What Is Cinerama?

By Bob Allen

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In 1937 Ralph Walker, a New York architect interested in finding a new type of picture presentation for use in the coming New York World Fair consulted Fred Waller, the then head of Paramount's trick film department. Walker suggested projected pictures on the inside of a spherical surface using several projectors. For Fred Waller this recalled earlier ideas and experiments he had done with wide angle lenses and the dramatic effect possible when pictures completely occupied viewers peripheral vision. The problem in his earlier experiments had been limited projection angles and screen sizes. He had not thought of projecting onto curved screens. Would using multiple cameras to take pictures and projecting them on curved screens give a stereoscopic effect?

ELEVEN CAMERAS

In his first experiments Waller used eleven 16mm cameras to make a single frame. He mounted the camera set-up on his car and took pictures driving along one of his neighbourhood roads. Dr L.A. Jones, an optical physicist from Eastman Kodak visited Waller an viewed the experimental road footage projected on to a spherical screen set up in a barn on Waller's property. Dr Jones was impressed and considered what he saw 'As startlingly real with a sense of environment and spatial relationship'.

VITARAMA CORPORATION

The development of equipment continued and in the latter part of 1938 demonstrations were given to about 100 people with equipment set up in rented offices at 101 Park Lane, New York. Laurance Rockefeller attended one of these demonstrations and became interested in the process. On November 3rd 1938, the Vitarama Corporation was formed. The stockholders were Laurance Rockefeller, the architectural firm Voorhees & Walker and Fred Waller. Development work continued, based in a garage on West 55th Street, New York, made available rent free by Rockefeller.

LOUVERED SCREEN

One problem experienced with the picture was bad degradation due to internal reflection on the screen. This was overcome by building a screen with separate spherical facets, each facet angled to avoid internal reflection.

During this period, shows were produced in the Vitarama eleven projector spherical screen process for Kodak using Kodachrome slides, and the American Museum of Natural History using moving and still pictures. Both shows were seen at the New York World Fair. By the time the fair was over the Kodak presentation had drawn more audience than any other commercial exhibit.

NEED FOR NEW SOUND

As work continued on perfecting the picture, Waller felt that the accompanying sound would have to have an effect, that was as three dimensional as that had been achieved with the picture.

The first work in sound used three parallel cuttings on a single disc each of the cutting heads being supplied by sound from separate sources and sound from each of the reproducing pickups amplified and fed directly to three loudspeakers. According to Waller 'This set up proved to be another real improvement, not only in the sound itself but in total effect. For the first time we had seen a wide angle three dimensional true perspective picture with realistic sound enhancing the effect'.

GUNNERY TRAINER

A great deal more research and development followed and preparations were being made to have the first public showing when war broke out in Europe, making it a poor time to bring out a new motion picture process.

The US Defence Department wanted a gunnery trainer that could give air gunners a realistic taste of combat before they had to face live bullets. Waller was called in and with some further work on his multi camera, multi projector techniques, The Waller Flexible Gunnery Trainer was devised and in operation by the Autumn of 1940. It incorporated five 35mm interlocked projectors projecting on to a spherical screen. Two projectors provided the overhead visual information, the other three formed the in-front scene. Eighty five trainers were built and often they ran schedules of 15 to 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

At the end of the war, the US Airforce gave the Waller Gunnery Trainer credit for saving over 350,000 casualties.

CINERAMA CORPORATION

After the war work on the theatrical system, resumed at the 55th Street garage site. At this stage Time Inc. became interested and agreed to invest. In November 1946 the Cinerama Corporation was formed and work transferred to an indoor tennis court on an Oyster Bay, Long Island Estate.

A difficult problem was the adaptation of the spherical screen which, satisfactory for a small audience, was not practical for large theatre entertainment. So the spherical screen was eliminated along with the two projectors that provided for the overhead section of the picture.

The three front projectors now projected on to a giant semi circular screen, six times larger than the average screen. It was 144 degrees horizontal by 55 degrees vertical; normal human vision is approximately 170 degrees horizontal by 90 degrees vertical. The screen was made up of 1100 highly reflective vertical strips 7/8Ó wide all angled to avoid internal reflection.

THE 'JIGALO'

Another problem was the vertical junctions of the three pictures on the screen. Despite good registration in both cameras and projectors, where the pictures joined there was obvious unsteadiness and brightness caused by the overlapping. Waller overcame these problems by designing a device nicknamed a 'Jigolo'. It was a sawtooth edge built into the sides of the projector apertures which oscillated up and down faster than the eye could perceive, softening the join lines.

The system used 35mm film with a six sprocket pull down giving an almost square frame. Camera and projector speed was at 26 frames per second. Waller favoured 35mm rather than a wide gauge film because of it's already established manufacture, processing and handling.

FINAL SOUND DEVELOPMENT

During development work to perfect the Cinerama picture Waller had not forgotten his earlier ideas that sound needed to be as third dimensional as the picture.

Hazzard E Reeves of Reeves Soundcraft Corporation was called in and took over the development of a suitable sound system financing it personally. Soundcraft had developed the Magnastripe process and were manufacturers of 1/4" and sprocketed magnetic materials.

Experiments were carried out with what was, in 1948, a new medium - 35mm magnetic sound. Tests were made with three sound channels feeding three behind the screen speakers. The results were good but because of the wide spacing between speakers there were gaps as sound sources moved across the screen.

Next five channels were tried which not only gave uniform level for moving sound sources but also greatly enhanced the sound perspective. A sixth channel was added in order to have sound follow the action beyond the screen limits. They found that setting the microphones in the same relationship to the scene being photographed they achieved the relative quality required.

5 TRACKS, 6 TRACKS, 7 TRACKS

The first public exhibition opened with the six track version. The six tracks were recorded on 35mm full coat magnetic stock and played off on a specially designed reproducer interlocked with the three projectors. The speed was 145ft per minute which helped greatly with the frequency range and wow and flutter. Five channels were behind the screen and the sixth patched to additional auditorium speakers by on the spot control operators.

Within months the process was modified to seven tracks which became the standard. Cinerama publicity hand out diagrams however for many years still showed the six track version.

Tracks 1 to 5 supplied behind screen speakers, 6 and 7 were auditorium left and right respectively but were also patchable by on site picture control engineers to channels 8 and 9, which were rear wall left and right. Cue sheets were supplied for each production so that the on site operators could patch sound to the appropriate channel during the performance. There was no control track as there had been with the Disney/RCA Fantasound of 1940.

'THIS IS CINERAMA'

This is Cinerama opened at the Broadway Theatre in New York on September 30, 1952. It was a great success. During the next ten years a further eight feature programmes were produced in the three camera process to supply the 100 Cinerama installations throughout the world.

In 1963, 'It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World' was shot in single camera Ultra Panavision 70 with the intention of showing it in Cinerama theatres on the giant curved screen. From then on the three camera/projector system was abandoned and films for Cinerama were shot on such wide film systems as Super Panavision, Technirama 70 and Super Technirama.

From 1963 to 1968 twelve productions were made in one or other of the single camera wide screen systems. They could either be shown in Cinerama theatres or road shown in cinemas equipped with 70mm projection. Being a single negative systems, Cinemascope prints could be made for showing in any cinema.

The last three projector Cinerama presentation in the UK was in 1967 at the Walsall Itinerama Cinema. There was no further use for the three screen type of production and the equipment was removed from the theatres and scrapped.

CINERAMA STILL LIVES

There are three Cinerama set ups still operating. Two are privately owned, one in Sydney, Australia and the other in Dayton, Ohio, USA.

The third is in the UK, lovingly restored by the Cinerama Society of Great Britain and the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television. The equipment is installed in a theatre adjacent to the museum in Bradford. With a brand new print of This is Cinerama public showings are given twice weekly.

HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE

In 1900 at the Paris International Exhibition a curved screen 100 metres wide was exhibited, on to which ten pictures were projected by ten synchronised projectors. The system had been patented by Grimouin Sanson in 1897 and called 'Cinerama'.

In 1927 sequences in French Director Able Gance's Napoleon were shot in a three camera system and projected on to a large curved screen to make one big picture. The system was called Polyvision. Later 'directional' sound effects were added.

In 1951 EMI Engineering Development and British Thomson Huston Co. Ltd developed a four track magnetic stereo system for the Telekinima at the Festival of Britain South Bank Exhibition.