American cinematographer. (1951)

ABOVE — Field equipment for making Cinerama movies consists of Cin¬ erama camera and portable magnetic sound recording outfit. Latter uses six standard microphones spotted at strategic pickup locations. AT RIGHT: Put these four films together and you have a Cinerama movie. First three form left-hand, center and right-hand parts of picture, when projected side by side on theatre screen. Dark film at right carries six sound tracks that actuate theatre's multiple loudspeakers for binaural sound. Picture frames are one-half again standard height — camera advances standard 35mm film 6 perfora¬ tions at a time instead of usual 4. — Photos courtesy Popular Science. Cinerama--Super Movies of the Future Newest approach to practical three-dimension motion pictures is system that puts image on three films which are screened by multiple projectors on a curved, segmented screen. Courtesy International Projectionist Cinerama pictures are expected to make their first public bow early this year, with arrangements for perma¬ nent installations in theatres sometime about mid-1951. Cinerama is the brainchild of Fred Waller, formerly with Paramount Pic¬ tures, and designer of the famous Waller Gunnery Trainer which utilized a fivelens camera and five projectors to show airplanes realistically on a curved screen. The Cinerama three-lens system is a sim¬ plified modification of the earlier setup. The sound recording and reproduction system was engineered by Harold Reeves, of Reeves Sound Studios (N.Y. City) who compiled an impressive record for electronic tricks during World War II. Cinerama’s sponsors do not claim that their pictures are stereoscopic or threedimensional movies, that is, in the strict technical interpretation of these terms. Such films require either a special screen that only a limited portion of an audience can view from a precise rigid-necked angle, or the use of analyzers or special spectacles. No such extraneous gadgets are needed by Cinerama audiences, who view the screen images in wholly normal fashion. Normal binocular (two-eyed) vision, while playing an important role in the viewing of motion pictures, is only part of the over-all reason why such images seem real. Cinerama starts from this basis and, by skillfully combining other ele¬ ments of human vision and intricate com¬ pensatory optical and mechanical equip¬ ment, produces what is substantially a stereoscopic effect. In real life one can look all around as well as straight ahead; and the Cine¬ rama big “wrap-around” screen of 8 times standard size and 4 times as wide forms a great curving arc across one’s field of view that surrounds the onlooker with the action and gives one the feeling of being right in the midst, not outside, of things. Images in closeups appear so near and so real that one feels he could reach right out and touch them. This impression is achieved by the picture¬ taking lenses that match the human eye in focal length and give exactly the same perspective. Nor is the eye alone subjected to this amazing simulation of reality. Truly stereophonic sound positions the sound at exactly on the point of the screen from whence the sound emanates, even from behind the viewer. The filming and projection of Cine¬ rama movies represents a prodigous feat of planning and execution — everything is on a grand scale. The eye-filling picture covers a field of vision about 146° wide and 55^2° high — which compares with the extreme limit of human eyes of 160° by 750. Even the most satisfactory wideangle lens couldn’t possibly accommodate more than a fraction of this sweep, thus the reason for Cinerama’s three-camerasin-one. The eyes of this 150-pound camera are three matched lenses of 27-mm focal length set at angles 48° apart. Each lens records one-third of the total width of the scene upon one of three standard 35mm films carried in as many film magazines. Otherwise, the three sections operate as one. The lines of sight of the three lenses converge and cross at a point 1 1/16 inch in front of them, where a single revolv¬ ing-disc shutter serves them all, thus assuring synchronization of exposures. Simultaneous focusing of all three lenses is accomplished by a single knob; while another knob controls the diaphragm settings in unison. Individual Cinerama film frames are one-half again standard height; and since (Continued on Page 28) 12 American Cinematographer January, 1951