More film options coming for Saskatchewan Science Centre's IMAX theatre

Saskatchewan’s Science Centre was host to a giant delivery this week, promising to reinvigorate the province’s largest film screen.

A giant crane hoisted the 50 by 70 foot screen weighing 1,800 pounds off of its transport and into the IMAX Kramer Theatre through a window.

“The screen has to come in in one long crate. So its 52 feet long. It can’t be wrinkled, bent, anything. It comes in and slides into the top of the theatre,” Sandy Baumgartner, CEO of the centre told CTV News.

Trevor Ewan has been the chief projectionist at the IMAX for the last 25 years.

“New screen coming in, it’s exciting. Its nerve wracking as it was the last time the screen came in,” he said. “And it’s always weird to see something that expensive hanging in the middle of the air.”

It’s part of a $4 million conversion to digital projection at the Kramer IMAX.

“Up until now, our IMAX film projector has used Imax 15/70 millimeter film and that’s the only way that we’ve been able to show content in Imax format,” Ryan Holota, Chief Operating Officer at the Science Centre explained.

The new projection system is powered by 4,000 lasers and each is available for sponsorship as part of a fundraising campaign.

“The new laser projectors that we're installing will give us access to basically all the content that Imax is producing in digital formats, as well as other content not necessarily IMAX but in digital formats that we haven't been able to show,” Holota said.

“If you see on TV, and it says ‘now playing in IMAX,’ that's something that we might be able to show in our theatre.”

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Updated equipment and more movie selection is something visitors have been anxious to see for years.

“That's probably been one of the number one requests that we've had,” Holota said. “The laser system will allow us to have more content, to change that content out more often, which will let people come back and enjoy those films a lot more often in the future.”

The entire facility is being revamped including the lobby, all the seats and the five storey tall screen.

But that’s not all, according to Holota.

“We have some permanent exhibits in the Science Centre that are going to be coming online also early in July, including an updated Richardson Agri-Land exhibit, which we're really excited about.”

The renovations to the centre will allow it to expand its services and help the non-profit achieve its goal.

“Our mission is to ignite scientific curiosity in Saskatchewan. We’re a tourism destination for southern Saskatchewan and the City of Regina and we know that we bring people in from all over North America and certainly all over Canada,” Holota said.

“A science centre is both an entertainment facility but it's also an educational facility. So, we sort of hit all these different targets and it’s very important for communities to have vibrant science centres.”

The new Kramer IMAX Theatre is set to have its first screening in early summer.