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For a period of time, the movies were THE entertainment medium. They wore this title proudly and strongly on a seemingly unstoppable course. But then television came along. TV hit with an amazingly powerful force, demolishing everything in its path. When TV caught on, the film industry was blindsided and as people started to stay home, the movie studios began to suffer. Caught in the first real ‘fight’ of their existence, the studios were forced to fight hard. Their first attempt to bring people back was by producing 3D films. This worked, but only for a while. The studios next thought that when it came to television, perhaps size did matter and so they made their next big move by enlarging the size of the screen
Wide screen cinema had been in the pipeline in various forms since the 1920’s. By the 1950’s it seemed as if every studio had some expanded film format working for them, some were carefully planned out, while others were rushed to the public following the smash success of Cinerama. What follows is a look at four of the most popular and/or influential film formats to come out of this period in film history.
Cinerama
This is for all intents and purposes, the Grandfather of the wide screen film format. Although Cinerama did not invent the wide screen film, it perfected it at this point in time. It was invented by Fred Waller, an amazing inventor who also was responsible for the 360-degree camera, water skis and the Waller Gunnery Trainer (a forerunner to arcade games).
A movie in Cinerama worked basically like this: the action was filmed using three strips of film, each one picking up a separate part of the scene. This film was then projected onto a massive screen simultaneously from three separate projectors. The resulting image completely immersed the viewer in the action. Cinerama exploded onto the national scene with ‘This is Cinerama’ in September of 1952. The film opened in New York to immediate acclaim and acceptance.
Although popular with the public, Cinerama was used with less enthusiasm by theatre owners. To exhibit Cinerama, not only did they have to extend their screens, they also had to add new projection booths, which meant eliminating some number of seats. These early technical and installation problems, greatly limited Cinerama’s growth. Although they continued until 1972, they never could revive their early excitement.
It’s interesting to note exactly how excited the public was over the ‘birth’ of Cinerama. Not only did they flock to see films in this format, but it wasn’t long before ‘rama’ became a part of the English language as names were altered to capitalize on the Cinerama popularity (laundrettes –launderamas, car dealers – autorama, etc.). Not only did Cinerama bring about name changes, it also spawned a host of ‘offspring’.
CinemaScope
One of the most famous and perhaps arguably the most durable (it remains in use today) wide screen process was introduced by 20th Century Fox in 1953. CinemaScope had been a work in progress for a number of years but when Cinerama burst into the public, Fox placed it on the fast track.
CinemaScope was actually 20th Century Fox’s second run at a large format film. In 1929 they released ‘Grandeur’ in 70mm (a traditional film is shown on 35mm film). It was a definite first attempt and there were still many things to work out. To engineer a better process, they hired Henri Chretien a French inventor who had developed a special anamorphic lens that would be needed for the wide screen process. This lens squeezed down it’s images by a basic factor of two, therefore when the image was projected it would look twice as large. This larger picture would of course need more sound and after many different trials, it was finally decided that the sound would be presented as a magnetic stripe on the film, the film it’s self had to be sent out and recut so that these new image and sound requirements would match up properly. After this, CinemaScope would stay generally the same until 1956. After a few more adjustments in the soundtrack, the aspect ration (the ratio at which the film is played back) was changed to 2.35:1. This remains the standard for anamorphic 35mm films today.
As stated, Cinemascope made it’s major public debut in 1953 when audiences flocked to see ‘The Robe’, an all-star spectacular, created specifically as a means to show off this new product. CinemaScope remained active until 1967 when it gave way to the more technically advanced Panavision.
Todd-AO
One of the biggest film showman of the 1950’s was Michael Todd. A producer of large film extravaganzas, one of Todd’s major projects was the development of Cinerama. He quickly became frustrated by the technical ‘limitations’ of this process so Todd sold his stake in the company and set out to find something different. In 1952, he partnered with the American Optical Company to create a film system that is centered around a 128-degree wide-angle lens. With the technology in place, he then went and formed alliances with a number of different partners to produce and distribute films in this new format. The showman that he was, Todd searched high and low for the perfect project which he could use to unveil his newest creation. In 1953 he was able to snatch up the rights to ‘Oklahoma’ (it had been a smash Broadway hit for several years before).
This new process shot film on 65mm stock and then projected it back at 30 frames per second (a 35mm film is projected at 24 frames per second). This faster speed helped to steady the larger image as it shined onto the screen. While these technical specifications produced a superior image quality, it also proved to be a hindrance to the growth of Todd-AO. Many smaller theatres didn’t see the need to update their equipment to accommodate what they felt was not the new standard film format but more of a ‘prestige’ format. Todd didn’t really help to sell his format to these smaller towns though as he would expound the virtues of using it to expand the ‘theatrical experience’ of the movies. He felt that when you saw a film in Todd-AO you were not just going to the movies, rather you were attending an experience and both the viewer and the theatre should treat it as such (including selling advance tickets and not allowing food or drink inside of the theatre).
VistaVision
VistaVision was brought to the marketplace by Paramount who, like so many others, was looking for an answer to Cinerama. Paramount was the last of the major studios to bring out a large screen format at this time (although they had been working with Henri Chretien before 20th Century Fox came in on the creation of a wide screen process). Having had no luck in trying to stem the tide of the large format film, Paramount joined the group with their offering which was based on the work of George Hill, a British engineer. With VistaVision, a frame of 35mm film was turned on its side and some perforations were added in. This new film had an aspect ratio of 1.5:1 (although by changing lens’ and apertures, this could be varied slightly). To cover the sound, VistaVision adopted the Perspecta Stereo sound system which was also in use at several other studios.
The first film released in this new process was ‘White Christmas’ in 1954. Paramount had a strong belief in making sure that the large screen format was used to enhance the story being told and not simply to make a film look more attractive. The problem with this format was a problem that many of these new formats faced, that the film exhibitors were not excited about purchasing and installing new equipment, in this case a new projector to screen this uniquely sized film. With virtually no place to show the films the format quickly fell out of favor. It did not die off completely though as it turned out to be a very useful tool in the field of special effects and is in fact still used today in this field.
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