A typical early CinemaScope composition contained several characters on one plane, relatively far from the camera, in a static layout. This had the most noticeable impact in the domain of staging: as the CinemaScope lenses provided very little depth of field, directors were forced to spread out the action over the lateral, rather than the recessive axis. In addition, the anamorphic lens design, even after both lenses were joined in one unit, drastically reduced the light-gathering power. Filmmakers therefore had to avoid complex camera or character movements so that the focus did not have to be adapted during the shot. The first generations of CinemaScope lenses consisted of a prime lens and an anamorphic attachment which had to be focused separately. Actors and objects appeared at their sharpest when filmed from far back, so directors were advised to put the camera no closer than six or seven feet. Even more remarkable, actors shot in close-up suffered from CinemaScope mumps, their faces stretched out horizontally. This made figures or objects near the edges of the image appear thinner than those positioned centrally. The compression factor was roughly 2:1, but tended to vary across the surface of the lens. This would be reduced to 2.55 because of engineering considerations, and to 2.35 after the addition of an optical soundtrack. During projection, the reversed mechanism unsqueezed the image, resulting in an aspect ratio of 2.66:1. The CinemaScope process relied on lens attachments that squeezed a wide-angle view onto 35mm film. Despite various updates to the Hypergonar, they did, however, never manage to eliminate all of the technical flaws. Webb, 1953) – with the original Chrétien lenses, manufacturer Bausch & Lomb would provide several revised designs throughout the 1950s. ![]() While Fox filmed its first Scope pictures – How to Marry a Millionaire (Jean Negulesco, 1953), The Robe (Henry Koster, 1953) and Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (Robert D. The anamorphic technology which CinemaScope was based on had a clear impact on how films were made and on how they looked. In February 1953, the studio started filming its first CinemaScope pictures. Eventually, Fox obtained the formula for the anamorphic Hypergonar lens, developed by French astronomer Henri Chrétien, only one day before he was contacted by Warner’s representatives. Four studios of the Big Five (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures and Twentieth-Century Fox) looked into the possibility of creating their own widescreen system. After experiments with three-colour Technicolor, stereophonic sound and 3-D, the success of the three-strip widescreen process Cinerama in 1952 finally convinced Hollywood that widescreen could lure back moviegoers. In response to these developments, the film industry needed to strengthen the appeal of its product. Although Tino Balio has argued that “TV did not make significant inroads into moviegoing until the mid-fifties”, it is often identified as the main reason for Hollywood’s economic crisis: the more Americans acquired television receivers, the less they attended film theaters. There they were developing new leisure-time activities, outside (outdoor sports, barbecues and recreation parks), but especially inside the house, as the television became a popular alternative to the big screen. Postwar baby boomers had moved to the suburbs, far from the downtown first-run movie theatres. More importantly, Hollywood was failing to respond to the needs of a heavily changed and diversified audience. To make matters worse, the investigations of the House Committee on Un-American Activities had prompted successful boycott campaigns against films made by alleged left-wingers. The Paramount Consent Decree of May 1948 had demanded the studios to divest themselves of their theatre holdings, while the prohibition against block booking kept them from imposing units of multiple inferior pictures on exhibitors. The different tendencies that caused this economic decline have been extensively commented upon. In 1952, Fox’s incomes from admissions reached the lowest point since 1943. ![]() While Skouras had announced record profits in May 1946, the studio’s revenues were falling rapidly by the end of 1948. Skouras and executive in charge of production Darryl F. Twentieth-Century Fox, the studio of president Spyros S. In 1953, only 32.4 per cent of all cinemas were making profit from the sale of tickets. In 1948, more than 90 million Americans had visited the theatre at least once a week, but this figure decreased to 51 million in 1952. ![]() In the early 1950s Hollywood explored several new technologies in order to fight a major box office decline.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |