Large-format films have traditionally climbed mountains, dived to the bottom of the ocean, but have never turned and looked to our own bodies as a place for exploration

Richard Dale Human Body writer-producer

Highlights include giant views of food digesting inside the stomach, a baby growing in the womb and even an enormous acne spot.

The filmmakers worked with research scientists and new specialist imaging technology.

Vital mix

"Bringing these elements together produced images that may theoretically have been possible in the past, but have never been made before because the vital mix of people and tools simply hadn't been achieved," said writer-producer Richard Dale.

Image from a high-resolution thermal camera

The release on Imax of The Human Body marks a departure for the format.

"Large-format films have traditionally climbed mountains, dived to the bottom of the ocean, but have never turned and looked to our own bodies as a place for exploration," said Mr Dale.

"Technology makes it possible to think about our lives differently and to suddenly realise how marvellous the human body is," he said.

Technical advances

The film's director-producer, Peter Georgi, said that despite having worked for two and a half years on The Human Body television series, working in a large format like Imax had been a big thing to learn.

Cycling to school in X-ray view

The film makes use of new technical advances.

"We have shot interviews in a way that's only beginning to be used in large-format films on new high-definition video cameras.

"We had the first one available in Europe."

"We used the highest-definition thermal-imaging camera in the world, which is a British military camera, the sort of thing that would have been used in Desert Storm," he said.

Giant baby skeleton crawls across Imax screen

Like its television counterpart, the film is narrated by the fertility specialist and broadcaster Professor Robert Winston.

After the Science Museum premiere, the Human Body will run in Imax cinemas across the UK:

• The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford
• Glasgow Science Centre
• UCI Filmworks in Manchester
• Imax Theatre at Bristol
• Imax Theatre at Millennium Point, Birmingham.