"Windjammer" Press Release
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| Written by: David Strohmaier & Thomas Hauerslev | Date: 01.12.2009 |
 Remaster
"Windjammer" poster from 2010.Press release - December 2009 Hollywood, California Copenhagen, Denmark Since summer 2009, David Strohmaier, of "Cinerama Adventure" fame and John Sittig of Pacific Theatre in Los Angeles have spent considerable time to find the best elements of the classic CineMiracle semi-documentary and feature film "Windjammer" to be able to re-release it on DVD, Blu-ray and perhaps even in special showings at theaters, museums and other venues. "Windjammer", a travelogue about the voyage of the Norwegian school ship "Christian Radich". Filmed in CineMiracle and produced by legendary Louis de Rochemont, the film - largely unseen since it's original release - is now being prepared the first time to home theatre screens and cinemas in a digital version. At this early stage, however, no DVD distributor has been set for there is no street date for the release but hopefully sometime in late 2010. "Windjammer" was a major success during its release and was seen by millions of people all over the world. The film is vividly remembered by many who saw it, and a few of them have had the pleasure to see it projected recently in specialized cinemas during widescreen film festivals. To this day, you can still find "Windjammer" references in hotels and bars across the globe. |
More
in 70mm reading: "Windjammer" Contacts "Windjammer"'s Danish Locations Sweden saves the day "Windjammer" Telecine "Windjammer" cast and credits The Danes And The Windjammers The Return of "Windjammer" Update by August 1996 "Windjammer" in Denmark Is Windjammer the Queen of Kitsch? "Windjammer" Director Passes Away The Cinerama page Internet link: Get a first look of "Windjammer" remaster (requires Quicktime) Pacific Theatres archive.org wittkowsky.net |
Cinemiracle - a unique experience |
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 Cinemiracle
illustration. The complicated projection set up has made "Windjammer"
expensive to clean up and color correct due to fading of the film
element and the color between panels."Windjammer" was photographed in a unique curved-screen process called Cinemiracle, which gave the viewer a sensation of being "in the movie". It was a first person experience, like Cinerama, which was THE cinema sensation of 1952. Combined with high fidelity 7-channel sound it was the perfect illusion of giving the audience the sensation of "being into the movies". It was a sensation which kicked off the widescreen and stereophonic sound era. Like Cinerama, Cinemiracle also required three individual film strips photographed at the same time. In the cinema the three strips of film were combined on the huge curved screen, by three projectors running in complete synchronisation. |
12.07.2010 Dear Mr. Hauersley, I just viewed the two minute Quick Time Smilebox preview of the Windjammer restoration. It is wonderful. Just seeing the clip brought back some great memories of when I first saw it as a high school student at the theatre in Denver, in 1959. I still have the record and the souvenir program booklet from that experience. I am very grateful and appreciative to you and Mr. Strohmaier, and to everyone involved for your splendid efforts in bringing this classic back. |
New HD masters |
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 David Strohmaier
working with panel alignment.Pacific Theaters has authorized David Strohmaier and John Sittig to create cleaned up HD masters of both "Windjammer" and "This Is Cinerama". "In the case of "Windjammer", this will be done from "composite elements" such as the 35mm scope print (all three panels on one 35mm scope frame) of "Windjammer" that Thomas Hauerslev found housed at the Swedish Film Institute. Because of the grain structure from the 35mm composite print, our final result will not look as good as the "How the West Was Won" re-mastering done at Warners in 2008. But we will make it look a good as we can. The print will be digitally cleaned up, each panel color corrected, "dust busted" and each frame aligned as good as possible. A lot of work will need to be done to minimize the join lines. "We will have limited alignments capacity due to it coming from a composite so the join lines will be pretty much what people saw in 1958. |
I am interested to know if the original
three strip negatives or process prints have deteriorated beyond use or
were lost, since the article indicated that the restoration was made
from a 35 mm anamorphic print? Do you know approximately when Windjammer might be released either in theatres or in DVD format? Thanks again and best wishes, Bob Amick |
 Smilebox
logo"Windjammer" will be mastered in the "Smilebox" process, an electronic simulation of how the film looked like on the curved screen. The Smilebox version will be used for theaters, museums and other venues that have flat screens. "Smilebox will be applied to a clone of this master for eventual DVD and Blu-ray release and re copywriting", says Dave Strohmaier from his Hollywood studio." "The sound track will be English only and cleaned up as well with a 5.1 mix. The company will then have a HD master to attract home video distributors as well as show anywhere in HD Digital." We plan on a 5.1, and also a 7.1 mix for the Cinemiracle sound from the original 7 track printmasters. Since we have the Swedish narration from the optical mono sound track from the 35mm print we plan to mix that in for a Swedish sound track as well. All overture and exit music will be included. Soundesign studios in North Hollywood will be creating the new mix for both the "Windjammer" and "This Is Cinerama" remastering. Dave Strohmaier continues: "I also plan to document these sound and picture efforts in HD for an eventual "extra" on any future DVD release. My plan is to shoot a 20 min HD video short of the restoration process. The DVD/Blue Ray will be about a year away perhaps even more. There is no distributor set yet only the restoration process by Pacific. Several distributors are being considered so when a deal is firmed we will update this page with the information." |
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Will "Windjammer" be seen in Cinemas? |
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 Color
restored intermission
card. DVD of "Windjammer" is finally due in 2011, maybe
sooner. Click to see enlargement.Cinerama (John Sitting, Director of Projection and Sound for Pacific Theatres in Los Angeles) will let out the letterboxed version for theaters that have a curve screen, those that don't will get a Smilebox version. The SmileBox version should be used for theaters that have a flat screen but if they have a curve screen then letterbox will be fine. We will do the process for Letterbox first then extract SmileBox from that. We still have some tests to do to see how "grainy" the image will look on a big screen, since we are coming from the 35mm composite print that has some contrast/grain issues. We even plan to run it at the Dome at some point. The HD print (both HD Cam and D-5) will have some grain to it as the 35mm scope had some contrast issues and was done in the early 1970s film stock. Projected up on the big screen will expose some of that, but at least it will have color and good sound. Pacific Theatres is the copyright holder on the 5 Cinerama travelogues from the 1950’s, and “Windjammer” which was acquired from CineMiracle a year after its initial release. The new HD edition of "Windjammer" is produced by Pacific Theatres and Cinerama Inc. The Swedish Film Institute has provided the anamorphic 35mm print used to create the new HD master. |
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"Windjammer" HD restoration project - in progress |
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Sponsored:
by Cinerama Inc. Partners: Modern Video Film Crest Digital The Transfer House Soundesign Intelligent Assistance Swedish Film Institute Chace Sound American Widescreen Museum in70mm.com Crew: Dave Strohmaier Carin-Anne Strohmaier John Sittig Gunther Jung Kent Gibson Greg Kimble Thomas Hauerslev Randy Gitsch Marty Hart Philips Hogetts Special Thanks to: John Mitchell David Coles Johan Ericsson Duncan Mcgregor Peter Andren Mike Taylor |
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