Permanent Flux

Widescreen & Film

Widescreen

As stated before widescreen became popular in the fifties. However, it was proceeded by various attempts in the past, even in the nineteenth century as we have seen before, followed by:

1900 - 75mm Wide Film of Lumière
1900 - 70mm Cinéorama of Raoul Grimoin-Sanson
1914 - 70mm Panoramica (of Filoteo Alberini)
1926 - 63,5mm Natural Vision, R.K.O.
1929 - 70mm Grandeur of Twentieth Century Fox
1930 - 56mm Magnafilm Paramount
1930 - 70mm Realife, M.G.M.
1930 - 65mm Vitascope Warner Bros.

All these ventures did not last for much longer than a year. In the fifties another series of attempts were made to introduce large film sizes for widescreen. To name a few:

1954 - 65mm Todd-AO click for picture of camera
1955 - 55,625mm Cinemascope-55
1956 - 65mm Super Panavision

Frame of 'Oklahoma' in Todd-AO - 65mm wide negative printed onto 70mm color positive.

70 mm film
In the seventies followed IMAX (1970), OMNIMAX (1973), Cinema 180 and others with horizontal position of frames on 65mm negative film. Special theatres were built to accomodate the projectors and ultra wide screen. Specially built projectors were needed because the film could not be pulled through anymore by claw. In the Imax system it is transported by a wave motion. Thanks to the air pressure gate precision, projection on a 180º 100 ft. width screen has become possible.

From the foregoing it is clear that standardization was dictated by the economical power of one or more manufacturers. One result was the universal acceptance and growth of the medium for amusement, information and in some cases as an art form.

Collecting off-gauge movie equipment and films
For the collector hard to find off-gauge equipment/films are a true hunting-ground. In particular the sizes that were never heard of anymore. One may still profit from the relatively low prices as compared with photographica. 8, 16 and 35mm equipment/films are often offered for sale, but it becomes more difficult with 9,5, 17,5, 22, 28mm and all the other sizes mentioned.

From 3 to 75mm
One hundred years of cinema has yielded almost one hundred film gauges from 3mm to 75mm. The smallest of 3mm was developed in 1960 by Eric Berndt for NASA to be used in space flights. It had a centre frameline perforation. The largest was employed by Lumière in 1900 for large screen presentations at the Paris Exposition.

Most of these film sizes have been relegated to oblivion, much to the detriment of its inventors/manufacturers. Each size has its own history.

posted by Martin Crosbie @ 8:34 AM