cinerama remembered
scottyboy76
Posts: 2,905
One of our go to channels, TCM, or turner classic movies, had two movies friday night that were very entertaining and informative.
The first was This is Cinerama, hosted by Lowell Thomas, the newsreel guy who discovered Lawrence of Arabia.
It was basically a promotional film touting the new medium of Cinerama.
Now,I remember seeing ET at the lowes grand in atlanta in cinemascope, a competing curved screen format that did sorta take advantage of peripheral vision to enhance the viewers experience, kinda gave me a headache, but it was really a cheap imitator.
Apparently, cinerama was the real thing, the technology was incredibly complicated and expensive, the camera was actually 11 cameras in a three tiered array, the showings required three projectors and three rolls of film perfectly synched running simultaneously, features such as How the West was won were shot this way but many of the films were actually sorta travel or wonders of the world type features.
The second show was a film called Cinerama Adventures, the actual first film in Cinerama, the crews strapped this monster camera, film and crew onto a huge military raft down the Indus? river in northern pakistan, onto a roller coaster and such, you get the Idea.
Two people lost their lives in the years of filming of these features, one of whom was the pilot who got the sweeping aerial shots of the grand canyon, semi active volcanoes and such who died three days before retiring in a crash during his last flight for these movies.
Some of the remarkable aspects to this story, 75 special built theaters were built in the us and england during WWII to train aircraft gunners with film, of aircraft swooping in and out, mock machine guns with recoil, and very detailed light sensing mechanisms to record hits and misses.
A huge, inflatable theater along with 10 or 11 truckloads of projector and film were built and carted around europe and places like damascus syria, where there were near riots in the crowds hoping to get in to see this remarkable new experience.
Last but not least, the sound.
They actually had a sound engineer go to theaters and mix the sound for EACH SHOWING, based on how many people attended, where they sat, and things like, was it a winter crowd, with heavy, sound muffling coats and such.
Movie reviewer Leanord Maltin recalled Seeing a true Cinerama showing and being blown away by the sound, and remarking that the fidelity, and lack of distortion bested even the most modern dolby studios of today, at least in his opinion.
Admittedly, im gettin to the age when the sight of people wearing their best clothes, signing a guest book, and being treated to such a now mundane experience kinda touches something in me, but also hearing about the math calculations involved in just the gunner simulations being so incredibly complicated
has to impress anyone who values advances in our civilization.
Sorry about the long post, but there was so much in those two shows, I just had to try to share, catch them if they are shown again.
Scott and deb.
The first was This is Cinerama, hosted by Lowell Thomas, the newsreel guy who discovered Lawrence of Arabia.
It was basically a promotional film touting the new medium of Cinerama.
Now,I remember seeing ET at the lowes grand in atlanta in cinemascope, a competing curved screen format that did sorta take advantage of peripheral vision to enhance the viewers experience, kinda gave me a headache, but it was really a cheap imitator.
Apparently, cinerama was the real thing, the technology was incredibly complicated and expensive, the camera was actually 11 cameras in a three tiered array, the showings required three projectors and three rolls of film perfectly synched running simultaneously, features such as How the West was won were shot this way but many of the films were actually sorta travel or wonders of the world type features.
The second show was a film called Cinerama Adventures, the actual first film in Cinerama, the crews strapped this monster camera, film and crew onto a huge military raft down the Indus? river in northern pakistan, onto a roller coaster and such, you get the Idea.
Two people lost their lives in the years of filming of these features, one of whom was the pilot who got the sweeping aerial shots of the grand canyon, semi active volcanoes and such who died three days before retiring in a crash during his last flight for these movies.
Some of the remarkable aspects to this story, 75 special built theaters were built in the us and england during WWII to train aircraft gunners with film, of aircraft swooping in and out, mock machine guns with recoil, and very detailed light sensing mechanisms to record hits and misses.
A huge, inflatable theater along with 10 or 11 truckloads of projector and film were built and carted around europe and places like damascus syria, where there were near riots in the crowds hoping to get in to see this remarkable new experience.
Last but not least, the sound.
They actually had a sound engineer go to theaters and mix the sound for EACH SHOWING, based on how many people attended, where they sat, and things like, was it a winter crowd, with heavy, sound muffling coats and such.
Movie reviewer Leanord Maltin recalled Seeing a true Cinerama showing and being blown away by the sound, and remarking that the fidelity, and lack of distortion bested even the most modern dolby studios of today, at least in his opinion.
Admittedly, im gettin to the age when the sight of people wearing their best clothes, signing a guest book, and being treated to such a now mundane experience kinda touches something in me, but also hearing about the math calculations involved in just the gunner simulations being so incredibly complicated
has to impress anyone who values advances in our civilization.
Sorry about the long post, but there was so much in those two shows, I just had to try to share, catch them if they are shown again.
Scott and deb.
humpty dumpty was pushed
Post edited by scottyboy76 on
Comments
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I remember as a kid going to a cinerama in Indianapolis to see How the West Was Won. Great movie even today.Home Theater
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I remember as a kid going to a cinerama in Indianapolis to see How the West Was Won. Great movie even today.
Was it as impressive as they said ?humpty dumpty was pushed -
Kept your head moving left to right all the time trying to see the entire screen. Sometimes just a barely noticeable line where the three images interfaced on the screenHome Theater
Onkyo PR-SC5508 Sharp LC-70LE847U
Emotiva XPA-5 Emotiva XPA-2 Emotiva UPA-2
Front RTi-A9 Wide RTi-A7 Center CSi-A6 Surround FXi-A6 Rear RTi-A3 Sub 2x PSW505
Sony BDP-S790 Dishnetwork Hopper/Joey Logitech Harmony One Apple TV
Two Channel
Oppo 105D BAT VK-500 w/BatPack SDA SRS 2.3 Dreadnought Squeezebox Touch Apple TV -
Those faint lines showed on tv in the documentary, was not sure if it was there in the theater.
BTW, how fine was Debbie Reynolds back in the day?humpty dumpty was pushed
