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Author Topic: Vistavision ???? Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-11-2013 02:11 PM                     Well, the first Century's made for VV were essentially hand built prototypes based on the model C. They used alumnium sprockets held to the star shaft by three taper pins. The sprockets and pins used to work themselves loose and trouble ensued. Steve Krams had a box of those old 32 tooth taper pin sprockets on the shelf in Miami back in the 80's. Later on these projectors were retrofitted with Brenkert intermittents and also had a hand built optical sound head by Westrex. A version with the brenkert intermittent and Westrex optical sound is at Boston Light & Sound. This projector looked like this... Century also made a production version that included an optical sound reproducer and it looks like this. I have no idea how many sets of these were built. These are smiilar to the projectors that were at Colonial Williamsburg. These were based on the newer model H mechanism and they had a heavier duty star weel with a sprocket secured by screw and nut.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 11-11-2013 04:48 PM                        quote: Allan Young He doesn't go into any detail as to whether Paramount initially expected VistaVision projectors to become prevalent. Many thanks - it's so frustrating being without most of my books and notes. What I find fascinating about the British VV experience is the significant number of quite interesting but obscure films that were made in the format, including several b/w ones (e.g. Ill Met by Moonlight and Hell Drivers), which disappeared more or less without trace after their initial release. It's almost as if Rank regarded the system as totally experimental, and (with the arguable exception of Powell and Pressburger, whose careers were over the hill by the mid-50s anyway) did not risk letting their A-list filmmakers use it; unlike Paramount in the US, who let Hitchcock loose with it, not to mention several big budget musicals and action pics. Irritatingly, Geoffrey Macnab's book (J. Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry) barely mentions the Rank Organisation and VV. If the company documents survive, there's possibly a standalone book to be done on it. I don't think you'd get the whole story from trade papers and whatever the BFI has if they don't, though.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-11-2013 05:09 PM                        I would think that the primary issue with VV as an exhibition format is that there is no easy way to build a dual-format projector that can run both 4-perf 35mm and 8-perf VV. Unless the format had completely taken over the industry, every theatre that wanted to show VV prints would need a completely separate set of projectors. That would be a tough sell to theatre owners. By contrast, most (all?) 5/70 systems can be easily converted to run 4/35, making 5/70 a much better choice for large-format exhibition in mainstream theatres.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 11-11-2013 05:19 PM                        Was Lawrence Olivier's RICHARD 111 released in 8/35 Vista Vision in the UK, Leo? I have the movie on a Criterion blu ray and the gorgeous picture quality on the disc indicate how fantastic the movie would have looked in the full VV format if it was released in a theatre that way. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-11-2013 05:46 PM                     Scott... It could be done and it wouldn't be all that hard. Two sets of gates and traps located in different for-aft positions and interchangeable sprockets. Alas I am pretty sure Paramount was thinking it would be for exhibiting only in certain large theaters back then.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 11-11-2013 11:31 PM                     Very interesting info Mark. Its ashamed Paramount decided to create VV as 1.85 when they could've dedicated more perfs and created a 2.35'ish ratio and made it even better.  |  IP: Logged Steve Matz Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 672 From: Billings, Montana, USA Registered: Sep 2003 posted 11-12-2013 12:09 AM                     In this Martin Hill camera collection video he mentions one of them being used for vistavision, Boy has this guy got some equipment with some real providence. what a kool collection to have...check it out!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-dfm5k358E  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 11-12-2013 06:59 AM                     Brad, Even the Alberini 10-perf system didn't get that wide. You'd need about 12 perf to get close to 2.35. Would triacetate stock stand up to those sort of speeds with a conventional intermittent? As an alternative you could have kept with 8-perf, reduced the height somewhat, and made room for 4-track, or even 6-track optical sound above the frame. Or were you thinking of a camera format only? Or as another alternative, create Technirama.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-12-2013 09:05 AM                     Maybe the creators of VistaVision liked the 8 perf width since it is the same format used by 35mm still cameras.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 11-12-2013 11:01 AM                        quote: Claude S. Ayakawa Was Lawrence Olivier's RICHARD 111 released in 8/35 Vista Vision in the UK, Leo? Yup - that was a Rank VV title. It was Olivier's decision to use it on Otto Heller's advice: he'd been under pressure from Rank and Korda to shoot in Cinemascope, but after a few test shots decided that 'scope (very wide ratio and not much detail in the relatively grainy Eastmancolor camera stocks of the time, which really showed up in the IB release prints) would not work. Dunno if it was ever screened commercially in VV, but at least some of the major British VV titles were shown at the Odeon Leicester Square in 8-perf VV prints, so I guess it could have been. Ironically, the film reached its largest audience through a US television broadcast (i.e. b/w, NTSC and with an average screen size of 11" in those days! - source). If Olivier and Heller had known that ahead of time, maybe they'd have shot it with a 16mm Bolex!  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-12-2013 12:11 PM                     Brad, There does exist a prototype 12 perf mitchell type movement but I don't know if it ever made it into a complete camera form or not. Lensing back in those days would have been real iffy not to mention projecting it. There was also a wide frame movement in development for Cinerama that cold replace the three cameras. That 12 perf movement was owned by the guy that runs Ultraflat. I saw it and actually held it in my hand back in the 80's. Perhaps if Bob Destolphi sees this post he can chime in about it because he kows about it too. ILM actually DID extract up to a 2.35 area out of the effects plates they shot with their VV cameras. By then film and lensing was far more advaced than it was in the 50's and the results even at the 2.35 extraction were certainly superior in term of resolution to what was achieved with 1.85 and Dye transfer release back in the 50's. Mark  |  IP: Logged Randy Pryde Film Handler Posts: 32 From: Casper, WY, USA Registered: Feb 2013 posted 11-12-2013 11:00 PM                        Mark, I believe this is the Cinerama camera movement to which you are referring. In conjunction with a wide angle lens, the goal was to create the full Cinerama field of view on a 35mm horizontal frame of 16 perforations in width. Reportedly this prototype could only achieve a speed of 20 frames per second.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 11-12-2013 11:32 PM                    I posted this to Random Photos years ago. It's 12-perf, intended as an origination format for 70mm. Obviously the solution to the getting Scope format from 8-perf is Technirama which is essentially VistaVision shot with 1.5X squeeze optics. An additional 1.33X in optical printing down to 4-perf gives you normal 2:1 squeezed Scope format prints which will be of higher quality due to the double sized camera negative. Or unsqueeze onto 65mm intermediate and make 70mm prints. "Super Technirama 70" in that case. 1.5 : 1 approximate aspect ratio of the 8-perf frame times 1.5 squeeze is 2.25 so a lose a little height and you get the 2.35 A.R. of the Scope of that era. Perhaps some prints were at 2.55 (the mag-only Scope aspect ratio.) The question of whether there ever were 8-perf print of Technirama titles has never been conclusively answered. There is some belief that there may have been some in Europe. The consensus seemed to be that they would have been 4-track mag.  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 11-13-2013 04:34 AM                     Three pictures from this page: web page From the Widescreen Museum seem to confirm that the system got as far as trade demonstration, but whether there were ever any public screenings is unclear.  |  IP: Logged Dick Vaughan Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1032 From: Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK Registered: Jul 2000 posted 11-18-2013 03:22 PM                        We have parts of two of the Kalee Vistavision projectors in the collection here at the National Media Museum in Bradford. They came to us through Willem Bouwmeester who was our IMAX service tech for many years and was the man responsible for helping us re-create Cinerama in Pictureville Cinema. They had been in store at Cinemateriel in Paris for several years before they gave them to us in 1992. It's my understanding that an American film maker then living in France had acquired two almost complete machines. He wanted to get them up and running so asked Cinemateriel to remanufacture missing parts. In the box of parts we received is a "new" 32 tooth intermittent they made. For some reason several parts were sent to a company in Switzerland who specialised in special venue projection systems. We did try to trace them and get them back but with no luck. We aren't sure but believe these two machines to be the ones that were at Wandsworth College referred to by Stephen earlier. It's our understanding that only 4 complete Kalee machines were made all of them going to theatres. One pair then went to Pinewood Studios the other pair to the college. A lot of the Kalee company papers are at Leeds Industrial Museum a few miles away. When I have some time I need to check them out to see if we can discover any more about these machines.  |  IP: Logged

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