“Almost like a real web site”
 

IN7OMM.COM
Search | Contact
News | e-News
Rumour Mill | Stories
Foreign Language
Auf Deutsch

WHAT'S ON IN 7OMM?

7OMM FESTIVAL
Karlsruhe | Gentofte
Krnov | Varnsdorf
Banská Bystrica
Oslo | Bradford

TODD-AO PROCESS
Films | Premiere
People | Equipment
Library | Cinemas
Distortion Correcting
DP70 / AAII Projector
 

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

Various Large format | 70mm to 3-strip | 3-strip to 70mm | Specialty Large Format | Special Effects in 65mm | ARC-120 | Early Large Format
7OMM Premiere in Chronological Order

7OMM ON EARTH

Australia | Brazil | Canada | China | Denmark | England | France | Germany | Holland | India | Iran | Israel | Ireland | Mexico | Norway | Poland |  Russia | Spain | Sweden | Turkey | USA |

LIBRARY
7OMM Projectors
People | Eulogy
65mm/70mm Workshop
The 7OMM Newsletter
Back issue | PDF
Academy of the WSW

7OMM NEWS
• 2026 | 2025 | 2024
2023 | 2022 | 2021
2020 | 2019 | 2018
2017 | 2016 | 2015
2014 | 2013 | 2012
2011 | 2010 | 2009
2008 | 2007 | 2006
2005 | 2004 | 2003
2002 | 2001 | 2000
1999 | 1998 | 1997
1996 | 1995 | 1994
 

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.

Disclaimer | Updates
Support us | Staff
Testimonials
Table of Content
 

 
 
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 Draper interviewed
We were sad to hear of the passing of Ken Draper, one of the first Cinerama projectionists at the Casino in London in 1954. We are pleased that the Projected Picture Trust have granted us permission to reprint this splendid interview with Ken.

Read more at
in70mm.com
The 70mm Newsletter
Written by: Mikael Barnard. Content copyright: The Projected Picture Trust. Reprinted with permission Date: 09.02.2017
Ken Draper. Picture from the PPT

We are very lucky at the PPT to have at our disposal an astounding and prodigious pool of expertise in a wide number of fields related to our activities and mission. Our curator is surely one of our greatest assets and he brings a tremendous wealth of experience and knowledge concerning the technological history of cinema. Among his many achievements can be listed his time as a Cinerama projectionist at the London Casino where he was present at no less an occasion than the format’s UK début. In this anniversary year Ken was kind enough to share the following reminiscences.
 
More in 70mm reading:

in70mm.com's Cinerama page

This is Cinerama...at the London Casino

DP70 at the Casino in London

PDF: Ken Draper interview

Internet link:


ppttrust.org

 
How did you come to be a Cinerama
projectionist and what training was
required?


I answered an advert in Kine Weekly – Cinerama projectionist wanted for the London Casino, only chiefs or first projectionists need apply! 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.

How difficult was it as a system, particularly to make up?

As you probably know at the Casino each panel (Abel, Baker and Charlie) was operated from separate boxes. Abel and Charlie boxes were a pretty decent size but Baker box was rather squeezed in the middle. The films for each panel arrived on individual 8000ft spools; there would be two of these per box and they were changed during the interval. These were fitted with academy style leaders (with Ken Draper interviewed by Mikael Barnard each frame being six perforations high of course) and we would lace up to the start mark.

Did you ever experience any breakdowns? If so how was replacement footage required and how was this dealt with?

We had a chap named Les Gardiner responsible for dealing with damage and repairs and he had a separate room. When I was there projectionists worked two shifts, we never had a breakdown on my shift and I never heard of one on the other. Nevertheless, the repair man was kept busy examining the films for damage and keeping them clean. When a particular section looked to be getting a bit worn a replacement section would be ordered from America, these usually ran from fade-out to fade-out, the Cinerama travelogues being well suited to this.

How was the Cinerama equipment at the Casino laid out?

We had the three boxes – Abel, Baker and Charlie and the ‘spot box’. This was at the top of the Casino and housed the projector for the This is Cinerama prologue and the sound equipment.
 
 
The Casino in London playing "Custer of the West" in Super Technirama 70 as a CINERAMA release. Picture from the PPT

Did you run Cinerama anywhere other than at the Casino?

No. 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, post sync theatre and in the music/sound dubbing department.

Cinerama screenings, particularly in the earliest days, were notoriously well sold. Were you always sold out at the Casino?

Yes, in the early days we always had full houses. One particularly memorable screening of "This is Cinerama" that I was involved with saw the Queen and Prince Philip in attendance. Front of house management would deal with the day-today business of ticket sales. A set amount were held back for purchasing ‘on the door’ – the Casino was still treated as a theatre and Cinerama involved individual programmes, not continuous shows as was standard practice in general cinemas. I cannot recall if there was a waiting list as such but then it wasn’t my department.

One piece of equipment seen in documentary footage of American Cinerama theatres at the time shows special cranes for lifting the reels into the spool boxes, did you have these at the Casino?

We had no cranes at the Casino. We had to lift the spools manually and would swing them up!

How was the equipment synchronised at start-up? Was it with a mark on leader like sound on disc?

The cross on the projectors was first set in the usual fashion. All the equipment was interlocked with Selsyn motors and everything was set off by the man at the control console which was in front of Baker box in the cinema, another reason Baker box was so truncated. There was a talk-back system between the projectionists and the controller. We had a cue switch in the box, when we were ready we would flip this and a light would appear on the controller’s desk. He would get four lights – Abel, Baker, Charlie and the sound box. Once this was done the only thing left for us to do was check the cooling pumps and strike the arc. Initially I was in charge of Abel box but later I was promoted to the sound box (the old spot box) where I was responsible for the seven track magnetic soundtrack and the 35mm projector used for the This is Cinerama prologue. The controller would flip a switch when he wanted it to start, a little light would come on in the box and that was my cue. I would run the projector and as the picture came onto the screen the controller would open the curtains to a 4×3 ratio. Towards the end of the prologue the controller would start the other three projectors running, the projectionists would open their dowsers and the controller would hit the button for the electronic shutter and open the curtains to their full width just after Lowell Thomas announced ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is Cinerama.’

Ken, thank you so much for sharing your Cinerama experience with us.

Content copyright: The Projected Picture Trust.
 
 
"Custer of the West" in London

Click to see enlargement

"Films and Filming" dated November 1967.

From the files of  Gerhard Witte, Berlin
 
"Custer of the West" in London

Click to see enlargement

"New York VARIETY" dated Wednesday, 15 November 1967,

From the files of  Gerhard Witte, Berlin
 
 
   
Go: back - top - back issues - news index
Updated 28-07-24