I was just reading the BSC article about this (sorry, can't post a link, it's not on their site yet), and even though it was in the news before about this being the first film to use IMAX B&W 65mm, I haven't heard these details. Kodak created the film just for Nolan/Hoytema, and IMAX had to tweak the cameras to use it.
Quote:
Shooting black-and-white on big format was easier said than done, however. "The problems were that black-and-white film for 65mm didn't exist. Kodak didn't produce it, and it didn't exist in the world. And so we had to ask Kodak to manufacture it for us. There's a lot of technical challenges with it. For instance, the fact that you cannot just easily run black-and-white film through a camera specifically made for colour, which all has to do with the thickness of the emulsion and the breakability of the material: It was a "time of experimentation", as van Hoytema puts it, as Kodak began sending prototype 65mm black-and-white film stock in sealed boxes to the Oppenheimer team. More was to follow. With the production using the IMAX MSM 9802 MKIII and MKIV cameras, the pressure plates used to hold the film inside each machine needed to be adjusted to accommodate this unique stock. "It was a slow process...even though everybody was excited about it. Nobody really needed convincing' says van Hoytema.
Initially, the traditional hair-and-make up tests were shot in black-and-white. Nolan and his close team projected the footage at IMAX AMC Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles. "We just realised that this is so special and so beautiful," says van Hoytema. Even then, there were still many issues to overcome. "I mean, the static in the film is different, the susceptibility to dust is different, the scratching of the negative occurs in different places, or the baths in the lab need to be agitated differently. Otherwise, you'll get fogging issues. Even though it sounds simple, it's not obvious at all...we had to keep a very keen eye on the whole process.
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