Behind the Scenes

The first OMNIMAX® theater in the world opened at the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater in San Diego in 1973. The Rangos Omnimax Theater opened October 5, 1991, as well as the opening of Carnegie Science Center.

The selected film usually arrives in ten to fourteen pieces that are assembled by a ultra sonic splicer which uses high frequency sound waves to melt the pieces of film together. Once the film is assembled, it is checked against the 35mm magnetic soundtrack to ensure that everything is properly "synced". In final format, each film estimates to be 49 minutes long, three miles in length, at a weight of 200 pounds. That's enough film to stretch from Carnegie Science Center to the Natural History Museum in Oakland!

A 15,000 watt, short-arc Xenon lamp is used to project the film through an 1800 fisheye lens onto a 79 foot diameter perforated aluminum dome. The sound is transmitted through a six-channel Sonics Proportional Point Source (PPS) loudspeaker system. Each channel has a digital equalizer to ensure proper acoustics and 2,000 watts of power. This yields a total of 15,200 watts of sound through a total of 44 speakers which are designed to eliminate variations in both volume and sound quality over the theater seating area.

Rangos Omnimax Theater is sponsored by
The John G. Rangos Sr. Family Charitable Foundation.