Christopher Nolan will do whatever it takes to make the best version of his film possible. He is a big proponent of practical effects, and is specific about what film he uses when making his movies. Nolan even helped develop a new kind of film to be able to shoot Oppenheimer in both color and black and white 70mm IMAX. To get his intended result, that sometimes means big sacrifices as well, and apparently he made a major concession on Oppenheimer in order for the Los Alamos scene to be given the proper big screen treatment.
The production designer for Oppenheimer, Ruth De Jong, was recently interviewed on the Team Deakins podcast, which is hosted by legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins and his collaborator James Deakins. She opened up about working with Christopher Nolan on the 2023 biopic, and how the dramatic Los Alamos scene came to be. Always a diligent perfectionist, Nolan cut the film’s shooting schedule down from 85 days to 57 days, in order to give the team enough time and budget to build the massive set piece for the film. That expedited the shooting pace for the movie massively, which is a big change considering the 3 hour runtime.
