Cinema-going in the USA fell from an average weekly attendance of 90 million in 1948, to an average of 60 million in 1950 and down to 18 million by 1972. The collapse of the cinema-going habit was the result of a number of social changes. In the post-war years the American population became more affluent and developed the taste, time and money for more active recreation. The studios had always relied on mass urban audiences. People now had the money and the ambition to move out to the suburbs and, although drive-in cinemas were a cheap and convenient way to reconnect with this relocated audience, film entertainment was a passive activity provided for the audience whereas many of them wanted recreation in their leisure time that allowed them to participate.
Studios saw television as its principal competitor. They believed that with a greater emphasis centred on the suburban home, television kept people away from the cinemas. They decided to fight back by offering a widescreen image and surround-sound experience that attempted to completely involve the audience in the film.
During the twentieth century, large screen displays had occurred in expositions, amusement parks and exhibitions. Cinerama was devel- oped by Fred Waller away from the film industry and shot on three ganged cameras each covering 488 of the field of view, making up a composite image of 1468 horizontal by 558 vertical. This closely approached human vision of 1658 608.
Because of Cinerama’s enormous curved screen, stereo sound and an aspect ratio of 2.77:1, many of the audience were less aware, if aware at all, of the edge of the horizontal frame, unlike their normal visual experience of the standard Academy ratio movie. Most of the Cinerama audience was seated so that the screen filled their field of view. Human vision uses a series of small eye motions called saccadic eye movement to scan 5–358 of their field of view. The Cinerama screen, covering 1468, meant the audience’s visual attention was scat- tered across the screen. This duplicated the experience in reality of scanning across a panoramic view. Unlike the Academy ratio movie, the audience’s attention (unless you were sitting in the front seats), was not focused on a single framed image. Cinerama, and later CinemaScope, attempted to reduce or eliminate the audience’s aware- ness of the horizontal screen border in the cinema.
The advertising for Cinerama suggested that the audience was drawn into the film and had the physical experience of whatever motion was depicted. The emphasis of the film was on movement, not story. The audience did not watch the screen, they participated in a roller coaster ride. It was not something they saw but something they did. Avoiding any strong plot or stars, the film was an extended travelogue with sequences of Niagara Falls, a gondolier ride in Venice, etc. Waller suggested it was the large curved screen duplicating per- ipheral vision that enhanced the visual experience.
Cinerama had a number of limitations compared with the standard ‘flat’ screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio. ‘Flat’ was used to differentiate between the curved cinema screen of Cinerama and the flat screen of standard aspect ratio. The joins between the three screens were difficult to hide and required special compositional arrangements when shoot- ing. The seams, once disguised in shooting, also precluded tracking, panning or tilting. Flat lighting had to be used to balance out the enormous width of screen and the three separate images, and the film cameras were fitted with 28 mm lenses, which made normal cam- erawork technique of close-ups, etc., impossible. In essence, Cinerama was a fairground entertainment and not part of the Hollywood stan- dard movie of star and story. The technology was the hero and appeared to be only suitable for travelogues and spectacle. And yet it had an enormous impact on the limited audience that saw it and the major studios recognized its crowd-pulling appeal. Cinerama opened at the Broadway Theatre, New York on 30 September 1952 and played, on its opening run, for 122 weeks.
1953 was the crucial year for the studios looking for a similar wide- screen format as Cinerama but without its technical imperfections. Twentieth-Century Fox made it a top priority and agreed with Henry Chre´tien to use his Hypergona lens. He was surprised they needed to make any agreement with him as it was out of patent in 1951 and the design was in the public domain. But Twentieth-Century Fox was in a hurry to get a film into production and could not wait for new (and subsequently better) lenses to be designed and built. CinemaScope started with an aspect ratio of 2.66:1 (later 2.55:1) pro- jected onto a slightly curved screen with four-track magnetic sound. It was advertised as three-dimensional to distinguish it from the older 4:3 ‘flat’ screen movies, but its illusion of depth was only achieved by a larger screen. True three-dimensional (use bi-coloured spectacles) only had a commercial life of one year. Twentieth-Century Fox research engineers redesigned the 35 mm frame to have smaller sprocket holes to carry two, two-track magnetic strips either edge of the film, posi- tioned outside the sprocket holes, which allowed a slightly larger negative area for the picture.
Twentieth-Century Fox attempted to make this the standard wide- screen format and pressurized other studios and cinema owners to convert to this gauge. Every major studio wanted a widescreen format to duplicate the Cinerama ‘experience’. Eventually, after initial rivalry and haggling, United Artists, MGM, Columbia, Warners and Disney signed up to make films in CinemaScope. Paramount held out and launched VistaVision, an eight sprocket hole, two frame negative image rotated 908 but reduced to a 35 mm projected print in a variety of aspect ratios varying from 2:1, 1.85:1 to 1.33:1. Paramount had a
secondary format argument and claimed that height was as important as width of screen.
Before they were allowed to show CinemaScope, Twentieth-Century Fox required cinemas to re-equip with new projectors, a new screen (their patented Magic Mirror screen for a brighter image), and a com- plex magnetic track stereo sound system. Most cinema owners ignored the sound requirements and although Twentieth-Century Fox pro- vided various prints to accommodate monaural, optical stereo sys- tems, they finally capitulated and in 1956 they reverted to standard sprocket holes and an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The release print had a combined magnetic and optical sound track.
CinemaScope was developed in ten months. New Bausch & Lomb CinemaScope lenses in 1954 allowed the anamorphic attachment to be combined with the objective lens to make focusing easier and con- stant.
Other widescreen formats followed, including CinemaScope 55 shooting on 56.625 mm negative but projected using 35 mm prints. Although it was sharper on the large screens the audience was not generally aware of the difference. CinemaScope as a format finished at Fox in 1967.
In order to reduce anamorphic camera distortion, Panavision was created using a pair of prisms that could be moved in relation to each other to alter the anamorphic horizontal expansion factor. Cinema projectionists could adjust to accommodate any film with compression squeeze ratios from 1:1 to 2.
Todd AO arrived in the mid- to late 1950s and used 65 mm negative to film and 70 mm prints (to accommodate sound tracks). This process allowed four lenses to be used – 128, 64, 48, 378 so that standard storytelling technique could be employed through a range of shot size and camera movement. Other widescreen processes such as MGM Camera 65, Super Panavision 70 mm, Super Technirama 70 meant that many cinemas re-equipped to project 70 mm film. 70 mm film became synonymous with image quality even when, to save pro- duction costs, some producers used 35 mm to shoot and then print up to 70 mm for release.
Widescreen film aspect ratios still remain a mixture of sizes but the most common are Academy Flat (1.85:1) and Anamorphic Scope (2.35:1). 1.66:1 and 2.20:1 (70 mm) ratios are also used (see Figure 7.1). Composition is often planned, when shooting, so that the release print can be accommodated on different aspect ratio display screens without seriously compromising information or the integrity of the image (see Chapters 8 and 9).