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VISION, SCOPE & RAMA
1926 Natural Vision
1929 Grandeur
1930 Magnifilm
1930 Realife
1930 Vitascope
1952 Cinerama
1953 CinemaScope
1953 Panavison
1954 VistaVision
1955 Todd-AO
1955 Circle Vision 360
1956 CinemaScope 55
1957 Ultra Panavision 70
1958 Cinemiracle
1958 Kinopanorama
1959 Super Panavision 70
1959 Super Technirama 70
1960 Smell-O-Vision
1961 Sovscope 70
1962
Cinerama 360
1962 MCS-70
1963 70mm Blow Up
1963 Circarama
1963 Circlorama
1966 Dimension 150
1966
Stereo-70
1967 DEFA 70
1967 Pik-A-Movie
1970 IMAX / Omnimax
1974 Cinema 180
1974 SENSURROUND
1976 Dolby Stereo
1984 Showscan
1984 Swissorama
1986 iWERKS
1989 ARRI 765
1990 CDS
1994 DTS / Datasat
2001 Super Dimension 70
2018 Magellan 65

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in70mm.com Mission:
• To record the history of the large format movies and the 70mm cinemas as remembered by the people who worked with the films. Both during making and during running the films in projection rooms and as the audience, looking at the curved screen.
in70mm.com, a unique internet based magazine, with articles about 70mm cinemas, 70mm people, 70mm films, 70mm sound, 70mm film credits, 70mm history and 70mm technology. Readers and fans of 70mm are always welcome to contribute.

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Extracts and longer parts of in70mm.com may be reprinted with the written permission from the editor.
Copyright © 1800 - 2070. All rights reserved.

Visit biografmuseet.dk about Danish cinemas

 

Ken Annakin
By Thomas Hauerslev
For "Flying Machines" I leaned to the Todd-AO system because the camera system was light, very easy to operate and fast to load. Todd-AO really gave you results equal to 3-strip printing.
Ken Annakin 90th Birthday Salute 2004
One of the most esteemed and talented Directors in British Cinema history - Mr. Ken Annakin! He’s going to do a short introduction to his personal favourite: Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, in a beautifully restored 70mm print.

• Go to
Jean-Jacques Annaud's Introduction to "The Bear"

• Go to
A Conversation with Jean-Jacques Annaud, Director of "The Bear" (1988)
Asger Bak
By Thomas Hauerslev
It is Asgers firm belief that cinemas will still be around in 10 years. "Celluloid may have been replaced with some form of digital projection, but Joe Customer will still need a place to see his films, bring his wife and have a few beers.

• Go to
Herbert Born Interviewed
Herbert Born
I was born in the same year as CinemaScope had it’s public birthday. Went to school and began during school work as a part time projectionist in Aachen, Elysee cinema.


• Go to Wide Visit With Willem Bouwmeester


• Go to
Ziryab Ben-Brahem In Conversation
Hans Braman
By Thomas Hauerslev
The interview took place in the projection room of the Royal cinema in Malmö, Sweden Monday 3 June 1996 during the 70mm performance of "The Great Race".
Kevin Brownlow
By Mark Lyndon
My mother said "Abel Gance is at the NFT", so I grabbed the script, and the few stills I had and rushed off and there I met the great man
Jurgen Brückner
Von Manfred Romboy
Coburgs Filmchronist von Manfred Romboy, DGPh Lust am Film wurde dem 1941 geborenen Jürgen A. Brückner quasi in die Wiege gelegt. 1938 hatte sich sein Vater Rudolf Brückner, ein Coburger Fabrikant, eine Siemens-Filmkamera gekauft. Es versteht sich, dass als beliebte Filmobjekte auch seine beiden Söhne herhalten mussten. Eventuell hat das katzenartige Abschnurren der väterlichen Doppel 8-Kamera schon im Unterbewusstsein des kleinen Jürgen die Grundlagen seiner später so ausgeprägten Filmaffinität gelegt.
Olivier Brunet
By Ramon Lamarca
Choosing 70mm could have been a way to try to conceal my weaknesses... I have no true answers to that. I still wonder. I think truth is now in the eye of the audience. The film does not belong to me anymore.
Hans-Kristian Bukholm
By Thomas Hauerslev
70mm really started with me when I was 14 years old and I saw David Lean’s masterpiece “Lawrence of Arabia” at a small cinema in Bergen on the west coast of Norway. Being able to count the grains of sand in the desert, that was a major thing for me when I decided to become a cinematographer.
Hans Kristian Bukholm
By Thomas Hauerslev
We chose 65mm because the film is going to be shown on a big curved screen, covering more than 100' angle from the audiences point of view. No smaller format could give the same feeling of being present in an arctic environment.

• Go to
Production Designer Henry Bumstead Interview
Une Visite Chez Monsieur Cinerama
By Martial DASSONVILLE
François CARRIN est plus connu à l’ALICC sous le pseudo de Mr. CINERAMA. En effet, notre conseiller à la rédaction d’ Infos-Ciné est passionné par les techniques d’écran large. Il a consacré toute sa vie professionnelle aux activités de métreuréconomiste de la construction. En marge de sa profession, il a été projectionniste dans un cinéma de la banlieue de Valenciennes de 1963 à 1973, à Quiévrechain, petite ville de 7000 habitants à la frontière belge.
En Conversation Avec François Carrin
By
Martial DASSONVILLE
François CARRIN. S’intéresser à l’écran large, au triple écran, avoir été projectionniste et avoir fréquenté ces installations un peu hors normes, ce n’est pas courant à l’ALICC. François nous explique donc son CINEMA PARADISIO personnel.

• Go to 2e classe CHAUVET ! Vous allez à l’Elysée!
• Go to
Soldier CHAUVET! You are going to Elysée Palace!
T. C. Christensen
By Kurtis Burr
One of the biggest challenges in doing an IMAX film about "Lewis and Clark" is trying to capture the incredible scenery they would have experienced almost 200 years ago.
David Coles?
At the impressionable age of 12 my mother took me to the Sydney Plaza Theatre to see “Seven Wonders of the World” and I immediately became a Cinerama addict - determined to find out all about this wondrous process.
Roy Conli
By Bill Kallay
I came to Disney in 1993 and worked on the development of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and was co-producer on that film. I went to France to run the French unit, and then ended up staying for three years running the French studio, where I worked on the production of "Hercules" (1997) and "Tarzan" (1999). And then I came back here five years ago to produce this film. And previous to that, I was in the theatre.
Carl Davis
By Mark Lyndon
I got a chance to talk to the last cinema organist of the Paramount Theatre in New York, someone who was still practising. We are talking now of the mid 1970s so you could still find a few 70 and 80 year-olds around. I got first hand information on how you would assemble a score
Louis deRochemont
By Borden Mace
Riding back to Manhattan alone with a captive David Lean in a thirty minute taxi ride, I had questions of a lifetime to ask him. I never got to ask one. He was so excited and had so many questions he wanted answers to.
Ken Draper interviewed
By
Mikael Barnard
I started work at the Casino on 19 September 1954, eleven days before opening night on 30 September. We had to pick it up quickly but we did many rehearsals and were well prepared. I started with the début screening of This is Cinerama, and then in 1956 we ran Cinerama Holiday. I left in 1957 for a job at MGM British Studios at Borehamwood where I worked in the preview theatre
Joe Dunton
Following the first 70mm screening af "Dance Craze" in 30 years the audience asked Joe Dunton questions about the making of this ground braking film
Orion Jardim de Faria
By Paulo Roberto P. Elias
It took me less than five minutes to realize that I sat face to face with a man totally involved with the film business, not by profit but by passion.
A Hunter of Light in 65mm
By Michael Fatali
I have been a hunter of light in the American landscape for nearly thirty-years now. I have been very lucky to acquire several 65mm cameras. My experiences of capturing images with 65mm has really just begun. Seven years it took for me to build the cameras, cranes, dollies, MOCO systems and even a Cinebulle to move the cameras into some amazing remote and rugged wildernesses.

• Go to
“Lay Me By The Shore”, Director David Findley talks about filming in 65mm
Ron Fricke
By The Big Frame
Working in the 35mm format, I was feeling that there was something lacking. Once I saw the IMAX theater and saw the film, I realized this is how it should be done.
Conversation with Mark Magidson and Ron Fricke
Transcribed by Peggy & Paul Rayton
This interview has been transcribed from the original event recording. It has been slightly modified to optimise clarity in reading.
Gerhard Fromm
By Thomas Hauerslev
Gerhard Fromm (b. 1932) has spent a lifetime with movies. From small beginnings with DEFA in Berlin, to big European 70mm productions in the 1960s. From working with Heinz Hölscher, Jan Jacobsen and Leni Riefenstahl, to teaching camera techniques to students in his later life.
Randy Gitsch
By Thomas hauerslev
Cinerama has not played here in years. Many, many years, and you can now get a clue as to the excitement of the live experience, seeing it in a real theatre on a big screen, and enjoy that experience. It is very theatrical. There is a lot of Showmanship in Cinerama and this is a chance to go back to a theatre and learn about what that was like.

• Go to Theo Gluck and the Interest in Movies

• Go to
Interview with Composer Ron Goodwin
Dave Strohmaier and Randy Gitsch
By Mark Lyndon
Cinerama’s future might evolve into a name on more than just a couple of theaters; Cinerama could come to mean a curved screen presentation; a noticeable distinct curved screen, perhaps not 146 degrees, but certainly more than a marginal curved screen.
Don Hahn
By Bill Kallay
My favorite sequence in IMAX is when Mufasa's ghost shows up, Simba goes to the reflecting pool, sees his reflection, and then all of the sudden, the clouds form and Mufasa shows up. That's a stunning scene in IMAX. To see a six-story tall apparition coming at you is very moving.
Jan Harlan
By Thomas Hauerslev
While I was in New York working for a data processing company I got to know Stanley very well – he was already married to my sister since 1957. This was in 1963/64. After that I continued with my work in Germany and Switzerland. Stanley worked with Arthur C. Clarke in New York while I was there to prepare "2OO1" but the family later moved to England to film “2OO1” at the MGM studios in Borehamwood. I lived in Zurich then doing my job but visited Stanley and the family from time to time in England.

 

• Go to
7OMM with Per Hauberg. An evening with "Dunkirk" in 70mm at the Malling Bio, Denmark
Thomas Hauerslev
The audience is the most important factor, and it is paramount to take good care of them, and that is why a projectionist is still needed. If he is removed "Cinema" will become a fake plastic experience, and you might as well stay at home to see the film.
Jan Jacobsen
By Gerhard Fromm
Jacobsen met with Mr. Travnicek and Mr. Pinelli and they convinced him to develop a European version of the highly successful Todd-AO process. So was "MCS 70" founded and in a short time Jacobsen and his small team built six 65mm 5-perf field cameras.
Jan Jacob Kotte
By Anton Kotte
The most remarkable moment came at the end of a working day in 1963. My father entered our living room, wearing a hat and coat, which was very unusual for him, and told to us: “We won an OSCAR"!

• Go to
The Cinerama Archaeologists

• Go to It's All in the Writing. Jan Harlan in Denmark
Working for Mike Todd
By Glenda Jensen
Midori Tsuji was a fascinating and beautiful woman. I was in awe of her. She was a person very much in command of herself. She took care of everything for Mike and, occasionally, for Elizabeth. I wanted to be like her.
Greg Kimble
Greg Kimble is a classically trained visual effects supervisor with credits dating back to the Special Edition of "Close Encounters". An avid "Trekie," his first screen credit was on the original Star Trek film, where he shot all the Klingon war birds and the V'ger craft.
Rolf Konow
By Thomas Hauerslev
My job is to make people go and see the film: I shoot still photos that are supposed to show the sense of a scene. In the old days there were photos outside the cinema – around maybe 35 photos, that people looked at before they went in to see a film. My role is to take those photos, and also photos for publicity, for magazines; and later on, books that have to do with certain directors. So that’s what it’s all about. A good still image is something that captures the scene, in a way that will encourage people to see the film.

• Go to
Bill Lawrence in Conversation


• Go to Working at Todd-AO Studios UPDATED
• Go to Gallery: Visit to Todd-AO Studios

• Go to Loïc LEDEZ - The French Master Projectionist
• Go to Loïc LEDEZ - The French Master Projectionist
Sven Libaek
The world premiere was a typical Hollywood event, and there we were, three young Norwegian boys, who a year earlier could only have dreamt about attending such a spectacle.
Sam Lomberg
By Thomas Hauerslev
In 1959 he accepted an offer to join NTA as their Director of Foreign Sales. It was while he was with NTA that he became involved with Cinemiracle and the road showing of “Windjammer”.

• Go to Designing Logmar's ultra-light Magellan 65 Camera
• Go to Logmar Camera Solutions premieres a new hand-held 65mm Camera
John Mitchell
By Cameron  Glendinning
Let's go to Australia and meet a man who has a complete 3-strip Cinerama cinema in his garden. It all started when he heard on the grapevine that a certain storehouse was to be emptied.
Rick Mitchell
By Ramon Lamarca
Whatever future there is for 70mm it will have to come from outside the mainstream production industry, possibly from outside the United States.

Go to Projectionist Jan Niebuhr, Denmark

• Go to
France Nuyen's introduction to "South Pacific"
Orla Nielsen
By Thomas Hauerslev
I run 70mm at Biffen for the simple reason I think it is a fabulous format. I like to look at it, it is easy to handle and we can run it. It is a pleasure for me to see a large well-illuminated 70mm image on the screen. And with that large hole in the projector aperture plate, it is easy to punch some light onto the screen. Those are the primary reasons why I run 70mm here.

• Go to
An Evening with Derren Nesbitt

• Go to
Bohemian Rhapsody
Brian O'Brien Biography
By Walter P. Siegmund and Brian O'Brien, Jr.
Brian O'Brien was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1898 to Michael Phillip and Lina Prime O'Brien. His education started in the Chicago Latin School from 1909–1915, and continued at the Yale Sheffield scientific school where he earned a Ph.B. in 1918 and a Ph.D. in 1922. In 1922 he married Ethel Cornelia Dickerman and they had one son, Brian, Jr..

• Go to
Jan Olsen Interviewed
Ole Olsen
By Thomas Hauerslev
I was not destined for the cinema business at first, but circumstances directed me into it. My father ran the cinema at the Danish Film Museum in Frederiksberggade in downtown Copenhagen. It was a childhood full of film. My brothers and I saw films all the time.
John O'Callaghan
John O'Callaghan was born in 1965 in Chicago, but has lived in Mission Viejo since 1972. He began making films at age 14 in 8mm and video. He has made two short films in 65mm. His first was made in 1989 and the second was finished in November 1992.

• Go to The Mighty Quinn

• Go to
65mm Film: The Fabric of Magic. Part 1 – The Kodak View

• Go to
Paul Rayton In Conversation
Paul Rayton
Paul Rayton was born in the far northeastern part of the US. Initially brought up there, by the early 1960s he felt enough interest in film to head west
Eric Rondum
By Peter H Rondum
I always knew dad had worked for Cinerama. But being that it simply did not exist for most of my lifetime, I never really grasped impact of Cinerama until stumbling upon the "Cinerama Adventure"
Sebastian Rosacker
By Thomas Hauerslev
I usually say about 200 times, but I have no idea. Many times at home, in my home theatre as well. It has everything. Best photo, best picture, best actors and actresses, best music, you name it. It has it. It is the Zhivago character I like the most. He is a man not seeking revenge. How bad the situation, no revenge. That is big. That is what appeals to me because that is the future actually. I don’t think we will have wars in the far future. Zhivago is a man of the future. I have read the book, and this the theme in the book.
Miklós Rózsa
By Jeffrey Dane
It seemed almost every square foot of wall space was lined with autograph letters (and some manuscript pages) of the composers, mounted in special frames so that when turned around the overside of each letter could also be read.

 

• Go to
Kevin Brownlow

• Go to
Sir Sydney

• Go to Rolf Konow

• Go to
Oliver Michael Todd
• Go to How it all Began
• Go to
Walter Siegmund

David Samuelson
By Lyndon and Hauerslev
I was a cinema newsreel cameraman, with Fox Movietone. We covered the Ascot horse racing and I was assigned to film when the Queen went down and talked to all the jockeys. We had to film that from quite a long way away, because CinemaScope was about wide screen, it didn’t cross their minds to equip me with a long lens. The only CinemaScope lens I had was a wide one, and the Queen was tiny, a long way away. I took the decision, to go down from my assigned location to the ground level and film the Queen.
Sir Sydney Samuelson
By Thomas Hauerslev
Sydney Samuelson gives a fascinating insight about his work with the international and British film industry in the 1960s and 70s. Sir Sydney and his three brothers managed Samuelson Film Service in London, a company which supplied all the technical equipment for film productions all over the world. Their costumers included David Lean, Stanley Kubrick, and Ken Annakin. In this conversation Sydney reveals a little bit about what went on in the movie business, during the time of "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Ryan's Daughter" and may others.

• Go to
Ronald Rosbeek in Conversation
Walter Siegmund
By Thomas Hauerslev
We didn’t try to reproduce Cinerama - we made our own process. It seems to me that there were certain parameters, which more or less were expected. Something like a 2:1 ratio between width to height.
John Sittig
By Mark Lyndon
When I was seven years old living in Columbus Ohio, Cinerama had opened in Cincinnati which was about 100 miles away and, this is before freeways, and my parents took me to see Cinerama at the RKO Capitol Theatre in Cincinnati; even though I was seven years old I can still remember where I was sitting in the balcony and the thrill that I felt when Lowell Thomas said – “Ladies and Gentlemen, This is Cinerama”

• Go to
Morten Skallerud in Conversation

• Go to
Stephen Slater in Conversation

• Go to "Reel Life" engages from the start
• Go to
'REEL LIFE', a memoir by Tony Sloman
Dave Strohmaier
By Thomas Hauerslev
W
e went to see "Seven Wonders of the World" in 1957, It was an interesting and very unique movie experience, because because seeing that in the widescreen format was kind of mind boggling. That is probably why Cinerama lasted so long, because it was so different. Not only did it create a wide screen in the cinema, but it was different on its own right, and people felt they were moving with the theatre.
"Windjammer" Cast & Crew
By Thomas Hauerslev
A small team, two Norwegians and a Dane, met with some of the cast and crew from the Cinemiracle adventure "Windjammer" to talk about the history

• Go to Sune L. Thomsen and the Challenges of 70mm

• Go to Sune L Thomsen about GIFF 7O @ the Gentofte Kino, Denmark
• Go to Gallery: Gentofte Kino, Greater Copenhagen, Denmark
My father never really talked about the motion picture business
Cyrus Todd in Conversation
I worked in the motion picture business for about four years in New York, and then I moved back to Ireland became a chef. I did that for about twenty years. My legs have gotten old and I decided to find something else. And a friend of a friend said I should get into the appliance business – there was somebody looking for help, and instead of standing behind a stove and cooking, now I stand in front of them and sell them!
Oliver Michael Todd
My name is Oliver Michael Todd. I was born in New York where I lived the first six years of my life. I went to University in the US and actually took a little detour from University and went to Los Angeles before I became a school teacher and over a series of years and different locations found myself lucky enough to find a job in Copenhagen.
Mike Todd, Jr.
By Roy Frumkes
“This Is Cinerama” opened to rave reviews. All of Dad's ideas had worked - the name of the film was his, the roadshow concept was his. No one had believed his predictions about Cinerama; now everyone was listening.
Letters and Dust Devils
Susan Jane Todd in Conversation with Thomas Hauerslev

My father had the difficult job of following in his father’s footsteps. I think my father always wanted to be a philosopher: that was his Major in college. He loved fine art – painting and sculpture. And good literature. But he got stuck with "Scent of Mystery" this because his father died. They were just about to work on a Todd-AO movie – "Don Quixote". He couldn’t do it because he was in so much grief – so he made this project.
Douglas Trumbull
By Tony Earnshaw
I have discovered that if you embrace digital technology from a new perspective and you say, ‘Let’s just get rid of all the historical artefacts and beliefs of what an image is or what it should look like and start over and do it all digitally and take advantage of high resolution cameras that are available and that very people use, the high resolutions projectors that are available that very people use and take advantage of the fact that the digital projectors that are in tens of thousands of movie theatres can run at 144fps and no one’s using it.
Douglas Trumbull
By Wolfram Hannemann

I’m absolutely confident that the digital image has caught up with film in terms of frame rate, resolution, steadiness, brightness and colour saturation. I’ve gone totally digital; I’m not interested in film at all.

• Go to
Jesper Tønnes: The Formats are also part of the Storytelling

• Go to Interview with Jean-Pierre Verscheure about Cinevolution
Go to Gallery The Sound Restoration Centre of Excellence

• Go to
A Conversation with Dr. Richard Vetter
Jim Ward
By Bill Kallay
Jedi Knights, Imperial Storm troopers and Tusken Raiders rejoiced this past summer of 2002, when it was announced that "Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of the Clones", would be released in the IMAX format. For how many years have fans of the original trilogy, and now prequels, wished upon the stars above Skywalker Ranch for the films to be shown on the giant IMAX screen?

• Go to
From YouTube To 65mm Film
What 7OMM is to Johan Wolthuis
By Thomas Hauerslev
Johann Wolthuis has been crucially instrumental in reviving world wide interest in 70mm. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that there might not have been the same level of awareness and appreciation of the 70mm format without his tireless dedication, advocacy and enthusiasm, which goes back for over three decades. We who love 70mm and see it as the greatest and grandest medium for the moving image of them all, owe him a great deal. He speaks most eloquently for us all.
Johan Wolthuis
By Thomas Hauerslev
In Amsterdam I saw Michael Todd's show "Around the World in 80 Days". From that time on I was convinced that 70mm Todd-AO with 6 channel sound is the ultimate film presentation format for the cinema.
Betty York
By Betty York
When we [Johnny and I] separated I went to NY and successfully broke into photographic modelling and TV commercials, making good use of my SAG (film) membership which unions required. I also did freelance greeting card designs, building on the years I spent as a designer with the Hallmark Card Company in Kansas City.

• Go to
Interview & People


Online: 02-06-1999. Updated: 15-08-2024