This is an excellent posting and certainly of interest to me as someone who studies film history. I grew up in the 1950s and I remember the excitement when both CinemaScope and VistaVision were created. To my child's eyes, CinemaScope seemed exciting while VistaVision films shown in my little neighborhood theater didn't seem ''wide screen'' at all. The irony of the wide screen boom, though, was that in the first three years of CinemaScope, three black and white flat screen films (''From Here to Eternity,'' ''On the Waterfront'' and ''Marty'') won Best Picture honors. And to make matters even more embarrassing over at 20th Century-Fox, the only two CinemaScope films ever to win Best Picture were made by rival studios: ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' at Columbia and ''Gigi'' at MGM.
The main point of VistaVision was not necessarily to be wide, but to make better quality release prints. IE the motto, "Motion Picture High Fidelity". One of the things that CinemaScope really showed was the limitations of 35 mm film. When blowing up 35 mm film both on a larger screen and a wider screen the film grain became enormously apparent. VistaVision, by turning 35mm film horizontally through the camera, more than doubled the surface area of the image being recorded on it. Then when standard 35 mm prints were made from that, the grain was much smaller because the original image was so much larger. Also VistaVision was never intended to be a release format. It was always intended that it was printed back to standard 35 mm film. It was only after 70 mm film was becoming a release format that some films shot in VistaVision were printed to 70 mm film and you got that larger format experience.
@@AtomicAgePictures You are right in the sense that when I would go to my little neighborhood theater and see a VistaVision film like ''The Seven Little Foys'' or ''The Court Jester,'' it didn't seem any different from watching an older standardized film. But when I went to the Midtown Theater in downtown Grand Rapids, MI to see ''The Ten Commandments,'' the screen was HUGE and the viewing experience was totally different, especially in the scene when Moses shows the pyramids to Pharoah.
Another factor in the initial hubbub about CinemaScope to which you alluded was the tremendous job of salesmanship by both Skouras and Zanuck to the other studios. The other studio heads were all invited to a Fox screening room to see rushes from both ''The Robe'' and ''How to Marry a Millionaire.'' Almost immediately, MGM, Columbia, Disney, Universal, United Artists and even Allied Artists signed on for CinemaScope. The holdouts were Paramount (which already had VistaVision in development), RKO (which was developing SuperScope), Republic (which opted for a short-lived process called Naturama) and Warner Bros.. (which tried to develop WarnerScope before settling on CinemaScope). In contrast to the work of Skouras and Zanuck, Paramount was able to coax other studios on using VistaVision only on the rarest of occasions.
Theaters all had wide screens by the time I was going to the movies, and the difference in the picture ratio was made really obvious to me when I saw “That’s Entertainment!” In 1974. That film consisted of clips of old MGM musicals, so the image shifted between the older and newer sizes throughout. I remember the day I saw it very well because after I left the theater I went home and watched President Nixon resign live on national TV.
My hats off to Fox for making anamorphic films a success and I will always love the anamorphic look over flat lenses. Sadly, many movies today have moved on to digital cameras where the photographed picture is utilizing a Super-35 sized sensor for the 2.35:1 aspect ratio but luckily, more and more films are now being captured with anamorphic lenses to bring back that special and familiar anamorphic look.
Hi Meng, hope you are good. Could you tell the exact difference between a flat lens and an anamorphic one, thinking both lenses are at the same focal length, say 50. Do we see a larger area in anamorphic than we do in flat? I especially would like to know this, because on some comparison examples I've seen that an anamorphic lens is widening the view compared to its flat version, as if we use a wider version of that flat lens.
I’ve noticed more and more music videos and commercials are filmed anamorphic! The tell-tale oval bokeh of lights and rack-focus shots gives it away. So more and more filmmakers and producers are requesting that anamorphic look! And the Sirui Optical Company has released 1.33x anamorphic lenses for APS-C cameras like the Sony a-6000 series. I have 2 of them, and they are beautifully made lenses. They provide a 1.33x squeeze as opposed to the standard scope 2x squeeze (16x9 HD frame with a 1.33x squeeze = 2.40:1 final image) and the optical quality, sharpness, etc., is superb. I’ve been a filmmaker since 1970, and I’ve even struggled with shooting Super 8mm CinemaScope (2x squeeze) and can attest to the difficulty of filming in scope!!! So these news Sirui lenses have been a TOTAL game changer. A 50mm anamorphic lens no longer costs $20-30k. You can get theirs for under $1000. And on a 70” 4K tv screen, it looks virtually indistinguishable from any 4K Blu Ray disc of a Panavision feature. You’ll be seeing more and more anamorphically shot short films, commercials, music videos, etc!
@@turgayaksoy3032 Sorry, just saw your question. When we talk about focal lengths, things can get kinda messy depending on the film format or camera sensor size. However to make things simple, if we have a 50mm flat and anamorphic lens side by side, the focal length of the 50mm anamorphic actually becomes a 25mm flat lens which is great for wide shots.
Techniscope offered better depth of field, but lower definition than Cinemascope. It was used almost only in Italy, particularly for Sergio Leone's famous "spaghetti westerns"... Techiscope wasn't used for projection, only for shooting. May be you are confusing with Technirama when projected with a 70mm copy, such at was the case for Kirk Douglas' "Spartacus".
Techniscope was used in the US for two George Lucas films- THX 1138 and AMERICAN GRAFFITTI. There were other films, too....it was the poor man’s Panavision. Techniscope used only two perf pull down per frame (as opposed to the standard 4 perf pull down, effectively halving the frame. If a 4 perf frame gave you 1.33:1, then Techniscope at 2 perf gave you 2.66:1. By the time you added the soundtrack area, you were back to 2.4:1. Technicolor used special processing techniques for the negative to help with contrast and sharpness (as you were using precisely half the amount of film) and then optically squeezed the release (and work) prints to conventional 4 perf anamorphic. The advantages to producers was half the cost of raw stock and negative developing-but there was the added step of optically squeezing the prints, and you were required to use Technicolor for all laboratory services. It WAS cheaper than renting Panavision cameras and lenses, but the downside was the physics of using only half the negative area....to be honest, not much higher than a 16mm frame! There has been renewed interest in Techniscope in the 2000s......VAST improvements in film stock (such as the Kodak Vision 3 stocks) made it feasible to shoot 2 perf and have the negative scanned to anamorphic for editing and post. The sharpness was equal or better than full 35mm film stocks from the 60’s and 70’s. And some films are shot 3 perf and converted to anamorphic in post. The incredibly gorgeous PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER (the most expensive German film to date with Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, and an unknown Ben Whitshaw) was shot 3 perf and converted to anamorphic. Another reason producers go this route today is not necessarily financial. Spherical lenses are smaller, lighter, and faster than anamorphic. So if you’re shooting in very tight situations, low light, and cramped locales, spherical is the way to go. I.e. if I was shooting a feature about sky diving, I’d strongly prefer to shoot 2 or 3 perf spherical than try to manhandle a Panavision camera and lens on a parachute! Anamorphic lenses also have a MUCH shallower depth-of-field and also are prone to lens flaring (JJ Abrams LOVES these) but again, if you’re shooting difficult locales where you have little or no control over your environment, the flares might be the deal killer.
Technicolor was used quite a bit by Universal in the mid 60s for its lower budget films, including notably The Ghost and Mr. Chicken starring Don Knotts.
Disney has filmed all their films in CinemaScope - especially literary adaptions and selected family-friendly productions- since the latter part of the twentieth century. Watch this documentary and lear more about CinemaScope's origins tracing back to the 1950's.
@@markwatson6783 actually very few Disney films were CinemaScope. Famous examples were "20,000 Leagues" and "Lady and the Tramp" and a few others. By 1960 they had converted to the Panavision process with "Swiss Family Robinson" - and after that film it was a full decade (1971) before they released another film in anamorphic widescreen.
Nice documentary! I was born after widescreen was adopted, so I never saw the old Academy Ratio in the theater when I was a kid. In fact, I didn't see any 50s or earlier film in the theater, only on TV. Of course, I never paid attention to the ratio of the films I did see in the theater. A lot of films were done in the 1.85 ratio, so the cropping done to them for TV showings was relatively minor. It didn't occur to me that scope ratio films were being panned and scanned on TV. When I finally became aware of such things, the amount of visual information that was missing on TV was shocking. Now I would never accept anything other than the original aspect ratio being shown.
I was born in 1959 and since early in my childhood I was introduced to movies by a dear aunt who had was responsible for my interest in the art of film making. As a child I went to see all the Disney animated feature films, all in the square aspect ratios. Then one day I was taken to see Sleeping Beauty. I was completely mesmerized by the giant screen and stereo sound. To this day it remains my favorite of all animated feature films. Fox was a pioneer in all aspects of filmmaking. And who doesn't like the fanfare at the beginning of their movies.
Thank you for sharing your story. Just a technical aside. Sleeping Beauty was shot in Technirama, rather than CinemaScope. Technirama was like VistaVision in that it turned 35mm film on its side, running horizontally through the camera and increasing the size of the image and resolution. However Technirama added a 1.5:1 curved mirror optics in front of the taking lens allowing cinemascope compatible 35mm prints to be made. But Disney wanted to get into the large format "roadshow" presentations, and financed the development of special optical printers, that allowed the 35mm Technirama negative, to be blown up to 70mm release prints. Thus Sleeping Beauty was the first film to be released in Super Technirama 70. The process would later be used on films like Spartacus, and The Pink Panther.
I remember back in the 60's wondering how something on cellophane film could be broadcast over the airwaves. The only thing I could think of is having a live camera aimed at screen projection to allow broadcast. Little did I know that this idea had already been around for a long time and had a name. I also did not know about magnetic tape storage for broadcasting TV shows.
Alfred Newman added the extension to the fanfare that he composed. Fox broke with tradition and used it for "Star Wars" in 1977 because they used the closed curtain during the initial release. Audiences came to expect the theme and Fox used it for all of their widescreen films thereafter.
I briefly just watched this featurette. The Robe made history by being the first feature length film to be filmed in widescreen and cinemascope and it paved the way for more widescreen films for years to come. Without it, we won't have any widescreen films with anamorphic lenses like "Assault on Precinct 13".
@@ShindlerReal You are quite correct. "The Big Trail" was filmed by Fox in Grandeur, a 65mm [or 63mm; not sure] format. Have a look at Wikipedia for the date of release and other technical info. Also, "This is Cinerama" was released in 1952.
7:41- Don Forbes.....Irwin Allen's "good luck charm". He narrated Allen's 1953 documentary, "The Sea Around Us", which won an Oscar as "Best Documentary Feature". From then on, he had Forbes involved in such films as "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", and appeared as the "Newscaster" in both versions of the 1965 pilot episode of "LOST IN SPACE".
And in present, the competition against TV still exists. This time, it's home theatre systems. Thus, we have 3D, digital presentations, Dolby ATMOS and Barco AURA multi channel stereo sound systems - almost anything to keep the people out of their homes and into the seats in the cinemas.
To people who truly love films that they are made to see on the large screen ( If I'm at a friends house who don't care about films , I usually change their format from pan and scan to wide screen when they are outta the room )
The first CinemascopE films had the wider 2.55/1 aspect ratio which later changed to 2.35/1. The Robe had 4 track magnetic stereo sound. The quality was good but not a patch on 70mm Todd AO. I ran The Longest Day which was 2.55/1 CinemascopE, 4 track mag and B&W! The only one and it looked superb. Nigel
“Today to get the public to attend a picture show / It’s not enough to advertise a famous star they know / If you want to hear applauding hands resound - / You gotta have: glorious Technicolor, breathtaking CinemaScope, and stereophonic sound!” I was hoping that song would be used in this short piece.
Yes that is true but if some brave studios and theatres were to have their films as excuse to cinema the crowds would come back again because the only way to see them would be in theatres. All it will take is somebody with the desire and ability to do it.
Does anyone remember seeing the original trailer for THE ROBE? It was a 4 x 3 aspect ratio trailer with Darryl F. Zanuck standing behind his desk in his office explaining about what CinemaScope was. I haven't seen this trailer for many decades. I thought someone at Fox Home Video would have included it as an extra on one of the DVDs of THE ROBE, but they haven't. A cut version of it can be seen on the DVD of DAVID AND BATHSHEBA.
I don't remember that trailer however there is a promotional film for cinemascope where Daryl Zanuck is standing behind his desk talking about cinemascope and the future of movies at 20th Century Fox and then see specifically gets into The Robe. It was a film for exhibitors and was never intended for the general public to see.
The first CinemaScope films had the 4 magnetic soundtracks only and an aspect ratio of 2.55:1, but only a few key cinemas installed the equipment. However, they had a problem similar to the advent of sound, since the lack of the optical soundtrack moved the optical center of the picture back to the true center of the film. This caused a problem when non magnetic films and the support program was run. Fox gave in and restored the optical soundtrack which maintained the optical center back inline with other films. The aspect ratio changed to 2.35:1 which then became the SMPTE standard. Other companies soon introduced anamorphic prints to match the 2.35 SMPTE standard, but they could not use the CinemaScope logo. From that point on, the magnetic sound virtually died and was only used in a few key theaters. The center screen soundtrack covered part of the optical track on these prints. In the 1970's the 4 track magnetic sound had a short comeback, but was soon surpassed by Dolby SVA. which split the optical soundtrack to produce stereo. This was soon installed in almost all cinemas, but without the Dolby processor, the film still ran as mono.
Imagine if they did 35mm reel Cinemascope today on screens that are far larger than digital projection could even attempt and they kept the films in the cinema longer and they did not reach the home for several years.
ScreenX needs to be upgraded so that the initial screen would be like that and curved, with the two additional screens fully connected to it having equal resolution. It would be like a mix of Cinemascope and Cinerama.
Fun Fanfare Fact: Full Extended Version of the 20th Century Fox Fanfare Was First used in a Cinemascope Film Being the River of no Return (1954) when Cinemascope was dropped in '67 Film Studios would opt to use the 1935 Fanfare Instead Until 1977 With the Release of Star Wars (now known as Star wars Episode IV) which uses a variation of the 1956 Fanfare. I Prefer the 1954 Fanfare over the Modern 1994 and 1997 Fanfares Because 1: Booming Drums 2: Better Presentation and 3:The Slanted Zero Has Character Ok i'm Done on my Autistic rant, Moving on
It's ALWAYS a Joy to Watch a Movie Filmed with CinemaScope Lens ! that is why I always say: 🎬🤪🎬 Ahhhhhhh . CinemaScope ! 🎬🤪🎬 Making the Big Screen REALLY BIG ! ! ! 🎬🤪🎬
@@Watcher3223 That's right. Paramount developed VistaVision.( large format negative on horizontal film, printed by Technicolor using IB printing onto pre matted widescreen distribution prints)
@@martinhughes2549 Yep. But because it ran horizontally (thus requiring VistaVision projection equipment whereas CinemaScope only required corrective projection lenses on existing vertical-running projectors) was one major reason why VistaVision wasn't successful. Of course, you can have films shot in VistaVision reduced onto vertically run 35mm distribution prints, which would allow theaters with conventional projectors to play such movies. But, you lose out quite a bit on picture resolution that way because it's a reduction print, even when it's optically transferred in anamorphic form as a way to help preserve as much resolution as possible. Another reason was the added expense of shooting in VistaVision compared to CinemaScope. CinemaScope could be done using CinemaScope lenses on existing 35mm cameras whereas you obviously had to use VistaVision cameras to shoot in the VistaVision format. Also, more film was required for VistaVision for the frame rate, since each VistaVision frame required twice as many perfs on the film strip compared to CinemaScope. However, VistaVision was a very useful format for special effects photography.
@@kascnef Of course. And more studios would use Panavision, too. The studios didn't really care to use a format that was developed by one of their own rivals. Part of this was because of requirements that the rival studio would impose on those using such a format. As an example, Warner Bros. originally planned to shoot "Rebel Without a Cause" in black and white with CinemaScope. However, 20th Century Fox required studios shooting in CinemaScope to produce such features only in color. That, in concert with the fact that Warner Bros. executives believed the project merited the additional expense, "Rebel without a Cause" was shot in color and filmed in CinemaScope. Panavision was an independent alternative who rented out equipment in addition to being a competitive ... and superior ... anamorphic format to CinemaScope.
BTW who remember CinemaScope 55 ? One of the problem of CinemaSope was a lack of definition, so the idea was to use a larger 55mm film to have a larger image and better definition while still using anamorphic lens, which was a rather strange idea ! Only two films where shot in Cinemascope 55, "Carousel" and "The King an I", but they were showed only on standard 35mm CinemaScope prints. No movie theater have been equipped with 55mm projectors... CinemaScope 55 was quickly dropped in favor of 70mm...
Many years ago, when I was an editor at Fox, I snuck into the camera department where they had refurbished a CinemaScope 55 camera (I think there was only 1 or 2 made) before donating it to the Motion Picture Academy Museum. I got to fondle that camera.....the loading door was open, and what astounded me was that the aperture plate looked like an abacus! It wasn’t the standard solid back or rails. I guess the size of each frame was so huge that running the film at sound speed (24fps) would have created so much heat and stress on the film stock that they used these tiny little rollers instead. Dozens and dozens of little wheels-and my impression was that it was exactly like an abacus.
@@1Harpdude huh. The trouble they went tru in those days! Now the same definition can be had in 4k or even 8k, with the wonder of instant processing, transmision and distribution. Boy, what 60 years has done to motion picture technology!
@@1Harpdude Interesting testimony, but the VistaVision camera worked well with 35mm films running sideways on 8 perfs, which was the same as the 55mm film running vertically, also on 8 perfs.
@@78Dipar The dimensions of the CinemaScope 55 frame was much larger than 8 perf 35 in terms of surface area that had to be transported through the gate and most critically, held as rigid as possible at the plane of focus. I can only surmise the "acabus pressure plate" was the Fox camera department's solution. There was a high speed VistaVision camera (eg 100fps) but it was destroyed many years ago during the ILM era when somebody did not properly service and lubricate the movements. I don't think it was ever replaced. Moving large quantities of film stock rapidly (Imax, Showscan, CinemaScope 55 , etc. pose significantly more engineering issues. Even 3 strip Technicolor cameras had frequent jamming and film breakage issues.
Whenever a Cinemascope is shown on Television I try and watch and show the younger ones of the family that these films changed how many films were made . 20thCentury Fox took a big leap in film making to make so many " Epic films " such as Lawrence of Arabia , Ben Hur and Doctor Zhivago. among some . Now we have big screen televisions in our homes that bring us widescreen pictures that all are in that format .Too bad the film industry didn't listen to Douglas Trumbull in the 80s about curving the screens and making them larger for his new film format but they refused as his film Brainstorm would had been the first in his format known as Show Scan but as we know theater screens got smaller as many theaters closed or turned into Muli- plexes . Now as we are in the 21 st century , we watch movies in our homes but to those who really love films still go to the theater for the ultimate movie experience on the Big screen .
Laurence of Arabia was shot in 65mm Super Panavision firnat I believe. High quality 35mm Cinemacope cut downs were made though, but it lookd much better in a 70mm print.
Lawrence of Arabia was shot in super Panavision, 65 mm film with with spherical lenses. Ben-Hur was shot with MGM camera 65, which is 65 mm film with anamorphic lenses. Dr Zhivago was shot in Panavision, 35 mm film with anamorphic lenses. None of these films were made by 20th Century Fox. Lawrence of Arabia was made by Columbia Pictures. Ben-Hur and Dr Zhivago were both made by MGM.
Some are, some are not. The Star Wars films for example are. As are most of the Marvel films. Typically big epics are filmed in what is referred to as the SCOPE aspect ratio.
Caprice wasn't the last film shot in Cinemascope. On May 22, 1977, Fox released "Star Wars" in Cinemascope (the opening fanfare is called the 20th Century Fox fanfare with the Cinemascope extension). The fanfare indicated the format and announced the return of the widescreen process (only it was released in Superpanavision 70) anamorphic 70mm
Star Wars was shot with Panavision lenses and cameras . The cinemascope extension to the Fox Fanfare with used simply to put it over the lucasfilm logo. It was not shot in super Panavision, it was shot 35 millimeter with Panavision anamorphic lenses. It was however blown up to 70mm for some theaters. Cinemascope specifically refers to the cinemascope lenses that were manufactured for 20th Century Fox by various lens manufacturers.
@@AtomicAgePictures When I saw Star Wars in a Paris theater, it was presented in 70mm. I remember that I had been disappointed by image quality, it wasn't a good as 70mm films I had seen before. It's only later that I discoverd it had been shot in anamorphic 35mm and blown up to 70mm ! Same thing for "Encounters of the third kind".
@@AtomicAgePictures As anamorphic lenses bought from Henry Chrétien were of poor quality (they had been handcrafted), Fox asked Bausch & Lomb to make better ones (and also to make those for projectors), fox used mostly Bausch & Lomb lenses for most of CinemaScope films, although for the later ones, they also used Panavision lenses.
@@78Dipar yes I know. The Bausch & Lomb lenses were a significant improvement over the original lenses. But ultimately it was Panavision that solved the most obvious problem with anamorphic, the fact that the squeeze factor changed depending on the subjects distance to the lens, producing an effect known as the CinemaScope mumps.
@@AtomicAgePictures That's true, but in the first years of CinemaScope, Panavision only made projection lenses, their famous anamorphic camera lenses only came in 1957. But Fox still mostly used Bausch & Lomb lenses until the mid sixties. Around the world many other makers produced camera anamophic lenses, in France we had DyaliScope and FranScope.
Did you ever see the 'Delerama' lens? It was a curved mirror mounted in front of the projector and had countless problems. Because it dropped the beam, many cinemas had to enlarge their projection portholes. Early mirrors were surface coated to avoid diffraction and almost impossible to clean without removing the coating, They were later replaced by a polished aluminium version, but the picture quality was very poor. The main reason that cinemas used them was that they could be fitted to projectors that used a front shutter.
Sleeping Beauty was shot in Technirama. Technirama was developed by Technicolor. It was basically VistaVision (35mm film run horizontal through the camera, using 8 perforations rather than 4) with an additional squeeze via an anamorphic attachment lens that extended the 1.85:1 8 perf ratio to 2.35:1 matching the dimensions of CinemaScope. The advantage being an original negative that was more that twice the size of CinemaScope, providing much higher resolution and less grain. Also almost none of the distortion of the early CinemaScope lenses.
@@AtomicAgePictures A Lot Of Walt Disney Movies In The 1950s And 1960s We’re Shot In Cinemascope In Technicolor Of Course!!!!!!! Such As Lady & Tramp In 1955 And Then Sleeping Beauty In 1959!!!!!!!
@@SebastianGuevara-jl2ot again Sleeping Beauty was filmed in Technirama, not CinemaScope. Technirama turned the 35mm film on its side, exactly like VistaVision giving more than double the image area on the film. Unlike VistaVision, Technirama used a prism device in front of the camera lens to squeeze extra horizontal information onto the frame. It should be noted that Technirama was invented by Technicolor.
Always was puzzled by how CinemaScope did tend to bend vertical lines at the edges, now I know why. Should it be corrected digitally? Personally I would say yes but so many purists want the film "as it was shot".
Understood. Granted I fully grasp the sentiment about correcting the lens distortion at the edges of the frame. I thought the same way on a Criterion release "Could they not fix this?". It just comes down to how to represent these historic films in a digital format. "How it was shot" and "How it looked in real life" will never jive. Clearly the vertical columns did not bend in. Hey, nobody complained about them blending out the Cinerama seams in the stellar Blu-Rays did they? No easy answer. Still lean a bit toward digitally correcting the CinemaScope distortion because it becomes a distraction. The director never intended THAT.
Well to be fair, the Cinerama seems were somewhat less visible in the theater because of the louvered screen and the deep curve. Also the distortion in Cinerama was much easier to correct for because the lenses were consistent across their focus plain. The distortion was the same when focused at 8 feet, as it was focused at infinity. The same can not be said of the early CinemaScope lenses. The distortion changed in some cases radically when the lens was rack focused. Also the lenses are not consistent from lens to lens. They only had 4 CinemaScope lenses when they started The Robe, and each one distorted in a different way.
Clearly you know your stuff. Not gonna shadow box you at all on this topic. I defer. WONDER if I know you from FB film groups! You were absolutely correct about the Cinerama seams as projected vs digital rendition. There *is* that disconnect on home video as compared to the huge screen three strip projection of Cinerama. Just a pity the existing "This is Cinerama" was struck from a 70mm composite print since they could not find enough original elements. The video quality on the Blu-Ray just does not match what they were able to do with the rest of the product line.
By the time they went to do The Best of Cinerama, they had the funding to do a restoration of the This is Cinerama sequence directly from the three 35mm negs. At that time they figured as long as they were doing all these sequences, they should go ahead and restore the whole film. So the restoration has been done, but I don't know if there are plans for a new Blu ray release of it. ruclips.net/video/fhF-4cWOF8s/видео.html Its possible that I know you from a FB group. My personal account there is my name, Douglas Monce, and I have an Atomic Age Pictures page there as well.
Love this video and gives me the bug to buy an anamorphic lens. Does a full uncut film of Darryl F. Zanuck in cinemascope published somewhere? I can't seem to find it.
This film was made strictly for internal usage at 20th Century Fox. Mainly it was sent to the company in New York that owns the Fox Studios. To my knowledge the complete film has never been released to the public.
@@AtomicAgePictures Thank you for your response. It's a shame because that as well as the demonstration of Stereophonic Sound looked very interesting to watch in full.
I got to see it when I worked at Fox, and a projectionist friend helped track it down. I remember it showed a few scenes of current in-production films, and was touting the “new improved” CinemaScope lenses. Zanuck was commenting on “notice the improved sharpness and lack of distortion edge-to-edge, and how film grain has been reduced and image stability has been increased”...and such comments. I don’t remember the film titles, but one was clearly a Western and had a lot of blue sky and saguaro cactus in the shot...which would have bowed and distorted with the first CScope lenses. I think Bausch & Lomb created a “CinemaScope Type 2” combo lens shortly after the Robe was completed, which eliminated the two focus-puller problem as the new lens had both the anamorphic element as well as a conventional lens structure built into one lens housing. If memory serves there was also a “CinemaScope Type 3” lens developed later that tried to solve many of the same issues the Panavision company was able to solve. Panavision had rotating astigmatism elements mechanically geared to the focus ring-and even today you can see a weird focus bokeh when a shot racks focus. The astigmatism element increased the “squeeze” when focus was changed to a shorter distance to avoid the “anamorphic mumps”.
@@1Harpdude This is a little off the topic of this video, but since you worked at Fox, perhaps you could answer a question which has puzzled me for years. Who at Fox was responsible for the usage or non-usage of the Fox Fanfare for a film? Was it Zanuck, the producer/director or the composer? Did it have anything to do with how the studio viewed the importance of the film at Oscar time? For instance, after watching hundreds of 20th Century Fox films, I always heard the fanfare until Alfred Newman did not use it for a very important multi-Oscar-nominated film, ''The Song of Bernadette.'' After that film, it seemed as though all Fox films which ended up with nominations for Best Picture did not use the fanfare. Would you know who made that decision?
@@williamsnyder5616 I never heard anything about that--any reasons for using or not using the fanfare. I know that Bernard Herrmann's scores often began with the first frame of the film, including the studio logo. He felt the mood needed to be created from the onset, NOT tacked on after the logo music. GHOST AND MRS MUIR is an example of this, and also VERTIGO (Paramount) and NORTH BY NORTHWEST (MGM). I think it would have been a stylistic choice....in the case of SONG OF BERNADETTE it's possible Alfred Newman could have felt that the Fox Fanfare would sound crass before such a moving and spiritual film. I never heard of any discussion to use/not use the Fanfare for any film.
One thing that bothers me about The Robe, and probaly other CinemaScope films is that they never fixed the ''stretched'' look of the image for the blu-ray releases, as for The Robe, I don't know if other CinemaScope movies applies, it's really obnoxious how all browns are mustard colored
that would be nearly impossible to do, because the amount of squeeze varies depending upon where the focus of the lens is set. And it changes during the shot as the focus is being pulled. The actual lens would have to be examined to find out how much it squeezes or doesn't squeeze in any particular focus point. It's unlikely that they would be able to fix it without causing more problems. Besides, that's just the way the film looks.
But later scope films had the issue of stretching fixed, like mid 50's onwards. Likely they discarded the french lenses and contracted bausch and lomb to make stretch corrected lenses for taking and projection. I remember taking a b&l scope lens off a cinema projector setup.
Technicolor IB prints still look great. But Technicolor had to make Eastmancolor prints for The Robe due to the unacceptable registration errors on IB prints when blown up to CinemaScope dimensions. Technicolor went into an emergency R&D period and by 1954-55 had improved things to the point that IB Tech could be reliably used for ‘scope films. But Eastmancolor prints-ESPECIALLY in that era-are very prone to fading. I worked for years at Fox, and DeLuxe was one of the worst. We used to jokingly call it “Pink by DeLuxe” instead of “Color by DeLuxe” because the prints would sometimes be fading at the end of a standard theatrical run-just a few months! MovieLab and Pathe were awful, and WarnerColor was totally phased out due to awful release prints. MetroColor was perhaps a little better, but they all faded. Technicolor was still better, but Eastmancolor from them still faded.
Cinemascope is coming up on 70 years old. Imagine seeing films back in the 1950s with 8k resolution and kodak films stock that had colors that no digital or HDR set could even come close to.
In the early fifties there has been some attempts at 3D films on a standard size 4/3 screen which needed glasses. Some cinemascope adverts pretended that it would provide the same effect without glasses, which of course wasn't true. Although Cinemascope brought a much more satisfying frame than the former 4/3 format, it was very far from the immersive effect of Cinerama which started the widescreen era.
@@78Dipar I know, what they mean. They promised an effect, you possibly can get by using cinemascope together with stereoscopy (that's the right word for the so called 3D). I remember a Russian stereoscopic movie, made under use of single strip Todd AO film. They used the cinemascope process, so it could be a 4/3 picture.
@@78Dipar Well, 1930 they tried to establish Fox Grandeur with 70 mm film, but the cinemas hadn't the money, it was expensive enough to convert from silent movies with live music accompaniment to sound movies. But later they used Fox Grandeur equipment for Todd AO and also the 20th C/Fox used the name for the 70 mm process. First 70 mm should also have a higher frame rate, but they dropped this. To do a film at least twice is pretty expensive. I have no idea, what version of Oklahoma was shown on US TV. The Todd AO version had 30 fps, so it would look the best there and also fit better in 4:3, instead Cinemascope version, wich has been converted from 24 to 30 fps. The success of TV forced to establish wide screen cinema and color to impress the audience.
@@robfriedrich2822 I know about Fox Grandeur which used 70mm film and a 2:0 aspect ratio, but it came at the wrong time (great depression), Todd AO was partly derived from this. The first two Todd AO films (Oklahoma, and Around the world in 80 days) were shot in 70mm at 30 fps and at the same time in 35mm Cinemascope at 24 fps with two cameras. Futher Todd AO films were shot only in 70mm at 24 fps. Much later I saw a 70mm film at 60fps (Showscan process), it was very impressive. But Todd AO, even when projected on a curved screen didn't brought the immersive effect of Cinerama. a 120° lens had been made by AO (American Optical) but was hardly used because of heavy distortion, so Todd AO films used conventional shootinf angles unable to cover peripheral vision like Cinerama did. It was the same with other 70mm films (Super Panavision and Ultra Panavision). For more information about widescreen process, have a look here : www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/index.htm
@@78Dipar I know wide-screen museum - it tells also about early color process. So I could understand the wrong colors in the only Betty Boop cartoon made in color - the staff ignored the limits. Or another example - a scene where they said "Blue would be possible" but Technicolor turned "Rhapsody In Blue" into something Irish, for they followed the standards. I noticed, that changing the color tone shifts faces in a more natural look and everything else from green to light blue.
How come the vertical resolution is as good as the horizontal resolution since the picture is being stretched 2.5 times horizontally? There is 2.5 times more magnification horizontally then vertically. A vertical line should be slightly fuzzy.
It's stretched exactly 2 times horizontally and yes, the resolution is horizontally half the vertical resolution. Fortunately the eye doesn't see the discrepancy.
Chretien didn't actually invent CinemaScope, others had made anamorphic lenses before him. He was just the first to be awarded a patent on a lens design. Interestingly by the time Fox was interested in developing CinemaScope, Chretien's patents had run out. They didn't actually need him to make their own anamorphic lenses. The reason they made a deal with him was because he had 3 or 4 lenses already manufactured, that they could use to put CinemaScope films in to production right away. Eventually his lenses were retired as better designs made by Bausch and Lomb for Fox became available.
French inventor Henri Chrétien developed and patented a new film process that he called Anamorphoscope in 1926. It was this process that would later form the basis for CinemaScope. Chrétien's process was based on lenses that employed an optical trick which produced an image twice as wide as those that were being produced with conventional lenses; this was done using an optical system called Hypergonar, which was the process of compressing (at shoot time) and dilating (at projection time) the image laterally.[2] He attempted to interest the motion picture industry in his invention, but at that time the industry was not sufficiently impressed. By 1950, however, cinema attendance seriously declined with the advent of a new competitive rival: television. Yet Cinerama and the early 3D films, both launched in 1952, succeeded at the box-office in defying this trend, which in turn persuaded Spyros Skouras, the head of Twentieth Century-Fox, that technical innovation could help to meet the challenge.[3] Skouras tasked Earl Sponable, head of Fox's research department, with devising a new, impressive, projection system, but something that, unlike Cinerama, could be retrofitted to existing theatres at a relatively modest cost - and then Herbert Brag, Sponable's assistant, remembered Chrétien's "hypergonar" lens.[4] The optical company Bausch & Lomb was asked to produce a prototype "anamorphoser" (later shortened to "anamorphic") lens. Meanwhile, Sponable tracked down Professor Chrétien, whose patent for the process had expired, so Fox purchased his existing Hypergonars from him and these lenses were flown back to Fox's studios in Hollywood. Test footage shot with these lenses was screened for Skouras, who gave the go-ahead for development of a widescreen process based on Chrétien's invention, which was to be known as "CinemaScope".
GuyBodart, Chretien developed his anamorphic lenses during World War 1 in order to give tank drivers a wider field of view. As to who invented the anamorphic process, that's lost to history however, we know that Artists were using lenses to bend light in one direction, as early as the 17th century. The anamorphic concept was well known before Henry Chretien develop his lenses.
You are right about anamorphic lenses. Chretien invented he Hypergonar for the French army during WWI. Thanks to Chretien we started to use his system in motion pictures.
I wonder if you were to combine the anamorphic lens with the VistaVision cameras. I know with the VistaVision, you're exposing twice the negative space of film as oppose to a traditional 35mm cameras, because the film runs horizontally than vertical. And if they were able to it would made the films less grainy and more cleaner looking.
That was actually done by Technicolor. It was called Technirama. Some of the more famous films shot in that format were, The Pink Panther, The Vikings, Spartacus, and Sleeping Beauty.
Essentially that was Technirama process. MGM 55 & MGM 65 & Super Panavision 70 were another attempts to have larger format negatives to produce higher quality 35mm cut downs prints. Todd AO ran at 30fps which meant 35mm cut down prints couldn't be produced.
JONATHAN PINZON he didn't that was Ultra Panavision 70, an anamorphic 70mm process. CinemaScope was a 35mm process of which all the lenses were owned by 20th Century Fox.
At 4:00 minute mark in the above video there is Misinformation presented. Henri Jacques Chrétien did NOT invent Anamorphic Lenses as stated in the above video. Henri Jacques Chrétien is credited with coming up with an application of Existing Anamorphic Lenses called The Anamorphic Widescreen Projection Process otherwise known as The Cinemascope Process. The Truth is that Anamorphic Lenses are nothing more than Cylindrical Optical Lenses and The First Anamorphic Lenses were invented in 1825 by British Astronomer, Dr. George Airy. These Anamorphic Lenses were first distributed in the Untied States by John McAllister in 1828 for the purpose of Correcting Optical Astigmatism in people with Visual impairment. Thank you Very Mush^!!^ Have A Nice Day! Sincerely, arctictimberwolf
While you are absolutely correct, I'm going to give the makers of this video a little bit of a break because, Henri Chretien was the first person to apply anamorphic lenses to motion pictures.
@@AtomicAgePictures , yes, it is also important to note that back then the Most if not all Optical Lenses were made of Crystal Glass which is about 20% Clearer than Plastic Lenses and these days Most Optical Lenses are Plastic which has an Optical Clarity about 20% less than Glass Lenses and it certainly can not be said that Plastic Camera Lenses or any Plastic Optical Lenses give a "Crystal Clear Image" 😉🤓 Thanks for responding and have a Great Day! 😃
@@arctictimberwolf Motion Picture lenses are not made of plastic they are made of optical glass. They are typically also made of an aluminum housing. Even inexpensive consumer cameras use Optical glass in their lenses. Only the very cheapest, frankly crappy cameras, use plastic lenses. In addition I'm quite familiar with both motion picture and still lenses manufactured from the 1930s through the 1970s and I'm unaware of any that were made from Crystal. They were typically made of optical glass and at least until the early seventies were often infused with thorium as a protection against light pollution and lens flares. This had the side effect of making the lenses slightly radioactive.
@@AtomicAgePictures , yeah, you're right. I did a quick search for Optical Glass just now and the term "Crystal Clear" is a dominant phrase used when describing Optical Glass Lenses. That Phrase is slightly misleading because as you said Glass is not technically a Crystal as the the Molecules are not lined up as in a Quartz Crystal on the Face of a Wrist Watch is technically a Molecular Crystal. 🤔
The man speaking at the start of the video is Darryl F. Zanuck. Zanuck was the founder and vice president in charge of production for 20th Century Fox Pictures from 1935, until 1969. The film he appears in here was a message to the board of directors of Fox back in New York City. The film was made in 1953, as CinemaScope was just about to be introduced to the public, and Zanuck was explaining to the money men how the process worked, and what their plans for it where.
@@AtomicAgePictures The video is in stereo like you said BUT the section where someone seems to demonstrate stereo ( 07:40 ) is absolutely mono. I performed this excercise: I downloaded your video using the latest yt-dlp I extracted the soundtrack on a wav file ffmpeg -i The\ CinemaScope\ Story\ \[Bve8wGAPhIg\].webm out.wav I opened the wav file in audacity I splitted the single stereo track to 2 monos tracks (using the drop-down on the left side of the track, Split Stereo to Mono) I inverted one of the 2 channels (select only one track then Effect->Invert) I played the 2 mono tracks simultaneously, each track playing on both sides... This will have the effect of muting anything that is mono. The section at 07:40 is totally muted this way (except for very faint data compression artefacts) If you listen to your whole video this way you can check yourself that only the music is truly stereo and most of the voice recordings are mono, all of them (except the first speaker at the very start of the video).
@@35mmMovieTrailersScans oh I see what you're saying. It's quite possible that the stereo mix of that film no longer exists and it only has a mono track left.
The early cinemascope lenses were very soft and had many flaws, however by the late 1950s the cinemascope lenses that were being made my Bausch & Lomb we're quite good.
In the mid to late 50s I would agree. But later as the anamorphic optics got better, particularly with Panavision, the scope format gave it a run for its money, and was just far more practical. Personally I prefer the wider aspect ratio of scope to the 1.85:1 of VistaVision. Honestly if I had to choose a vintage format to make a film today, my choice would be Technirama. Basically VistaVision with an anamorphic squeeze to get the wider ratio.
Martin Hart! Always the genius in his presentation in the mechanics of the movie industry. Thanks Martin. 😊
This is an excellent posting and certainly of interest to me as someone who studies film history. I grew up in the 1950s and I remember the excitement when both CinemaScope and VistaVision were created. To my child's eyes, CinemaScope seemed exciting while VistaVision films shown in my little neighborhood theater didn't seem ''wide screen'' at all. The irony of the wide screen boom, though, was that in the first three years of CinemaScope, three black and white flat screen films (''From Here to Eternity,'' ''On the Waterfront'' and ''Marty'') won Best Picture honors. And to make matters even more embarrassing over at 20th Century-Fox, the only two CinemaScope films ever to win Best Picture were made by rival studios: ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' at Columbia and ''Gigi'' at MGM.
The main point of VistaVision was not necessarily to be wide, but to make better quality release prints. IE the motto, "Motion Picture High Fidelity". One of the things that CinemaScope really showed was the limitations of 35 mm film. When blowing up 35 mm film both on a larger screen and a wider screen the film grain became enormously apparent. VistaVision, by turning 35mm film horizontally through the camera, more than doubled the surface area of the image being recorded on it. Then when standard 35 mm prints were made from that, the grain was much smaller because the original image was so much larger. Also VistaVision was never intended to be a release format. It was always intended that it was printed back to standard 35 mm film. It was only after 70 mm film was becoming a release format that some films shot in VistaVision were printed to 70 mm film and you got that larger format experience.
Excellent! A great comment. 😊
@@AtomicAgePictures You are right in the sense that when I would go to my little neighborhood theater and see a VistaVision film like ''The Seven Little Foys'' or ''The Court Jester,'' it didn't seem any different from watching an older standardized film. But when I went to the Midtown Theater in downtown Grand Rapids, MI to see ''The Ten Commandments,'' the screen was HUGE and the viewing experience was totally different, especially in the scene when Moses shows the pyramids to Pharoah.
Another factor in the initial hubbub about CinemaScope to which you alluded was the tremendous job of salesmanship by both Skouras and Zanuck to the other studios. The other studio heads were all invited to a Fox screening room to see rushes from both ''The Robe'' and ''How to Marry a Millionaire.'' Almost immediately, MGM, Columbia, Disney, Universal, United Artists and even Allied Artists signed on for CinemaScope. The holdouts were Paramount (which already had VistaVision in development), RKO (which was developing SuperScope), Republic (which opted for a short-lived process called Naturama) and Warner Bros.. (which tried to develop WarnerScope before settling on CinemaScope). In contrast to the work of Skouras and Zanuck, Paramount was able to coax other studios on using VistaVision only on the rarest of occasions.
Did not know that. Thanks
Theaters all had wide screens by the time I was going to the movies, and the difference in the picture ratio was made really obvious to me when I saw “That’s Entertainment!” In 1974. That film consisted of clips of old MGM musicals, so the image shifted between the older and newer sizes throughout. I remember the day I saw it very well because after I left the theater I went home and watched President Nixon resign live on national TV.
interesting memory.
My hats off to Fox for making anamorphic films a success and I will always love the anamorphic look over flat lenses. Sadly, many movies today have moved on to digital cameras where the photographed picture is utilizing a Super-35 sized sensor for the 2.35:1 aspect ratio but luckily, more and more films are now being captured with anamorphic lenses to bring back that special and familiar anamorphic look.
Meng Vang a lot of big movies now are going back to film and that anamorphic look, often using the same types of lenses
Arguably Panavision secured the future of anamorphic presentation.
Hi Meng, hope you are good. Could you tell the exact difference between a flat lens and an anamorphic one, thinking both lenses are at the same focal length, say 50. Do we see a larger area in anamorphic than we do in flat? I especially would like to know this, because on some comparison examples I've seen that an anamorphic lens is widening the view compared to its flat version, as if we use a wider version of that flat lens.
I’ve noticed more and more music videos and commercials are filmed anamorphic! The tell-tale oval bokeh of lights and rack-focus shots gives it away. So more and more filmmakers and producers are requesting that anamorphic look! And the Sirui Optical Company has released 1.33x anamorphic lenses for APS-C cameras like the Sony a-6000 series. I have 2 of them, and they are beautifully made lenses. They provide a 1.33x squeeze as opposed to the standard scope 2x squeeze (16x9 HD frame with a 1.33x squeeze = 2.40:1 final image) and the optical quality, sharpness, etc., is superb. I’ve been a filmmaker since 1970, and I’ve even struggled with shooting Super 8mm CinemaScope (2x squeeze) and can attest to the difficulty of filming in scope!!! So these news Sirui lenses have been a TOTAL game changer. A 50mm anamorphic lens no longer costs $20-30k. You can get theirs for under $1000. And on a 70” 4K tv screen, it looks virtually indistinguishable from any 4K Blu Ray disc of a Panavision feature. You’ll be seeing more and more anamorphically shot short films, commercials, music videos, etc!
@@turgayaksoy3032 Sorry, just saw your question. When we talk about focal lengths, things can get kinda messy depending on the film format or camera sensor size. However to make things simple, if we have a 50mm flat and anamorphic lens side by side, the focal length of the 50mm anamorphic actually becomes a 25mm flat lens which is great for wide shots.
The kids and techno geeks will never see a true techniscope film projected with carbon arcs, this was something else...
I Have One Movie Filmed In Techniscope
Techniscope offered better depth of field, but lower definition than Cinemascope. It was used almost only in Italy, particularly for Sergio Leone's famous "spaghetti westerns"...
Techiscope wasn't used for projection, only for shooting.
May be you are confusing with Technirama when projected with a 70mm copy, such at was the case for Kirk Douglas' "Spartacus".
Techniscope was used in the US for two George Lucas films- THX 1138 and AMERICAN GRAFFITTI. There were other films, too....it was the poor man’s Panavision. Techniscope used only two perf pull down per frame (as opposed to the standard 4 perf pull down, effectively halving the frame. If a 4 perf frame gave you 1.33:1, then Techniscope at 2 perf gave you 2.66:1. By the time you added the soundtrack area, you were back to 2.4:1. Technicolor used special processing techniques for the negative to help with contrast and sharpness (as you were using precisely half the amount of film) and then optically squeezed the release (and work) prints to conventional 4 perf anamorphic. The advantages to producers was half the cost of raw stock and negative developing-but there was the added step of optically squeezing the prints, and you were required to use Technicolor for all laboratory services. It WAS cheaper than renting Panavision cameras and lenses, but the downside was the physics of using only half the negative area....to be honest, not much higher than a 16mm frame!
There has been renewed interest in Techniscope in the 2000s......VAST improvements in film stock (such as the Kodak Vision 3 stocks) made it feasible to shoot 2 perf and have the negative scanned to anamorphic for editing and post. The sharpness was equal or better than full 35mm film stocks from the 60’s and 70’s. And some films are shot 3 perf and converted to anamorphic in post. The incredibly gorgeous PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER (the most expensive German film to date with Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, and an unknown Ben Whitshaw) was shot 3 perf and converted to anamorphic.
Another reason producers go this route today is not necessarily financial. Spherical lenses are smaller, lighter, and faster than anamorphic. So if you’re shooting in very tight situations, low light, and cramped locales, spherical is the way to go. I.e. if I was shooting a feature about sky diving, I’d strongly prefer to shoot 2 or 3 perf spherical than try to manhandle a Panavision camera and lens on a parachute! Anamorphic lenses also have a MUCH shallower depth-of-field and also are prone to lens flaring (JJ Abrams LOVES these) but again, if you’re shooting difficult locales where you have little or no control over your environment, the flares might be the deal killer.
Technicolor was used quite a bit by Universal in the mid 60s for its lower budget films, including notably The Ghost and Mr. Chicken starring Don Knotts.
@@1Harpdude Techniscope was used very frequently in Italy, but it was also used in West Germany, France, the UK, and (as you said) the USA.
They need to teach kids about this in school. This IS history......
yo im watching this for school
Disney has filmed all their films in CinemaScope - especially literary adaptions and selected family-friendly productions- since the latter part of the twentieth century. Watch this documentary and lear more about CinemaScope's origins tracing back to the 1950's.
Jaciboid56 it certainly needs to be taught in film classes.
@@markwatson6783 actually very few Disney films were CinemaScope. Famous examples were "20,000 Leagues" and "Lady and the Tramp" and a few others. By 1960 they had converted to the Panavision process with "Swiss Family Robinson" - and after that film it was a full decade (1971) before they released another film in anamorphic widescreen.
Right now I'm teaching these things in school. Thanks for the video, very educational.
An evergreen classic movie shot with a marvelous technological achievement of its time which is still adored and remembered to this day!!
The only animated studios that didn’t use CinemaScope were WB Cartoons, Walter Lantz, And Famous studios
Nice documentary! I was born after widescreen was adopted, so I never saw the old Academy Ratio in the theater when I was a kid. In fact, I didn't see any 50s or earlier film in the theater, only on TV. Of course, I never paid attention to the ratio of the films I did see in the theater. A lot of films were done in the 1.85 ratio, so the cropping done to them for TV showings was relatively minor. It didn't occur to me that scope ratio films were being panned and scanned on TV. When I finally became aware of such things, the amount of visual information that was missing on TV was shocking. Now I would never accept anything other than the original aspect ratio being shown.
I was born in 1959 and since early in my childhood I was introduced to movies by a dear aunt who had was responsible for my interest in the art of film making. As a child I went to see all the Disney animated feature films, all in the square aspect ratios. Then one day I was taken to see Sleeping Beauty. I was completely mesmerized by the giant screen and stereo sound. To this day it remains my favorite of all animated feature films. Fox was a pioneer in all aspects of filmmaking. And who doesn't like the fanfare at the beginning of their movies.
Thank you for sharing your story. Just a technical aside. Sleeping Beauty was shot in Technirama, rather than CinemaScope. Technirama was like VistaVision in that it turned 35mm film on its side, running horizontally through the camera and increasing the size of the image and resolution. However Technirama added a 1.5:1 curved mirror optics in front of the taking lens allowing cinemascope compatible 35mm prints to be made. But Disney wanted to get into the large format "roadshow" presentations, and financed the development of special optical printers, that allowed the 35mm Technirama negative, to be blown up to 70mm release prints. Thus Sleeping Beauty was the first film to be released in Super Technirama 70. The process would later be used on films like Spartacus, and The Pink Panther.
I remember back in the 60's wondering how something on cellophane film could be broadcast over the airwaves. The only thing I could think of is having a live camera aimed at screen projection to allow broadcast. Little did I know that this idea had already been around for a long time and had a name. I also did not know about magnetic tape storage for broadcasting TV shows.
Note the "CinemaScope" fanfare added to the end of the Fox fanfare. (It isn't mentioned or played in this presentation.)
The first few CinemaScope movies didn't feature the fanfare extension. "River Of No Return" was the first to feature it.
The 20 second fanfare became a standard for FOX in the 1980's along with John Williams' London Symphony Orchestra.
It was important, because the curtain needs more time
Alfred Newman added the extension to the fanfare that he composed. Fox broke with tradition and used it for "Star Wars" in 1977 because they used the closed curtain during the initial release. Audiences came to expect the theme and Fox used it for all of their widescreen films thereafter.
@@johnhess9426 The Robe
I briefly just watched this featurette. The Robe made history by being the first feature length film to be filmed in widescreen and cinemascope and it paved the way for more widescreen films for years to come. Without it, we won't have any widescreen films with anamorphic lenses like "Assault on Precinct 13".
It's not the first widescreen movie though.
@@ShindlerReal You are quite correct. "The Big Trail" was filmed by Fox in Grandeur, a 65mm [or 63mm; not sure] format. Have a look at Wikipedia for the date of release and other technical info. Also, "This is Cinerama" was released in 1952.
Excellent documentary on CinemaScope. I remember its introduction well.
0:45 Awesome Behind The Scenes Look About 20th Century Fox CinemaScope Blockbuster Movies. Thanks Mate. X
7:41- Don Forbes.....Irwin Allen's "good luck charm". He narrated Allen's 1953 documentary, "The Sea Around Us", which won an Oscar as "Best Documentary Feature". From then on, he had Forbes involved in such films as "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", and appeared as the "Newscaster" in both versions of the 1965 pilot episode of "LOST IN SPACE".
And in present, the competition against TV still exists.
This time, it's home theatre systems. Thus, we have 3D, digital presentations, Dolby ATMOS and Barco AURA multi channel stereo sound systems - almost anything to keep the people out of their homes and into the seats in the cinemas.
+Monte Fullmer Everything except good movies!!! :)
Tony Mendoza Bullcrap just 2017 launched at least 5 classics INCLUDING Blade Runner 2049 and Dunkirk and other ton of great movies.
To people who truly love films that they are made to see on the large screen ( If I'm at a friends house who don't care about films , I usually change their format from pan and scan to wide screen when they are outta the room )
+Monte Fullmer with all that technical stuff, it's too bad, that most of the movies nowadays (at least blockbusters) are total crap.
Alan Yates ) only because they are new.
The first CinemascopE films had the wider 2.55/1 aspect ratio which later changed to 2.35/1. The Robe had 4 track magnetic stereo sound. The quality was good but not a patch on 70mm Todd AO. I ran The Longest Day which was 2.55/1 CinemascopE, 4 track mag and B&W! The only one and it looked superb. Nigel
The first three CinemaScope films were made in the 2.66:1 aspect ratio. Then it was quickly changed to 2.55:1 and then finally to 2.35:1 in 1956/57.
@@danielrudolf5441 and 2,39:1 later
Loved it. I will always love Cinerama!
This is Cinerama used to play at county and state fairs in the 1950s and early 60s. I saw it several times, the rollercoaster my favorite part.
Don’t mixed Cinerama up with CinemaScope, two entirely different process’s and visually very different too.
@@raywatts7689 Would love to see a modern version of Cinerama where each camera angle is like a Cinemascope.
@@vgmaster9 Great idea, but the cost would be prohibitive.
“Today to get the public to attend a picture show / It’s not enough to advertise a famous star they know / If you want to hear applauding hands resound - / You gotta have: glorious Technicolor, breathtaking CinemaScope, and stereophonic sound!” I was hoping that song would be used in this short piece.
Yes that is true but if some brave studios and theatres were to have their films as excuse to cinema the crowds would come back again because the only way to see them would be in theatres.
All it will take is somebody with the desire and ability to do it.
Brilliant video a landmark in history for movie makers!
Studios also lost their theatre chains.. a big financial blow
Does anyone remember seeing the original trailer for THE ROBE? It was a 4 x 3 aspect ratio trailer with Darryl F. Zanuck standing behind his desk in his office explaining about what CinemaScope was. I haven't seen this trailer for many decades. I thought someone at Fox Home Video would have included it as an extra on one of the DVDs of THE ROBE, but they haven't. A cut version of it can be seen on the DVD of DAVID AND BATHSHEBA.
I don't remember that trailer however there is a promotional film for cinemascope where Daryl Zanuck is standing behind his desk talking about cinemascope and the future of movies at 20th Century Fox and then see specifically gets into The Robe. It was a film for exhibitors and was never intended for the general public to see.
Thanks for posting! This was suppose to be on The Robe DVD that I have, but it wasn't included.
Its on The Robe blu ray. Not sure why its not on the DVD.
I would love to see the CinemaScope & four track mag demo reel of which you can see clips from in this short film
woods2121 the question is “does it still exist?”
The first CinemaScope films had the 4 magnetic soundtracks only and an aspect ratio of 2.55:1, but only a few key cinemas installed the equipment. However, they had a problem similar to the advent of sound, since the lack of the optical soundtrack moved the optical center of the picture back to the true center of the film. This caused a problem when non magnetic films and the support program was run.
Fox gave in and restored the optical soundtrack which maintained the optical center back inline with other films. The aspect ratio changed to 2.35:1 which then became the SMPTE standard.
Other companies soon introduced anamorphic prints to match the 2.35 SMPTE standard, but they could not use the CinemaScope logo.
From that point on, the magnetic sound virtually died and was only used in a few key theaters. The center screen soundtrack covered part of the optical track on these prints.
In the 1970's the 4 track magnetic sound had a short comeback, but was soon surpassed by Dolby SVA. which split the optical soundtrack to produce stereo. This was soon installed in almost all cinemas, but without the Dolby processor, the film still ran as mono.
I actually did get to see it once.... 2.55:1 4 track mag!
CinemaScope should return with bigger Screens on the premium theaters instead of the 1.85 aspect ratio.
Imagine if they did 35mm reel Cinemascope today on screens that are far larger than digital projection could even attempt and they kept the films in the cinema longer and they did not reach the home for several years.
ScreenX needs to be upgraded so that the initial screen would be like that and curved, with the two additional screens fully connected to it having equal resolution. It would be like a mix of Cinemascope and Cinerama.
Takumo Migashema fixed the stretched look of close up when he helped develop Panavision lenses. I know it is true because he told me so himself.
Was that the Panatar lense?
Fun Fanfare Fact: Full Extended Version of the 20th Century Fox Fanfare Was First used in a Cinemascope Film Being the River of no Return (1954) when Cinemascope was dropped in '67 Film Studios would opt to use the 1935 Fanfare Instead Until 1977 With the Release of Star Wars (now known as Star wars Episode IV) which uses a variation of the 1956 Fanfare. I Prefer the 1954 Fanfare over the Modern 1994 and 1997 Fanfares Because 1: Booming Drums 2: Better Presentation and 3:The Slanted Zero Has Character
Ok i'm Done on my Autistic rant, Moving on
I grew up on the booming drums and slanted zero.
Evey: “Does it have a happy ending?”
V: “As only celluloid can deliver.” 😎
-from “V for Vendetta” (2005)
It's ALWAYS a Joy to Watch a Movie Filmed with CinemaScope Lens !
that is why I always say:
🎬🤪🎬 Ahhhhhhh . CinemaScope ! 🎬🤪🎬 Making the Big Screen REALLY BIG ! ! ! 🎬🤪🎬
CinemaScope = sizzle ......... Great Story = STEAK
“Well this show isn’t broadcast in CINEMASCOPE!”
While it was eventually shown on television, it was made as a short subject for theaters and if I recall correctly it was nominated for an Oscar.
This is fantastic. The history of cinemascope, perfect. Is this something that Atomic Pictures was a part of?
No this is a documentary that was on the blu ray disc of The Robe.
You know who else used CinemaScope? Universal Pictures. That's right, back then, Universal was littered with films in CinemaScope.
All the major studios, except Paramount, used CinemaScope under license from Fox.
@@Watcher3223 That's right. Paramount developed VistaVision.( large format negative on horizontal film, printed by Technicolor using IB printing onto pre matted widescreen distribution prints)
@@martinhughes2549 Yep.
But because it ran horizontally (thus requiring VistaVision projection equipment whereas CinemaScope only required corrective projection lenses on existing vertical-running projectors) was one major reason why VistaVision wasn't successful.
Of course, you can have films shot in VistaVision reduced onto vertically run 35mm distribution prints, which would allow theaters with conventional projectors to play such movies. But, you lose out quite a bit on picture resolution that way because it's a reduction print, even when it's optically transferred in anamorphic form as a way to help preserve as much resolution as possible.
Another reason was the added expense of shooting in VistaVision compared to CinemaScope. CinemaScope could be done using CinemaScope lenses on existing 35mm cameras whereas you obviously had to use VistaVision cameras to shoot in the VistaVision format. Also, more film was required for VistaVision for the frame rate, since each VistaVision frame required twice as many perfs on the film strip compared to CinemaScope.
However, VistaVision was a very useful format for special effects photography.
Watcher3223 paramount would soon use panavision
@@kascnef Of course.
And more studios would use Panavision, too.
The studios didn't really care to use a format that was developed by one of their own rivals. Part of this was because of requirements that the rival studio would impose on those using such a format.
As an example, Warner Bros. originally planned to shoot "Rebel Without a Cause" in black and white with CinemaScope. However, 20th Century Fox required studios shooting in CinemaScope to produce such features only in color. That, in concert with the fact that Warner Bros. executives believed the project merited the additional expense, "Rebel without a Cause" was shot in color and filmed in CinemaScope.
Panavision was an independent alternative who rented out equipment in addition to being a competitive ... and superior ... anamorphic format to CinemaScope.
Oddly, a Western movie I saw a bit of today was shot in Cinemascope but is still being cropped/scanned to 4:3 despite being on a 16:9 network.
In my country TV stations often crop 2.39:1 movies to 16:9. Which is sad.
BTW who remember CinemaScope 55 ? One of the problem of CinemaSope was a lack of definition, so the idea was to use a larger 55mm film to have a larger image and better definition while still using anamorphic lens, which was a rather strange idea !
Only two films where shot in Cinemascope 55, "Carousel" and "The King an I", but they were showed only on standard 35mm CinemaScope prints. No movie theater have been equipped with 55mm projectors...
CinemaScope 55 was quickly dropped in favor of 70mm...
Scope 55 was neither here nor there.
Many years ago, when I was an editor at Fox, I snuck into the camera department where they had refurbished a CinemaScope 55 camera (I think there was only 1 or 2 made) before donating it to the Motion Picture Academy Museum. I got to fondle that camera.....the loading door was open, and what astounded me was that the aperture plate looked like an abacus! It wasn’t the standard solid back or rails. I guess the size of each frame was so huge that running the film at sound speed (24fps) would have created so much heat and stress on the film stock that they used these tiny little rollers instead. Dozens and dozens of little wheels-and my impression was that it was exactly like an abacus.
@@1Harpdude huh. The trouble they went tru in those days! Now the same definition can be had in 4k or even 8k, with the wonder of instant processing, transmision and distribution. Boy, what 60 years has done to motion picture technology!
@@1Harpdude
Interesting testimony, but the VistaVision camera worked well with 35mm films running sideways on 8 perfs, which was the same as the 55mm film running vertically, also on 8 perfs.
@@78Dipar The dimensions of the CinemaScope 55 frame was much larger than 8 perf 35 in terms of surface area that had to be transported through the gate and most critically, held as rigid as possible at the plane of focus. I can only surmise the "acabus pressure plate" was the Fox camera department's solution. There was a high speed VistaVision camera (eg 100fps) but it was destroyed many years ago during the ILM era when somebody did not properly service and lubricate the movements. I don't think it was ever replaced. Moving large quantities of film stock rapidly (Imax, Showscan, CinemaScope 55 , etc. pose significantly more engineering issues. Even 3 strip Technicolor cameras had frequent jamming and film breakage issues.
Whenever a Cinemascope is shown on Television I try and watch and show the younger ones of the family that these films changed how many films were made . 20thCentury Fox took a big leap in film making to make so many " Epic films " such as Lawrence of Arabia , Ben Hur and Doctor Zhivago. among some . Now we have big screen televisions in our homes that bring us widescreen pictures that all are in that format .Too bad the film industry didn't listen to Douglas Trumbull in the 80s about curving the screens and making them larger for his new film format but they refused as his film Brainstorm would had been the first in his format known as Show Scan but as we know theater screens got smaller as many theaters closed or turned into Muli- plexes . Now as we are in the 21 st century , we watch movies in our homes but to those who really love films still go to the theater for the ultimate movie experience on the Big screen .
Laurence of Arabia was shot in 65mm Super Panavision firnat I believe. High quality 35mm Cinemacope cut downs were made though, but it lookd much better in a 70mm print.
Lawrence of Arabia was shot in super Panavision, 65 mm film with with spherical lenses. Ben-Hur was shot with MGM camera 65, which is 65 mm film with anamorphic lenses. Dr Zhivago was shot in Panavision, 35 mm film with anamorphic lenses. None of these films were made by 20th Century Fox. Lawrence of Arabia was made by Columbia Pictures. Ben-Hur and Dr Zhivago were both made by MGM.
Even “Love Me Tender” was in CinemaScope but in black and white.
Yes, there were some CinemaScope films that were filmed in black-and-white.
We may not have IMAX if CinemaScope was never invented
Nor CinemaScope if Cinerama had not been invented.
@@AtomicAgePictures Nor Cinerama if Polyvision had not been invented.
What a great documentary!
I love cinemascope is beatiful
0:07 i bet that man was embarrased when they rleased cleopatra 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The format is trully awesome. Never pay attention if today movies are this size. Are they?
Some are, some are not. The Star Wars films for example are. As are most of the Marvel films. Typically big epics are filmed in what is referred to as the SCOPE aspect ratio.
I had an Anime that is produced by CinemaScope is "The Fruit of Grisaia", never watched it
Imagine seeing that screen for the first time! Oh man.
Caprice wasn't the last film shot in Cinemascope. On May 22, 1977, Fox released "Star Wars" in Cinemascope (the opening fanfare is called the 20th Century Fox fanfare with the Cinemascope extension). The fanfare indicated the format and announced the return of the widescreen process (only it was released in Superpanavision 70) anamorphic 70mm
Star Wars was shot with Panavision lenses and cameras . The cinemascope extension to the Fox Fanfare with used simply to put it over the lucasfilm logo. It was not shot in super Panavision, it was shot 35 millimeter with Panavision anamorphic lenses. It was however blown up to 70mm for some theaters.
Cinemascope specifically refers to the cinemascope lenses that were manufactured for 20th Century Fox by various lens manufacturers.
@@AtomicAgePictures
When I saw Star Wars in a Paris theater, it was presented in 70mm. I remember that I had been disappointed by image quality, it wasn't a good as 70mm films I had seen before. It's only later that I discoverd it had been shot in anamorphic 35mm and blown up to 70mm !
Same thing for "Encounters of the third kind".
@@AtomicAgePictures
As anamorphic lenses bought from Henry Chrétien were of poor quality (they had been handcrafted), Fox asked Bausch & Lomb to make better ones (and also to make those for projectors), fox used mostly Bausch & Lomb lenses for most of CinemaScope films, although for the later ones, they also used Panavision lenses.
@@78Dipar yes I know. The Bausch & Lomb lenses were a significant improvement over the original lenses. But ultimately it was Panavision that solved the most obvious problem with anamorphic, the fact that the squeeze factor changed depending on the subjects distance to the lens, producing an effect known as the CinemaScope mumps.
@@AtomicAgePictures
That's true, but in the first years of CinemaScope, Panavision only made projection lenses, their famous anamorphic camera lenses only came in 1957. But Fox still mostly used Bausch & Lomb lenses until the mid sixties.
Around the world many other makers produced camera anamophic lenses, in France we had DyaliScope and FranScope.
Love it!
Ahhhh the good old "varamorph"
Did you ever see the 'Delerama' lens? It was a curved mirror mounted in front of the projector and had countless problems. Because it dropped the beam, many cinemas had to enlarge their projection portholes. Early mirrors were surface coated to avoid diffraction and almost impossible to clean without removing the coating, They were later replaced by a polished aluminium version, but the picture quality was very poor. The main reason that cinemas used them was that they could be fitted to projectors that used a front shutter.
Don't forget Walt Disney have use CinemaScope for Lady and The Tramp and Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty was shot in Technirama. Technirama was developed by Technicolor. It was basically VistaVision (35mm film run horizontal through the camera, using 8 perforations rather than 4) with an additional squeeze via an anamorphic attachment lens that extended the 1.85:1 8 perf ratio to 2.35:1 matching the dimensions of CinemaScope. The advantage being an original negative that was more that twice the size of CinemaScope, providing much higher resolution and less grain. Also almost none of the distortion of the early CinemaScope lenses.
@@AtomicAgePictures A Lot Of Walt Disney Movies In The 1950s And 1960s We’re Shot In Cinemascope In Technicolor Of Course!!!!!!! Such As Lady & Tramp In 1955 And Then Sleeping Beauty In 1959!!!!!!!
@@SebastianGuevara-jl2ot again Sleeping Beauty was filmed in Technirama, not CinemaScope. Technirama turned the 35mm film on its side, exactly like VistaVision giving more than double the image area on the film. Unlike VistaVision, Technirama used a prism device in front of the camera lens to squeeze extra horizontal information onto the frame. It should be noted that Technirama was invented by Technicolor.
AAHH!!! REMEMBER " CINEMASCOPE" THE VERY BEST INDEED !!!!! FROM U.K. (2021).
Always was puzzled by how CinemaScope did tend to bend vertical lines at the edges, now I know why. Should it be corrected digitally? Personally I would say yes but so many purists want the film "as it was shot".
William Wandel see the comments below about how it's impractical and virtually impossible to correct for.
Understood. Granted I fully grasp the sentiment about correcting the lens distortion at the edges of the frame. I thought the same way on a Criterion release "Could they not fix this?". It just comes down to how to represent these historic films in a digital format. "How it was shot" and "How it looked in real life" will never jive. Clearly the vertical columns did not bend in.
Hey, nobody complained about them blending out the Cinerama seams in the stellar Blu-Rays did they? No easy answer. Still lean a bit toward digitally correcting the CinemaScope distortion because it becomes a distraction. The director never intended THAT.
Well to be fair, the Cinerama seems were somewhat less visible in the theater because of the louvered screen and the deep curve. Also the distortion in Cinerama was much easier to correct for because the lenses were consistent across their focus plain. The distortion was the same when focused at 8 feet, as it was focused at infinity. The same can not be said of the early CinemaScope lenses. The distortion changed in some cases radically when the lens was rack focused. Also the lenses are not consistent from lens to lens. They only had 4 CinemaScope lenses when they started The Robe, and each one distorted in a different way.
Clearly you know your stuff. Not gonna shadow box you at all on this topic. I defer. WONDER if I know you from FB film groups! You were absolutely correct about the Cinerama seams as projected vs digital rendition. There *is* that disconnect on home video as compared to the huge screen three strip projection of Cinerama.
Just a pity the existing "This is Cinerama" was struck from a 70mm composite print since they could not find enough original elements. The video quality on the Blu-Ray just does not match what they were able to do with the rest of the product line.
By the time they went to do The Best of Cinerama, they had the funding to do a restoration of the This is Cinerama sequence directly from the three 35mm negs. At that time they figured as long as they were doing all these sequences, they should go ahead and restore the whole film. So the restoration has been done, but I don't know if there are plans for a new Blu ray release of it.
ruclips.net/video/fhF-4cWOF8s/видео.html
Its possible that I know you from a FB group. My personal account there is my name, Douglas Monce, and I have an Atomic Age Pictures page there as well.
Great my late father worked on Cinerama for how the west was one
What's the Film that has Darryl Zanuck Talking about CinemaScope and an Employee Talking about Stereo Sound?
The Miracle of Stereophonic Sound (1954).
Good!
muy bueno el documental,interesante,un 10
Love this video and gives me the bug to buy an anamorphic lens.
Does a full uncut film of Darryl F. Zanuck in cinemascope published somewhere? I can't seem to find it.
This film was made strictly for internal usage at 20th Century Fox. Mainly it was sent to the company in New York that owns the Fox Studios. To my knowledge the complete film has never been released to the public.
@@AtomicAgePictures Thank you for your response. It's a shame because that as well as the demonstration of Stereophonic Sound looked very interesting to watch in full.
I got to see it when I worked at Fox, and a projectionist friend helped track it down. I remember it showed a few scenes of current in-production films, and was touting the “new improved” CinemaScope lenses. Zanuck was commenting on “notice the improved sharpness and lack of distortion edge-to-edge, and how film grain has been reduced and image stability has been increased”...and such comments. I don’t remember the film titles, but one was clearly a Western and had a lot of blue sky and saguaro cactus in the shot...which would have bowed and distorted with the first CScope lenses. I think Bausch & Lomb created a “CinemaScope Type 2” combo lens shortly after the Robe was completed, which eliminated the two focus-puller problem as the new lens had both the anamorphic element as well as a conventional lens structure built into one lens housing. If memory serves there was also a “CinemaScope Type 3” lens developed later that tried to solve many of the same issues the Panavision company was able to solve. Panavision had rotating astigmatism elements mechanically geared to the focus ring-and even today you can see a weird focus bokeh when a shot racks focus. The astigmatism element increased the “squeeze” when focus was changed to a shorter distance to avoid the “anamorphic mumps”.
@@1Harpdude This is a little off the topic of this video, but since you worked at Fox, perhaps you could answer a question which has puzzled me for years. Who at Fox was responsible for the usage or non-usage of the Fox Fanfare for a film? Was it Zanuck, the producer/director or the composer? Did it have anything to do with how the studio viewed the importance of the film at Oscar time? For instance, after watching hundreds of 20th Century Fox films, I always heard the fanfare until Alfred Newman did not use it for a very important multi-Oscar-nominated film, ''The Song of Bernadette.'' After that film, it seemed as though all Fox films which ended up with nominations for Best Picture did not use the fanfare. Would you know who made that decision?
@@williamsnyder5616 I never heard anything about that--any reasons for using or not using the fanfare. I know that Bernard Herrmann's scores often began with the first frame of the film, including the studio logo. He felt the mood needed to be created from the onset, NOT tacked on after the logo music. GHOST AND MRS MUIR is an example of this, and also VERTIGO (Paramount) and NORTH BY NORTHWEST (MGM). I think it would have been a stylistic choice....in the case of SONG OF BERNADETTE it's possible Alfred Newman could have felt that the Fox Fanfare would sound crass before such a moving and spiritual film. I never heard of any discussion to use/not use the Fanfare for any film.
One thing that bothers me about The Robe, and probaly other CinemaScope films is that they never fixed the ''stretched'' look of the image for the blu-ray releases, as for The Robe, I don't know if other CinemaScope movies applies, it's really obnoxious how all browns are mustard colored
that would be nearly impossible to do, because the amount of squeeze varies depending upon where the focus of the lens is set. And it changes during the shot as the focus is being pulled. The actual lens would have to be examined to find out how much it squeezes or doesn't squeeze in any particular focus point. It's unlikely that they would be able to fix it without causing more problems. Besides, that's just the way the film looks.
@@AtomicAgePictures "CinemaScope mumps"
@@irixperson Eastmancolor colour fade. Could be fixed with a new colour grade.
But later scope films had the issue of stretching fixed, like mid 50's onwards. Likely they discarded the french lenses and contracted bausch and lomb to make stretch corrected lenses for taking and projection. I remember taking a b&l scope lens off a cinema projector setup.
Technicolor IB prints still look great. But Technicolor had to make Eastmancolor prints for The Robe due to the unacceptable registration errors on IB prints when blown up to CinemaScope dimensions. Technicolor went into an emergency R&D period and by 1954-55 had improved things to the point that IB Tech could be reliably used for ‘scope films. But Eastmancolor prints-ESPECIALLY in that era-are very prone to fading. I worked for years at Fox, and DeLuxe was one of the worst. We used to jokingly call it “Pink by DeLuxe” instead of “Color by DeLuxe” because the prints would sometimes be fading at the end of a standard theatrical run-just a few months! MovieLab and Pathe were awful, and WarnerColor was totally phased out due to awful release prints. MetroColor was perhaps a little better, but they all faded. Technicolor was still better, but Eastmancolor from them still faded.
Happy 55th CinemaScope
Justin Fencsak since it’s the 55th anniversary of CinemaScope, why not watch one of the two films that were filmed in CinemaScope 55?
Both were Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals:
“Carousel” and
“The King & I.”
Both released in 1956 and photographed in CinemaScope 55.
Cinemascope is coming up on 70 years old. Imagine seeing films back in the 1950s with 8k resolution and kodak films stock that had colors that no digital or HDR set could even come close to.
"You see it without glasses" is misleading. When I take it literally, I can't recognize any detail, everything blurry...
In the early fifties there has been some attempts at 3D films on a standard size 4/3 screen which needed glasses. Some cinemascope adverts pretended that it would provide the same effect without glasses, which of course wasn't true.
Although Cinemascope brought a much more satisfying frame than the former 4/3 format, it was very far from the immersive effect of Cinerama which started the widescreen era.
@@78Dipar I know, what they mean. They promised an effect, you possibly can get by using cinemascope together with stereoscopy (that's the right word for the so called 3D).
I remember a Russian stereoscopic movie, made under use of single strip Todd AO film. They used the cinemascope process, so it could be a 4/3 picture.
@@78Dipar Well, 1930 they tried to establish Fox Grandeur with 70 mm film, but the cinemas hadn't the money, it was expensive enough to convert from silent movies with live music accompaniment to sound movies. But later they used Fox Grandeur equipment for Todd AO and also the 20th C/Fox used the name for the 70 mm process. First 70 mm should also have a higher frame rate, but they dropped this. To do a film at least twice is pretty expensive.
I have no idea, what version of Oklahoma was shown on US TV. The Todd AO version had 30 fps, so it would look the best there and also fit better in 4:3, instead Cinemascope version, wich has been converted from 24 to 30 fps.
The success of TV forced to establish wide screen cinema and color to impress the audience.
@@robfriedrich2822 I know about Fox Grandeur which used 70mm film and a 2:0 aspect ratio, but it came at the wrong time (great depression), Todd AO was partly derived from this. The first two Todd AO films (Oklahoma, and Around the world in 80 days) were shot in 70mm at 30 fps and at the same time in 35mm Cinemascope at 24 fps with two cameras. Futher Todd AO films were shot only in 70mm at 24 fps.
Much later I saw a 70mm film at 60fps (Showscan process), it was very impressive.
But Todd AO, even when projected on a curved screen didn't brought the immersive effect of Cinerama. a 120° lens had been made by AO (American Optical) but was hardly used because of heavy distortion, so Todd AO films used conventional shootinf angles unable to cover peripheral vision like Cinerama did. It was the same with other 70mm films (Super Panavision and Ultra Panavision).
For more information about widescreen process, have a look here : www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/index.htm
@@78Dipar I know wide-screen museum - it tells also about early color process.
So I could understand the wrong colors in the only Betty Boop cartoon made in color - the staff ignored the limits. Or another example - a scene where they said "Blue would be possible" but Technicolor turned "Rhapsody In Blue" into something Irish, for they followed the standards.
I noticed, that changing the color tone shifts faces in a more natural look and everything else from green to light blue.
Superb doco.
god this is so cool
How come the vertical resolution is as good as the horizontal resolution since the picture is being stretched 2.5 times horizontally? There is 2.5 times more magnification horizontally then vertically. A vertical line should be slightly fuzzy.
It's stretched exactly 2 times horizontally and yes, the resolution is horizontally half the vertical resolution. Fortunately the eye doesn't see the discrepancy.
Cincemascope invented by a French engineer Henry Chretien.
Chretien didn't actually invent CinemaScope, others had made anamorphic lenses before him. He was just the first to be awarded a patent on a lens design. Interestingly by the time Fox was interested in developing CinemaScope, Chretien's patents had run out. They didn't actually need him to make their own anamorphic lenses. The reason they made a deal with him was because he had 3 or 4 lenses already manufactured, that they could use to put CinemaScope films in to production right away. Eventually his lenses were retired as better designs made by Bausch and Lomb for Fox became available.
French inventor Henri Chrétien developed and patented a new film process that he called Anamorphoscope in 1926. It was this process that would later form the basis for CinemaScope. Chrétien's process was based on lenses that employed an optical trick which produced an image twice as wide as those that were being produced with conventional lenses; this was done using an optical system called Hypergonar, which was the process of compressing (at shoot time) and dilating (at projection time) the image laterally.[2] He attempted to interest the motion picture industry in his invention, but at that time the industry was not sufficiently impressed.
By 1950, however, cinema attendance seriously declined with the advent of a new competitive rival: television. Yet Cinerama and the early 3D films, both launched in 1952, succeeded at the box-office in defying this trend, which in turn persuaded Spyros Skouras, the head of Twentieth Century-Fox, that technical innovation could help to meet the challenge.[3] Skouras tasked Earl Sponable, head of Fox's research department, with devising a new, impressive, projection system, but something that, unlike Cinerama, could be retrofitted to existing theatres at a relatively modest cost - and then Herbert Brag, Sponable's assistant, remembered Chrétien's "hypergonar" lens.[4]
The optical company Bausch & Lomb was asked to produce a prototype "anamorphoser" (later shortened to "anamorphic") lens. Meanwhile, Sponable tracked down Professor Chrétien, whose patent for the process had expired, so Fox purchased his existing Hypergonars from him and these lenses were flown back to Fox's studios in Hollywood. Test footage shot with these lenses was screened for Skouras, who gave the go-ahead for development of a widescreen process based on Chrétien's invention, which was to be known as "CinemaScope".
Do you know the reason why Chretien made those anamorphic lens?
So, who invented the system?
GuyBodart, Chretien developed his anamorphic lenses during World War 1 in order to give tank drivers a wider field of view. As to who invented the anamorphic process, that's lost to history however, we know that Artists were using lenses to bend light in one direction, as early as the 17th century. The anamorphic concept was well known before Henry Chretien develop his lenses.
You are right about anamorphic lenses. Chretien invented he Hypergonar for the French army during WWI. Thanks to Chretien we started to use his system in motion pictures.
I wonder if you were to combine the anamorphic lens with the VistaVision cameras. I know with the VistaVision, you're exposing twice the negative space of film as oppose to a traditional 35mm cameras, because the film runs horizontally than vertical. And if they were able to it would made the films less grainy and more cleaner looking.
That was actually done by Technicolor. It was called Technirama. Some of the more famous films shot in that format were, The Pink Panther, The Vikings, Spartacus, and Sleeping Beauty.
www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingtr1.htm
Super Technirama 70 was developed by Technicolor Corp. as their answer to VistaVision, but by adding an anamorphic lens to compress the 8-perf image.
Essentially that was Technirama process. MGM 55 & MGM 65 & Super Panavision 70 were another attempts to have larger format negatives to produce higher quality 35mm cut downs prints. Todd AO ran at 30fps which meant 35mm cut down prints couldn't be produced.
Cue marks = ending of reel 18:11
I'm wondering if La La Land did actually used CinemaScope?
JONATHAN PINZON the CinemaScope lenses were all retired LONG ago.
AtomicAgePictures then why did Quentin Tarantino used it in the Hateful 8?
JONATHAN PINZON he didn't that was Ultra Panavision 70, an anamorphic 70mm process. CinemaScope was a 35mm process of which all the lenses were owned by 20th Century Fox.
JONATHAN PINZON for the record, La La Land used the CinemaScope logo in its credits for nostalga reasons, but was filmed with Panavision C lenses.
wow, panavision 70 is shit, no wonder the actors faces were so stretched out weird. i hate it, rip cinemascope.
This is why I love Widescreen.
Fullscreen sucks.
At 4:00 minute mark in the above video there is Misinformation presented.
Henri Jacques Chrétien did NOT invent Anamorphic Lenses as stated in the above video.
Henri Jacques Chrétien is credited with coming up with an application of Existing Anamorphic Lenses called The Anamorphic Widescreen Projection Process otherwise known as The Cinemascope Process.
The Truth is that Anamorphic Lenses are nothing more than Cylindrical Optical Lenses and The First Anamorphic Lenses were invented in 1825 by British Astronomer, Dr. George Airy.
These Anamorphic Lenses were first distributed in the Untied States by John McAllister in 1828 for the purpose of Correcting Optical Astigmatism in people with Visual impairment.
Thank you Very Mush^!!^
Have A Nice Day!
Sincerely,
arctictimberwolf
While you are absolutely correct, I'm going to give the makers of this video a little bit of a break because, Henri Chretien was the first person to apply anamorphic lenses to motion pictures.
@@AtomicAgePictures , yes, it is also important to note that back then the Most if not all Optical Lenses were made of Crystal Glass which is about 20% Clearer than Plastic Lenses and these days Most Optical Lenses are Plastic which has an Optical Clarity about 20% less than Glass Lenses and it certainly can not be said that Plastic Camera Lenses or any Plastic Optical Lenses give a "Crystal Clear Image"
😉🤓 Thanks for responding and have a Great Day! 😃
@@arctictimberwolf Motion Picture lenses are not made of plastic they are made of optical glass. They are typically also made of an aluminum housing. Even inexpensive consumer cameras use Optical glass in their lenses. Only the very cheapest, frankly crappy cameras, use plastic lenses. In addition I'm quite familiar with both motion picture and still lenses manufactured from the 1930s through the 1970s and I'm unaware of any that were made from Crystal. They were typically made of optical glass and at least until the early seventies were often infused with thorium as a protection against light pollution and lens flares. This had the side effect of making the lenses slightly radioactive.
@@AtomicAgePictures , yeah, you're right. I did a quick search for Optical Glass just now and the term "Crystal Clear" is a dominant phrase used when describing Optical Glass Lenses. That Phrase is slightly misleading because as you said Glass is not technically a Crystal as the the Molecules are not lined up as in a Quartz Crystal on the Face of a Wrist Watch is technically a Molecular Crystal. 🤔
PAPYRUS?!
end of video.
cue marks!
I AM A FILM PROJECTIONST
Who is the man talking at the beginning of the video? What's the source?
The man speaking at the start of the video is Darryl F. Zanuck. Zanuck was the founder and vice president in charge of production for 20th Century Fox Pictures from 1935, until 1969. The film he appears in here was a message to the board of directors of Fox back in New York City. The film was made in 1953, as CinemaScope was just about to be introduced to the public, and Zanuck was explaining to the money men how the process worked, and what their plans for it where.
AtomicAgePictures Thanks a lot for the explanation!
Gustavo Bissoli where’s the whole film
was great but now we want our films to FILL our TV screens so end
DENNIS MAHANEY I want my TV screen to display the film in the correct aspect ratio.
im like Cinamascope
Demonstrating stereo sound on a video that has only mono output is a bit lame.
Check your system. The video is in stereo .
@@AtomicAgePictures The video is in stereo like you said BUT the section where someone seems to demonstrate stereo ( 07:40 ) is absolutely mono.
I performed this excercise: I downloaded your video using the latest yt-dlp
I extracted the soundtrack on a wav file
ffmpeg -i The\ CinemaScope\ Story\ \[Bve8wGAPhIg\].webm out.wav
I opened the wav file in audacity
I splitted the single stereo track to 2 monos tracks (using the drop-down on the left side of the track, Split Stereo to Mono)
I inverted one of the 2 channels (select only one track then Effect->Invert)
I played the 2 mono tracks simultaneously, each track playing on both sides...
This will have the effect of muting anything that is mono.
The section at 07:40 is totally muted this way (except for very faint data compression artefacts)
If you listen to your whole video this way you can check yourself that only the music is truly stereo and most of the voice recordings are mono, all of them (except the first speaker at the very start of the video).
@@35mmMovieTrailersScans oh I see what you're saying. It's quite possible that the stereo mix of that film no longer exists and it only has a mono track left.
Never liked CinemaScope. Always looks blurry to me.
The early cinemascope lenses were very soft and had many flaws, however by the late 1950s the cinemascope lenses that were being made my Bausch & Lomb we're quite good.
Gerryu21220 You Need Glasses Then!!!!!!!!
vistavision much better
In the mid to late 50s I would agree. But later as the anamorphic optics got better, particularly with Panavision, the scope format gave it a run for its money, and was just far more practical. Personally I prefer the wider aspect ratio of scope to the 1.85:1 of VistaVision. Honestly if I had to choose a vintage format to make a film today, my choice would be Technirama. Basically VistaVision with an anamorphic squeeze to get the wider ratio.