MGM Camera 65

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Camera 65 was a 1957 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer introduced anamorphic admission process for 70-mm - widescreen movies .

background

The development of Camera 65 was closely related to the selection of a suitable recording method for the MGM large-scale production Ben Hur , which is currently in preparation . The formats newly introduced at the time still had some weaknesses. With the Cinemascope process of 20th Century Fox on 35 mm film no close-ups were in good quality possible, and from the film negative of by Michael Todd out brought 70 mm - Todd-AO could be drawn any 35mm film prints. MGM therefore decided to develop its own high-resolution format with Panavision , which should eliminate these disadvantages.

Old Mitchell cameras from the 1930s were converted to 65 mm film and fitted with a newly developed anamorphic lens from Panavision, which compressed the image by a factor of 1.25 and recorded it at a frame rate of 24 frames per second. A 70 mm screening copy with six magnetic sound strips or a 35 mm normal film copy could now be made from the film negative. In both versions, the film had to be rectified for showing. Due to the low compression of the image, distortions in close-ups could be reduced. The 2.76: 1 aspect ratio was possible with a 70mm performance, but was not always possible due to limited screen widths. When copying onto the 35 mm film, image information was lost at both edges. The director and the cameraman had to take these image losses into account in both performance versions during the shooting. Panavision wanted to name the format Ultra Panavision , but MGM prevailed with Camera 65 .

The first film in this format was The Land of the Rain Tree , but it was only shown on 35mm film. It was only Ben Hur that was sold as a 70 mm film. During the production of Mutiny on the Bounty , Panavision took over the process as MGM got into financial distress due to the cost. This film marked the transition from Camera 65 to Ultra Panavision and at the same time the future use by other film companies.

Movies in Camera 65

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