IMAX Shows Jordan Like Never Before
KELLAN: The enormous screens and high resolution of IMAX movies have been used over and over to showcase the wonders of nature. But the newest IMAX film focuses on a different kind of natural phenomenon: an amazing athlete. Rick Lockridge reports on how the filmmakers put viewers in the middle of the action.</s>RICK LOCKRIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He has always seemed larger than life, so maybe it's surprising that no one thought of putting Michael Jordan on an 80-foot-tall IMAX movie screen before Chicago Bulls fan Don Kempf did.</s>DON KEMPF, CO-PRODUCER, "MICHAEL JORDAN TO THE MAX": I was sitting in an IMAX theater here in Chicago, and sitting in the back row, and all of a sudden I had this vision of Michael Jordan eight stories high, on-screen. tongue flying out, coming right at me.</s>LOCKRIDGE: Three years later, that vision has been transformed into a 45-minute IMAX movie, "Michael Jordan to the Max." The film is an unabashed celebration of Jordan's life up to and through his last title run as a member of the 1998 NBA Champion Chicago Bulls. Superfast IMAX cameras, which gobble six feet of 70-millimeter film per second, capture some of Jordan's most memorable moves as you've literally never seen them before.</s>BOB COSTAS, SPORTSCASTER: You see it at a different angle and with a depth that television can't provide and most film you see can't provide. It's just, it's overwhelming.</s>LOCKRIDGE: Special effects include a scene where Jordan appears to hang in mid-air while en route to the basket, a green screen sequence that required 100 still cameras to click in perfect synchronization, a technique known as bullet-time photography.</s>MICHAEL JORDAN: I was very impressed. Modern technology is amazing. I was just happy to be a part of it. That was one of my favorite parts of the movie, actually.</s>LOCKRIDGE (on camera): Producers expect this movie to gross $100 million nationwide, a staggering sum by IMAX standards. In other words, they expect Michael Jordan to be as successful in this new arena as he's been in all the others he's played in. For SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY WEEK, I'm Rick Lockridge in Chicago.</s>KELLAN: Thanks, Rick. And thanks for joining us, I'm Ann Kellan. Next week, the next big player in the world of computer games could be Microsoft. We'll check out its bid for the big time on the next SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY WEEK. We'll see you then.