Christopher Nolan Strapped An IMAX Camera To A Learjet For Interstellar's Aerial Sequences

Interstellar IMAX Learjet

Ever since The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan has been seen as a hardcore advocate of IMAX technology - particularly over the widespread use of 3D. Because of the filmmaker's prior usage of IMAX cameras on both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, it was no surprise when it was announced at CinemaCon earlier this year that he would once again be using the larger format film making his latest project, the sci-fi epic Interstellar. What we didn't know at the time, however, was that the director would be finding some very new and inventive ways to shoot with the specialty cameras - namely strapping them to the front of a learjet.

The images you see both above and directly below, which come to us via Reddit, were released by visual effects supervisor Paul J. Franklin on his Twitter account (which seems to have been deleted now). There aren't any details available regarding exactly what the director will be shooting with the cameras in the context of the story, but we can probably expect some seriously cool aerial sequences in the movie.

Interstellar IMAX Learjet 2

The script for Interstellar was originally written by Jonathan Nolan, Christopher's brother, but when the Inception director signed on he took the pre-existing script and merged it with a previous story idea he had. The fillm is said to be inspired by the work of Kip Thorne, a physicist and relativity expert over at Caltech, and follow a group of scientists investigating wormholes. The project has an insanely talented cast lined up that includes Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Topher Grace, John Lithgow, Elyes Gabel, Wes Bentley, David Oyelowo, David Gyasi, Matt Damon and (believe it or not) more. The movie is still in production and likely will be for a little while longer, but it is on-track to be released by Paramount Pictures in both normal theaters and IMAX on November 7th.

While you wait for the film's release, you can hear Nolan talk extensively about IMAX technology in the videos embedded below.

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Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.