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Author Topic: Vistavision ???? Steve Matz Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 672 From: Billings, Montana, USA Registered: Sep 2003 posted 11-10-2013 03:21 PM                     I have always wanted to discuss V V but I have never run into a projectionist in all my years doing this that ever ran it or had ever been in a Projection Room that ever had any of the equipment.Which leads me to believe that not that many theaters were willing to buy the Equipment and have to alter their Booths to accomidate this wide screen process. On paper it looks like a slick way of producing a wider image but they had to be conscious of the fact that theater owners that had traditional dual vertical type projection systems weren't going to want to spend that kind of money;both for the projectors and alterations to the Booth for something that isn't going to look that much better than cinemascope,Todd AO, etc. I don't remember of any other Projector Mfg other than Century ever producing these horizontal running Projectors.I believe other Companies were inclined to believe that this was going to be a flash in the pan format and weren't willing to risk capitol on Equipment that would be sitting in their warehouses never being ordered. Do any Vistavision Prints even still exist and does anybody have information records of how many Projection systems Century actually sold back in the day.I'm sure the theaters that did invest in this venture could have spent money better elsewhere.....s.m.  |  IP: Logged Jock Blakley Expert Film Handler Posts: 218 From: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Registered: Oct 2011 posted 11-10-2013 06:02 PM                     It's my understanding that VistaVision enjoyed virtually no use as an exhibition format, even though Paramount had other plans for it. I'm lead to believe that WHITE CHRISTMAS, STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND, TO CATCH A THIEF, and THE BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE each had a handful of 8-perf prints struck and shown for preview engagements and premieres, but after around 1956 it was realised that the quality of the Technicolor dye-transfer 4-perf reduction prints was completely sufficient and the whole idea of VistaVision exhibition rather disappeared after that. I understand that the only theatres in the world outside of Paramount's establishments to install VistaVision projection equipment were the twin Patriot Theatres at Colonial Williamsburg, in order to show the film WILLIAMSBURG: THE STORY OF A PATRIOT. It was photographed in VistaVision and presented from 8-perf contact prints on CS-perf stock, which accommodated a unique implementation of six-track mag sound (which at 36 in/sec must have sounded pretty damn good). Since that film was digitally restored in 2001 it's now shown in standard 5/70 with DTS sound.  |  IP: Logged Dick Prather Master Film Handler Posts: 259 From: Portland, OR, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 11-10-2013 06:16 PM                     Kalee in the UK made a horizontal 8 perf VistaVision machine. In the US I believe LA, NYC, & Chicage had VV set-ups. They were made by Century.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 11-10-2013 06:35 PM                     Kinoton will still make VV machines...in fact, they will make it run in either direction. Normal VV machines look as if they are running backwards (film moves from bottom to top. I want to say that Ballantyne also made some 8/35 machines too. The Williamsburg VV machines were relatively short lived. They switched to 70mm in the early '60s. As I was told, the VV machines really didn't hold up well to the grind operation that that Williamsburg runs. Conversely, 70mm has done well there for about 50-years.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 11-10-2013 08:11 PM                        quote: Dick Prather Kalee in the UK made a horizontal 8 perf VistaVision machine. And it pretty much scuttled projector manufacturing in Britain, Graf Spee-style (sorry; couldn't resist, given the Battle of the River Plate reference). Gaumont-Kalee, which by that stage had become part of the Rank empire, bet the farm on a VV machine, and when 8/35 lost the widescreen projection format war, they had to write off a huge R & D investment. At about the same time, some tax regulations changed (can't remember the details if I ever knew them - sorry) which effectively gave Rank a big tax break for importing rather than manufacturing domestically, hence the reason Cinemeccanicas became standard issue in Odeons for the next four decades. The received wisdom seems to be that Paramount envisaged VV to be essentially an origination and post-production medium, with the aim of improving the image quality in normal 4/35 release prints, not a mass-market theatrical projection medium. Whether that was always what they had in mind, or if the slow uptake of sales prompted them to take that line after the event I don't know. Wish I had access to my copy of John Belton's Widescreen Cinema, but it's currently in storage back in England, awaiting shipping. Drat. Incidentally, on a tour of the BFI's conservation centre in the mid-90s, I was shown a reel of a VV 8/35 projection print of Simon and Laura on a bench: if I remember correctly, it was an IB print and had a VD optical track. I'm guessing it was probably made for the Odeon Leicester Square, as IIRC that was the only UK theatre that actually projected VV in revenue-earning shows, and I can't imagine that movie having ever been distributed in the US (the humour in it is so English and parochial that it would have gone down like a lead balloon in America, I'd guess).  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-10-2013 08:27 PM                        The Colonial Williamsburg film was an oddball format--35mm VV with CS perfs and six-track magnetic sound. Plus an optional 6-track mag reel on a dubber for foreign-language tracks. As Steve said, it has been run in 5/70 for many years in the original theatres (the only existing viewing spaces originally designed for VV exhibition!). It is also the longest-running film of any type, anywhere, having run continuously since April 1, 1957. It actually premiered a day or two before then at the Eastern State mental hospital down the street, as some of the patients appear in the film as extras.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-10-2013 08:34 PM                        FWIW: Didn't Lucas buy up as many VV projectors as he could get his hands on? I got to see some dailies for either Gremlins 1 or 2 run on the VV projectors at whatever studio that was (it's been 30 years). I assume all of that has been ditched for CGI and digital.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-10-2013 08:43 PM                     If you're ever in Salt Lake City you can stop by and see mine run. I built it for dailies use and it served well running tens of thousands of feet of film. I also have a reel of dailies from Martin & Lewis and Ten Commandments. The dailies are beet red but still run fine. Along with that I also have some footage I shot with my 8 perf camera. Projector pictures were or probably still are in the F-T warehouse section. Running VistaVision is not all that different than running standard 35mm. You follow the same precautions and practices as you would running any other format. It just travels faster at 48 fps equivelent. And... There is still at least one Kalee VistaVision projector still in existance... Mark  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 11-10-2013 09:31 PM                     The link to Mark's pictures is here. The only thing that ever bugged me about the whole VV thing was the tight 90 degree twist to get to the reels. It seems like overall it would be gentler on the film if there was either more room to twist or the takeup reel ran horizontally. Its not much of a problem with polyester film base, but back in the VV days that didn't exist. One small knick in the edge of the film and it could tear with such a short twist.  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 11-11-2013 02:24 AM                     There were two cinemas in London equipped, one was the Odeon Leicester Square, there is a picture showing the two Kalee machines and the three BTH Mk.1 SUPAs which were installed there at the time. I think the other was a Paramount somewhere, but I'm not sure. The Odeon machines had very high-power Mole Richardson arcs, rather than the Kalee Presidents normally used on the Kalee 21 conventional machines. I believe that Pinewood studios was also equipped, but whether this was another pair, or those from one of the cinemas, I'm not sure. When I was at Wandsworth Tech, now South Thames College, in the mid '70s there were two lecturers there who taught projection, by then just 16 mm, but in the past they had 35 mm and did train projectionists; I think this ended in the late '60s. One of these lecturers was old, old enough to have worked with silent film, and sound on disk, and the other was in very poor health, so they are probably both long-dead now, but they said that one pair of machines was taken to the College, but I don't think they were ever assembled. They were not there in my time, nor were the normal 35 mm machines, just a 16 mm xenon machine. Dick Vaughan may have something to add here. Some years ago there was an exhibition held at a small studio in London, there was an Arri 765 camera there which was recently introduced, so that gives some idea of the date. One of the exhibits was a modern VistaVision projector, with no soundhead, on which they ran a very faded reel of 'Battle of the River Plate', probably from the original print which ran at Leicester Square. Even in this condition it looked impressive. The track would probably have sounded less impressive if we could have heard it. it was mono optical of the magenta VD type, often seen on old 16 mm prints. I don't know if it had Perspecta or not. Kershaw, the maker of Kalee projectors, also fitted at least one machine with a magnetic soundhead, and 'Varamorph' prismatic variable anamorphic. Again, a photograph exists, as does a document about a trade demonstration of Technirama with it, but I don't think any machines were actually sold thus equipped. Lots of pictures, including both Century and Kalee projectors, and the various cameras in the Widescreen Museum: web page There is also a picture of a 8-perf print, but this is a workprint from the restoration of 'Vertigo', and so has no soundtrack. VistaVision was not a new idea, there are few things which are, Alberini (sp?) designed an even wider system, either 10 or 11 perf I think, a couple of decades or so before.  |  IP: Logged Allan Young Expert Film Handler Posts: 125 From: EGHAM, Surrey UK Registered: Jun 2011 posted 11-11-2013 07:48 AM                     quote: Leo Enticknap The received wisdom seems to be that Paramount envisaged VV to be essentially an origination and post-production medium, with the aim of improving the image quality in normal 4/35 release prints, not a mass-market theatrical projection medium. Whether that was always what they had in mind, or if the slow uptake of sales prompted them to take that line after the event I don't know. Wish I had access to my copy of John Belton's Widescreen Cinema <digs out Belton book> "Though double-frame VistaVision could be exhibited in only two theaters - Radio City Music Hall in New York and the Warner Beverly in Beverly Hills - Paramount's high-quality 35mm reduction prints provided a convincing argument for filming with large-area negatives and printing down for theatrical release". He doesn't go into any detail as to whether Paramount initially expected VistaVision projectors to become prevalent.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-11-2013 09:32 AM                     VistaVision was certainly a lot more popular as a production format than an exhibition format. Obviously the sales pitch for VV was delivering large format quality while using the common 35mm film gauge. The Technirama process was interesting in that it used "lazy 8" 35mm film for the photographic process, along with mild anamorphic compression lenses. In post production the 8/35 imagery could be transferred to 4/35 'scope prints (plain Technirama) or blown up a little to 5/70 (Super Technirama 70). I get the feeling Technirama acknowledged the popularity of 'scope and Todd AO 70mm along with the truth VV projection was never going to become commonplace at all.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 11-11-2013 09:36 AM                    Mark designed his VistaVision machine to have a sprocket in the normal vertical running orientation. It's actually the Century sprocket dummy that took the place of a projector head on the old 1950's R8 3-track sound follower that was used with 3D installations. The point is that the film doesn't have to go around any roller to get to the take up. With the final projector sprocket feeding film into empty space and the dummy sprocket taking film out of empty space and being the holdback against the pull of the take-up reel, within that empty space the film can do whatever twists and turns you need with zero chance of scratching because it's never touching anything. Vertical take-up allows the machine to take up less space. (The feed was horizontal off a flange.) The projector itself is based on a Century casting. Besides the conversion to larger aperture, bigger sprockets, and related changes to the pad roller there is a huge and crucial change: The lens mount was relocated to the back of the projector while the shutter was located to the front, with all the changes to the casting that that entails. That's because if you simply turned a machine into an 8-perf machine, it would run the wrong way. If you think about how a camera runs and is threaded and operated from the left, if you lay it on its side, the film runs right to left. That's how VistaVision runs. So if you take a projector that is threaded and operated from the right side, and laid it over, the film would run left to right which is backwards. We both observed and used a machine built by a guy who built stuff for ILM which was also a Century casting atop a box of drive components. (And flanges at both ends for feed and take-up making for a very wide machine.) This guy did not make the changes to account for direction and so it pushed film instead of pulling. It ran better in reverse! Hence Mark's desire to do it right. The projector uses a Kalee self-locking framer so the forces involved cannot make the framing creep and is driven by a DC servo motor.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-11-2013 10:01 AM                     quote: Brad Miller The only thing that ever bugged me about the whole VV thing was the tight 90 degree twist to get to the reels. The Century VV projectors were this way because they ran double reels to maintain the 20 minute change over time, plus they still had to fit in the existing port openings and within the width between ports theaters had back then. I only had my take up at 90 degrees and I only did it because I had a couple of the actual Century compartments laying around. Dailies are always just 1000' max length so I used a set of Kelmar arms and shortened them. I could still get the porjector in next to an existing projector easily. ILM had VV projectors that ran all horizontally and pushed the film through the gate. After using one on Baby's Day Out and having nothing but problems with it I decided to build one the right way.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-11-2013 11:34 AM                     Micron in Italy also made a horizontal machine, and the ballantyne ran right to left so not a true vv format machine The Imperial in toronto had vv machines as did the uptown here The imperial machines were still in place upto the day it was converted to a six plex I was told that there were 12 of the original installs with converted century c machine an article on its design i gave to marty and he has on his site the purepose designed machine by century was much better in design the williamsburg machines were odd in that they had a different gate design and mag rather than optical/perspecta sound  |  IP: Logged

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