![]() By the late-1960s, no theaters possessed the intricate projection hardware and giant, curved screen necessary to project Cinerama. Other than This is Cinerama, none of the other Cinerama 3-panel travelogues were ever renewed because there was seemingly no need to do so. A seeming success, but the cost of building the infrastructure was also very expensive.įor a long time, the films were unavailable because it was assumed that the copyrights on the originals had expired, although in the case of This is Cinerama, the copyright was renewed in 1983. In June 1953 it moved to the Warner Theatre in New York, where it ran for another 88 weeks. ![]() Together, they premiered This is Cinerama on Septemat the Broadway Theatre in New York, where it ran for 35 weeks. Cooper had been an early investor in 3-strip Technicolor, as well as the co-director of King Kong (1933), and Reeves owned the sound company that developed Cinerama’s stereo sound, while Mike Todd was making the jump from Broadway producer to Hollywood (soon to be Elizabeth Taylor’s husband). Reeves financially backed the newly formed Cinerama, Inc. Invented by Fred Waller and Ralph Walker and called “Vitarama,” Cinerama was renamed when in the early 1950s Mike Todd, Merian C. As a result, only seven films were ever shot in the process, and only the two films named above were fiction films, rather than travelogues. Unfortunately, the three images overlapped slightly, so that the lines between the images were visible changing focal lengths was also not possible, eliminating the ability to frame close-ups or even medium shots. In order to achieve that width, three cameras with 27mm lenses were used in production, and three interlocking projectors threw the image on the screen. A new seven-channel stereo sound system complimented the wide screen. ![]() Cinerama was an ultra-widescreen process, with an aspect ratio of 2.65:1, where the screen ideally curved around to cover the viewer’s peripheral vision and give them a totally immersive visual experience. All three films were wholesome family entertainment, which was probably why my parents allowed us to see them in Saturday matinees.Ĭinerama was one of a number of wide screen processes introduced in the 1950s, in the hopes that Hollywood could lure consumers away from their newly acquired TV sets into the theaters for an experience they couldn’t get on television, including Cinemascope, Technirama, Todd-AO, and VistaVision. I also caught Louis de Rochemont’s Windjammer (1958) at the same theater, shot in Cinemiracle, the only film ever to be released in that three projector process. John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, 1962), in Chicago’s Loop at the McVickers Theater on Madison. Henry Levin, George Pal, 1962) and How the West Was Won (dirs. As an eleven year old I had viewed The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (dirs. Cooper, 1952), the legendary film that I had read about for decades but never seen. Back in November I attended the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) conference in Portland, Oregon, where I had the opportunity to see the newest digital restoration of This is Cinerama (dir.
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