Wide-Screen

Wide-Screen, projected film image that has a wider than standard aspect ratio (that is, the ratio of the width to the height of the screen picture; the standard, so-called “Academy ratio”, is 1.33:1). Multiple cinema/projection processes designed to increase spectator involvement have existed since the earliest days of cinema. The first such process, Cineorama, first shown in 1900, required ten projectors to fill a circular screen.

Although Abel Gance, as early as 1927, used the Polyvision process to expand, by triptych, the screen image to three times its normal size, and American companies experimented with wider film gauges in the late 1920s, it was not until 1952, with This is Cinerama, that wide-screen again attracted the film industry’s attention. The loss of film audiences to television was then the spur; high-definition digital television, with its own wide-screen ratio of 1.78:1, provides the current challenge. Cinerama, a development of Polyvision, provided a “wrapround” effect with seven-track stereophonic sound, but its multiple camera and projection requirements were clumsy and expensive, and it proved impossible to hide the seams between the images. After two feature films, How the West Was Won and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (both 1962), it was abandoned in favour of Ultra Cinerama, a single-camera process that required an elliptical lens in projection to fill the deeply curved Cinerama screen.

The improved quality of film stock and the development of camera and projection lenses have led to the possibility of projecting huge images of improved quality, while a simple process, “hard mask”, can be used to crop the film image in the camera to achieve an acceptable wide-screen result. Techniscope, an economical Italian process that was used for Once Upon a Time in the West (1969), uses a half-frame squeezed image on 35-mm film to achieve a similar effect.

Examples of other wide-screen systems are VistaVision, CinemaScope, Panascope, Super Panavision, Ultra Panavision 70, Warnerscope, Cinemiracle, Todd-AO, Techniscope, Technirama, Showscan, Dynavision, and IMAX. They are normally accompanied by multi-track stereophonic sound; frequently the screens are concave to give an additional illusion of depth; generally the films require wider than standard 35-mm film; sometimes, as with CinemaScope, the image is squeezed on to standard film and unsqueezed on projection. Processes such as Super Technirama combine approaches, requiring a squeezed negative image that is twice the standard width. This, as with the unsqueezed VistaVision, is achieved by passing film through the camera horizontally, instead of vertically, to create an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Instead of unsqueezing the image for projection through an anamorphic lens, Super Technirama is unsqueezed on to a 70-mm print, thus making projection less complicated. Dynavision, another highly competitive child of VistaVision, is not squeezed at any stage and is printed on to 70-mm film. At the same time, it can be exploited in its 35-mm format.

Todd-AO, with no squeezing and a ratio of 2.2:1, was introduced with Oklahoma! in 1955, while Ultra Panavision 70, which was exploited for Lawrence of Arabia (1962), used a squeezed image to achieve a ratio of 2.75:1. The expense of such impressive projects, made on 65-mm negative film, and therefore costly in terms of film stock, and film-making and film projection equipment, restricted their commercial acceptability. The industry rapidly adjusted to standard 35-mm film, exposed through Panavision anamorphic lenses, although 70-mm film continued to be used for major first releases.

Experimentation continues in another 70-mm system, IMAX, a major development in wide-screen technology that requires the use of polyester film, high-luminosity lamps, a specially designed projector, and purpose-built auditoria to achieve optimum seating positions for the spectators, and can be projected on to a flat or curved screen. The film runs horizontally, as it does for Dynavision, with a frame three times larger than the standard 70-mm image size. Although IMAX’s ratio of 1.435:1 does not offer an especially wide-screen format, it provides a spectacular viewing experience with remarkable CD-quality multichannel sound. IMAX has also developed the SOLIDO cinema that requires the spectator to wear liquid crystal display goggles. Two images, one for each eye, are projected alternately to create, especially on a domed screen, an engulfing three-dimensional effect.

Although such costly cutting-edge developments stand little chance of being widely adopted for the bulk of commercial cinema presentations, they establish standards to which the film industry aspires by more conventional means.