When 7Wonders co founder and Executive Producer Stephen Skeel began asking what it really takes to make something for IMAX, the question was deliberately simple. Could a small independent production team create work specifically for one of cinema’s largest and most technically demanding formats, or was the process still largely restricted to major Hollywood productions?
The answer would take Skeel and his team on a three month journey encompassing large format cinematography, specialist projection technology, ancient Greek warriors, a Tennessee sunrise and, eventually, an invitation to IMAX headquarters.
7Wonders is an Emmy Award winning video marketing agency producing video, photography and creative work for clients, but this particular project began away from its usual commercial output. The company wanted to reinvest in its own YouTube presence, which, like that of many agencies focused primarily on delivering for clients, had received relatively little attention.
Against a backdrop of renewed public interest in IMAX filmmaking, particularly surrounding Christopher Nolan’s *The Odyssey*, Skeel saw an opportunity to explore the technology from the perspective of a smaller production company.
“What does IMAX actually mean? What does it take to make something in IMAX? Can anyone make something in IMAX, or is it restricted to Hollywood filmmakers like Christopher Nolan?” Skeel explains.
Those questions eventually became the basis for an experiment in which 7Wonders created a two minute film inspired by *The Odyssey*, featuring ancient Greek warriors and designed specifically around the unusual dimensions and visual demands of the IMAX format. The wider process was documented for a roughly ten minute YouTube film, which followed the team from the earliest technical research through to the completed screening.
The response exceeded expectations. Shortly after release, Skeel said the video was approaching 45,000 views, while the company’s YouTube subscriber count had tripled. The project also generated press interest and led to new relationships with brands, including camera manufacturer Fujifilm.
For Skeel, however, the greatest achievement came from proving that the idea itself was possible.
Understanding the IMAX Canvas
Perhaps the first misconception the project had to overcome was that IMAX simply means a larger cinema screen. In reality, the format encompasses a much broader production ecosystem that stretches from image capture through post production and ultimately to projection.
Central to the 7Wonders experiment was the 1.43:1 aspect ratio, the exceptionally tall frame associated with the fullest expression of IMAX.
According to Skeel, only 41 theatres worldwide were capable of presenting imagery at this full height at the time of production. Most relied on 70 millimetre film projection, which created another obstacle for a project being produced digitally. Skeel says only five venues worldwide were capable of digital projection at the full 1.43:1 height.
One of them happened to be the Tennessee Aquarium IMAX in Chattanooga, approximately two hours from Skeel’s base in Nashville.
“We wanted to shoot for the moon… If we were going to do it, we wanted to do it in the full height capacity.”
The Chattanooga venue proved instrumental in making that ambition possible, giving the team the opportunity to experience their work on the type of screen for which it had been conceived.
Creating an image for such a screen required the team to rethink some of the basic principles of conventional cinematography.
Skeel studied interviews with Hoyte van Hoytema, the cinematographer behind several of Nolan’s large format productions, while also speaking with an IMAX projectionist about how imagery behaves on a screen several storeys tall.
One of the most important concepts was what Skeel describes as “centre punch framing”, ensuring that the most important visual information remains towards the centre of the composition.
On a conventional cinema or television frame, cinematographers frequently use the edges of the image to direct attention, create imbalance or place characters in unusual areas of the composition. On a towering IMAX screen, however, those decisions can become physically uncomfortable for an audience, particularly when something as fundamental as a character’s eyeline is positioned too high.
There is also another complication. A film created for IMAX rarely exists exclusively in that format.
The same image may eventually need to work in conventional widescreen cinemas, on television screens and through numerous other distribution formats. This means filmmakers need to preserve important information within a much narrower area while still ensuring that the full IMAX frame remains visually engaging.
During production, the 7Wonders team placed crop lines on its monitors so that every essential element would remain usable within conventional widescreen ratios, while simultaneously checking the additional space above and below for unwanted objects, equipment or distracting details.
“It fundamentally changed our framing,” Skeel says.
That lesson became even clearer when he travelled to IMAX headquarters for a quality control screening. Staff highlighted shots where a subject’s head had been positioned slightly too high, demonstrating how seemingly minor compositional choices become magnified when projected at IMAX scale.
The experience provided an unexpected insight into the process followed by filmmakers working professionally within the format.
“They were telling me that this is what Christopher Nolan does, this is what Ryan Coogler does. They come in and they watch it because you’re not used to seeing this type of format.”
Rather than treating those observations as mistakes, Skeel describes the process as an opportunity to understand a completely different approach to filmmaking, one where the scale of exhibition becomes part of the creative decision making from the moment an image is captured.
Bringing Large Format Filmmaking Within Reach
The camera at the centre of the experiment was Fujifilm’s GFX ETERNA 55, whose inclusion on the list of IMAX certified cameras became fundamental to the project’s feasibility.
Traditional 70 millimetre IMAX film cameras remain highly specialised pieces of equipment requiring considerable infrastructure, expertise and financial investment. Even many digital cinema cameras capable of meeting large format production requirements remain designed around substantial professional crews.
The ETERNA 55 represented something different.
Skeel points particularly to its autofocus capability and the ability to place the camera onto a conventional stabilising system. While the resulting rig was still substantial, it remained manageable for a small crew rather than demanding the infrastructure normally associated with a major feature film production.
“When it wasn’t on a stabiliser, I had it handheld,” Skeel explains. “I was wading through rivers with it. It’s very accessible for a documentary team.”
The significance lies primarily in the size of its sensor. While numerous cameras can offer extremely high resolutions, Skeel says reproducing the qualities associated with IMAX is closely connected to capturing an image using a physically large imaging area.
For independent creators, the fact that this technology is becoming available in equipment designed for relatively compact production teams represents a significant shift.
“The barriers are coming down and the walls are coming down,” he says. “The fact that this is possible in a body that is accessible to a DIY team means this is becoming more accessible to people who can pick up a camera and go.”
That accessibility does not mean large format production has suddenly become simple. The experiment revealed a considerable amount of technical knowledge surrounding aspect ratios, projection standards, composition and exhibition that filmmakers must understand before taking full advantage of the technology.
Nevertheless, the equipment itself is no longer necessarily the barrier it once was.
When Everything Comes Together
Like any experimental production, the project contained moments when Skeel questioned whether its most ambitious version would become reality.
He never believed the entire exercise would need to be abandoned, however, because the team had deliberately structured the project so that the process itself remained valuable regardless of the final screening.
Even if access to the desired IMAX venue had proved impossible, 7Wonders would still have produced a short film and documented an unusual creative experiment. Smaller screening opportunities were also being explored as contingency options.
In practice, circumstances repeatedly aligned in the team’s favour.
Among Skeel’s strongest memories is filming at the Parthenon replica in Nashville, where an unexpectedly spectacular sunrise provided the backdrop for the production’s Greek inspired imagery.
The team had located a historical reenactor named Evan, based around two hours away in Kentucky, who owned particularly impressive armour suitable for the shoot. Combined with favourable conditions at the location and the light that greeted the crew that morning, Skeel remembers the sequence as one of those rare production moments when numerous independent variables seemed to align perfectly.
What followed was even less predictable.
After completing the project, Skeel received an invitation to attend a quality control screening at IMAX headquarters in Los Angeles.
He arrived with little idea of what the experience would involve.
“Even signing in at the front desk, I didn’t know who I was going to meet or what we were going to do,” he recalls.
The team was welcomed into the facility, given the opportunity to screen the film and guided through elements of the production process. While waiting, Skeel found himself sharing the same professional environment as established Hollywood filmmakers arriving for their own screenings, a moment that reinforced how unexpectedly far the independent experiment had travelled.
Following the screening, IMAX staff took Skeel and his colleague through the facility and showed them areas normally far removed from the experience of a small production company.
For someone who had begun the process simply wondering whether an independent filmmaker could create something for IMAX, the symbolism was difficult to ignore.
Digital Versus Film
The project also inevitably raised questions about one of cinema’s most enduring debates, particularly as directors including Nolan continue to champion large format celluloid.
Skeel remains fascinated by film and acknowledges its continued cultural and artistic importance, although he admits that the additional technical complexities make it a less immediately attractive production medium for his own work.
His appreciation for analogue formats is nevertheless personal as well as professional. Friends filmed his wedding on Super 8, and he speaks enthusiastically about the distinctive aesthetic created by celluloid.
What excites him equally, however, is how closely contemporary digital technology can now approach an experience once considered inseparable from film.
Perhaps the clearest demonstration came at the Tennessee Aquarium IMAX.
After screening the 7Wonders production several times, projectionists offered to play approximately ten minutes of The Odyssey before immediately returning to the team’s own film.
The comparison placed an independent digital production directly alongside imagery from one of Hollywood’s most ambitious large format projects.
“Our film totally holds up,” Skeel recalls. “Obviously there are incredible things about *The Odyssey* in terms of scale that we could never replicate, but as far as the quality of the image back to back, I was really proud of what we were able to accomplish.”
For Skeel, the comparison was not about claiming equivalence with a major studio production, but about demonstrating how far digital imaging technology has progressed.
The ability of a relatively small team to create imagery capable of maintaining its integrity on one of cinema’s largest screens would have been considerably harder to imagine only a generation ago.
Preserving the Big Screen
Beyond the technical exercise, Skeel believes there is a wider reason for independent filmmakers to experiment with formats such as IMAX.
Although renewed interest from major filmmakers has introduced large format exhibition to another generation of audiences, the technical distinctions remain confusing even for people working within the industry.
Skeel argues that encouraging more creators to understand the format could ultimately contribute to its preservation.
“There is a community of people working to preserve this format,” he says. “The more people who are self educating on it, the better the work product is going to become, and the more interesting things there will be to display in these venues.”
For an exhibition format dependent upon specialised infrastructure, creating a greater supply of compelling content also gives audiences more reasons to visit the theatres capable of presenting it.
“If we can get more people creating for the format, then there is a brighter future ahead.”
That spirit of experimentation is also shaping what comes next for 7Wonders.
Its client work will continue to form the core of the business, but Skeel sees an opportunity for the company’s YouTube channel to become a space for what he describes as “curiosity driven exploration” of filmmaking, entertainment, emerging technology and their relationship with marketing.
Future videos are expected to unpack individual elements of the IMAX project in greater detail, including an examination of whether the visual effects created by the team withstand projection at such an enormous scale.
The projects themselves may become smaller, but the philosophy behind them is likely to remain unchanged.
For 7Wonders, the value of the IMAX experiment ultimately extended far beyond producing a two minute film. What began as a question about whether a small team could participate in one of cinema’s most exclusive formats became a practical demonstration of how dramatically the boundaries of professional filmmaking are changing.
As cameras become more capable, production technology becomes increasingly accessible and information once confined to specialist circles becomes easier to discover, the distinction between what independent creators and major studios are technically capable of producing continues to narrow.
The screen may still be enormous, but the barrier to reaching it is becoming considerably smaller.
www.7wonders.com