Vistarama
Vistarama was an anamorphic process mainly for 35 mm wide screen films and was in competition with comparable systems, such as CinemaScope in particular .
history
The foreseeable great success of 20th Century Fox with its anamorphic system CinemaScope from the beginning of the 1950s led to activities by other companies to also develop anamorphic systems under their own brands. Against this background, the film producer Carl Dudley founded the company Vistarama Incorporated in order to offer its own anamorphic process for 16 mm and 35 mm films from 1953 . The anamorphic lenses for cameras and projectors came from the Simpson Optical Manufacturing Company. Since the anamorphic factor of 2.0 was identical to that of CinemaScope and led to the same aspect ratio of 2.55: 1 (later 2.35: 1), no separate projection technology was required in the cinema.
When Warner Bros. lost the race for the rights to anamorphic optics from Henri Chrétien to 20th Century Fox in December 1952 , Jack Warner tried to develop a compatible system with technology from the German Zeiss under the name "WarnerSuperScope" . Since Zeiss was lagging behind with development, Warner temporarily used Vistarama. When the ordered Zeiss optics arrived, the result was not satisfactory for Warner and he gave up the idea of his own system. He has now taken over CinamaScope under license from 20th Century Fox and was able to distribute his two films already made with Vistarama under the CinemaScope brand.
Films in Vistarama
- 1954: The Seventh Night ( The Command )
- 1954: The blonde happiness ( Lucky Me )
- 1955: Canzoni di tutta Italia
- 1956: Death Arrow on the Mississippi ( Frontier Woman )
- 1957: Ho amato una diva
- 1957: La grande caccia
Web links
- CinemaScope on dvdlog.de
- widescreenmuseum.com The American Widescreenmuseum (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Vistarama sales letter. American WideScreen Museum, accessed May 10, 2014 .
- ↑ WideScreen Format War Begins. American WideScreen Museum, accessed May 10, 2014 .
- ^ CinemaScope. American WideScreen Museum, accessed May 10, 2014 .