highlights from the history of motion picture formats

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE HISTORY
OF MOTION PICTURE FORMATS
By RICHARD PATTERSON
The history of technical developments in motion pictures is a relatively
poorly documented field, even though it
spans less than 1 00 years. Because of
the spontaneous development of techniques on many fronts it is often difficult to say who did what first. Moreover, because it was a field so open to
commercial exploitation, experimenters
often worked in complete secrecy, and
many of the accounts we have of early
developments were written by people
who had no way of knowing what
others were doing in the same field.
Historical accounts are also subject to a
very natural chauvinistic bias, and it is
often quite revealing to read accounts of
early developments written from a
French or Russian perspective.
All this is simply by way of saying
that this article is not intended to be a
contribution to scholarly research in the
history of motion picture technology. It
is simply meant to be a survey culled
from a variety of publications which
sums up some of the highlights in the
development of motion picture formats.
My concern has not been to make
judgments as to who invented or introduced a particular format, but to examine the major trends and indicate what
some of the sources were. The criterion
used in selecting developments was
simply the impact that they had on the
Throughout its relatively short history, the film
form has assumed a wide variety of shapes and sizes
industry as a whole. This is, admittedly,
an arbitrary criterion, and I do not by
any means wish to slight the significance
of developments which have not (yet!)
affected the industry at large. Had I
been writing in 1950, I might very well
have passed over Henri Chretien's anamorphic lens as an interesting but
essentially irrelevant development in the
history of motion picture technology.
The history of motion pictures has
been one continuous experiment with
various film widths and projection formats. In addition to 8mm, 16mm,
35mm, 65mm and 70mm, there have
been as many as 25 other film widths
used for motion pictures. Film historians are always amused by the implication that wide films are something
new, since some of the earliest experiments in motion picture photography
used film over 60mm wide. In 1897, for
example, Enoch J. Rector photographed
the Corbett-Fitzsimmons prize fight
using 63mm film. He had about 20 of
his Veriscope projection machines
made, and the fight films were exhibited
all over the country.
Thirty-five millimeter became the
standard film width simply because Edison chose to work with 35mm film.
Since he sold more equipment than his
competitors in this country 35mm became more widely adopted. In 1895,
Lumiere, in France, redesigned his Cinematograph to be compatible with the
kind of film Edison used so that he
could take advantage of the motion
pictures produced by Edison's company . Prior to that Lumiere had used
35mm film with a single round perforation for each frame. In 1907 an agree ment was reached standardizing 35mm
film, and in 1916 the formation of the
Society of Motion Picture Engineers
furthered the trend toward standardization.
The fact that Edison chose to use
35mm film with four perforations on
each side of the frame also resulted in
the 4 x 3 format which became standard
for the motion picture frame and
screen. It has been suggested that if
Edison had been designing his original
film for projection rather than for viewing in a Kinetoscope, then he would
have naturally designed a wider format,
since he would have thought in terms of
a stage. As it was, though, the 4 x 3
format became standardized, and there
was little real impetus to change it until
the advent of sound.
This is not to say that there were not
other formats used. During the first
decades of motion pictures, there was of
course a plethora of film formats and
screen sizes. One of the most striking
experiments and perhaps the first
(LEFT) The original Cinerama system used three interlocked Mitchell cameras and a triple projection system, projecting three butted-together
images onto a deeply curved screen measuring 90 feet by 26 feet. (RIGHT) The 800-pound, $100,000 Cinerama camera pretty well fills up a small
tent in its position to shoot a scene of Debbie Reynolds, Karl Malden and Carroll Baker for the MGM-Cinerama production, "HOW THE WEST WAS
WON".
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
(LEFT) Three-time Academy Award-winning Director of Photography Robert Surtees, ASC (white hatl lines up a scene during filming of
"OKLAHOMA" with the 70mm Todd-AO camera that utilized an extreme wide-angle "bugeye" lens. (RIGHT) On location for "DANGER
LIGHTS" which was made using the Spoor-Berggren 63mm camera and also a standard Mitchell 35mm camera. The late Robert De Grasse, ASC is
shown behind the 63mm camera, while Burnett Guffey, ASC sits near the Mitchell. A specially constructed railroad car was provided to house the
63mm camera equipment.
"wide-screen" presentation was Raoul
Grimoin·Sanson's Cineorama patented
in 1897. His system consisted of ten
synchronized projectors projecting from
a central booth onto a huge circular
screen . Cineorama was presented at the
Paris Exposition of 1900, but, needless
to say. it was not commercially exploitable in the way conventional motion
pictures were.
Another remarkable experiment was
Abel Gance's Polyvision technique used
for certain sequences in his 1927 film
Napoleon. Polyvision consisted of three
projectors projecting conventional
35mm film onto three conventional
screens attached side by side. The three
screens were filled with one continuous
panoramic image or used to present
three different images simultaneously.
The effect was spectacular largely because of the imagination with which
Gance used the technique. M.G .M. acquired the film for distribution in the
U.S. but released only a conventional
35mm print of it because they felt the
task of converting theaters for Polyvision was too great. The Tryptych
sequences were reduced so that the
three panels fitted into a single 35mm
frame , and the entire film was re -edited
drastically.
A much simpler technique for expanding the screen size during certain
spectacular scenes was introduced in
1924 by Lorenzo Del Riccio and called
Magnascope. It consisted of installing a
screen which was four times the normal
size and using a wider-angle lens to
project the special sequence. The extra
screen area was masked off by curtains
until the sequence began, and then the
curtains were opened up so that the
image seemed to expand to four t.imes
its original size. Magnascope was used
for the finale of Old Ironsides in 1926
and was considered a success. Most
theater owners did not bother to adapt
their facilities for Magnascope, since
they did not need to lure customers,
and the films could be shown on a
conventional screen . The technique was
last used in Portrait of Jennie in 1949
and soon after was made obsolete by
the advent of Cinemascope.
At the beginning of the sound era
there was a great deal of interest in wide
film formats. Many people had been
developing wide screen formats using
wide films for ten or twelve years , but
there was little interest in changing the
standard 1.33:1 35mm format until the
presence of the sound track on the film
began to cramp the picture area. Several
wide film formats were introduced in
1929 and 1930, but they were all
short-lived. Perhaps the most prominent
of these was Grandeur, a 70mm format
developed by the Fox company and
used for Happy Days in 1929 and The
Big Trail in 1930. Mitchell Camera
Corp. built the 70mm cameras, and a
70mm projector was developed which
was easily convertible to 35mm for
conventional use.
Another wide film format called Nat-
The 70mm wide-5ereen format is nothing new. The Fox Company introduced its 70mm Grandeur
system in the early 1930's in an effort to provide better image quality for projection on large
theatre screens. Here a contemporary diagram compares its frame size to that of standard 35mm
film. The 70mm format is still "the widest film now in use."
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AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, JANUARY, 1973
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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41
ural Vision was developed over a tenyear period by George K. Spoor and P.
John Berggren. They designed a camera
to take 63mm film, and RKO used the
system side by side with a normal
35mm camera to shoot Danger Lights in
1930. Magnifilm, a 56mm (?) format
developed by Lorenzo del Riccio, was
used by Paramount in 1929 for We're In
the Navy Now, and Warner Brothers
used a 65mm format for Kismet in 1930
and The Lash in 1931. M.G.M . entered
the race with a wide screen process
called Realife in 1930 . Realife used a
wide-gauge film in the camera, but
reduced the image onto 35mm film for
projection by means of wide-angle
lenses. King Vidor used the process for
his 1930 Billy the Kid, and it was used
again in 1931 for Great Meadow. Another 65mm format was used for The
Bat Whispers released by United Artists
in 1930. None of these wide screen
formats survived as such past 1931,
since the cost of converting theaters and
laboratories was simply too great at the
time . The advent of sound had already
necessitated costly conversions , and the
Depression made further conversions
totally unfeasible.
One of the most interesting aspects
of the flurry of interest in wide screen
formats around 1930 was the theoretical discussions regarding the ideal format, or aspect ratio, for the motion
picture screen. In developing the Magnifilm format, Lorenzo del Riccio is
reported to have done a statistical survey of paintings of the old masters at
the Metropolitan Museum of Art to
determine what proportions were considered best for a painting. He arrived at
the conclusion that 1.85:1 was the
"golden ratio" and designed his Magnifilm format accordingly. Similarly, in
the 1930 Cinematographic Annual, Dr.
L.M. Dietrich cites the "excellent and
exhaustive work of Lloyd A. Jones, C.L.
Gregory, W.B . Rayton, A.S. Howell, J.A.
Dubray, F. Westen berg, etc." which
"brought about the so-far-unrefuted result that a 5 x 8 proportion of a picture
frame rectangle conforms most closely
to the rectangles appearing in the outstanding records of beauty in the known
history of art." This, of course, would
be an aspect ratio of 1 .60: 1.
Dietrich himself goes on to examine
the psychological and physiological basis for the preference for these proportions. He measures the field of vision for
the human eyes, taking into account the
effort required to move the eyes vertically or laterally, and comes up with a
theoretical explanation for the choice of
a 5 x 8 rectangle. He also undertakes an
analysis of "nature's beauty laws" and
comes up with the conclusion that the
42
Fig. 1. Edison; on Eastman film (1891 ).
Fig. 2. Corbett-Fitzsimmons prize fight
on 63mm Eastman film; Enoch J. Rectors's Veriscope Co. (1897).
Fig.
3. 60mm
photographe by
(France, 1895).
ChronoDemeny
"classical" rectangle of 1:1.681 is "the
geometrical and mathematical basis or
fundamental expression of a system of
proportions manifesting itself in all cosmic phenomena."
William Stull's discussion of the
Grandeur format in a 1930 issue of
American Cinematographer provides another interesting glimpse into the kind
of thinking behind the development of
wide screen formats . The Fox Company's considerations were pragmatic as
well as aesthetic. Stull cites, first of all,
the need for larger screens because of
the growth of movie audiences and says
that a larger film format was necessary
to preserve image quality when projected onto larger screens. He then goes
on to discuss the reasons for changing
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the aspect ratio along with the film
width :
Firstly, the addition of the soundtrack has reduced the width of the -,
picture-area, which was already regarded ,
as somewhat too narrow; secondly, the
advent of the stage-revue type of picture
has made the need for a roomier format
more apparent.
Under the old system-before the \ .
addition of the sound track altered the
proportions of the picture--many Directors, Cinematographers, and Art-Directors considered the standard four-tothree proportions of the "frame" too
high in relation to its width to be
perfect artistically. Now, with the
sound-track reducing this already static
proportion to nearly a square, even the
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, JANUARY. 1973
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
public feels the need of a more dynamic
proportion for the picture. This is plainly evidenced by the numerous expedients used by theatre-owners to restore
even the old rectangular proportions by
means of reduced projector apertures
and shorter-focus lenses.
It was to meet this condition that,
several years ago, the engineers of the
Fox Company decided to devise a more
practical film standard. After long experimentation, with literally hundreds
of different frame-sizes and proportions,
they finally determined upon the
present Grandeur standard as the most
suitable artistically and economically.
Viewed from the mechano-artistic viewpoint, the proportions of the Grandeur
frame are midway between the static
root-four rectangle (2 x 4 units) and the
dynamic root-five proportion (2 x 4.5
units). The actual dimensions of the
Grandeur frame are as stated 22'hmm x
48mm.
Viewed from a practical viewpoint,
the Grandeur proportions offer many
advantages to all concerned. The director can film his spectacular scenes and
stage or dancing numbers to their best
advantage, with fewer cuts-and no need
of closeups. The cameraman has greater
scope in his composition and considerable advantages in his lighting. For instance, the present disproportionately
Continued on Page 64
Fig. 4. 2~-in. special film for Burton
Holmes by Prestwich (British).
Fig. 5. 62mm, modified American Mutoscope
and Biograph (American, 1895).
Portions of the illustrative material presented
here are reproduced courtesy of the Journal
of the SMPTE.
Fig. 7. 50mm, Graphophonoscope,
sound on film, by Skladowsky (French,
1899).
Fig. 6. 2i-ffi., American Mutoscope and Bi~
graph (British, 1895).
Fig. 8. Round perforations
on 35mm film by Lumiere
(French, 1895).
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, JANUARY, 1973
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
43
MOTION PICTURE FORMATS
Continued from Page 43
high sets necessitated by the more nearly square picture have made such things
as backlighting increasingly difficult. In
fact, in many cases, true backlighting is
impossible, and what passes for it is
really top-lighting, which must be very
carefully counterbalanced by skillful arrangement of the floor lighting unitsand is even then unsatisfactory. Similarly, Art-directors are confronted with
grave problems in the design and artistic
ornamentation of the higher sets.
Now, however, in Grandeur, all of
these problems are reduced. Direction
of expansive scenes is simplified, for the
proportions of the 70mm frame are
such as to give ample scope for all
movements with, at the same time,
adequately large figures. The Cinematographer's task is lightened, inasmuch as the sets do not have to be made
nearly so high, allowing the back-lighting to strike at more effective and
natural angles. Dance scenes need no
longer be "followed" as there is ample
room in a normal long-shot for all the
lateral movement used in most dances.
In practice, composition in the new
format does not present nearly the
difficulty that would be expected at
first thought.
More recent discussions of wide
screen formats have tended, of course,
to cite simply the fact that the field of
human vision extends about 40° horizontally and 20° vertically, not counting peripheral vision, without going into
the kind of analysis Dietrich undertook.
This can be seen as a justification for
aspect ratios around 2:1. It can also be
One of the more exotic formats, Circarama,
provided a 360-degree image by mounting
nine cameras in a circle and shooting through
overhead mirrors. Note control box in foreground.
In 1952, in an effort to compete with the rapidly-growing television medium, 20th Century-Fox
introduced its anamorphic system known as Cinemascope to theater audiences and it was an
immediate hit. Shown here, photographed directly off the screen, is a scene from "THE ROBE",
the first feature to be produced in Cinemascope.
combined with theories about perception and audience involvement to result
in the recommendation that the screen
be larger than the normal field of vision,
so that the viewer must choose the
portion of the image towards which he
will direct his attention at any given
moment. All of this raises theoretical
and aesthetic questions which extend
far beyond the scope of this article.
Wide film formats disappeared from
the scene temporarily in 1931, and
when they reappeared again in the
fifties many people had forgotten that
they had been used so widely before.
Narrow-gauge "amateur" films, on the
other hand, came to stay; and the
emergence of narrow-gauge films is
probably more of an indication of progress in motion picture technology than
the occasional reappearance of wide
film formats. Narrow films depend on
the development of photographic emulsions which are refined enough to yield
acceptable images within the smaller
frame. The introduction of a true amateur film also required the development
of a safety base.
Like everything else, however, narrow-gauge films have been around since
the turn of the century. Birt Acres
introduced a 17 .5mm camera and projector in 1899 which used conventional
35mm film split in half, and Biokam
used a 17 .5mm film with a single
perforation between each frame also in
1899. In 1912 Pathe Kok introduced a
28mm projector and 28mm safety film
for projection of reduction prints from
35mm originals. The real narrow-gauge
revolution began, however, in 1923
when Eastman Kodak introduced their
16mm reversal safety film, and Pathe
introduced their 9.5mm format.
1930 saw the advent of the 16mm
sound projector, and, in 1932, Eastman
Kodak introduced their 8mm (or Dou-
The first Cinemascope lens, used in filming
"THE ROBE", was an auxiliary element very
similar to the original developed by Henri
Chretien in 1927 and optioned from him.
ble 8mm) system using 16mm film in >
the camera which was split when processed. As emulsions improved 16mm began to be used professionally, and in
1965 the Super-8mm format was introduced. The 9.5mm format was widely
used in Europe until the Second World \.
War when it fell into disuse. Probably
the smallest-gauge motion picture film
to date is the 3mm format developed by
Eric Berndt in 1960. Today, of course,
Super-8 has acquired a professional
status, and 16mm or Super-16 is being
used for shooting theatrical features.
Continued on Page 84
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, JANUARY, 1973
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Fig. 9. Triple perforations on frameline on
35mm film ( European,
ca. 1910 ).
Fig. 10. Quadruple perforation on frameline; three
10mm episodes on 30m:n
reel ( French, ca. 1910 ).
Fig. 11. Edison
home movies; 2
rows metal Bell
& Howell perforation s separating three episodes for rack
over (American,
ca. 1910 ).
Fig. 12. Twin 16mm film
pack separated by individual
rectangular
sprocket holes on Kodak
film
by
Vincennes
!French, 1920 ).
Fig. 13. Twin 16mm with
soundtrack w ith single
perforation
( American,
ca. 1925 ).
Fig. 14. 3mm, center frameline perforation by Eric Berndt (American, ca.
1960 ).
Fig. 15. 8mm, edge perforation used with
reel instead of film pack (American, ca.
1915 ).
Fig. 16. 9.5mm single center frameline
perforation with variable area for soundtrack (Spanish, ca. 1930 ).
Fig. 17. llmm, Mutt & Jeff cartoon ;
single center frameline perforation;
duplex (American, ca. 1916 ).
Fig. 18. 13mm, center frameline perforation (British, ca. 1920).
Fig. 19. 13mm, quadruple frameline perforation (French ca. 1925 ).
14
15
16
17
Fig. 20. 28mm safety film four perforations on side and one frameline perforation on opposite edge by Vincennes
(French, ca. 1918).
18
19
lt
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0
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ll
'
Fig. 21. 28mm, safety film; Eastman. Four
perforations each edge (American, ca.
1918 ).
Fig. 22. 28mm, nitrate stock with round
perforations (ca.1914).
20
21
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER. JANUARY, 1973
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
22
65
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84
MOTION PICTURE FORMATS
Continued from Page 64
Many theaters now have 16mm projec·
tion facilities, and the development of
wet-gate printing has made it possible to
get high-quality 35mm prints from
16mm originals.
The big revolution in commercial
motion picture formats started in 1952
with the introduction of Cinerama, fol·
lowed immediately by the introduction
of CinemaScope. The technical processes involved in the Cinerama and
CinemaScope formats had been in existence for as long as twenty years, but it
took the competition of television to
make the motion picture industry at
large interested in exploiting them commercially.
Cinerama was the name Fred Waller
gave his multiple camera format when
he revamped it after the Second World
War. Originally his system, which was
used for a special presentation at the
1939 World's Fair in New York and was
called Vitarama, consisted of 11 projec·
tors projecting simultaneously onto a
huge curved screen with a quarter dome
on top. From this he developed a
five-camera system which was used during World War II to train gunners by
projecting films of aircraft onto a huge
spherical screen. In 1952 Lowell
Thomas and Merian C. Cooper produced
This Is Cinerama, which demonstrated
the viability of Waller's revamped system. It was a smashing success, and
Cinerama was used for seven productions including How the West Was Won
and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in 1962.
The original Cinerama system used
three interlocked cameras and a triple
projection system projecting images
onto a deeply curved screen measuring 90 feet by 26 feet and composed of
1100 overlapping vertical strips of perforated tape set at angles like the slats
of a Venetian blind. The separate images
overlapped slightly and were blended
together by a mechanical device on the
projectors called a "gigolo," which diffused the edge of the image so that
there was effectively one image on the
screen. The Cinerama camera had three
27mm lenses mounted at 48° angles so
that the overall field of view was 146°
wide and 55° high. The camera used
35mm film, but it was designed so that
the frame had 6 perforations rather than
4. It also ran at 26 frames per second in
order to eliminate shutter flicker in
projection. For exhibition a fourth film
carried six magnetic sound tracks, and
the impact of Cinerama was at least
partially due to the effective use of
stereophonic sound. (Stereophonic
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, JANUARY, 1973
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
-~
sound had been used earlier in some
presentations of Fantasia, but it was
included as an integral part of Cinerama.)
The success of Cinerama (and the
need to compete with television) caused
the industry once again to take up wide
screen formats. Cinerama spawned other
similar multiple film systems such as
Cinemiracle, Thrillarama, and Wonderama; but the most significant response was the introduction of Cinemascope, in which a wide screen image
is obtained by means of an anamorphic
lens.
An anamorphic lens systematically
distorts an image so that it can be
restored to normal by another complementary lens. The idea for an anamorphic process was first patented in 1862,
and one of the earliest uses of anamorphic lenses was in an additive two-color
system developed by Ernst Zollinger in
Italy in 1910. He used an anamorphic
lens to compress the image vertically so
that he could put two different colored
images on each frame. In projection the
images were unsqueezed and superimposed. In 1927 Henri Chretien of
France designed the anamorphic lens
which was to be the basis of CinemaScope. His lens compressed the image
horizontally by a ratio of two-to-one so
that it was possible to project an image
twice as wide as the conventional image
using conventional film in a camera with
a conventional film transport mechanism. In 1935 Paramount Pictures took
an option on his system, but only used
it to shoot ten reels of test footage.
Chretien himself presented the system
at the Paris Exhibition in 1937, but it
was not unti I 1952 that the system was
adopted for commercial use. Twentieth
Century-Fox optioned the system, shot
some tests and then announced that all
of their productions would be done in
this process which they renamed CinemaScope. The first CinemaScope production was The Robe released in 1953.
The CinemaScope image originally
had an aspect ratio of 2.66:1, but it was
reduced to 2.55:1 in order to make
room for 4-track magnetic sound. At
first all CinemaScope releases had only
the four channel magnetic sound tracks,
but after a year or so, release prints
were made with a conventional optical
track, as well as the magnetic tracks, in
an effort to encourage more theater
owners to adapt for CinemaScope. Even
prior to this concession, however, CinemaScope was a booming success; and
most of the other studios began producing films in CinemaScope or a similar anamorphic process. The addition of
the optical sound track resulted in a
further reduction of the picture area so
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i
Festival Week: May 8-13, 1973
Entry Deadline: April 24, 1973
I
·\
Entry Forms and Information:
AI Nakas
MIDWEST FILM FESTIVAL
Union Building-M.S.U.
East Lansing, Mi. 48823
phone: (517) 355-3354
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
I
86
that the aspect ratio became the now
standard 2.35:1.
The third wave in the wide screen
revolution came when Michael Todd left
Cinerama in 1953 and joined forces
with American Optical Co. to produce
Todd-AO, a 65mm non-anamorphic
wide screen system. The impact of
Todd-AO on the industry is largely due
to the fact that Todd was able to mount
Oklahoma as the first production in the
new format.
T odd-AO was a completely redesigned system intended to achieve the
impact of Cinerama in a much simpler
fashion. Mitchell designed a 65mm
Todd-AO camera which pulls down five
perforations at a time, so that the image
area is about 3Y2 times that of conventional 35mm film. For making prints, a
70mm film is used so that there is
additional room outside the perforations for magnetic sound tracks. It is
projected onto a curved screen with an
aspect ratio of 2.2:1. Oklahoma was
released in 1955 followed by Around
the World in Eighty Days and South
Pacific in 1956 and 1958.
The inevitable combination of anamorphic lenses with wide film came
with the introduction of Ultra-Panavision, first used by M.G.M. under the
trade name Camera 65 for the photography of Raintree County in 1957. UltraPanavision uses a 65mm camera with
anamorphic lenses having a squeeze
ratio of 1.5:1 rather than 2:1 as in
Cinemascope. The image is squeezed
further in printing so that the final
image is compatible with Cinemascope
projection lenses. The aspect ratio of
Ultra-Panavision when projected in
70mm is 2.75:1 but Ultra-Panavision
pictures are often released in 35mm so
that the aspect ratio is 2.35:1 as was the
case with Raintree County. UltraPanavision was also designed to permit
release in the 3-projector Cinerama format, though, of course, the original
Cinerama system was eventually replaced in most theaters by a 70mm
projection system designed to be compatible with Todd-AO.
In 1954 Paramount introduced its
VistaVision format designed to produce
high-quality images on wide screens,
while avoiding the drawbacks of the
anamorphic or wide film systems that
had been introduced by its competitors.
VistaVision uses conventional 35mm
film, but it runs through the camera
horizontally with eight perforations per
frame, so that a wide screen image is
produced on the negative which is about
twice as wide as a conventional 35mm
image.
The concept of achieving a wide
screen image by placing the image horiAMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, JANUARY, 1973
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
\.
zontally on conventional 35mm film
was suggested as early as 1929 by
Captain Ralph G. Fear in an article in
American Cinematographer. Rather
than run the film through the gate
horizontally, however, he advocated the
use of an optical system which would
turn the image on its side. The same sort
of optical system was used in Douglas
Leigh's Glamorama system presented in
1953. When Paramount took over the
development of Leigh's system, however, they eliminated the use of such an
optical system and renamed the format
VistaVision.
In designing their wide screen format, Paramount felt that the aspect
ratio for Cinemascope was too long and
narrow so they opted for the "golden
ratio" of 1.85:1 At the same time, they
designed the system so that it would be
as compatible as possible with other
existing projection systems. At its best
VistaVision was projected with a special
projector running the film horizontally
and projecting a 1.85:1 image using a
contact print from the negative. The
first VistaVision production, White
Christmas, was presented in this manner
at Radio City Music Hall in 1954, and
critics were impressed with the image
quality.
For theaters which could not convert
their projection systems, VistaVision
productions were released in two ways.
A flat 35mm reduction print was made
for cropped projection at an aspect ratio
of 1.66:1 to 1.85: l, or squeezed 35mm
reduction prints were made for projection with anamorphic lenses at an aspect
ratio comparable to CinemaScope. The
first of these methods was popular,
since many theaters had adopted the
practice of cropping conventional
35mm prints to a 1.85:1 aspect ratio in
order to use a wide screen. Flat VistaVision prints included special square
framing marks in two places at the start
of each reel as references for the projectionist in setting his frame for the 1.33,
1.66, or 1.85 ratio. VistaVision, because
of the size of the original image, offered
by far the best quality image for projection in this manner. At the same time,
Paramount maintained that, when projected in its original size, VistaVision
offered a superior image to wide film
formats because the film received better
support in the projector gate and was
not subject to bowing in the way a wide
film was.
The combination of VistaVision's
horizontal frame with the use of anamorphic lenses came in 1957 with the
advent of Technirama 70. Technirama
uses camera lenses with a 1.5:1 squeeze
ratio (rather than the 2:1 squeeze of
Cinemascope) and produces an image
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CAMERA MART"<-
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456 W. 55th ST., NEW YORK, N.Y. 10019 • (212) 757-6977
~RENTALS
SALES
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, JANUARY, 1973
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
~
SERVICE
87
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88
which is either unsqueezed onto 70mm
film or squeezed further and reduction·
printed onto 35mm film for projection
at 2.55~1 or 2.35:1 like Todd·AO or
Cinemascope. In a few instances, special
anamorphic projection lenses were
made, so that a contact print of the
horizontal frame could be projected by
a VistaVision horizontal projector.
A variety of other wide screen sys·
terns involving various kinds of anamor·
phic lenses and wide films were spawned
in the fifties, many of which were
simply an existing process with a dif·
ferent name or with only slight modifi·
cations. One other unique process, how·
ever, which is widely used in various
countries under different names is the
process known here as Techniscope.
Techniscope is a wide screen process
using a conventional 35mm film and
non-anamorphic camera lenses. The
Techniscope camera is modified to pull
down 2 perforations at a time, and the
camera aperture is reduced to produce
an original image which is half the size
of the conventional 4 x 3 35mm frame.
The image has an aspect ratio compara·
ble to Cinemascope, and it is optically
printed to yield a squeezed print com·
patible with conventional anamorphic
projection systems. The chief advan·
tages of Techniscope are the fact that it
uses half as much camera negative and
permits the use of conventional camera
lenses. It was introduced in 1963 and is
still widely used.
There have also been a variety of
systems developed in an attempt to
improve on the use of a deeply curved
screen in Cinerama. One process which
was widely hailed in 1957 was Cinemira·
cle, a three-camera process similar to
Cinerama, but using mirrors in the
camera set up and the projection sys· ,
tern. A variety of systems have been
designed to permit the use of a deeply
curved screen with only one projector,
including the Arc-120 system developed
in England, the Smith-Carney system
developed in 1958, the French Heraclo·
rama system, and the Dimension-150
system developed by Richard Vetter
and Carl W. Williams at U.C.L.A. The
Arc-120 and Smith-Carney systems both
involved the positioning of parts of the
image within a 35mm frame so that
they could be projected through sepa·
rate optical systems onto the appropri· \
ate portion of the large curved screen.
Heraclorama and the Dimension-150
systems involve projection lenses with a
curved field of focus.
Attempts have also been made t<
expand on the Cinerama concept, result
ing in environmental projection systems
such as Disney's Circarama system pre
sented at the Brussels World Fair ir
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER. JANUARY, 1973
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1958 and subsequently installed at Disneyland. Circarama involves 11 cameras
and projectors projecting an image on a
cylindrical screen surrounding the viewer. For the 1962 World Exhibition in
Seattle a projection facility called the
"Spacearium" was designed for the presentation of 70mm film on a dome by
means of a special optical system. The
film presented was Journey to the Stars,
a 12-minute voyage through space via
special effects photography, and the
effect was similar to a planetarium in
motion. More recent world's fairs have
witnessed ever more elaborate environmental projection systems such as As·
trorama at Expo 70, but there is little
opportunity for such presentations to
affect the format for the commercial
exhibition of motion pictures.
World's fairs and exhibitions were
also one of the proving grounds for
multiple-image and split screen formats
which have, of course, influenced the
look of commercial motion pictures.
For the most part, multiple-image formats have been incorporated into conventional wide screen films simply by
using optical printers. A comparable
format which has been advocated for
some time is the so-called "dynamic
frame" in which the proportions of the
image vary according to the content. A
dynamic frame was achieved in the
British Film Institute's The Door in the
Wall in 1955 simply by matting portions
of a Cinemascope frame in printing.
Eisenstein was very interested in the
aesthetic possibilities of a dynamic
frame, and the Russians have developed
three systems of "varioscopic" cinematography. The most important of these
is Vario-70 using 70mm film with a
10-perforation pulldown, such that seven aspect ratios ranging from 2.35:1 to
0.46:1 can be used. The other systems,
Vario-35 and Vario-35A, employ conventional 35mm film with flat or anamorphic lenses.
Finally, no discussion of motion picture formats would be complete without some mention of the various attempts at stereoscopic or three dimensional presentations. As with wide
screen formats, experiments in three
dimensional motion pictures have been
going on since before 1900. The illusion
of depth can be achieved in various
ways. One of the earliest methods used
for motion pictures was that of the
stereopticon in which two separate
images were viewed independently by
each eye through the use of a viewer
with a divider separating the field of
vision for each eye. Stereopticons had,
of course, been popular with still photographs in the 19th century, but the
application of the technique to motion
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Box 12037, 1401 21st Avenue South
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AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, JANUARY, 1973
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
89
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pictures was limited. The first commercially viable three dimension technique
was conceived before the turn of the
century and exploited commercially under the name of Audioscopics in the
mid-thirties. Audioscopics involved two
images tinted complementary colors
(red and cyan) and viewed through
glasses with tinted lenses.
The greatest boost to three dimensional techniques came in 1932 when
the Polaroid company developed a way
of making inexpensive polaroid lenses,
so that the two images required for the
illusion of depth could be distinguished
by having opposite polarities. The 1939
New York World's Fair included an
extremely popular three dimensional
film presentation by John Norling employing the polaroid process. This system was refined over the years and
eventually used in the 3-D revolution
which swept the industry in 1953. As
with Cinerama, the competition of television was largely responsible for the
wide-spread commercial use of 3-D presentations. Many difficulties with the
system, including the nuisance of wearing viewing glasses and the necessity of
using two projectors at a time, incumbered the system and helped to bring
about its abandonment by most producers and exhibitors after a few years.
Another three dimensional system
which did not require viewing glasses
was refined by a Russian, Semyon Ivanov. Presented in 1941, it relied on a
special screen which reflected two different images at slightly different angles
and required that the audience hold
their heads in a fixed position throughout the screening.
The idea had been suggested as early
as 1896 by Berthier in France and
various experimentors had worked with
it over the years. It offered the advan- ,
tage of requiring only one projector
with a special optical system and was
used for several feature films starting
with a 1947 production of Robinson
Crusoe. It was not imported to the
United States, however, until 1955
when interest in three dimensional proc>-...
esses was waning.
It is difficult to speculate about
future developments in motion picture
formats. Direct projection of electronic
or videotape images onto large theater
screens will probably become an increasingly popular process. Perhaps holography will be perfected to the point
where three dimensional images will be
projected in theaters without screens.
One thing is certain, however: the motion picture industry will continue to
experiment with novel and unusual
ways to present its product to the
public.
•
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, JANUARY, 1973
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.