20th Century Fox didn't really invent anything new with the development of CinemaScope. The concept of the anamorphic lens was invented in the 1800's. Henri Chretien modified the idea to work with motion picture cameras in the 1920's and patented it under the name "Hypergonar." Various people and companies worked on their own anamorphic lens systems for gauges like 16mm. Outside of some experimental demonstrations, such as the Hypergonar system at the 1937 Expo in Paris, there was no serious interest in using anamorphic lenses until This Is Cinerama became a huge hit.
20th Century Fox and the folks at Bausch and Lomb merely bought Chretien's Hypergonar patent and took it into production. CinemaScope was very common in the 1950's and 1960's. The CinemaScope name had a lot of brand equity. But Panavision slowly took over for obvious reasons.
Panavision made anamorphic film projection lenses that were easier to use than the original CinemaScope projection lenses. Panavision made conversion lenses for different film formats which helped in film print production. Then they developed the MGM Camera 65 system, which led to the Super Panavision and Ultra Panavision format names. The introduction of the 35mm Auto Panatar anamorphic lens in 1958 is really what signaled doom for CinemaScope. It was a better film production lens and it wasn't attached to some rival movie studio. Panavision started making their own motion picture camera systems and only offering them and the lenses for rental.
I think one of the biggest things that helped Panavision over the long term was the company loudly emblazoned their logo on their camera systems. Panavision cameras stood out on movie sets. The cameras weren't just some black box with no name on it with a lens attached. Today just about everything has gone digital, with cameras looking like modest-sized black or grey boxes with a bunch of inputs and computer stuff all over them. They don't have huge film magazines pimped out with a great big logo. Likewise, Panavision isn't as popular today as it was in the film age.
20th Century Fox and the folks at Bausch and Lomb merely bought Chretien's Hypergonar patent and took it into production. CinemaScope was very common in the 1950's and 1960's. The CinemaScope name had a lot of brand equity. But Panavision slowly took over for obvious reasons.
Panavision made anamorphic film projection lenses that were easier to use than the original CinemaScope projection lenses. Panavision made conversion lenses for different film formats which helped in film print production. Then they developed the MGM Camera 65 system, which led to the Super Panavision and Ultra Panavision format names. The introduction of the 35mm Auto Panatar anamorphic lens in 1958 is really what signaled doom for CinemaScope. It was a better film production lens and it wasn't attached to some rival movie studio. Panavision started making their own motion picture camera systems and only offering them and the lenses for rental.
I think one of the biggest things that helped Panavision over the long term was the company loudly emblazoned their logo on their camera systems. Panavision cameras stood out on movie sets. The cameras weren't just some black box with no name on it with a lens attached. Today just about everything has gone digital, with cameras looking like modest-sized black or grey boxes with a bunch of inputs and computer stuff all over them. They don't have huge film magazines pimped out with a great big logo. Likewise, Panavision isn't as popular today as it was in the film age.
Comment