CinemaScope
Yet Cinerama and the early 3D films, both launched in 1952, succeeded in defying that trend, which in turn persuaded Spyros Skouras, the head of 20th Century-Fox, that technical innovation could help to meet the television challenge.
[4] Skouras tasked Earl Sponable, head of Fox's research department, with devising a new, impressive, projection system, but something that, unlike Cinerama, could be retrofitted to existing theatres at a relatively modest cost.
[5] The optical company Bausch & Lomb was asked to produce a prototype "anamorphoser" (later shortened to anamorphic) lens.
Test footage shot with the lenses was screened for Skouras, who gave the go-ahead for development of a widescreen process, based on Chrétien's invention, which was to be known as CinemaScope.
So that production of the first CinemaScope films could proceed without delay, shooting started using the best three of Chrétien's Hypergonars, while Bausch & Lomb continued working on their own versions.
The introduction of CinemaScope enabled Fox and other studios to respond to the challenge from television by providing a key point of difference.
Chrétien's Hypergonars proved to have significant optical and operational defects, primarily loss-of-squeeze at close camera-to-subject distances, plus the requirement of two camera assistants.
Other manufacturers' lenses are often preferred for so-called production applications that benefit from significantly lighter weight or lower distortion, or a combination of both characteristics.
CinemaScope was developed to use a separate film for sound (see Audio below), thus enabling the full silent 1.33:1 aperture to be available for the picture, with a 2:1 anamorphic squeeze applied that would allow an aspect ratio of 2.66:1.
When, however, developers found that magnetic stripes could be added to the film to produce a composite picture/sound print, the ratio of the image was reduced to 2.55:1.
Among the features and shorts they filmed with it, they created the live-action epic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, considered one of the best examples of early CinemaScope productions.
Due to initial uncertainty about whether the process would be adopted widely, a number of films were shot simultaneously with anamorphic and regular lenses.
However, Hazard E. Reeves' sound company had devised a method of coating 35 mm stock with magnetic stripes and designed a three-channel (left, center, right) system based on three 0.063-inch-wide (1.6 mm) stripes, one on each edge of the film outside the perforations, and one between the picture and the perforations in approximately the position of a standard optical soundtrack.
Technical difficulties in presentation spelled the true end for 3-D, but studio hype was quick to hail it a victory for CinemaScope.
In this process, a fully exposed 1.37:1 Academy ratio-area is cropped in the projector to a wide-screen aspect ratio by the use of an aperture plate, also known as a soft matte.
By summer of 1953, other major studios Paramount, Universal, MGM, UA, Columbia, Warner Bros., RKO, Republic, Allied Artists, Disney, Belarusfilm, Rank, and even Fox's B-unit contractors, under the banner of Panoramic Productions had switched from filming flat shows in a 1.37:1 format, and used variable flat wide-screen aspect ratios in their filming, which would become the standard of that time.
Another process called Techniscope was developed by Technicolor Inc. in the early 1960s, using normal 35 mm cameras modified for two perforations per (half) frame instead of the regular four and later converted into an anamorphic print.
Many European countries and studios used the standard anamorphic process for their wide-screen films, identical in technical specifications to CinemaScope, and renamed to avoid the trademarks of Fox.
This problem was avoided at first by composing wider shots, but as anamorphic technology lost its novelty, directors and cinematographers sought compositional freedom from these limitations.
But the additional image enlargement needed to fill the new wider screens, which had been installed in theatres for CinemaScope, resulted in visible film grain.
This proved too impractical, and all other engagements of Carousel had the standard four-track stereo soundtrack (sounded on the actual film) as was then used in all CinemaScope releases.
[12][13] Lens manufacturer Panavision was initially founded in late 1953 as a manufacturer of anamorphic lens adapters for movie projectors screening CinemaScope films, capitalizing on the success of the new anamorphic format and filling in the gap created by Bausch and Lomb's inability to mass-produce the needed adapters for movie theaters fast enough.
This innovation allowed the Panavision lenses to keep the plane of focus at a constant anamorphic ratio of 2x, thus avoiding the horizontally-overstretched mumps effect that afflicted many CinemaScope films.
Due to these conflicts, and because other studios were starting to release anamorphic prints with standard optical soundtracks, Fox revoked their policy of stereo-only presentations in 1957, and added a half-width optical soundtrack, while keeping the magnetic tracks for those theaters that were able to present their films with stereophonic sound.
The song "Stereophonic Sound" written by Cole Porter for the 1955 Broadway musical Silk Stockings mentions CinemaScope in the lyrics.
The first verse is: "Today to get the public to attend the picture show/ It's not enough to advertise a famous star they know/ If you wanna get the crowds to come around/ You gotta have glorious Technicolor/ Breathtaking CinemaScope and stereophonic sound."
In the 1963 Jean-Luc Godard film Contempt (Le Mepris), filmmaker Fritz Lang makes a disparaging comment about CinemaScope: "Oh, it wasn't meant for human beings.
During the production of 1999's The Iron Giant, director Brad Bird wanted to advertise the film with the CinemaScope name and logo, but Fox would not allow its use.
In both instances, they are comments made in regard to Tracy Turnblad's weight, implying that she's too big to be seen on a television screen.
In the remake of 2007, also during Tracy's audition, it was a lyric sung by Amber von Tussle, singing, "This show isn't broadcast in CinemaScope!"
