Timeline

Maverick Wings. The Defender follows the trials and genius of maverick aircraft designer and restorer, Bob Diemert of Carman, Manitoba. Diemert dreams of building the world’s next great fighter plane. A worldwide reputation for restoring “warbirds” enables him to finance his project. A lively, funny and influential tale about a remarkable, modern-day folk hero, The Defender established Stephen’s unique filmmaking style and won awards around the world. Directed by Stephen Low, The Defender is a National Film Board of Canada production. More about The Defender. See the film at nfb.ca.

Skyward (1985) and its painstakingly captured scenes of Canada geese in flight established Stephen as a filmmaker with the drive to tackle the IMAX format and bring the natural world to an international audience at IMAX-equipped Expos and via a growing network of IMAX theaters. Stephen’s first three films in the format would treat nature subjects; a challenging focus for a very large and not very quiet 15/70 IMAX camera.

Industrious Rodents with Buck Teeth. Released in 1988, Stephen’s second giant screen film Beavers demonstrates the tremendous potential of the giant screen for presenting natural history features and helps spur the development of IMAX theaters in natural history museums. Beavers delivers a humorous, intimate and emotive portrait of a family of beavers, taking audiences into the mysterious aquatic world of these shy creatures and elevating their struggles to giant screen scale. A furry family favourite, Beavers would go on to be actively exhibited for more than two decades and become one of the top-grossing Canadian motion pictures of all time. More about Beavers.

3D Develops Horns.  A dramatic visual poem related without words, The Last Buffalo paints the magical relationship of a sculptor and the natural world he sculpts. The Last Buffalo was produced for the Suntory Pavillion at Expo 90 in Osaka, Japan.

To film wildlife with the giant new IMAX 3D rig, Stephen and his team had to bring the wildlife to the giant camera system—it was the only way. The Last Buffalo became the first giant screen 3D film to go on to broad release, forging a new marketplace for state-of-the-art IMAX 3D projectors and future films. The groundbreaking film demonstrated the potent immersive and storytelling power of 3D, proved the potential of the medium and ultimately helped drive the rebirth of 3D as a worldwide phenomenon and the growth of IMAX 3D as the leading technology. The Last Buffalo will include a collaboration with film editor James Lahti that will continue for many future films. More about The Last Buffalo.

Light in the Deep. Spearheaded by The Stephen Low Company with the technical support of the Russian P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, the Titanica expedition was the first to extensively light and film the wreck site of the Titanic 12,500 feet below the surface of the Atlantic. Employing newly developed deep sea HMI lighting technology and the world’s largest film format Titanica established a poignant and definitive film record of the great wreck. The film will inspire later Titanic fictions.

Filming deep sea submersible operations from aboard RV Akademik Keldysh, a Soviet ship.

The Titanica expedition marks a giant leap forward for the IMAX Experience, taking audiences into one of the great frontiers of science and of cinema—the real deep ocean. The deep is not the shallows of our beaches, estuaries and coastlines, or sunny reefs, but the real abyssal ocean, a dark region that represents by volume, the vast majority of our planet’s biosphere.

The Titanica project will help set the stage for the production a decade later of another groundbreaking ocean film by the company: Volcanoes of the Deep Sea.

Launch of Titanica. December 3, 1992: the world premiere of Titanica takes place at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Titanic survivor Eva Hart is on hand as a special guest. Also in attendance is filmmaker James Cameron, future director of the fictional dramatic feature “Titanic”. More about Titanica.

The bow of RMS Titanic at a depth of 12,500 feet, captured for Titanica.

Diving Adventure. Filmed almost entirely at depth on a shipwreck off the Bahamas, Flight of the Aquanaut demonstrates new dramatic possibilities for the large format. Captured by rotating SCUBA teams working at a depth of 100 feet—far deeper than typical Hollywood productions—Flight of the Aquanaut dramatizes the travails of an underwater explorer clad in a state-of-the-art diving hardsuit. More about Flight of the Aquanaut.

Forging a new kind of audience experience. Stephen Low and his team work on a groundbreaking production for Sony New Technologies and Columbia Pictures, adapting archival stereo photography from the late 19th and early 20th centuries for 3D presentation on the giant IMAX screen. As part of the new production Across the Sea of Time, the team tackle 3D drama in the world’s largest film format and test a new Personal Sound Environment in development by Sonics Associates and Imax Corporation. The finished film will include a cameo by Donald Trump and a music score by celebrated composer John Barry.

New York City Rediscovered in Stereo. Premiering in Manhattan at the Sony IMAX theater in 1996, Across the Sea of Time breaks new 3D ground. The film combines novel storytelling and the first use of historical stereo photographs to tell a compelling giant screen story about New York and the immigrant experience. More about Across the Sea of Time (3D).

Tomas Minton (played by Peter Reznick) peers through a stereopticon at period views of New York City in Across the Sea of Time (3D)

Racing Wow. In 1997, Super Speedway became the first large-format film to capture on-track racing action at actual race speeds. The company developed camera mounts that enabled onboard filming from an Indy Car with an IMAX camera at speeds of up to 240mph. Filmed from an Indy Car supported by Newman-Haas Racing and driven by racing legend Mario Andretti, Super Speedway pulled audiences in the world of championship auto racing and accelerated them to a new giant screen high. More about Super Speedway. See also: Super Speedway: the Making of a Motion Picture Classic.

A view from the camera car driven by racing legend Mario Andretti for Super Speedway.

The Real Mark Twain Stands Out. Mark Twain’s America 3D launches in New York at the Sony Lincoln Square IMAX theater. With the release of the film, the company delivers the first biography ever created for the giant screen. The film propels audiences into the life and times of America’s greatest humorist, drawing on Twain’s own words, period stereo photographs and rich re-creations by modern American history enthusiasts (including the Civil War, music, dance, riverboats and railways). Along with live-action footage, the production features stunning archival stereo (3D) photographs of Twain, his family and his era. More about Mark Twain’s America 3D.

New Light in the Deep. The company completes work to integrate new high-powered HMI lights on the research submersible Alvin operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Located on two retractable booms and one extendable arm, the lights give the sub dramatic new deep sea lighting and imaging capability. A test shoot is undertaken on hydrothermal vents in the deep Pacific. The work is part of Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, a production the company has underway in association with Rutgers University. More about Volcanoes of the Deep Sea.

Life Erupts 10,000 Feet Down. Volcanoes of the Deep Sea launches in giant screen theaters. Filmed in two oceans on 20-deep sea submersible dives, the production documents the work of scientists exploring the life and geology of deep sea hydrothermal vents on volcanically active Mid-Ocean Ridge. Produced in association with Rutgers University, the groundbreaking film puts startling IMAX images before audiences for the first time: vast colonies of strange chemosynthetic life thriving around chimneys spewing super-heated fluids from the Earth’s interior. The film includes a score by composer Michel Cusson, a collaboration that will continue. More about Volcanoes of the Deep Sea.

A black smoker with swarms of shrimp on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge; a scene filmed with an IMAX camera from the deep sea submersible Alvin. (Volcanoes of the Deep Sea)

Astounding Aerial Scale. Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag premieres at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Washington D.C.. The project captures unprecedented scenes of one of the world’s largest and most demanding air combat training exercises. Seen through the eyes of one courageous young pilot, the experience is revealed onscreen in all its drama, scale and power. More about Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag.

Making Waves. Premiering at the California Science Center in L.A., The Ultimate Wave Tahiti 3D captures the adrenalin and visual magic of high-powered surfing. Filmed in the Tahitian islands, The Ultimate Wave features ten-time world champion Kelly Slater and friends in remarkable surfing sequences filmed in 3D for the giant screen—the first giant screen film to capture surfing action up close. The film weaves together surfing and science—exploring the physics of waves and tracing the evolution of the perfect surfing wave across the Pacific. More about The Ultimate Wave Tahiti 3D.

Tahitian surfer Raimana Van Bastolaer in a sequence from The Ultimate Wave Tahiti.

A Jetliner is Born. Set against a century of aviation, Legends of Flight tracks the creation of a new-generation carbon fibre jetliner, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Captured over several years and compressed into minutes, this giant screen experience propels audiences along on the remarkable journey of creating a new aircraft—from design and fabrication to first-flight. The endeavour is seen through the eyes of the project’s chief test pilot, Mike Carriker. The film features advanced 3D animation and compositing, including sequences created with groundbreaking SANDDE animation technology from IMAX Corporation. More about Legends of Flight.

A Stearman bi-plane in a sequence from Legends of Flight.

Inside Disaster. Shaped around the work of disaster responders, Rescue 3D takes viewers into the center of the Haiti earthquake. Filmed for the giant screen, Rescue documents the response to the disaster on land, sea and in the air, providing first-hand views of one of the largest natural disasters and humanitarian crises of the 21st century, including a high-fidelity aerial perspective of the devastated region. More about Rescue 3D. About The Making of Rescue 3D.

Desert landing from Rescue 3D.

Steam-Age Mega-Project. Propelling audiences on an authentic steam train journey through the Canadian west, Rocky Mountain Express provides a remarkable perspective on one of the greatest engineering projects of all time: the 19th century construction of a transcontinental railway link through the Canadian Rockies. Building on the filmmaker’s own passion for steam locomotion and his early working experience on the railway, Rocky Mountain Express takes full advantage of the giant screen medium and aerial shooting to relate an epic and highly kinetic story of engineering folly, sacrifice and nationbuilding. More about Rocky Mountain Express. About the making of the film: “The Road to Rocky Mountain Express“.

The 2816 crosses the Lethbridge Viaduct in a scene from Rocky Mountain Express.

Our current productions will take audiences around the world by electric trolley, into maritime operations aboard an aircraft carrier and fleet, on a non-stop rail journey across America, and deep into the quantum fabric of the cosmos.