaped the Trojan Horse sequence. A full-scale horse was built and taken onto a Moroccan beach. For the cramped interior, Nolan and Van Hoytema entered the structure with the cast and developed parts of the blocking from the physical limitations they encountered. Matt Damon described the claustrophobic energy as something that emerged from being inside the set rather than from extensive previs.

The lens strategy — and what has not been confirmed

Panavision officially credits itself with servicing camera, optics and lighting for The Odyssey. Specialist technical listings and a published 70mm review identify Panavision Sphero and Hasselblad-derived IMAX optics. In a published explanation reported by Collider, Nolan also described the movie as relying mainly on two lens choices and changing camera position instead of continually changing focal length.

That is consistent with Van Hoytema’s established large-format method: select a narrow range of focal lengths that preserves immersion, then move the camera closer or farther away to change image size. A wider lens positioned close to an actor creates a different relationship between face and environment than a long lens photographed from a distance. The former retains spatial depth; the latter compresses it.

Exact focal lengths for The Odyssey should be treated carefully. Van Hoytema has previously discussed 50mm and 80mm as useful IMAX focal lengths, and those numbers are frequently repeated online as if they were a confirmed Odyssey package. As of this article’s publication, Panavision’s public production page does not provide a complete lens list or focal-length breakdown. It is reasonable context, but not yet a verified production fact for every scene in this film.

That distinction matters in a technical article. “The lens family has been reported” and “this scene was photographed on an 80mm” are not equivalent claims.

Why IMAX depth of field is so demanding

The large negative does not automatically create shallow depth of field. Depth of field becomes shallow when the cinematographer uses a longer focal length to match the same angle of view and camera position available on a smaller format.

In practical equivalence, an IMAX image around T4 can approach the depth of field of a Super 35 image around T1.4 when framing and perspective are matched. The exact comparison changes with the chosen extraction and circle-of-confusion assumptions, but the operational consequence is clear: focus becomes extremely sensitive.

On a 1.43:1 screen several storeys high, a narrow focus plane is not a subtle texture. It determines where the audience can look. A slight lean by an actor can move the eyes out of focus while ears or costume remain sharp. The production therefore had to balance four competing needs:

• Stopping down enough to make focus manageable

• Keeping enough exposure on relatively slow large-format negative

• Avoiding excessive filtration and compromised optical performance

• Retaining the shallow, dimensional portraiture central to Van Hoytema’s IMAX work

The occasional visible focus transition is part of that physical negotiation. It is not proof that large format is inherently superior or inferior; it shows the cost of using it close to moving performers.

Composition across 1.43:1, 1.90:1, 2.20:1 and 2.39:1

Shooting the full 1.43:1 frame while protecting a 2.39:1 version creates a large difference between the tallest and widest deliverables. Essential faces, gestures and narrative information must remain inside the widescreen extraction. The upper and lower parts of the IMAX frame can expand environment and scale, but cannot carry indispensable story information unavailable elsewhere.

This helps explain the film’s frequent centre-weighted compositions. Cinematographer and technical writer Ignacio Aguilar, AEC, observed after a 5-perf 70mm screening that characters are often isolated near the centre, with less reliance on conventional over-the-shoulder geometry.

That should be understood as analysis, not a published rule from the filmmakers. It is nevertheless a logical consequence of multi-format protection. The full IMAX frame gives the character vertical environment and peripheral scale; the same composition survives when the top and bottom are removed.

The visual design therefore uses IMAX in two complementary ways:

• Landscape as field of vision: sea, sky, architecture, crowds and terrain extend around the subject.

• The face as landscape: a close-up becomes a large field of skin, eyes, texture and minute expression.

Nolan’s interest in the second use is crucial. Without it, the quieter camera and dialogue blimp would not have been worth developing.

Film stock: what Kodak has confirmed

Kodak manufactured the 65mm negative in Rochester. Vanessa Bendetti, Kodak’s head of motion picture, confirmed to American Cinematographer that The Odyssey used the company’s older rem-jet stock because production began before Kodak commercialised its newer AHU-backed 65mm product.

Secondary technical sources report that multiple KODAK VISION3 daylight and tungsten stocks were used. However, Kodak has not yet published a detailed stock-by-stock production article comparable to its breakdowns for Oppenheimer or Sinners, and some public lists contain inconsistent catalogue numbers.

The reliable conclusion is therefore narrower:

• The film was captured on Kodak 65mm colour-negative stock with rem-jet backing.

• More than one speed and balance is widely reported.

• An exact scene-by-scene allocation has not been publicly confirmed by Kodak or the camera team.

It would be tempting to identify every sunlit exterior as 50D or every firelit scene as 500T. Without camera reports or a direct interview, that remains inference.

Lighting and exposure: an open, physical image

The exterior cinematography often favours available conditions, broad natural sources and carefully selected times of day over visibly sculpted studio lighting. This does not mean the production simply arrived and exposed whatever happened. Working with natural light at this scale requires location orientation, scheduling, negative choice, filtration, reflectors, large control surfaces and the willingness to accept some variation.

The resulting daytime image is generally open rather than aggressively contrasty. Pale stone, sand and weathered surfaces occupy a large part of the tonal range. Water and sky provide cooler separation. Skin, fire and bronze introduce restrained warmth without turning the whole image sepia.

Van Hoytema’s exposure often appears to protect shadow information while allowing daylight and specular highlights to run bright. On negative film, that approach uses the stock’s highlight latitude and keeps faces from becoming brittle. It also supports a practical shoot: less fill is required if shadows are placed high enough on the negative.

Magic-hour and dusk photography provides some of the film’s clearest large-format images. Low-angle light gives the landscape direction without needing to break its natural continuity, while the tall frame holds both terrain and sky. At sea, the same light lets faces, wood, water and horizon remain part of one photographic event.

The low-light scenes are more contentious. Fire and torches serve as visible sources, frequently creating warm faces against cooler or neutral darkness. Aguilar’s 5-perf 70mm review notes that black density varies in some of these passages. Shots containing a strong flame can establish a convincing high value and produce richer apparent blacks, while darker shots without that anchor can appear thinner or milkier.

This observation is specific to one experienced cinematographer’s 5-perf print screening, not a universal measurement of every release format. It is still technically useful because it illustrates the consequence of photochemical finishing: exposure and negative density remain visible in ways a modern digital grade could more easily equalise.

The photochemical finish was not simply “no digital”

FotoKem processed the 65mm negative and supported an unusually broad end-to-end workflow. Its published credits include:

• 65mm negative processing

• 35mm print dailies and digital dailies

• 65mm VFX film recording

• 65mm negative-cutting support

• 70mm answer printing

• 65mm optical reductions

• Photochemical colour timing

• Digital colour finishing and theatrical deliverables

• 15-perf 70mm, 5-perf 70mm and 35mm release prints

Nolan told CBS that the production retained photochemical timing to preserve the information in the original negative. Together with FotoKem’s negative-cutting and answer-print credits, that indicates that the principal film finish was not passed through a conventional full-film digital intermediate and then recorded back to release stock.

It does not mean that no digital process touched the movie. Digitally composited visual-effects material must be scanned and recorded back to 65mm for incorporation into the film finish. Digital cinema versions require digital colour and mastering, while trailers and later home-delivery masters need their own digital finishing.

The more accurate description is a photochemical-first hybrid workflow:

1. Original 65mm negative is processed.

2. Selected VFX material enters a digital path and is recorded back to 65mm.

3. The conformed negative incorporates original and film-recorded elements.

4. Film versions are timed and printed through the laboratory chain.

5. Optical reductions create 5-perf 70mm and 35mm elements.

6. Separate digital colour work produces digital theatrical deliverables.

Photochemical timing offers far less local control than a modern DI. A timer can adjust shot-level colour and density through printer-light decisions, but cannot casually isolate a face, reshape a sky or track a selective shadow correction. The consistency has to originate in exposure, filtration, lighting, stock choice and laboratory control.

That limitation is part of the film’s character. It preserves a more direct relationship between negative and print, while allowing small density and colour variations to remain visible.

What the format contributes to the look

It is useful to separate four elements that are often collapsed into the phrase “the IMAX look.”

1. Negative area

The large image area records very fine spatial detail with little apparent grain, particularly in well-exposed daylight. There is no single honest pixel-equivalent for film because the result depends on stock, exposure, lens performance, processing, duplication and projection. The meaningful observation is that the 15-perf negative supports a very large projected image without needing the enlargement demanded by smaller formats.

2. Lens and camera distance

Large-format optics can combine a wide field of view with longer focal lengths. Moving the camera close preserves facial presence and environmental depth without the exaggerated edge behaviour of an extremely wide small-format lens.

3. Depth of field

Matched framing generally requires longer focal lengths, reducing depth of field. Faces can separate from enormous environments without relying on a telephoto, compressed perspective.

4. Photochemical colour and density

The negative, processing, timing, optical reductions and release print contribute to colour separation, highlight behaviour, black density and texture. These characteristics cannot be attributed to the camera body alone.

This is why changing a digital project to a 1.43:1 timeline or adding grain does not recreate IMAX cinematography. The format is a chain of capture, optics, staging, exposure, laboratory work and exhibition.

Where the cinematography is strongest — and where the process shows strain

The strongest images unite scale and proximity: a face held against open sea, a physical structure surrounded by hundreds of bodies, or a close camera moving within action rather than observing it from safety. The detail is impressive, but the more important effect is spatial credibility.

The process also exposes its own limitations:

• Very shallow depth of field makes focus transitions unusually visible.

• Protecting several aspect ratios can encourage centred, conservative placement of essential action.

• Three-minute magazines restrict the duration of performance and camera exploration.

• Fast cutting can prevent the audience from fully examining information-rich large-format compositions.

• Photochemical timing cannot conceal every difference in negative density.

• Low-light 65mm work asks more from stock, lenses and focus than sunlit exteriors.

These are not footnotes separate from the aesthetic. They are the aesthetic’s cost. The Odyssey is visually compelling partly because it allows a giant studio film to retain evidence of physical capture rather than smoothing every image into digital uniformity.

Recreating the colour language on digital footage

A LUT cannot reproduce the negative area, lens behaviour, depth of field, practical production scale or 70mm projection of The Odyssey. Any product claiming to turn ordinary footage into IMAX would be confusing colour treatment with a complete photographic system.

Colour and tonality are only one part of that system, but they can still be studied and translated. The film’s visible language includes substantial midtones, pale earth and stone, cool separation in water and sky, restrained overall saturation and controlled warmth in skin, bronze and fire.

OW Cinema Look No.5 – Odyssey 65 was developed as an independent digital interpretation of those relationships. It combines an original Cineon-based film-emulation foundation with authored colour decisions for dense tonality, steel-blue environments, weathered earth and protected human warmth.

It is not the film’s private negative profile or official grade, and it does not claim to recreate IMAX. Its purpose is narrower: to provide modern log footage with a film-derived colour and tonal starting point related to the movie’s large-format visual world.

Final analysis

The cinematography of The Odyssey is important because it moves 15-perf IMAX film from a special-sequence format to a complete dramatic capture system.

The Keighley camera reduced the practical barrier, but the all-IMAX production depended equally on the sound blimp, mirror eyelines, disciplined magazine changes, custom camera support, real locations, Panavision optics, Kodak negative and FotoKem’s photochemical infrastructure. No individual piece created the result.

Van Hoytema’s central contribution is not merely operating the largest available format. It is using that format at human distance. The sea and the face receive the same negative area. Monumental landscapes do not replace intimacy; they frame it.

The production’s imperfections are equally instructive. Focus becomes precarious, low-light density can vary, multiple aspect ratios influence composition and photochemical timing leaves exposure decisions visible. Those limitations make the achievement more credible, not less. The Odyssey does not look like a frictionless demonstration reel. It looks like a physical process pushed to the edge of what it can do.

Frequently asked questions

Was The Odyssey shot entirely in IMAX?

Yes. It is the first theatrical feature for which every shot was captured with 15-perf IMAX film cameras.

Was The Odyssey shot on 65mm or 70mm?

Both terms refer to different stages. The camera negative is 65mm wide. The IMAX release print is 70mm wide, which is why the exhibition format is called IMAX 70mm or 15/70.

What camera was used for The Odyssey?

The production used two next-generation IMAX Keighley cameras alongside five legacy IMAX film cameras, according to CineD’s technical production report.

Why was the new IMAX camera necessary?

Legacy IMAX cameras were extremely loud, heavy and difficult to use for close sync-sound dialogue. The Keighley reduced noise and improved weight, monitoring and operation. A separate sound blimp was still required for the quietest scenes.

What lenses were used on The Odyssey?

Panavision serviced the camera and optics. Specialist sources identify Panavision Sphero and Hasselblad-derived IMAX lenses, and Nolan has said the film relied mainly on two lens choices. A complete official focal-length list has not yet been published.

What film stock was used on The Odyssey?

Kodak confirms that the 65mm negative used its older rem-jet-backed film stock rather than the newer AHU-backed 65mm product. Several VISION3 daylight and tungsten stocks are reported by secondary sources, but Kodak has not yet released an authoritative scene-by-scene stock breakdown.

Is the 1.43:1 IMAX version the only correct version?

It is the only version that displays the full-height 15/70 composition and is Nolan’s preferred presentation. The 1.90:1, 2.20:1 and 2.39:1 versions were also deliberately framed and supervised.

Did The Odyssey use a digital intermediate?

The principal film workflow retained photochemical timing instead of a conventional full-film DI. Digital processes were still used for visual effects, digital colour finishing and non-film deliverables.

Can a LUT recreate the cinematography of The Odyssey?

No. A LUT can influence colour and tonality, but it cannot reproduce IMAX negative area, lenses, depth of field, production design, lighting, camera position or film projection.

Sources and further reading

• Official The Odyssey format guide

• IMAX: Introducing the Keighley Film Camera

• IMAX: The Odyssey

• CBS / 60 Minutes interview with Christopher Nolan

• Los Angeles Times interview with Christopher Nolan

• CineD technical report on the all-IMAX production

• FotoKem production and finishing credits

• American Cinematographer: Kodak and The Odyssey

• Panavision production credits

• Ignacio Aguilar, AEC: 5-perf 70mm cinematography review