CINERAMA AT HOME

追加: 2026-05-15

[00:00:13]I haven't been watching many home video discs in this cinema recently. Been a little too tied up with the Keith Wilton estate and he died at the beginning of the year. I'm watching his entire Cinerama collection on the projectors down there, but I did borrow from the family his Cinerama collection. All these Cinerama documentaries that were made in the 1950s. Cinerama was introduced in 1952 and ran all the way up to 1962.

[00:00:41]The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, I believe, being the last ever Cinerama film.

[00:00:46]But, 1966, there was a reworking of the Russian production that was released as a Cinerama and that was entitled Russian Adventure and narrated and presented by none other than Bing Crosby. I haven't seen all of these yet, but I'm getting through them. Some are better than others, but some are excellent. And what is really impressive about them is the small box that these are presented with.

[00:01:10]You could actually project them on a 146° curved screen in your home cinema to replicate the Cinerama effect. I would love to have a go at that one day, so that is something that may be coming soon. Others are working on their own home cinemas with a 146° curved screen. Steve Rowley is one such enthusiast. D150, Dimension 150, will fit onto that screen as well. But, I've never actually seen a genuine three-strip Cinerama. I did see the reproduction in Futuroscope near Poitiers in France in the early 1990s, '92 or '93 we went there, but never actually been up to the Pictureville in Bradford to see Cinerama. Kim from Ball Tech did go up there a year ago and he made the most fabulous video documenting the Cinerama, the three-strip Cinerama process at the Bradford Pictureville, and I would urge anyone who hasn't seen that great video to go over and have a look at that. So, I will leave a link in the description below.

[00:02:12]But, during a filming trip I was on in 2011 in America, one of the places I went through was Los Angeles, and I was delighted to see the Cinerama dome was still there, the Pacific Cinerama dome.

[00:02:25]I'd never been in there, and so as my colleague, Keith, was working on one of his productions from Cinicolor to Cinerama, I banged on the door of the Pacific Cinerama dome, and the young lady in there came and spoke to me. She then took me through to the main complex and contacted the manager. I told him what I wanted to do, and he gave me permission to go up to the projection box and see the three Able, Baker, and Charlie projectors in place, and the projector that handled the full coat magnetic 35-mm sound. So, Garyann Abeta met me, and she took me actually through the entire complex, but primarily focusing on the Cinerama dome itself. And so, we got a look at the projectors, how they worked through the port holes crossing each other. It was a fabulous visit, and I contacted my colleague, Keith, told him, "Hold everything. I've got some new video for you." But, he'd already started duplicating copies of from Cinicolor to Cinerama. However, it wasn't a complete missed opportunity though, cuz he then went on to do the golden age of widescreen, and it was featured a little in this, the work, the shots that I got that day. But, it's wonderful to share it with you here again now. I have included some of it in my previous 2001: A Space Odyssey review video that I did between 5 to 6 years ago now as I record this. I also included some of the small box version of the 2001: A Space Odyssey trailer being screened in our previous home cinema and people did ask me from that video if I had a curved screen. I said, "No, it's just this reproduction." But, that is how all these discs are done with a small box and you sit in here with it projected and it does give you that curved screen effect. It's not identical, but it's a very good second best to how you really do see Cinerama.

[00:04:16]Okay, mostly today they do do these small box video projections when it is Cinerama, but just occasionally at the Bradford Pictureville, you get the chance to see the Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, How the West Was Won, and all the Cinerama documentaries, or at least most of them I think. But, This Is Cinerama was the first. This was 1952 and Cinerama is where all wide screen processes that came after followed on from. It's also where that wide screen logo that everyone uses to this day came from because when you look at it from a distance, you do get that narrower in the middle, taller at the edges, and that's where that wide screen logo has always come from.

[00:04:58]But, there's one other documentary that I saw recently, Rob Murphy's Spliced Here: A Projected Odyssey, and this I think is a wonderful documentary and he travels the world in search of Cinerama effectively and it concludes with him screening a film that had the Cinerama logo on the front. So, next time you watch your Blu-ray of Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, look out for that Cinerama logo. Yes, Ultra Panavision was the replacement for Cinerama and after Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and How the West Was Won, Hollywood figured that all this paraphernalia taking this camera out with the three lenses, the three film magazines on it is so cumbersome. What about we put a 1.25 squeeze lens on standard 65 mm when we're shooting? That will be the same 2.76:1 aspect ratio roughly as Cinerama. We can project that on the curved screens. So, that's roughly why Ultra Panavision came about and why Cinerama sort of left the world in 1962. What a great shame, but David Strohmaier and his team did make a new film in Cinerama, genuine Cinerama, that is included on Search for Paradise.

[00:06:12]So, if you do find any of these Blu-ray discs, you will find that they're packed with extras and some of them are really good extras, such as In the Picture, which was a new Cinerama production. I think that was 2012 that was shot, but when we were there at the Cinerama Dome, Gary Ann was telling us that was what they were planning and the camera that they had at the Cinerama Dome was actually away for repair at the time.

[00:06:36]So, we knew it was going to happen, didn't know much about it, but David Strohmaier made his new Cinerama production and I dare say it's going to be the last ever genuine Cinerama film.

[00:06:47]Right, so these clips I've had running in cutaways. I've got the trailers down from YouTube and I've used a few extracts from the trailers to give you an idea of what one of these SmileBox videos will look like if you project them in your own home cinema. I don't think they'll quite come across on the television, but give it a try, you might be surprised. But in here with a screen sort of big enough for where we're sitting, you do get that Cinerama effect and it's been really enjoyable watching all these Blu-rays. I'm going to be taking them back at the British Film Collectors Convention and giving them to my colleague Mark Laskey son, Mark Wilton, who is going to be one of the projectionists on the day, so there will still be a Wilton at the BFCC, but he's then going to watch these in what is now his home cinema, but was his dad's, which was the influence for what I've done in here and some of my previous home cinemas. And he had the red curtains, the red lights and the first time I went over there, I think it was 1991 or 1992, I just thought, "Can you really do this?" All the moving, masking, everything to fill every aspect ratio across his 8-ft wide screen. I thought, "This is magic." At the time, we did have what was considered a rather impressive living room home cinema, and we're going to have a go at reproducing that living room home cinema here soon.

[00:08:05]So, possibly be turning this place into a multiplex if that goes to plan. But, that was something else, going over to Keith's and seeing that you could actually do all this, well, really reproduce a picture palace in your own home. So, even though I've been a home cinema enthusiast for most of my life already, that set me on a slightly new path, and that's why we've ended up with this home cinema here. It's always a process getting to the end game.

[00:08:32]So, I think I should just say one reminder, don't forget the British Film Collectors Convention. We've actually pre-sold quite a lot of tickets for that, so that's encouraging. Hopefully, that's going to be a success, and we'll be able to take that on and put it back on the calendar as a regular thing. I'm still watching the entire Super 8 collection of Keith Wilton. I've got to watch every reel because so many reels had bits chopped out for the screenings at the British Film Collectors Convention, most notably the most important features. So, it's going to take me probably another 6 months to get through the whole lot, but some of those films are going to be on sale at the convention. Right, I think that brings me to the end of another one. Hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give it a like. Perhaps, subscribe if you haven't already. And until the next video, bye-bye for now.

[00:09:38]>> Mhm.