British Kinematography (1953)

132 BRITISH KINEMATOGRAPHY Vol. 23, No. 5 phonic sound. Here at last we find a development for which the motion picture industry can justly take credit ; for though stereophonic sound was first demonstrated in 1881 (the experiment is described in Film and Its Techniques2), and afterwards developed by the Bell Telephone Co. in America, it was first commercially applied to film in Walt Disney's Fantasia*. Since the latter part of last year, its use has been ably advocated by Hollywood's sound recording departments, the only groups of trained engineers to be found in the studios. The result is that the innovation which, of the three, is probably the least effective, has received the most intensive development. It seems very doubtful whether an appreciable proportion of The Robe's and House of Wax's audiences were much affected, even subconsciously, by the stereophonic sound, so weak is the directional response of the ears, especially when the eyes are being powerfully stimulated. Off-screen loudspeakers would appear to have a value for startling effects ; but the impression they produce varies tremendously from one seating position to another, and it would require a prohibitive number of sound tracks to graduate these effects at all subtly. On the technical side it seems likely that the soundhead equipment engineered for CinemaScope has won the day, this being a magnetic device mounted just below the projector upper spool-box, and capable of reproducing four sound-striped magnetic tracks, two inside and two outside the perforations. The picture would thus be restored to the central axis of the film which it abandoned in 1928. This device, once installed, is no more difficult to operate than the single sound track reproducer of to-day, although its much greater cost and complexity are not likely to be offset by any greatly enhanced audience appeal. As incidental benefits to be expected, however, are the abandonment of the obsolete Academy reproducer characteristic in favour of higher fidelity sound, and the reproduction of music from a plurality of tracks and speakers, with a consequent reduction of intermodulation and other objectionable distortions, Possible Future Trends In drawing together these assessments of future trends, I suppose I shall have to appear in the dangerous and unwelcome role of prophet. Rational forecasts are manifestly uncertain when the important factor may be what kind of aspect ratio makes Miss Marilyn Monroe look most attractive. In the short term, then — that is to say, over the next two years or so — I anticipate that CinemaScope and other compatible anamorphotic systems will achieve an output of perhaps 80 per cent of Hollywood's high budget pictures. But I do not expect that more than a relatively small percentage of cinemas will be equipped to project these films in their original form. The largest and most enterprising cinemas will convert to very wide screens, but optical prints will be made by the studios through anamorphotic lens systems whereby the central portions of the original pictures may be projected with normal lenses in unconverted theatres. The middle-run of cinemas will show these films, and they will eke out the year with lower-budget pictures shot in the old-fashioned way but for an aspect ratio of about 1-66 to 1. Many of the smaller and the less prosperous theatres are likely to go out of business, especially in the U.S.A. If commercial television finds its way into this country and plays down sufficiently to popular taste, it will react strongly against those cinema interests which are now supporting it, and will still further depreciate cinema investments and property. In this middle future, I do not think that 3-D will play any decisive role. Looking farther ahead, it is impossible to make any prophecy which is not a mere hunch. Assuming, however, that the motion picture industry was forced with its back to the wall to mobilize all the outside scientific talent which it could attract in America and elsewhere, some definite direction which it could take is not hard to envisage. The combination of wide screen and 3-D has often been loosely discussed. This is a confused way of stating the problem, since 3-D by itself can be projected on any shape or size of screen, and a large or wide screen is no less