Scenes from Pandorama by cartoonist/animator Nina Paley, one of the several experimental short animated films being made for Imax. © Nina Paley.

There are also several experimental short animated films being made in Imax. The most recent is Pandorama by cartoonist/animator Nina Paley from San Francisco (www.ninapaley.com). It is a 4-minute, 70mm animated film made without using a camera. She painted her 2,500 images directly onto the film. She also scratched on 70mm black leader and made impressions with rubber stamps. Pandorama has won several festival prizes and is distributed by Xlargo in Paris. Their first sale was to the Cinestar Imax theater in Berlin.

Nearly 3 months went into creating the approximately 2,500 images in the 4-minute, 70mm animated film made without using a camera. © Nina Paley.

Coming Soon in Imax
Mainframe in Vancouver, Canada has announced that Imax has invested $16 million in their company and that they will produce 3 original 70mm animated features for them. The first production is a new version of Gulliver's Travels. An Imax spokesman said at the end of October that no voice artists had been hired and no director had been assigned to the project so it is still in an early stage of development. The Imax press person assumed it would be released next year. Mainframe is best known as the producer of Reboot, the first computer generated TV series for kids.

Several other titles are in pre-production development at Imax. No director or production company has been assigned to any of them. When asked if at least one might be going to Mainframe, I was told, "No comment." The films mentioned by the press are Eddy Deco's Last Caper, based on a Gahan Wilson novel, Rumplestiltskin, a retelling of the classic story in 3D animation, and a new version of Noah's Ark. The Imax person confirmed that the company is developing these titles.