Cinerama

For the UK rock group, see: Cinerama (band)

The original Cinerama system is a widescreen process which works by simultaneously projecting images from three synchronized projectors onto a huge, deeply-curved screen, subtending 146º of arc. The spectacular display is accompanied by a high-quality, six-track, stereophonic sound system. The original system involved shooting with three synchronized cameras, but this was later abandoned in favour of an anamorphic 65mm system, shot with a single camera. (Aficionados, however, insist that the later process was inferior).

History

Cinerama was developed by Fred Waller and was outgrowth of many years of development. Waller had earlier developed an 11-projector system called "Vitarama" at the Petroleum Industry exhibit in the 1939 New York World's Fair. A five-camera version, the Waller Gunnery Trainer, was used during the Second World War.

The word "Cinerama" is an anagram of "American." Commentators differ on whether or not this was intentional.

Cinerama was introduced in September, 1952, at the Broadway Theatre in New York. Being a big-ticket, reserved-seats spectacle, the projectors were usually adjusted carefully and operated skilfully. Vibrating combs called "gigolos" were used to provide a linearly-ramped shading at the edge of each frame, so that they joined without a grossly obvious line or seam. Great care was taken in to match color and brightness when producing the prints. Nevertheless, the joins between the three panels were usually noticeable. Optical limitations with the design of camera itself meant that if distant scenes joined perfectly, closer objects did not. A nearby object might split into two as it crossed the seams. To avoid calling attention to the seams, scenes were often composed with unimportant objects such as trees or posts at the seams, and action was blocked to as to center actors within panels. This gave a distinctly "triptych-like" appearance to the composition even when the seams themselves were not obvious. Enthusiasts say the seams were not obtrusive; detractors differ. Lowell Thomas, an investor in the company with Mike Todd, was still raving about it in his memoirs thirty years later.

The system had some obvious drawbacks. If one of the films should break and be repaired with the damaged frames cut out, the corresponding frames would have to be cut from the other two films in order to preserve synchronization. The use of zoom lenses was impossible since the three images would no longer match. Perhaps the biggest limitation of the process is that the picture looks natural only from within a rather limited "sweet spot." Viewed from outside the sweet spot, the picture is annoyingly distorted. But these problems certainly did not stop moviegoers from appreciating this innovative wide-screen process.

Worthy of note is the special Cinerama screen, which consisted of hundreds of separate vertical strips. This design eliminated cross-reflections on the deeply curved screen. Anyone who has seen the washed-out appearance of an IMAX Dome presentation will appreciate why this was important.

The impact these films had on the big screen cannot be assessed from television or video, or even from 'scope prints, which marry the three images together with the joins clearly visible. Because they were designed to be seen on a curved screen, the geometry looks distorted on television; somebody walking from left to right would appear to approach the camera at an angle, move away at an angle, and then repeat the process on the other side of the screen.

During the fifties, Cinerama was presented as a theatrical event, with reserved seating and printed programs. Patrons would dress up to attend.

Although most of the films produced using the original three-strip Cinerama process were full feature length or longer, they were travelogues or collections of short subjects such as This Is Cinerama and South Seas Adventure. Only two films with traditional story lines were made--The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and How the West Was Won. (The total is three if you count Windjammer, made in Cinemiracle, a different but compatible process).

But rising costs in making three-camera wide-screen films caused Cinerama to stop making such films in their original form shortly after the first release of How The West Was Won. However, Cinerama continued through the rest of the 1960s as a brand-name for the one-camera Super- and Ultra-Panavision widescreen process (which yielded a similar aspect ratio as the original Cinerama). Examples of films made in one-camera Cinerama were It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Cinerama name was used as a film distribution company, ironically re-issuing one-camera Cinemascope reduction prints of This Is Cinerama.

Cinerama today

The Cinerama company exists today as an entity of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford, England beginning in 1993

• the New Neon Cinema in Dayton, Ohio from 1996 to 1999
• the refurbished Martin Cinerama in Seattle beginning in 2000
• Pacific Theatres? Cinerama Dome in Hollywood beginning in 2002.

As of 2004, the Pictureville Cinema, Martin Cinerama and Cinerama Dome continue to hold periodic screenings of three-projector Cinerama movies.

A 2003 documentary, The Cinerama Adventure, took a look back at the history of the Cinerama process, as well as digitally recreating the Cinerama experience via clips of true Cinerama films (using transfers from original Cinerama prints). And Turner Entertainment (via Warner Bros.) has struck new Cinerama prints of How The West Was Won for exhibition in true Cinerama theatres around the world.

Cinerama is widely considered the most impressive wide-screen process ever to have achieved commercial success, and a process ahead of its time. Every other system--Todd-AO, Cinemascope, even IMAX, can be fairly described as attempts, with varying degrees of success, to approximate Cinerama at lower cost.