IMAX: Part 3

Following its continued success and the legacy it had defined over multiple generations, IMAX received an Award of Excellence from the Canadian Government's Department of Communications in 1991 for its contributions and achievements in communications and culture, just as one of its core members was about to retire. 

Roman Kroitor’s final directing project was the 1991 Rolling Stones concert film At the Max, which was not a joyful experience as it was his last time as a director. Plagued by disagreements and infighting, Collin Low, who also helped with the film, recalled how the band members couldn’t agree on a director, and the job eventually fell into Kroitor’s lap by accident—even though he was not a Stones fan. “I don’t think he was very impressed by the Rolling Stones,” Low recalls. Kroitor hoped the film would tell an elaborate story of the performers, but the band wanted a straight-up concert film. 

Regardless of how The Rolling Stones felt about Roman Kroitor, the director would leave his mark, and Critics like Roger Ebert were blown away. “No other musical film in my experience has so overwhelmed the eyes and ears, drawing us into the feeling and texture of a rock concert,” the famous critic wrote in his review.

Collin Low remembered Kroitor as a filmmaker and storyteller who constantly sought the new and the untested, even with subject matters such as celebrations. “He wasn’t interested in what had happened in the past,” said Low. “He wanted to experiment.” He might not have been the easiest person to get along with—he could sometimes be prickly, and he was certainly demanding. “But everyone benefited from Roman’s courage and his ingenuity. He took crazy risks, creatively and technically—and everyone benefited from that.”

From there, IMAX made a glorious debut at EXPO 92, where they produced Momentum, directed by Colin Low and Tony Ianzelo. It was featured in 1992 at the Canada Pavilion at EXPO '92 in Spain. This movie was also groundbreaking, as it was one of the first IMAX HD films, shot at twice the conventional speed (48 frames per second instead of 24). IMAX needed an ideal system for developing the fast-action sequences required by motion simulator films, a venue they would soon explore, so the development of Imax HD was incorporated with IMAX 3D technology.

Considered one of IMAX's most significant documentary releases, Titanica, produced in 1992, would push the company into international spotlights. The 40-minute film took audiences on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure of discovery to the site of the world's most famous shipwreck, the Titanic. Filmmaker and director Stephen Low would follow in his father’s footsteps, becoming an internationally renowned IMAX director. 

Stephen Low was born and raised as a veteran filmmaker in the IMAX format. Born in Ottawa, Low studied political science at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay. Graduating in 1973. His first job was in film in 1976 as a cameraman/editor in Newfoundland. He directed and produced the award-winning one-hour documentary Challenger: An Industrial Romance(1980) and then worked for four years with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). In 1981, he won the distinguished Grierson Award for achievement in documentary film. 

Stephen Low’s first venture with the company was working as a researcher on Hail Columbia(1982). Soon after, he directed his first IMAX film, Skyward, for the Suntory Pavilion at the 1985 Tsukuba International Exposition in Japan. In 1987, he established Montreal-based Low Films International Inc. to produce Beavers for Dentsu Inc. 

Stephen Low's fascination with underwater wrecks led to a diving career that took him to more than 50 shipwrecks from Hawall to Newfoundland, ake Superior, and the Caribbean on top of his outstanding film career. His favorite hobby would lead him to produce and direct Flight Of The Aquanaut(1993), filmed in IMAX on a shipwreck off the Bahamas. The 35-minute drama followed the hazardous adventures of an underwater explorer operating from a Newtsuit (an advanced atmospheric diving suit).

However, the Newtsuit could not be used to explore the Titanic. In its day, the R.M.S. Titanic was the largest and most luxurious liner ever built and was described as unsinkable. On its maiden voyage, April 15, 1912, it collided with an iceberg and sank; 1,502 people died. Nearly 80 years later, in the summer of 1991, IMAX and a Canadian-American-Russian expedition would set out to explore the shipwreck.

Since the Titanic's discovery in 1985, Low has dreamed of filming it in IMAX. He hoped to mount an IMAX camera on the wreck during the French-U.S. expedition in 1986. However, timing and partnerships fell through. 

Underwater expert Dr. Joseph MacInnis, famous for his human performance in high-risk environments, had similar thoughts while diving on the second Titanic expedition in 1987. Macinnis had developed a friendly relationship with Dr. Anatoly Sagalevitch, Head of Manned Submersibles at the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, which made this 1991 expedition for Titantica possible. Gordon Harris would provide the deep camera support, Christopher Nicholson was the lighting engineer, and Ralph B. White would be a submersible cameraman and navigator.

Dr. Joseph Macinnis would serve as the film's executive producer.  Macinnis had a background serving as a medical doctor and internationally acclaimed expert in deep-sea diving, spending 30 years studying human performance in high-risk environments. MacInnis was first involved with the Titanic when he provided exclusive written coverage of the 1985 expedition up to its discovery. His second encounter was as a guest of the French expedition when he first dived into the Titanic on August 9, 1987. At that very moment, IMAX flashed into his mind, and he thought, "If only we could bring some big floodlights and light up the Titanic, the world could share the experience." 

Macinnis also designed and built the world's first dive station, which allowed exploration below the Earth’s polar ice cap. In the process, he became the first man to dive under the North Pole. He also led the archaeology team that discovered the world's northernmost shipwreck, the Breadalbane, under the ice in Canada's Northwest Passage.

André Picard, then Imax Corporation's Vice President of film, introduced Low and MacInnis in early 1990. From there, Michael McGrath, Imax's Director of Distribution and Business Development, quickly arranged the financing. A year later, the expedition members were on their way to Bermuda to test the lights and then to the Titanic site.

Pietro Serapiglia would serve as a film producer as well. Serapiglias was first involved with the IMAX Dome medium in 1983 when he managed the production of The River, a film for the New Orleans World's Fair. Serapiglia began his film career in 1974 at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) as a technician in the NFB's film lab and assisted in numerous projects such as the 40-hour United Nations Habitat. After leaving the NFB in 1979, he worked as a freelance production manager on more than 35 additional films, including the Oscar-nominated NFB series War(1983).

Director Low would weave a dramatic story about his expedition, journey, dive, and the discoveries the team persevered through. The eerie images of the Titanic as it lay on the ocean floor were contrasted with archival photographs of the ship in 1912. Juxtaposed to these images were touching and eloquent comments by Eva Hart, who, as a seven-year-old girl, survived the tragedy but lost her father. 

Before filming the Titanic or pursuing a dive to the bottom of the sea, equipment had to be tested to see if the team was to survive the journey in the subs, let alone film anything successfully. This met practice dives not only for the equipment but for everyone who would be operating as filmmakers 12,500 feet deep below sea level.  Stephan Low's first deep-sea diving took place 12,000 feet down in the Pacific in a Russian submersible piloted by Dr. Anatoly Sagalevitch, who led the expedition for Titanica—low totaled nearly 40 hours on the sea bottom while filming the Titanica.

Split amidships, the Titanic lay in two sections, 2,000 feet apart, embedded in a trough on the edge of a 100,000-year-old underwater landslide 375 miles southeast of Newfoundland.

While directing and photographing underwater scenes, Low relied heavily on expert underwater cameramen Ralph White and Paul Mockler to determine where they were on the wreck.

The expedition made 17 dives to the famous shipwreck in two state-of-the-art submersibles, Mir I and Mir II. They worked off the world's most high-tech research vessel, Russia's Akademik Keldysh. Each submersible had specially designed HMI underwater lights, the most powerful ever used underwater. The expedition could see vast expanses of the wreck. Without these lights, Titanica's film would not have been possible.

The submersibles were invaluable for scientific research. Designed and built by Finland's RAUMA-REPOLA Oceanics to the specifications of designer/engineer Anatoly Sagalevitch, the submersibles were modified to accommodate the weight of the IMAX cameras, lights, and power package. A seawater scrub device regenerated the atmosphere during the dives. After every dive, the high-power battery system could spend 10 hours on the sea bottom instead of 20 hours on the Mirs, which traveled at a top speed of five knots with a range of 18 miles. The emergency life support time for the three-man crew was 72 hours.

While filming, The average dive to the Titanic took 18 hours from when the hatch was locked on the submersible to when it was opened up, including the 30-minute launch procedure before the submersible even hit the water. Falling like a brick in the ocean at 100 feet per minute, the sub would take two-and-a-half hours to reach the Titanic. Once on the sea bottom, the crews could function up to 12- 14 hours before returning to the surface. The recovery process of lassoing the sub and its crew and hauling it into the pickup clamps would be a tense 45 minutes to an hour.

The extreme conditions the crew was subjected to in deep-submergence diving were best described by Titanic veteran Ralph White as akin to “hell freezing over.” "On the surface, even though we were in the North Atlantic, close to Newfoundland, the temperatures inside the submersible before the dive were usually 80-90 degrees F. with about 80 percent humidity. When we close the hatch, we have to purge the submersible with pure oxygen until we reach 25-27 percent oxygen. Once in the water, we start to go down, and the water temperature decreases, and the sphere itself 'cold soaks.' After about two hours of submergence, the inside of the submersible is about 35 degrees F. It remained that way until the end of the dive -- about 15 hours at freezing." 

"Inside a sub is almost as close to torture as you can do to yourself legally." joked Low.

The wreck site of the Titanic became a deep-sea environmental observatory for the participating scientists, including scientists and engineers from the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Geological Survey of Canada.

Briefly featured in Titanica were Lev Moskalev, a marine biologist and chief scientist at the P.P. Shirshov Institute in Moscow, a specialist in Invertebrate Zoology who studied the distribution of animals at the bottom of the sea, and Steve Blasco, a marine engineering geologist and chief scientist of the IMAX/Titanic '91 Expedition. Both planned, coordinated, and conducted the scientific aspects, including geology, biology, metallurgy, and engineering studies. The scientists also used the Titanic as a time gauge to measure environmental processes active in the deep sea. The wreck of the Titanic would be home to 28 species of animals and four species of fish. The expedition and the IMAX footage gave scientists invaluable data to study for years.

Shooting from inside a submersible presented enormous challenges. The subs carried three men two-and-a-half miles under the sea in a cabin six-and-a-half feet high and 5 feet wide for an average of 18 hours. Each sub carried a pilot, a camera operator, and a camera assistant. The two submersibles traveled in tandem for safety purposes.

Led by Gord Harris, Manager of Research and Development, and Bill Reeve, Supervisor of Camera Services and Development, Imax adapted its camera system to operate within the confines of the two submersibles. The camera occupied the enormous central porthole, 7.5 inches in diameter inside and 20 inches in diameter on the outside. Remarks Reeve, "It's the largest window available in deep-ocean submersibles. The porthole's wedge-like shape allowed us to use our 40mm lens, the normal perspective for the large format. It provided a clear view with no obstructions from the sub."

The vessel's high humidity posed condensation problems and unideal filming conditions, which forced IMAX to design a unique water gutter that diverted drips around the sub's window. An electric blower was also used to reduce condensation on the window, as one droplet of water would ruin a shot. 

Ironically, the Titanica audience got a better view of the Titanic than the crew in the submersibles saw through the portholes. As the three portholes faced different directions, one was obscured with an IMAX camera, and no one shared the same view.

Driving the submersible was only for the faint of heart. The camera operator in the submersible occupied the position the pilot typically occupied, so unfortunately for everyone else, only the person looking through the IMAX camera had the best view. Forced to drive sidewise for most of the voyage, The much smaller observation window was designated for the pilot with a restricted field of vision because the porthole didn't face the same direction the sub was traveling. The pilot had to peer through the hydraulic mechanisms, camera equipment, and lighting systems mounted on the front of the sub to correctly identify the direction location and communicate with other crew members. "It was like looking through a keyhole while trying to steer a 20-ton submersible," said one crew member. In several instances, the sub bumped into the wreck's hull, nearly damaging the sub’s lighting system and stopping everyone’s hearts. 

For filming, a unique framework was created to support the 100-pound camera. The camera sat on a tray, positioned so the lens could get as close to the window as possible. A sliding mechanism allowed the camera to be reloaded relatively quickly and then slid back into the window, ready to roll. Only ten three-minute rolls of film could be carried on each dive.

There were no "second takes" during the filming. "You had to be ready to shoot immediately when you found the subject," says Reeve. "There was no second chance." The sub's movement threw up clouds of sediment, obscuring the view and putting a halt to filming while the crew waited at least an hour for the silt to settle down. While waiting out one "silt storm," Low's crew broke for lunch. In that quiet moment, they made a startling discovery. Just outside the sub's porthole lay the Titanic's giant propeller. "We knew we were sitting under the overhanging section of the Titanic's stern. It was a very spooky moment," says Low. They got their shot and moved out quickly.

As successful as the production and dives were, The filming was not without its spine-tingling moments. One submersible got hooked on some cables on the Titanic deck, and another got stuck in a hole while trying to shoot the lower decks inside the hull.

"The biggest single element that made this film possible was the development of undersea high-intensity HMI lights. Titanica is the first well-lit deep-ocean film," said Low. At the suggestion of Al Giddings, a Cinematographer famous for his work on The Abyss and the first filmmaker to use HMIs in shallow water, Low worked with a technical team led by Chris Nicholson of Deep-Sea Systems and Mark Olsson of Deep Sea Power and Light to adapt the HMI lights for reliable operation at Titanic depths approximately 12,500 feet deep where pressures approached 6,000 psl. Such a lighting system had never been engineered before for safe deep-ocean use.

IMAX cameras use wide-angle lenses, which require broad lighting. Each sub was equipped with four HMI lights, which allowed the filmmakers to illuminate broad areas of the Titanic wreck. These lights were equivalent to about 150,000 watts of incandescent light (about 1,500 domestic 100W lightbulbs), the brightest ever used in the deep sea. They penetrated 50 to 75 feet through the blackness, whereas incandescent lights used in previous explorations on submersibles lit an area of only eight to 10 feet.

By using two subs and aiming the lights using the swinging booms and manipulator arm, the crew achieved a variety of interesting cross- and back-lighting effects, impossible with a single sub and fixed lighting. The results were the deep-sea ocean's most compelling and momentous motion picture.

Extreme caution had to be taken to prevent the powerful HMI lights from imploding. The time limit for burning the HMI lights was 20 minutes, followed by a 10-minute cooldown. Other dangers were averted by opening the booms so the lamps, stowed facing the porthole windows, faced out from the sub. As the sub descended and ascended, the lamps went through pressure changes. An implosion of a lamp or electronics housing at such depths would have created extreme shock waves, jeopardizing the sub-crew's safety. Sea water would rush in to fill the space, and the crew would have been doomed. The volume of water collapsing in the space would have then caused enough suction strong enough to pull the windows out of the sub.

Some mundanely extraordinary moments are also included in the film. Exploring the wreaked human objects littered across the bottom of the sea, the crew would be reminded that the ship's wreaked beams and dissipated hallways were once a legacy bateau bustling with people. "We did the deepest dishwashing in the world." says camera assistant Per-Inge Schel, who pulled focus for IMAX cameraman Paul Mockler. With thousands of stacked dishes and plates on the sea bottom, the crew manipulated the sub's arm to select a plate for filming. When they dusted off the silt, it clearly displayed the White Star Line emblem. The most touching items Schei saw were a pair of worker's boots sitting beside some bed springs. "It made you realize you're really in a graveyard," he said.

The team’s interview with Eva Hart was also admirable. Eva Hart was born in Ilford, Essex, on January 31st, 1905. She was seven years old when her father booked the family on the Titanic. The Harts were on their way to Canada, where her father, a builder, was to meet with a friend to start a business.

"My mother had a very firm premonition of danger," says Eva. "I was sleeping peacefully in our second-class cabin when she woke my father. They wrapped me in a blanket and carried me to the boat deck. My father helped lower the lifeboats. We thought he was coming, but he leaned over and said, 'Be a good girl, hold mummy's hand.'” Eva never saw her father again and was separated from her mother when the lifeboats became overpacked, only to be joyfully reunited with her on the Carpathia, the ship which rescued the survivors. Eva still maintains that, had there been more lifeboats, all lives would have been saved.

“Some children went to sleep in the lifeboats. I was calm until I saw the ship sinking and heard the people screaming. I remember everything." Eva Hart and her mother stayed in New York for several days before returning to the United Kingdom to Romford, where she went to school and still lives. "It's dominated my whole life," says Eva, who was very perturbed when she heard Dr. Robert Ballard had found the Titanic in 1985. "But he said he'd never touch anything, and I felt better," says Eva, who disapproved of the French bringing artifacts from the Titanic to the surface on the 1987 expedition. "They robbed a grave," she says. "The IMAX/Titanic expedition weren't going down to plunder it. I think it's splendid," she smiles. "The sinking of the Titanic taught the authorities to have more lifeboats. It was the end of an era of luxury and disregard for everything else; the end of an era and the start of a new one," says Eva, who suffered for years from nightmares. Her nightmares ended Only when she finally returned to sea in her mid-twenties. By age 18, Eva was teaching piano and taking voice lessons and then, from there, performed ballads and light oper singing in London at recitals, dinners, and functions. However, tragedy would strike again, and At age 23, her mother died, leaving her alone to fight for survival again.

Eva was an only child who had to support herself. Undaunted, she traveled to Australia and lived in Perth for two years, earning her living singing. She entered the wholesale motor trade until 1939, when World War II broke out. She joined the voluntary WRVS and worked for the Ministry of Food. During this time, she met the managing director of a factory who was doing war work. After that, she was released from the Ministry of Food and trained as an industrial welfare officer, a job she held for 26 years until she retired.

Eve would become Justice of the Peace for 22 years in Barking, Essex, in the Petty Sessions Division and the Magistrate for Wormwood Scrubs. In this prison, some of Birtian’s most dangerous criminals were incarcerated. In honor of her service and overcoming massive hurdles, Queen Elizabeth II invested Eva Hart with an MBE (Member of the British Empire) in 1974 for her politics and public service work. Eva would continue to travel worldwide to talk about the Titanic in schools, churches, or at historical society conventions. Her trips have taken her to Australia, Canada, the United States, Germany, Holland, and Singapore. 

"I am the last surviving survivor of the Titanic who can remember it clearly and am still able to get about," said Eva. "I do deplore the possibility of anyone going to the Titanic for the purpose of plundering it. When I first heard from Stephen Low, I thought I would have nothing to do with his project. But when I found that he had no intention of going down and retrieving artifacts from that ship but merely to survey it and to learn from it, I was very pleased to take part in my small way."

Two plaques were placed on the Titanic's bridge. One was a personal memorial to diving pioneer Frank Busby, a Russian and American colleague. It was made of titanium, so it would last forever. The second plaque commemorated the IMAX Titanic expedition, listing the main participants: Imax Corporation, the P.P. Shirshov Institute, the National Geographic Society, Undersea Research, Ocean Images, Petro Canada, and the Geological Survey of Canada. Some red and white silk flowers were placed to mark the occasion.

Rapid expansions starting in 1992 would continue throughout the 1990s for the company. IMAX started to invest heavily in simulated ride experiences and new formats for displaying motion pictures and documentaries and opening an IMAX Simulator Ride at Phantasialand Park in Germany, featuring the film Asteroid Adventure, jointly produced by the two-time Academy Award-winning special effects company Dream Quest Images and Landmark Entertainment Group. The ride used IMAX HD Dome technology and allowed up to 208 seats to be involved when the presentation was in motion. 

IMAX's much-acclaimed Fires of Kuwait(1992) was also nominated for an Academy Award in the Feature Documentary category. Following this, Destiny In Space(1994), an inspiring look into the future of space exploration, premiered at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in June 1994, and Into The Deep, an IMAX 3D film, premiered in Japan and New York in November 1994.

Ferguson, Krotior, Shaw, and Kerr knew that at the dawn of a new century, 

millennium and the expansion and development of new-age technology quickly brought them to a fork in the road. The four had carried IMAX for 27 years but knew they had run out of options and personal connections to grow the company. After several years of contemplation, the founders surprised the world in 1994 when they sold IMAX to American investors. At this point, the company was held privately and had 100 theaters worldwide. 

About 45 percent of IMAX would be owned by Wasserstein Perella and about 15 percent by Imax management. Imax leadership would resolve to be led by Bradley J. Wechsler, the chairman,  a former Drexel Burnham Lambert investment banker; Richard L. Gelfond, the vice chairman once Drexel banker; and Douglas Trumbull, a vice chairman, and a renowned special effects expert, best known for effects on Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Following this, Kerr stepped down as CEO of IMAX. The group had debated this decision for a long time, and carefully to successfully preserve IMAX's legacy and continue to grow the brand internationally in the right direction. 

When the founders had started IMAX 27 years prior, their team consisted of a businessman, two filmmakers, and an engineer. Now, the company was large enough that it had grown its self-sustaining engineering division, which only required the oversight of an experienced filmmaker and financial backing, which the newly elected leaders expertly provided. However, the sale of IMAX would bring the company public on the NASDAQ Exchange, where it performed reasonably well for over five years. 

IMAX lacked the financing to expand commercially. Two-thirds of its theaters were in museums and educational institutions. Like its rivals, Showscan and Iwerks Entertainment Inc., IMAX  wanted to attempt new entertainment ventures. Most of IMAX's profits came from leases of its film systems, which had upfront costs of between $1.5 million and $3 million and collected a small royalty fee on each of its IMAX films.  IMAX documentary films generally run for about 45 minutes, which is uncommonly short compared to the average Hollywood movie. IMAX films also generally cost around $4 million to $8 million to produce during this time, which was less costly than Hollywood films. 

Since its new management took over, IMAX has begun allying with larger entertainment companies. First, it entered a joint venture with Capital Cities-ABC Inc. to develop films and partnered with Sega Enterprises Ltd. for IMAX simulator rides. From here, the company launched its IMAX Ridefilm product. The first two systems successfully opened in 1995, the first in Lincolnshire, UK, premiering with the film Fun House Express.

 “We were able to guide the growth of the medium, I think, very satisfactorily,” said Ferguson, “Though we weren’t very good at raising capital, so we didn’t grow as fast as we might have.” The sale allowed the four to retire from full-time work, but they continued to consult for the new owners. As the company flourished, the group remained close, working on their boats together after they retired to homes on Lake of Bays, Ontario.

From here, IMAX would skyrocket in growth. The company started to build theatres in multiplexes across North America, including the first in Lincoln Square, New York City, which would become one of the highest-grossing single movie screens in the United States, reaching roughly $6 million yearly in ticket sales. 

However, Hollywood exhibition and distribution companies were still wary of the format. Graeme Ferguson and Roman Kroitor were still the only two people producing the majority of IMAX films, and filmmakers were reluctant to film in IMAX formats if their movies could only be shown in a limited IMAX setting.

IMAX had to quickly develop a way for filmmakers to gravitate toward their projection and filming methods. To do this, they created a new technology called DMR—or Digital Re-mastering. It would allow an already shot film of a different format to have its saturation, contrast, brightness, and other variables adjusted correctly into the chosen IMAX format. The first film to use this technology was Apollo 13 (1995). This was a huge success. People were sucked in, and now every film could be released into an IMAX theatre.

While IMAX was skyrocketing into new worlds and new investors, Roman Krotior worked hard on a system he devised called SANDDE. SANDDE was a side hustle of IMAX technology that allowed artists to draw in full stereoscopic 3D. Considered the world’s first freehand 3D animation system, the device's name was a play on the Japanese term for "3D," pronounced as "San-D."  

While working on We Are Born of Stars(1985), Kroitor became frustrated with the technical

complications of adapting computer animation to work in 3D for IMAX Dome theatres. he began experimenting with various technologies to minimize the amount of mathematics and engineering necessary to animate in 3D.  

Paul Kroitor, Roman Krotior’s son, who also worked alongside his father on We Are Born of Stars(1985), recalled a lack of general-purpose animation software at the time. This greatly complicated the production and forced the team to generate each shot with a uniquely designed Fortran program. The team used an array of more than a thousand Zilog Z80 microprocessors running together sequentially, and they filled an entire room.

Even though they were working with some of the most modern equipment, generating a single frame for the finished film took hours. Roman Kroitor found the experience of talking with mathematicians and programmers frustrating because he was used to talking with experienced and creative animators such as Colin Low. Roman Kroitor quickly became disappointed that they couldn’t capture movement qualities like a gifted animator could.

At some point in the project, Roman Kroitor approached Nelson Max, a Livermore Labs specialist in computer imaging working on the project, to inquire about possibly producing 3D computer graphics differently. According to Roman Kroitor, Max was insulted by the thought of an artist working with or developing computer software that would simplify the process of creating art., but that was precisely what Kroitor wanted: a technology that would allow the animator who worked with computer graphics to “just draw the damn thing.”

From there, Kroitor would dive into Computer Animated Drawing (CAD) programs in the late 1980s and began learning the coding language Basic. At this time, Kroitor worked mainly out of  IMAX’s Toronto headquarters but had plans to move to Quebec with his family and a house already under construction. 

During one visit to the construction site, Kroitor and his son Paul used the CAD program he had installed on an early IBM PC to model an image of the kitchen they intended to build. Once the two drew an adequate model, they used the program’s camera function to produce two images of the planned kitchen space. Kroitor then had Paul write the code for a simple program that would facilitate alternating the two images. When they looked at the alternating images with synchronized alternate-eye glasses developed for Echoes of the Sun(1990), they saw the kitchen they intended to build in perfect stereoscopic 3D.

Over the following six months, Kroitor took the first steps to develop a new technology based on what he had learned from the CAD experiment. By now, Kroitor was in his mid-60s, but his technical skills were still sharp. He would then write a simple program for animating a cursor in three-dimensional space that was viewable in anaglyph 3D. 

The concept of SANDDE animation was simple but abstract. The artist used a stylus with a 3D display and 3D glasses to see their work in 3D as they freely drew it. In contrast to users of standard 3D modeling programs like Maya and After Effects, SANDDE users drew in real space, and their artwork was rendered in the air in front of them as a real-time trace of their movement. 

Krotior’s first system wasn’t technically remarkable, but one could facilitate the cursor’s movement on the x, y, and z-axes with assigned keys on the computer’s keyboard. At the same time that he was developing this software, Roman Kroitor had purchased a Polhemus motion tracker in hopes that it would enable him to draw the cursor position in real space. The device was a wand with a magnetic sensor at one end that sent position information to a magnetic receiver. However, this idea was quickly dismissed.

During a visit to his father’s home, Paul Kroitor assisted his father in completing the user interface and upgrading his programming skills to Quick Basic. He installed a draw button on the wand that would allow the user to regulate the signal sent to the computer and adapted the system so that the 3D functioned in alternate-eye 3D instead of anaglyph. With these improvements, Roman Kroitor had a crude system for drawing stereoscopic 3D images in real space.

Kroitor’s next step was developing a system for recording and transposing the spatial information of the user’s movements using a motion tracker to define movement in three-dimensional space. This involved using a “wand” to drag an object while recording its movement. Roman Kroitor also added a feature to the software that he initially called “Tweening” to produce the in-betweens representing frames in animated movement. This tool was eventually renamed “Polypose.”

The resulting software was the Stereoscopic Animation Drawing Device, or SANDDE, which also allowed the user to use the wand's movement to stretch, warp, and move objects as if a puppeteer were working with real objects. 

In addition to determining cursor position through wand movement, the software enabled the user to map various controls to buttons or responsive surfaces on the wand or additional input devices such as a midi controller so that the animator could generate effects more effectively. For example, one could tilt the wand to produce variations in the thickness of lines, giving the design more character and definition.

From here, Roman Kroitor brought SANDDE to IMAX. From the corporation, he received $25,000 in funding to pay his son to create a drawing program to use as a demonstration for customers and clients of IMAX. With this funding, Paul and Roman Kroitor began programming SANDDE version one. However, Paul notes that they originally called it version four because they counted Roman Kroitor’s early experiments as versions one, two, and three. The resulting client demonstration only worked as a drawing and frame-by-frame animation platform for movement creation, which had not yet been refined and integrated as a central feature of the software. However, IMAX clients were still impressed.

Besides the financial support, IMAX provided their Sheraton Park engineers, who developed a stereoscopic viewing system for the animators working with SANDDE. The system these engineers developed a periscopic headset that functioned using a system of mirrors that deflected each eye to different display monitors. The system produced the illusion of 3D because the images on each monitor corresponded to the left and right images of a stereoscopic image. 

From there, Roman and Paul Kroitor persuaded IMAX to fund a movie, and the Kroitors hired Greg Labute to reprogram SANDDE. Labute was an ideal choice for this position because he had been trained as an animator and a computer programmer. The Kroitors knew of Labute because he lived next door to Munro Ferguson(Graham Ferguson’s son). Labute had heard about SANDDE thirdhand because Munro Ferguson was often asked to test the device. According to Paul Kroitor, the focus of Labute’s work when he joined the team was assembling a movement component system out of Roman Krotior’s Tweening program and fusing it with the demonstration drawing program that Paul Krotior had developed. 

Munro Ferguson would go on to create two projects produced with SANDDE. Falling in Love Again (2003) was a Genie Award-winning short about the Romance blossoming between a man and woman who fall from the sky after their cars collide on a narrow mountain road. June (2003) features an abstract ode to Munro Ferguson’s early mentor, Joyce Weiland, which he produced after her death in 1998. 

Joyce Weiland was a Canadian experimental filmmaker and mixed media artist best known for her 1971 True Patriot Love exhibition when it became the first solo exhibition by a living Canadian female artist at the National Gallery of Canada. Weiland and her spouse, Michael Snow, had lived with Betty and Munro Ferguson throughout the 1960s and 1970s in New York, and she heavily affected Munro’s career path in filmmaking and his artistic style. Weiland encouraged his education in ecological issues and passed along her creativity until her mind slowly disappeared into Alzheimer’s disease.

To complete these films, the Kroitors hired the producer Steve Hoban and a small staff of

animators and other industry professionals. Among these individuals was the animator, Peter

Stephenson, who had studied animation with Labute at Montreal’s Concordia University and

who headed the SANDDE beta-testing site at the Nova Scotia College of Art and

Design. 

While Labute and the Kroitors were developing a more advanced version of SANDDE, they were also troubleshooting version six, which was used to animate the first SANDDE films, Paint Misbehavin’ (1996) and Cyberworld (2000).

Only three professional IMAX films would ever use the SANDDE system before the company disbanded research into the technology. The first film was called Paint Misbehavin' (1997).

Paint Misbehavin’ is a two-minute short film co-directed by Peter Stephenson and Kroitor. It was initially shown before the holiday film The IMAX Nutcracker (1996). In the whimsical short, a young child attempts to paint a sign that hangs above a theatre screen. He falls from his ladder, and the paint spills in every direction. This film was a complex undertaking, but it tested what would come in Cyberworld 3D.