International projectionist (Jan-Dec 1947)

Startling Soviet Stereo Films Giant strides forward made by Ivanov since first showing of experimental depth motion picture process in 1940. Forecast for immediate future of process. CVER since the days of the ordinary, primitive "still ™ picture" stereoscope technical workers in the cinematic art have sought to apply the principles employed in this simple apparatus to impart the same effect to motion pictures. But while the stereo of hallowed memory plainly indicated the road that must be travelled before success could be achieved, it clung tenaciously to its basic secrets by failing to signpost the tortuous twistings and turnings of the course. This is not to say that there have not been motion pictures which embodied the three-dimensional effect — some by accident, some by design. Thirty and more years ago the film Cabiria, employing the well-known technique of a moving camera and a moving object, attained in several sequences a true three-dimensional effect. But the. requsites underlying the duplication of this effect at will remained a total secret to the art. Novel Effect Achieved With Analyzers Then there were the more recent Audioscopics series of shorts, made by Jack Norling and released by M-G-M, which required the viewer to wear an analyzer in the form of special spectacles. Other inventors suggested Screen used by Ivanov in 1940 experiments had 30,000 fine copper wires, and weighed six tons. colored glasses (red and green) or "crossed" polarizing filters, but these do not produce the desired effect. Threedimensional advertising stills are commonplace, of course, these being produced by a camera which travels on a track for 180 degrees around the object being shot. In view of the many fantastic, even larcenous, claims advanced by "inventors" of stereoscopic motion pictures through the years, one may not be criticized for the (Continued on following page) Correspondent for "Sight & Sound" (published by British Film Institute) renders an eyewitness account of thrilling Soviet three-dimensional film. THE cinema is a former concert hall seating about 220. As in all Soviet cinemas, performances are not continuous: all seats are booked in advance, and one waits in the foyer until the previous house has come out. As the house lights go down, a voice on a loudspeaker calls for attention and advises you not to move your head from side to side once the show has started. As a result of this advice, everyone begins peering sideways and inclining their heads to see what happens. What happens is that a kind of rising-sun effect appears to fill the screen, raying out from the center bottom and disappearing as soon as you restore your head to its normal position. Otherwise, there , is . only a slight discomfort as if there were something in front of your eyes — gauze, perhaps, or as in those curious focus tests used by some oculists with a visible but non-existent line moving over a page. Normal eyes, I suppose, could stand this indefinitely, but I doubt if mine would have been happy after much more than the hour and a quarter of stereoscopic film in its present stage of development. No Viewing Aid of Any Kind Required The screen, which is made, I was told, of millions of chips of glass, looks like any ordinary screen, though it is pitched high. Occasionally something like a sound track was visible on the left side. We used no special lenses or apparatus of any kind (italics IP's). The story was Robinson Crusoe. It was only when Crusoe . . . throws a rope to a drowning sailor that you get your first shock. The rope comes hurtling and curling right out of the screen into the darkness over your head. At you! You duck. We all did. After that you are ready for anything. . . . You soon accept the new screen convention of Crusoe's personal roundness and take it for granted. Other chances must be taken to keep the new idiom alive. They come from the animals which Crusoe encounters. Each is startlingly real; and when a civet cat crawls out on a branch over the auditorium (italics IP's), our delight is unbounded. . . . Advantage is continually taken of shooting (camera) through foreframes of ropes or branches or the archway of a tree. Sometimes the foreground itself comes alive. As Crusoe advances down a corridor of undergrowth, the camera tracks backward in front of him. Out in the auditorium, about three rows in front of you, leaves and flowers materialize in the air, dangle and dance, and float away into Crusoe's face. Small birds sit on them, or fly out at you from the screen and vanish over your head; or INTERNATIONAL PROJECTIONIST • December 1947 17