Cinerama returns to Los Angeles

Originally, Cinerama theatres were equipped for 7 channels of audio to be fed to either 7 or 8 channels of amplification for the auditorium. The first 5 channels were always the five across the screen area: Left, Left-Center, Center, Right-Center, and Right. Channels 6 and 7 were for surrounds. Individual scenes could be laid out one of two ways. You could either have 6 go to the left surround and 7 go to the right surround, of you could send channel 6 to the left AND right surround and channel seven to a special surround channel that was dead-center at the rear of the auditorium. So, to review, it's 7-channel analog sound that could be steered to either 7 or 8 locations in the auditorium. How was the steering done? BY HAND! A member or the projection team (typically 5 people or more) would sit at a station within the auditorium and adjust the balances AND switch the surround modes by hand.

As I've posted elsewhere (including post 3 of this thread), I own what I suspect may be the only surviving Cinerama sound control box. Here is a photo. Note the switch in the upper right to assign the surround channels to whichever format was appropriate for the scene at hand.

 

I've temporarily posted a brief video walkthrough of the booth. PLEASE NOTE that the video starts with a "still" for something like 12 seconds. (Your video player is not broken!)

http://web.mac.com/mlutthans/iWeb/Site%2032/Movie%202.html

The last shot in the video is the 7-track audio player as it runs out of tape at the end of the show.

 

One and the same! This also has the "distinction" of being the only 70mm film to be optically split into three panels for presentation in Cinerama Theatres -- an absolutely pointless exercise, except for advertising purposes, as it most certainly made the film look WORSE. The presentation last Tuesday was in good ol' 70mm!

The projectors in the Dome are permanently installed. In 2000 or so, I was at the Cinerama in Honolulu, and there the projectors sat. I contacted a friend at Pacific Theaters, and the projectors were transported to L.A. for refurbishment, and eventually installed at the Dome. I don't know if the audio unit is the one from Honolulu or if Pacific had an extra one in storage somewhere.

 

You can see some original ads for HOLIDAY IN SPAIN here:

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/double_holiday.htm

Regarding the audio, my guess is that the mono surround track from the 70mm elements was just split evenly between both channels when it played in 7-track "Cinerama," effectively making it 6-track "Cinerama."

 

Slightly OT, but this Cinerama LP sold for over $800 today!!!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150374178876#ht_2591wt_1056

 

From what I hear from folks who would know, the 3-strip materials are significantly damaged/unusable. I suppose it's possible that something could be digitally doctored up for home video, but not for 3-strip theatrical presentation, which is a shame. (....and I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for a "restored" home release either. I think that realistically, the best they would do is a letterbox release from one of the CinemaScope composite prints, which would get you something like 2 and a 1/3rd panels and maybe 4-track sound, with added grain and poor color compared to the 3-panel materials -- but again, digital doctoring could give things a boost.)

I've got a very odd 16mm film copy of one of the scenes from this film. It's a technicolor (or at least Kodachrome) print, so the color is great, and it's 1.33, so you get one complete panel and probably about a third of a 2nd panel (or combination of panels). The film was made for presentation in schools back in the early 60s.

Clips here:
http://web.mac.com/mlutthans/iWeb/Site%2028/16mm%20Cinerama.html

 

Stumbled upon this scan on a hard drive today. This is one of my favorite Cinerama photos. I took this in 2003 during either HOW THE WEST WAS WON or THIS IS CINERAMA at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. It's a 90-second exposure, during the movie, and you can see all three projection beams coming from the back wall.

That guy in the photo in the polo shirt? That's CINERAMA ADVENTURE director Dave Strohmaier. I have no idea what had him so transfixed, but he stood there basically 100% still for 90 seconds staring at something. Made for a nice shot.

Matt

 

Your are neither alone nor inaccurate in anything you say! Cinerama is a heavily flawed system, no doubt, and it certainly could have been better. For instance,

1. Join lines: I've seen Cinemiracle, and the join lines were markedly less visible. Cinerama viewed Cinemiracle as a threat, bought it out, and then killed it. They should have, instead, bought it out and then utilized the improvements they had just purchased.

2. Horizontal lines: If your booth is at zero degrees (most were not), you actually could *project* a straight line, but to anybody seated below projection level, because they were looking up at a curved surface in three dimensions, the line would look like it bent upward as it got closer to them (at the screen edges); to anybody who looked at the straight line from above the plane of projection -- such as in the balcony in Seattle -- it would look like it bent downward. Having said all that, most three strip booths were constructed a little higher that 0 degrees, which led to problems with....

3. 70mm films like 2001. Why would these often look "extra curvy" in a bad way? Let's say your booth is 3 degrees above dead-center projection. When you are using three projectors, each third of the screen only has about a 50-degree curvature, which is basically nothing, so the projection-angle causation of the curved effect is fairly minimal. (The issues caused by perspective within the audience is still pretty pronounced in some cases.) When you project a single frame, wide image (such as in 2001), you have now essentially tripled the depth that the projector "sees," and if the angle is not dead-center, those "straight lines" really bend as they approach the edge of the screen. One thing that really gets under my skin is when people criticize the horizon sag (curving of straight lines as they approach the edge) of Cinerama, when in fact they are criticizing the horizon sag that happens in a Cinerama theatre whose booth is at too high an angle, such as is the case at the Dome in Los Angeles. One of the stone-cold REQUIREMENTS of Dimension-150 was zero-degree projection angle. To my eyes, D-150 was a vastly superior 70mm system than was "70mm Cinerama," precisely because of that zero-degree requirement. There were a few (very few) 3-strip Cinerama theatres that had zero-degree projection. Seattle is one of them. (The booth in Seattle is about 2/3rds back on the main floor, not above the back row as in L.A.)

In terms of panel matching, starting around 1960, Cinerama insisted on IB Tech prints from Technicolor, and the matching they could do with color timing, etc., from shot to shot was extraordinary. Pre-1960 prints and prints from other sources (i.e., the "new" prints of This is Cinerama)....not so much. Point being: Cinerama itself was quite aware of that shortcoming, and took steps (probably too late) to make improvements.

As far as the differing jitter, I don't find that too bothersome when I sit in the audience on most shots, but when I am a projectionist, it's the bane of my existence, since the job of the A or C projectionist is to watch that join line and adjust the framing (manually) whenever the joins are not right. I may go 5 minutes without touching the frame knob, but then have to ride it like crazy for 4 or 5 consective shots....then it's back to "steady" again for a few minutes.

Matt

 

Continuing from above post:

Below are two photos, both actual screen shots in actual Cinerama theatres taken by (actual) me:

Top photo: Cinerama Dome, 2001, showing pronounced "horizon sag," obvious in the text along the right side of the screen. It creeps upward -- from any perspective in the theatre -- due to the high angle of the projection booth in that particular building.

Bottom photo: Villa Cinerama, Salt Lake City, 1999. I have added a straight line (in white) along the bottom to show how straight the straight lines are with zero-degree projection angle, and this is a MORE DEEPLY CURVED screen and shorter throw distance than at the Cinerama Dome -- plus a wider AR, 2.39 vs. 2.20 in the L.A. shot.

Point being: That "smiley face" situation is a problem at the Dome due to high-angle projection. It is not something that you would see (to that degree) at every Cinerama theatre.

Matt

 

That is completely dependent on where you sit and how large and near the screen is.

One thing that is often left out of the discussion is Cinerama's amazing depth of field, which IMAX only approaches on shots that use extremely wide-angle lenses. Many shots in Cinerama have nothing out of focus, which makes it kind of like looking out a large window (with two bothersome bars attached).

Matt