INSIDE THE PROJECTION BOOTH - DAY ONE OF CANAMAX
Photos by David Cheung
Today we filmed inside the Scotiabank Chinook Cineplex IMAX projection booth for CanaMAX — and like most film shoots, it came with its fair share of challenges. Tight quarters, sensitive equipment, strict protocols… but by the end of the day, it felt like a hard-won victory.
The projection booth is a fascinating space — powerful, industrial, and full of cinematic history — but visually, it isn’t designed to be filmed. The existing lighting consisted mainly of overhead fluorescent tubes, which felt flat and uninviting and couldn’t be used during actual projection. To make things even trickier, some of the IMAX equipment is light-sensitive, meaning the wrong lighting choice could literally lock the system down.
It became a delicate dance — one that required intention rather than realism.
One thing CanaMAX keeps teaching me is that truth doesn’t always come from recreating reality exactly as it is. Sometimes it comes from design, tone, and creative restraint. By embracing a stylized look, the film began to feel less like a technical explainer and more like an experience — something fun, vibrant, and full of curiosity.
In that shift, the projection booth transformed from a purely functional space into a character of its own. And in a story about IMAX — a format built on scale, immersion, and spectacle — that felt exactly right.
