From 35mm to IMAX, in-camera effects to post processing: Hollywood directors are marketing their movies by nerding out – and we’re here for it.
First up, a short film formats explainer from one of the film manufacturers themselves, Panavision:
Writer / director / producer Ryan Coogler talks about the various film formats his film Sinners (2025) was filmed and released in (via Kodak):
Writer-director Christopher Nolan explains filming The Odyssey (2026) on IMAX film (via 60 Minutes, CBS):
The Invite (2026) director and co-star Olivia Wilde visits Kodak to learn about film processing:
Writer / director / editor Sean Baker takes Letterboxd to get a 35mm print made of his Oscar-winning film Anora (2023):
From initial ideas to finished film, Boots Riley creatively presents the process behind I Love Boosters (2026) as a case study in movie production (via Panavision and NEON):
Further Viewing
Following on from Ryan Coogler’s explainer video, here’s our more detailed look at aspect ratios:
When explaining his IMAX process, Christopher Nolan mentions that the film is first edited digitally, using an digital intermediate, and that information is then used as instructions for cutting the physical film itself. Slidebean explains how this technology, which was originally introduced as a proxy for preserving film during the editing process, instead came to replace celluloid altogether:
As a counterpoint, Devan Scott demonstrates why the excitement over large format cameras has more to do with marketing than with the actual math:
In his documentary Side by Side (2012), Keanu Reeves asks several of the world’s best-known filmmakers about shooting on film vs digital. Here’s a collection of clips from interviews with directors and cinematographers, including Martin Scorcese, Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, Steven Soderbergh, James Cameron, David Lynch, Barry Levinson, Danny Boyle, Walter Murch, and the Wachowskis: