The Ant Bully (2006)

The Ant Bully: An IMAX 3D Experience will play exclusively in IMAX 3D, IMAX Dome and IMAX Theatres worldwide beginning July 28, 2006, simultaneously with the film’s debut in conventional theaters. The second Hollywood animated feature to be converted into IMAX® 3D, it follows the success of 2004’s The Polar Express: An IMAX 3D Experience. As with The Polar Express, The Ant Bully will be digitally converted into IMAX 3D and feature proprietary IMAX DMR® (Digital Re-mastering) technology, making its already extraordinarily vivid images virtually leap off the screen for a truly unique moviegoing experience.

“IMAX 3D has the power and depth to engage audiences in a unique way, which works perfectly for a story like this, where you want to leave the real world behind and follow this 10- year-old kid underground into the ant colony or through the wilds of his own front lawn,” says writer/director Davis. “Part of his adventure is seeing things he’s never seen before and seeing familiar things from a whole new perspective, and we’d love for audiences to take that amazing journey with him.”

The IMAX 3D DMR process is based upon basic principals of how the eyes and brain work to naturally create the three-dimensional world we inhabit. Most people see through two eyes and although both automatically focus on a single center point they see it from two slightly different positions. This creates two slightly different images, which the brain fuses to give the world three-dimensional depth.

Taking advantage of this natural process, an IMAX 3D film actually consists of two separate strips of film projected onto the screen at the same time: one with images captured from the viewpoint of the right eye, and the other with the left. Special IMAX 3D glasses allow the left eye to see only the left image and the right eye to see only the right, allowing the brain to fuse the images for a three-dimensional visual that appears to come off the screen. The distance, or “separation” between left and right viewpoints determines the intensity of the 3D; too little or too much will distort the image. The Ant Bully’s original 3D modeling contains the data required to create that necessary “second eye,” and IMAX uses this to calculate the appropriate separation from the 2D view point to create the ideal 3D viewing experience. Both left and right eye images are then digitally re-mastered into the IMAX format using IMAX DMR technology and recorded onto two separate prints of 15/70 film for projection in IMAX 3D.

IMAX theaters’ gigantic IMAX 3D screens—up to eight stories high—eliminate the discomfort and decapitated edges of smaller-format 3D systems. The screen, coated with a specialty high-performance metallic paint, has a slight curvature that extends beyond the field of geometric recognition, incorporating some of the audience’s peripheral vision. The visuals are further enhanced by a specially designed six-channel system comprised of 44 custom-designed speakers that extract 14,000 watts of pure digital surround sound. About IMAX Corporation

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