Hubble in orbit on Toronto's Big Screen

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HUBBLE HOOPLA COMES TO ONTARIO SCIENCE CENTRE,
HUBBLE FILM'S DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHYSAYS IT TOOK 20-YEARS TO GET 8-MINUTES OF SPACE FILM


James Neihouse, the director of photography for the Hubble Imax film, was a down-to-earth fellow while fielding out-of-this-world questions from the media at a March Toronto press preview held at the Ontario Science Centre. The Canadian film maker talked at length about two decades of challenges he faced in getting useable large format space footage for the movie.
Niehouse said the film about the in-space repair and update of the orbiting Hubble Telescope, took 20-years to make and yet has only 8-minutes of IMAX quality out-of-this-world footage. Why? The camera, weighing over 300 kilos, went into space onboard a US shuttle loaded "with just 5,400 ft of film. That's all we could get on board and in the camera!". (footage from helmet cameras and shuttle cameras flesh out the spectacular film).
The Shuttle could not accommodate a traditional film crew, so in addition to their day jobs, the Hubble repair crew astronauts did some moonlighting as camera operators. To prepare, Director of Photography James Neihouse put the astronauts though an eight-month course of basic cinematography. “Part of my job was showing them how to use an IMAX camera in space –how to shoot, how to frame, how to take exposures, the whole nine yards”, said Neihouse.

In preperation to head into space and film the repair the Hubble telescope astronauts first went into a deep water tank to train in a weightless spacelike environment. The makers of the Hubble movie got wet too (and brought along their large format camera) to take footage of the space crew learning underwater.
Hubble is an IMAX and Warner Bros. Pictures production, in cooperation with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, the film reunites the Space Station filmmaking team, led by Producer/Director Toni Myers. James Neihouse, Director of Photography, also doubles as the Astronaut Crew Trainer. Judy Carroll is Associate Producer, and Graeme Ferguson, Co-founder of IMAX and pioneer producer of many IMAX space films, is Executive Producer.
CUTLINE: Top: Imax crew uses a large format camera to film astronauts training underwater for the repair mission to the Hubble Telescope. Sequences from the training sessions are seen in the new Hubble Imax movie.
Bottom: James Neihouse meets with the Toronto media at a Science Centre launch for the Hubble movie.

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