The fifties were a time of tremendous innovation in

film

and picture formats. The

onslaught of television caused panic in the film industry. Because television adopted
the same

aspect ratio

as the academy 1.33:1 ratio, the film industry felt the need to

become wider. Hence, the widescreen formats we have today are a direct result of this
fear.

On September 30, 1952, the film

This is Cinerama

premiered as the first Cinerama film. Cinerama was
the first real

widescreen

feature film format and was

invented by Fred Waller. Engineers Hazard Reeves
and Wentworth Fling carried out tests to determine
the number of channals necessary to have for the
format. Reeves and Waller realized that at least 5
channels would be necessary behind the screen. A
7-track head stack was created to employ the
soundtrack. These seven tracks feed eight speaker
channels, five behind the screen and three around the
auditorium. Tracks 6 and 7 are manually switched
between stereophonic surround and monophonic
surround plus rear surround for selected scenes in the
film. In other scenes an "umbrella" configuration was
employed. The umbrella configuration sent one track
to both the left and right walls and the other to a
speaker in the middle of the rear wall. This was
commonly used to make sounds pass over the
audience.

The sound was handled by a 35mm magnetic full-coat
piece of film run in interlock with three projectors for
the 75-foot long, 146 degree curved screen. One of
the advantages of Cinerama was the fast speed that
the fullcoat piece of film. At over 29 IPS, Cinerama's
fidelity was height. Because of the expense and
difficulties of the system, it was abandonned in 1963.
Super Cinerama was later adapted for the Todd-AO
format using an anamorphic lense. In 1993, a
museum in

England

started a Cinerama theatre. Then

in

Dayton, Ohio

, another cinerama theater was

opened in 1996 because of

John Harvey

at the

New

Neon Movies

.

CinemaScope

On September 16, 1953, The Robe debuted as the first CinemaScope film. This anamorphic,

widscreen

format used an anamorphic lense to get its wide aspect ratio. This 4-track, discrete

magnetic format used an LCRS speaker set-up and was striped right on the film. The first
CinemaScope film, The Robe, was released on September 16, 1953. CinemaScope used a technique
which had the dialog on screen follow the action on the screen. To accomplish this, production
dialog was captured with three microphones. This practice continued for some years, but later
abandoned. In addition to the four magnetic strips, there was one small optical track on the film.
The magnetic tracks wore down quickly and production of them was difficult. Each reel had to be

The magnetic tracks wore down quickly and production of them was difficult. Each reel had to be
magnetically striped and recorded individually and each checked in a movie theater. Starting with
the Cinemascope process, the Academy curve was no longer used. CinemaScope was later replaced
with Panavision which uses an optical soundtrack typically with a Dolby Stereo soundtrack with
noise reduction.

Warnerphonic

Warnerphonic was a separate sprocketed magnetic tape that played in interlock with the film.
CinemaScope's combined film and magnetic stripe put Warnerphonic out of business.

Todd-AO

The first Todd-AO movie was called

Oklahoma!

and it opened on October

13, 1955. Much like the CinemaScope format, Todd-AO is used five
speakers behind the screen and a mono surround channel. Todd-AO

widescreen

format was originally conceive by Michael Todd and the

American Optical Company. Todd-AO's 65mm negative is printed on a
70mm release print. The extra 5mm is devoted to the soundtrack with
2.5mm alocated on either side of the film. Starting in the early 1970's, most
70mm films were shot in 35mm and then blown up to 70mm for release. In
1997, Kenneth Branaugh's Hamlet brought back people shooting in 65mm
for 70mm blowup. The Todd-AO format was used by Dolby Laboratories
in the 1970's and applied their own EQ curves and noise reduction.