Ultra Panavision 70

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A frame from Ben-Hur, showing the extremely wide aspect ratio.

Ultra Panavision 70 and MGM Camera 65 were, from 1957 to 1966, the marketing brands that identified motion pictures photographed with Panavision's anamorphic movie camera lenses. 65 mm film was used to capture images in these processes. The project print, however, was 70 mm film stock. The extra 5 mm on the negative was used to accommodate six-track stereo sound. The Ultra Panavision 70 and MGM Camera 65 lenses were shot at 24 frames per second (fps) using an anamorphic camera lens with a 70 mm focal length. Ultra Panavision 70 and MGM Camera 65's anamorphic lenses compressed the image anamorphically 1.25 times, yielding an extremely wide aspect ratio of 2.76:1 (when a 70 mm projection print was used).

Contents

[edit] History

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), like other American motion picture studios, briefly experimented with widescreen formats in the late 1920s. In 1929, the Fox Film Corporation introduced the Fox Grandeur widescreen photographic system. The Grandeur system used wide-angle anamorphic lenses[1] mounted on a Mitchell NC camera.[2] The image was captured on 65mm film, but projected using a 70mm projection print.[3] The Grandeur system had an aspect ratio of 2.13:1.[4] MGM licensed the Grandeur lens and camera system, and printed the 70mm images on 35mm stock (with the upper and lower portions of each cell of the print masked).[4][5] Theaters could use existing projection equipment fitted with a $200 anamorphic lens to project the print at the correct aspect ratio of 2.13:1.[6] MGM abandoned the format after just two films, 1930's Billy the Kid and 1931's The Great Meadow.[4]

In 1948, a U.S. Supreme Court decision forced movie studios to divest themselves of their profitable theater chains.[7] The loss of these theaters and the competitive pressure of television caused significant financial distress for many American motion picture studios. Widescreen formats such as Cinerama were a public sensation and promised to bring many studios back from the financial brink, but the cameras were heavy, bulky, difficult to use. The projection prints were in such large, nonstandard formats that theater owners would be forced to expend large sums of money renovating their screens and buying new projection equipment.[8] MGM began working on a widescreen format that would work with existing theater equipment. In 1953, the studio developed a process that captured images sideways on standard 35 mm film. It called the process Arnoldscope, after John Arnold, the head of MGM's photography department.[9]

Arnoldscope was never used, but in 1954 Douglas Shearer, Director of Recording at MGM, approached Robert Gottschalk, president of Panavision, with a proposal for a new widescreen photographic system. CinemaScope, introduced by 20th Century Fox in 1953, was the most prevalent widescreen format at the time. The main problems with CinemaScope were image distortions at the edges and corners of the screen and its inability to be easily transferred to a 35 mm projection print. Shearer asked Panavision to develop a system that would retain the widescreen format (either in a 65 mm or 70 mm negative), eliminate the distortion effects, allow for a high-quality transfer to 35 mm, and permit a non-anamorphic transfer to 16 mm and 35 mm projection prints.[10] The success of Paramount Pictures' 1956 widescreen Biblical epic The Ten Commandments convinced MGM that it could not develop its own widescreen system but rather should license the CinemaScope process from Fox and build on it.[11]

The first lenses created for MGM's new widescreen process were the old, original Mitchell 70 mm anamorphic camera lenses used for the Realife system a quarter century earlier. Panavision and the Mitchell Camera Company retooled the lenses to meet the specifications submitted by MGM.[12] The new anamorphic Panavision lenses were very different from the old anamorphic Mitchell lenses. Older anamorphic lenses used optical ground glass elements set in a frame (e.g., a lens) to create the anamorphic image. The problem with the older anamorphic lenses, however, was that whatever was in the center of the image tended to be stretched wider than whatever was at the edges. In close-up shots, this distortion was particularly noticeable. (Actors' faces became so noticeably distorted that the problem was known as the "anamorphic mumps".) Placement of a dioptre lens in front of the anamorphic lens could correct this problem, but itself created problems of focal length, required increased light on the set, and other issues.[13] Panavision, however, used two prisms set at angles to a spherical 70 mm camera lens to create the anamorphic effect. This not only solved the problem of the "anamorphic mumps" but led to a less clumsy, more easily focused camera that required less light.[14] Panavision named the lenses "Panatar."[15]

MGM named this new anamorphic forma "MGM Camera 65." The image filmed was captured on special 65 mm Eastmancolor film stock.[16] Roadshow theatrical releases in the Camera 65 format were generally printed on 70 mm film stock.[17] The extra 5 mm of space on the 70 mm film stock permitted the studio to use the new six-track stereo sound, which audiences rarely heard at the time.[18] For non-roadshow screenings, a 35 mm project print (the type of film stock most smaller theaters could project) was made. The 35 mm projection print had to be "hard masked." That is, black borders ran along the top and bottom of each frame.[16][19] The image's 2.76:1 aspect ratio was retained in both the 70 mm and 35 mm projection prints.[16] Because the 65 mm film could be adapted to the requirements of individual theaters, theaters did not need to install the special, expensive 70mm projection equipment.[20]

The financial problems at MGM led the studio to rush Camera 65 lenses into production in 1957.[21] MGM's Raintree County (1957) and Ben-Hur (1959) were the first MGM films to use the Camera 65 process.[11] MGM and Panavision shared a special technical Oscar in March 1960 for developing the Camera 65 photographic process.[22]

Panavision changed the name of the process to Ultra Panavision in 1960.[16] Whereas the anamorphic squeeze was originally 1.33:1, the squeeze was changed to 1.25:1 with the name change.[23]

Panavision developed a non-anamorphic 70 mm photographic system from Ultra Panavision in 1959. This was named Super Panavision 70.[23]

[edit] Differences from Todd-AO

The Ultra Panavision 70 and MGM Camera 65 lenses and cameras were similar to the 1955 version of the Todd-AO 65 mm photographic process. But the Todd-AO system was shot at 30 frames per second (fps), while Ultra Panavision 70 and MGM Camera 65 used the industry standard 24 fps. The Todd-AO system also used a spherical lens with a 70 mm focal length, while Ultra Panavision 70 and MGM Camera 65 used an anamorphic camera lens with a 70 mm focal length. Ultra Panavision 70 and MGM Camera 65's anamorphic lenses compressed the image anamorphically 1.25 times, yielding an aspect ratio of 2.76:1 (when a 70 mm projection print was used).

[edit] Films

The following films were lenses in either Camera 65 or Ultra Panavision 70:[24]

Many sources often claim the 1959 film The Big Fisherman was filmed in Ultra Panavision, but Panavision itself says that the film was shot in Super Panavision 70.[31]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Cameron, p. 329.
  2. ^ Enticknap, p. 42.
  3. ^ Hutchison, p. 156; Belton, p. 49.
  4. ^ a b c Hall and Neale, p. 74.
  5. ^ Sklar, p. 178.
  6. ^ Tibbetts, p. 90.
  7. ^ United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 US 131 (1948)
  8. ^ Reid, p. 5.
  9. ^ Starr, Jimmy. "M-G-M’s Arnoldscope Amazing New Process." Los Angeles Herald. April 27, 1953; Alsobrook, Russ T. "Machines That Made the Movies: Part 3 - Chronicling the History of the Motion Picture Camera." ICG Magazine. September 2000.
  10. ^ Lightman, p. 163.
  11. ^ a b Eldridge, p. 57.
  12. ^ Eyman, p. 351; Casper, p. 112.
  13. ^ Burum, p. 48, 159-160.
  14. ^ Samuelson, p. xiv-xv; IMAGO, p. 424.
  15. ^ Casper, p. 105.
  16. ^ a b c d Haines, p. 114.
  17. ^ Belton, p. 332.
  18. ^ Altman, p. 158.
  19. ^ These black borders meant that the projectionist did not need to place barriers (known as "soft masks") in front of the projector. The use of masks was important, for otherwise bars of light would appear above and below the image.
  20. ^ Hall and Neale, p. 153.
  21. ^ Block and Wilson, p. 411.
  22. ^ Clark, p. 151.
  23. ^ a b Samuelson, p. xiv.
  24. ^ Haines, p. 116.
  25. ^ The most difficult scenes to shoot were captured in Ultra Panavision, while the rest of the film was shot in three-camera Cinerama. The Ultra Panavision scenes were then optically separated into three images, and projected using the three-project Cinerama projection system. See: Hutchison, p. 100.
  26. ^ Hall and Neale, p. 154; Lev, p. 115.
  27. ^ McGhee, p. 356.
  28. ^ Balio, p. 185.
  29. ^ Hughes, p. 239.
  30. ^ Finler, p. 371.
  31. ^ "About Panavision. The 1950s." Panavision.com. No date. Accessed 2012-01-29.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Altman, Rick. Sound Theory, Sound Practice. Florence, Ky.: Psychology Press, 1992.
  • Balio, Tino. United Artists: The Company That Changed the Film Industry. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
  • Belton, John. Widescreen Cinema. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992.
  • Block, Alex Ben and Wilson, Lucy Autrey. George Lucas's Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies, Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.
  • Burum, Stephen H. American Cinematographer Manual. Hollywood, Calif.: ASC Press, 2007.
  • Cameron, James Ross. Cameron's Encyclopedia on Sound Motion Pictures. Manhattan Beach, N.Y.: Cameron Pub. Co., 1930.
  • Casper, Drew. Postwar Hollywood, 1946-1962. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2007.
  • Clark, Al. The Film Year Book 1984. New York : Grove Press, 1983.
  • Eldridge, David. Hollywood's History Films. London: Tauris, 2006.
  • Enticknap, Leo. Moving Image Technology: From Zoetrope to Digital. London: Wallflower, 2005.
  • Eyman, Scott. The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926-1930. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.
  • Haines, Richard W. Technicolor Movies: The History of Dye Transfer Printing. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1993.
  • Hall, Sheldon and Neale, Stephen. Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010.
  • Hughes, Howard. When Eagles Dared: The Filmgoers' History of World War II. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011.
  • Hutchison, David. Film Magic: The Art and Science of Special Effects. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1987.
  • IMAGO. Making Pictures: A Century of European Cinematography. New York: Abrams, 2003.
  • Lev, Peter. Transforming the Screen: 1950-1959. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2003.
  • Lightman, Herb A. "Why MGM Chose Camera 65." American Cinematographer. March 1960.
  • McGhee, Richard D. John Wayne: Actor, Artist, Hero. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1990.
  • Reid, John Howard. 20th Century-Fox: CinemaScope. Morrisville, N.C.: Lulu Press, 2009.
  • Samuelson, David W. Panaflex Users' Manual. Boston: Focal Press, 1996.
  • Sklar, Robert. Film: An International History of the Medium. New York: Prentice Hall 1993.
  • Tibbetts, John C. American Classic Screen Features. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2010.
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