VistaVision Returns!

[Steve Guttag]

Harold, I had the exact opposite effect with the Sound of Music...it is an example, for me, of dialog panning done right. Fixed center dialog I find jarring (the bigger the screen the more the voice sounds disconnected from the image). There are techniques that are required for panned dialog just like there are things like the 180-degree rule for shooting image to avoid disorientation. 2001: A Space Odyssey is an example where the panned dialog is not always shifted to avoid calling attention to itself (the telephone sequence comes to mind where there are numerous cuts and instead of shifting the dialog to Left, they left it at Left-Center).

As for Perspecta. It isn't just shifting the audio. You have a mono track with three faders (while mixing) so you can place the audio in any combination of the three screen speakers. It is not a mere pan-pot. So, if you do have music, you would, back the, likely mix it to all three speakers to give the feeling of filling the stage but would have to temper that with what else is going on since you don't want dialog coming out of all three and you don't want the music to collapse every time someone speaks. I suspect that there were certain sequences where they decided that they wanted directionality and tailored the mix to allow for it. I've only heard a handful of Perspecta tracks but they were better than they should have been given that all they had to work with was mono at varying levels out of three speakers.

[Leo Enticknap]

If they had been original prints with an optical track...

...they would likely be dye faded to the point of being unwatchable, unless they were IB dye transfer, in which case they would likely be so shrunk that conventional sprocket teeth would rip up the perforations (Technicolor IB prints were worse for shrinkage than dye coupler prints of the same era as a general rule, because the base stock had a slightly different chemical composition in order to accommodate the printer mechanism). By the late '50 the vast majority of release prints being struck were dye coupler, and faded to pink very quickly. So any original VV release print that survives today will likely either be too shrunk and/or brittle to project, or would look on the screen like a b/w movie tinted pink.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Forgive cataloging my own rabbit hole journey. From a bit of googling it appears both these titles were 1.85:1 intended ratio (on release 4p35 vertical prints?). At least IMDB claims Mono sound, was perspecta ever even a release experience with these two? It seems they were not among the few that ever got 8p35 horizontal release prints?

While I trust IMDB technical about as far as I can throw it, why does it mention 1.96:1 as the negative ratio for "We're No Angels". I would have presumed 1.47:1 for VV camera aperture??
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048801/technical/

While it's easy to find lists of films utilizing VV in the cinemagraphic process, it's not as transparent which ones or graced a screen/projector in 8p35 other than:

White Christmas
Strategic Air Command
To Catch A Thief
The Battle of the River Plate

Were there others? Of all the VV shot films, a bunch were intended for or made it to 5p70 blow-up releases eventually in restorations. The real curiosities would be the ones that did not. Are these two among them?

I also really hope the VistaVision fanfare sequence exists on these prints... but considering they may not have ever been release prints... perhaps not? I'd be tempted to play it from a DCP! We're no Angels appeared to use the classic Nathan Van Cleave fanfare, but O.K. Corral had a different one it seems.

Unfortunately the image links are broken on this page which gets into the nitty gritty of VV camera and projector aspect ratios. I've always thought of 1.66:1 as VistaVision, but apparently that mostly comes from one studio's preference for release prints after the 90deg rotation to 4p35 and the rest of the processing chain. 1.85 and 2.0 were just as likely on 8p35 transfer prints?

https://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/vvspecs.htm

...thankfully the negative drawings text links still work:




4Perf Optical Reduction Transfer:

Lazy8.gif



8Perf Contact Print, showing 1.85 and 2.00 variants, (I wish the dimensions text was more legible).

VVdf.gif

[Ryan Gallagher]

More from the rabbit hole and youtube gems.

And I thought optical/digital test films were rare! Surprised this Perspecta one was around in 2019 in condition enough to scan for youtube.

Perspecta Sound Test Reel For Projectionists

And here is the previously mentioned Nathan Van Cleave fanfare, what I expect most of us view as the classic VistaVision fanfare:

From "White Christmas"

And the more Hitchcockian variation:

From "The Trouble With Harry"

And then there is this piece of cinema history:

VistaVision Promotional Trailer ahead of White Christmas:

The "on red" aspect seems to match some of the printed glossy promotional items of the time?

[Ryan Gallagher]

In listening to the test reel, if the in room experience was anything like that, I would find the fact that the noise floor also pans to be the most disorienting. But maybe that was just exaggerated in that digitization. But selectively rolling the gain on the 3 amps seems like it would have the potential to sound like that in a theatre too.

[Ryan Gallagher]

And then there is this Perspecta MGM "Lecture in Sound" (Long Version) contribution.... unfortunately and hilariously uploaded to youtube in MONO.

[Frank Angel]

How does it sound to those of you who have?

Unimpressive -- no feeling of "3D space" in the music. No matter how many speakers you play it thru, mono es mono es mono. What you are left with is dialog panning and while I liked that in the early 4tk mag 35 / 6trk 70, IF done judiciously; I could live with it or just as easily without it, like when along came Dolby matrixed 2into4 where they were scared of moving dialog too often and TOO much to the extreme Left or Right because, you know...not really discrete surround and thus, nasty bleed.

And of course you have to discount the hilarious copy the narrator is reading in the last clip -- with all the panning going on, it's STILL nothing as impressive as mag tracks with their huge uptick in frequency response and a bit of a boost in dynamic range. With Perspecta Sound, you are still starting and finishing with an optical track with all it's inherent limitations. When the copy says, "Perspecta Sound is the finest sound system in the world" (the WORLD), it really is sooo Hollywood that it has to make you smile.

As for the ground noise following the panning, yeah, it does make one wince, but I am sure that is exaggerated in these clips because there is obviously a compressor pumping away in the Youtube copy. I only heard NORTH BY NORTHWEST and I guarantee, if I heard that much pumping, I would have screamed out loud in the theatre and walked out. That hiss following the dialog from side to side is not how system sounded.

Also, I might add, and I am sure the experts here can either verify or correct, but the three Perspecta Sound control tones that determined how much of the mono signal was feed to what channel, didn't just turn the channel on or off like the these demos seem to suggest, the tones could be varied in level so that the mono signal could be "placed" anywhere within the stage soundfield and moved smoothly to that location; it didn't need to be all left or right or center, it could be anywhere in between, so a good sound engineer could smoothly follow a sound across the stage, not just bump it from one speaker to the other. That would make it much less jarring (as Ryan found it), than these clips suggest.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Frank,

I can pretty much guarantee you that there is probably a stereo master for the music in NXNW, just as there was for Vertigo. I will say that the mag film of the Vertigo stuff was totally vinegar and warped to a degree. A late friend of mine had me help him do a few reels of that stuff one day when I was in town. We took turns holding the film against the mag head with folded Webril Wipes. A Sondor dubber was used.

Ryan,

I also heard Perspecta at a late friends in Portland, OR. His processor was completely rebuilt by his father in law who was an engineer at Tektronix, so the three filters were spot on. Dick had a nice print of White Christmas to show it off, and it blew me away. Apparently there is a way in Perspecta to create artificial stereo that has depth. How that was sensed and created, I have no idea. But it was better than any 4 track stereo print I've ever heard. Sadly, I have no idea where his processor went, or if someone ended up with it that realizes what it actually is.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Sean, I heard you are using a Ballantyne dual intermittent machine... Is that true? Those were pretty good projectors, almost bought one back in the day.

[Sean McKinnon]

Hi Mark,

You heard incorrectly. We are using Century machines. Actually the first two original prototypes from century serial #'s VV 10081 and 10082

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Hi Mark,

You heard incorrectly. We are using Century machines. Actually the first two original prototypes from century serial #'s VV 10081 and 10082

Thanks for the update!!

[Ryan Gallagher]

Maybe it's just "in the air", but I got two unprompted compliments for my VV t-shirt today from non-projectionist people. Of course I had to regale them with the tale of what TCM is undertaking, not sure they fully grokked the historic significance, but their interest seemed peeked.

[Martin Brooks]

Having run Perspecta...it is a bit cool to have a mono sound track being steered out of the three screen channels.

I've always hated it because it's not stereo as it did not create a stereo sound field. It's just an automated pan pot and I believe it was an insult by the studios that used it to the theaters that invested big $$$ in stereo speakers and amplifiers. I could see it the way Cinerama used a similar process to steer the surrounds, but other than that, I think it was a terrible process. JMO.

[Martin Brooks]

Apparently there is a way in Perspecta to create artificial stereo that has depth. How that was sensed and created, I have no idea. But it was better than any 4 track stereo print I've ever heard. Sadly, I have no idea where his processor went, or if someone ended up with it that realizes what it actually is.

I really don't know how it would be possible for Perspecta to create artificial stereo that had depth because it was essentially an automated pan pot, although unlike pan pots, it could send to left and right at the same time. Based on research I did years ago, Perspecta used three control tones mixed into a Variable Aperture optical track, using 30Hz (left), 35 Hz (center) and 40 Hz (right) control tones. The level of tones could vary the volume and dynamic range. Overall, levels were reduced 3db so the track would not overload. A Fairchild Integrator playback unit was used at first and later, an Ampex Integrator.

MGM was the strongest supporter of the format.
But I don't know how it could sound better than 4-track mag considering the optical Academy Curve, which starts rolling off at 2kHz. Are you sure you weren't listening to a mag version? Some VistaVision films were released in mag stereo.

Having said that, there was the Vistasonic 4-track optical format that was used on Popeye and Dragonslayer and presented that way in five theaters. I only saw Popeye and the audio quality was amazing. Could not tell the difference between that and Mag, but I think the format was abandoned because the very tiny optical tracks didn't hold up to multiple plays.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Likely by varying the phase and phase levels very quickly, and done electronically during the mix. Perspecta obviously had some sort of an encoder the rerecording team used. Might be easy to look up patents on the system. The patents would specify all the capabilities.