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A HISTORY OF 70mm

("YOUR IN THE SHOW WITH TODD-AO")

Since the last decade of the last century, the film industry has tried out a myriad of film shapes and sizes. However, one of them was adopted, more or less exclusively, for the greater part of cinema's history. Thomas Edison was credited with its design, although his business colleague, W. K. Laurie Dickson, developed it for Edison's "peepshow" devise, the KINETOSCOPE, in early 1891. It appears the Edison team copied it from an existing French camera design, which was patented on October 3, 1890.

George Eastman manufactured the film stock, which was 35mm wide. It had a squarish image in the proportion 3 high and 4 wide. Subsequently, this format was adopted, through an international agreement in 1907, as the standard, commercial, film gauge. There was considerable experimentation with sprocket holes, partly to get around patents. In 1908, Bell & Howell introduced accurate, standardized sprocket holes running along each side of the film. Each frame was four sprocket holes high. The 35mm format stuck in no uncertain terms. It went through some modifications with the addition of a sound track in the late 1920's, and later colour processes, but it remained essentially unchanged until 1953.

For over 60 years, audiences enjoyed watching cinema on a relatively small and squarish screen inherent in the 35mm design. It may come as some surprise that cinema screens were rather small before the early 1950's. The average screen-size was around 20 x 16 feet ( 6 x 4.8 meters), and anything significantly larger could not be made bright enough or sharp enough to produce an acceptable image. Audiences had learned to expect certain standards of image quality, which could not be compromised for the sake of a bigger screen. Then everything changed, virtually overnight.

It all started with the highly successful premier of a show-business gimmick in September, 1952, at the Broadway Theatre in New York. It was a very sophisticated gimmick called, "THIS IS CINERAMA". The Cinerama system offered a spectacular, wide-screen effect, by fusing 3 images from 3 synchronized projectors, on a huge, deeply-curved screen. The effect was heightened by a high-quality, six-track, stereophonic sound system. Actually, Cinerama was not new, but the name was. The system was first displayed in 1939 at the New York World's Fair, and was then known as Vitarama.

"THIS IS CINERAMA" was a two-hour travelogue featuring scenes ranging from a gripping roller-coaster ride at New York's Rockaway Amusement Park, to a plane ride through the Grand Canyon. Cinerama was a cinema experience like never before, and audiences flocked to see it in overwhelming numbers. Incredibly, the bottom line was that "THIS IS CINERAMA" grossed in excess of 20 million dollars. It played for over two years at the same cinema in New York City, thus becoming the longest movie run in Broadway. It only played in a handful of specially modified cinemas throughout the world, yet at the time, it became the third-largest grossing motion-picture in history. And it wasn't a Hollywood-style movie; not even a theatrical film. It was inconceivable that an independently made film, that virtually no cinemas could show; did such fantastic business. It came as a sobering slap in the face for Hollywood. Audiences were ready for a change, and the movie moguls had to sit up and take notice. There was money to be made in high-quality, wide-screen pictures.

Meanwhile, the major studios had a more compelling and serious reason to upgrade the cinema experience. The ultimate horror for Hollywood had reared its ugly head, "the Box". A dread of dreads, free home entertainment as never before ... the era of TeleVision had arrived. After World War II, the development of TeleVision took off in no uncertain terms. Initially, the United States was far behind England and the Soviet Union, but they were quick to catch up. By late 1952, many American homes were receiving regular nightly programs, and often during the day as well. Here was an all-new social event. Even if you didn't have TeleVision yourself, it was common to gather at a friend's home for an evening in front of the magic box.

Audience attendances nosedived, forcing many cinemas to close. The last gasp of vaudeville was heard and travelling medicine shows vanished. What had once cost, was now for free. A crises had set upon the Film Industry in no uncertain terms. The American Dream was turning into the Hollywood nightmare. TeleVision was proving to be a serious threat to Hollywood's long and prosperous dominance of the entertainment market, and could no longer be ignored. Some hoped it might go away, but it was becoming only too clear, the unwelcome intruder was here to stay. The battle lines were drawn. Hollywood was going to face the enemy head-on.

Twentieth Century-Fox hit back with CinemaScope, a relatively simple and inexpensive, wide-screen process that became a resounding success. CinemaScope was an optical system employing modified lenses (originally a lens attachment) for the camera and projector. The 'new' lenses would squeeze a wider than normal image onto the squarish 35mm film, and then stretch it back to its normal, panoramic proportions in projection. The system used a special lens on the camera to squeeze the wide image to the film, and a similar lens on the projector to unsqueeze it for the screen. The result was a very wide picture, later standardized to a ratio of 1 : 2.35, or approximately 2 and 1/3 times as wide as it was high, yet still using the standard gauge 35mm film that dominated the industry since the turn of the century. Those small screens in the world's cinemas would have to be replaced by much larger ones. It happened slowly at first, but soon with increasing momentum. In addition to the bigger picture, CinemaScope had stereo sound; and audiences loved it. Within a few short years, all the major Hollywood studios (except Paramount) were successfully producing and exhibiting many of their features films in CinemaScope. In the beginning, the system was a box office draw in itself. This phenomenon faded, but their was no going back. We would never return to the squarish 3 x 4 images of the previous 60 years. (The history of the phenomenon of CinemaScope is as fascinating as its success, and is dealt with in a separate article, LENDING A LITTLE SCOPE.)

CinemaScope managed to put not only wider, but also a much brighter and sharper pictures on the screen relative to its increased size. It has, and still has, the biggest negative size, and hence the best quality, of any 35mm theatrical-film format. This fact remains true to this day. But there was a limit, because it was, after all, essentially technology from the late 1880's that never foresaw the demands of 20th-century audiences for wider, brighter, and better sounding films. Inherently, 35mm is the wrong shape for wide-screen, and moreover, it simply requires too much magnification to produce images that are sharp enough, and bright enough, for the larger screens audiences were becoming accustomed to and learning to expect. As we know, excessive magnification degrades all photographic images. As for image brightness, you can only get so much light through a 35mm frame; a hole about half the size of a match box. The only logical solution was to adopt a bigger and wider film to upgrade the long-established 35mm-format.

Like most things in cinema history, nothing seems to be new. The revolutionary 'new' phenomenon of the 1950's, Cinerama, CinemaScope, and indeed, wide-gauge film, already existed, in various forms, for many decades. Several wide-gauge film formats had been developed during the transition to sound in the late 1920's, including Magnifilm (56mm - Paramount), Natural Vision (63mm - RKO Radio), Realife (70mm - MGM), and Grandeur (70mm - Fox). When sound arrived, the size of the image on the film had to be proportionally reduced, in order to make room for the optical, sound track running along side the frame. These new, wide-film formats were designed to compensate for the smaller image that resulted from putting sound on 35mm film. There was a rash of wide-gauge, wide-screen features and shorts produced in a number of competing systems, in a few short years. By the early 1930's, the eruption of early, wide-screen cinema was over, and they all faded into obscurity. Audiences, however, accepted the big screen with enthusiasm, but the stumbling block was cinema management. They wouldn't invest in the new wide-film projectors and wide screens, especially with so many competing systems, and no guaranteed supply of new film titles after the initial releases. It was around the time of the great Depression, and they had already outlayed heavily for the new sound systems. From the public's point of view, it was a great pity. If sound was not going to do the trick in the 1920's, TeleVision and Cinerama certainly would in the 1950's.

The early 1950's saw a sudden revival of interest in those wide-gauge, wide-screen systems from a quarter century earlier. Here was the chance to make a buck and take a poke at the new, grey-eyed monster, TeleVision, at the same time. But more than this, there was the opportunity to create a spectacle, and a sophistication, new to cinema-going audiences. They would become more than mere films, but rather, special events, and this special aurora survives to this day. Here comes the sheer delight of the all-new, TODD-AO. The Godfather of theatrical wide-gague formats; wide-screen 70mm with discreet, 6-channel, stereo, magnetic sound. This time the system stuck, and therefore was the first significant updating of cinema technology over and beyond the classic restraints of the ageing, yet enduring, 35mm format. 35mm wouldn't die, in fact it is more alive than ever, but it would soon have a companion format, a very, big brother.

It all started with one extraordinary man, MICHAEL TODD. Todd had made a name for himself as a flamboyant, imaginative Broadway producer, with a healthy gambling instinct. He already had a number of successful Broadway shows to his credit. He especially loved "extravaganzas", his specialty. This man was also involved in Cinerama from the early days of its development. Todd was a great believer in Cinerama's potential for showmanship, and enthusiastically backed and promoted it. He believed it was more than just a sensational gimmick, potentially reaching far beyond normal motion pictures. He was one of the original financial backers, and very much involved in the whole process.

He was perhaps one of Cinerama's greatest critics. He was painfully aware of its limitations for making dramatic, narrative films, in order to extend the Cinerama experience beyond a ‘travelogue' with thrills. The alignment of the three, separate 35mm images was far from perfect. To disguise these flaws, especially along the "join lines" of each screen, it was necessary to use static, wide-angled, camera set-ups. The system couldn't successfully produce close-ups, and other normal, cinematic techniques (panning, cutting, tilting etc), necessary to any viable medium for theatrical, film production. Audiences would not want to ride roller coasters forever! Todd wanted to solve the technical problems inherent in Cinerama, and enthusiastically pursued these ideals with Cinerama's board of directors. They did not share his point of view, and a rift developed. Todd eventually divorced himself from Cinerama Inc, and sold his interests soon after the release of, THIS IS CINERAMA. But he did not leave empty handed. His vision of a cinema extravaganza was intact.

Todd immediately asked his staff to track down the best optical scientist in the country. They came up with a Dr. Brien O'Brien, head of the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester. He proved to be another remarkable man, "the Einstein of the optical racket", as Todd referred to him. O'Brien had just taken a leave of absence from his university to take up an appointment as vice-president and head of research at the AMERICAN OPTICAL COMPANY, which would prove to be a most fortunate coincidence. O'Brien had no previous experience with the cinema as such, but had developed an ultra-high- speed camera, capable of an incredible 10 million frames per second, to record test explosions of the atomic bomb. Mike Todd asked Brien O'Brien to design a motion picture process like Cinerama, but where "everything comes out of one hole." O'Brien recognized the commercial potential of a single-strip, Cinerama-type system, and agreed to take on the project. He and his staff retired to their drawing boards. By December 1952, one of O'Brien's associates, Robert Hopkins, had worked out the basic optical system on paper. It would take some time before its birth, but the new TODD-AO system was at least conceived. The "AO" attached to the name acknowledged the business partnership between Todd and American Opticals, and of course, the latter's extensive technical contribution to perfect the system. The "Todd" and "AO" partnership was in the business of putting together the first really new and comprehensive cinema system for decades. In a relatively short time, this enterprise would prove to be a significant landmark in the history of the cinema.

Such ventures need entrepreneurs as much as brilliant engineers, and Todd was the right man for the job. Todd now had something more substantial than his dream, namely O'Brien, and his prestige in his field, plus the rudimentary design of the new system on paper. Todd pushed the package to potential investors, including his many friends in the business. One such friend was Joe Schenck, who was executive head of production at Fox, and a major stockholder in the United Artists Theatre Circuit. His buddy went for the idea, and in turn, bought George Skouras, president of UA Theatres to the party, who would become a major investor in the process. Also included was the producer, Arthur Hornblow Jr. Schenck, together with Zanuck, who had long careers at Fox since 1935 and 1933 respectively, abruptly resigned their jobs. On March 25, 1953, Todd, Schenck, Skouras, and others, announced the formation of the MAGNA THEATRE CORPORATION, that would produce, distribute, and exhibit theatrical films using a new, wide-screen process.

Since its opening on Broadway in 1943, none of the major producers or studios had succeeded in contracting the rights to what was then considered one of the hottest properties of the times, namely, Rogers and Hammerstein's stage musical, OKLAHOMA! Todd wanted OKLAHOMA! to launch TODD-AO with a resounding bang, and shrewdly went after it. Hornblow, who had worked with Richard Rogers on MISSISSIPPI in 1935, contacted his old colleague Rogers, and his song writing partner, Oscar Hammerstein II, and convinced them of the box-office potential of the new TODD-AO system. They accepted an invitation to join MAGNA's board of directors. Rogers and Hammerstein agreed to write an original story for Magna's first film, but Magna really wanted OKLAHOMA! Rogers and Hammerstein remained noncommittal about their prized property, and waited until the new wide-screen process could be demonstrated to them. This occurred six months later at a very secret and private screening at the Regent Theatre in Buffalo, New York. No outsiders were invited. It was really designed to sell the system to two of Magna's own board members, Rogers and Hammerstein.

Hornblow was put in charge of producing the demonstration film, which featured audience participation effects reminiscent of Cinerama, including a roller coaster ride, water skiing, scenes of Venice canals, and a bull fighting ring in Spain. It also included a screen test of a picnic scene from OKLAHOMA! filmed by the legendary, Fred Zinneman. The demo was a success, but Rogers and Hammerstein admitted it was the picnic scene that really sold them. It proved the system could handle intimate scenes, and not just gimmicks and spectacle. The proposed package proved irresistible. It was a combination of the TODD-AO process, producer, Arthur Hornblow Jr.(whom Rogers trusted), and the director, Fred Zinneman. Zinneman was a successful and respected director after his last two pictures, HIGH NOON, and FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. The next day, the duo sold Magna the rights to OKLAHOMA! for $1,020,000 plus 40% of the box-office gross, and gave Magna a five-year option on all their other available Broadway properties. Rogers and Hammerstein were to retain complete artistic control over the filming of OKLAHOMA!. Ironically, Todd was pushed out of the role of producing the first TODD-AO film in favour of Hornblow. However, with this as their first release, the sale of the system to select theatres around the country was more or less assured.

Meanwhile, back at American Opticals, they were getting on top of the problem of designing a better Cinerama. But it was a mammoth task, they needed everything ... film, lenses, cameras, laboratory processing and printing equipment, sound systems, projectors, and screens ... no small order. When the initial financing was in place, AO could afford to put 100 researchers, designers and engineers on the job of perfecting the system. O'Brien based the new system on 70mm film which was twice the width of traditional 35mm film. This was the widest film-width that was practical from an engineering point of view. An intermittent motion in relation to this weight of film, approaches the mechanical limits of cameras and projectors mechanisms. Remember the film has to start and stop 24 times a second (the original TODD-AO was 30 frames a second), and the heavier it is, the more difficult it becomes to achieve this sort of stop/start motion.

This 70mm size was also necessary to achieve Cinerama-like quality on a big screen. With a camera negative approximately three and a half times larger than normal 35mm, and together with his new lens designs, O'Brien hoped his new system might even surpass the quality of Cinerama, which is made up of three, separate 35mm images. However, the Cinerama frame was larger than normal 35mm, being 6 perforations high. Then they realized they could reduce the width of the camera negative by 5mm to 65mm, without changing the position of the sprocket holes or the image. The 65mm negative could be directly printed to 70mm print stock by cheap, fast, and high-quality, continuous contact printing. The extra 5mm, made up of 2.5mm added either side of the print film, outside the sprocket holes, was needed to make room for 4 of the total of 6 magnetic sound tracks. The other 2 magnetic tracks were placed inside the sprocket holes and either side of the image. The sprocket holes would be an improvement over the Bell & Howell type used on 35mm film, actually the slightly higher KS, or Kodak Standard, perforations used on all 35mm projector film. The new 65/70mm frame would be 5 perforations high compared to 4 on 35mm film. The shape of the image, or aspect ratio, was 2.2 : 1, or two and one-fifth as wide as it was high. The projected aspect ratio was slightly less, approximately 2.05 : 1.

The Mitchell Camera Company had already made 70mm cameras in the 1920's for the Realife and Grandeur formats mentioned earlier, and Magna used them to shoot some early test footage of the TODD-AO system. The Mitchell company was subsequently engaged to build a new 65mm camera to TODD-AO specifications. Kodak would make the new film stocks, both the 65mm camera negative, and the 70mm print film. All the way across the Atlantic, in Eindhoven in The Netherlands, the Philips company would make the projectors. They would be an all-purpose projector capable of screening, not only TODD-AO 70mm films, but all the common 35mm formats, including 3-D and CinemaScope. They would run at either 24 or 30 frames per second.

TODD-AO was originally designed to run at 30 frames per second to improve image sharpness and steadiness. It was intended as an improvement over Cinerama, which ran slightly faster than the industry standard, at 26 frames per second. However, by the time of shooting the third TODD-AO production, SOUTH PACIFIC, they standardized on 24 frames per second, coming in line with the industry as a whole. The difference in quality was not considered enough to offset the considerable problems of making 35mm CinemaScope reduction prints at 24 frames per second, for cinemas not equipped with the TODD-AO/Philips projectors. OKLAHOMA! was shot with two different cameras, 65mm TODD-AO at 30 frames per second and 35mm CinemaScope at 24 frames per second. At that time, they could not perfect a reduction printer to derive the CinemaScope prints from the 65mm original. Such a machine was perfected by the time of Magna's second production, AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, which was shot only in TODD-AO 65mm, but at two speeds, both 30 frames per second and 24 frames per second. The latter was used to make the CinemaScope reduction prints. These 'scope reduction prints were not released until business was slowing down with the TODD-AO, 70mm prints.

WESTREX was taken on board to develop special recorders for 6-track, magnetic, stereo sound. AMPEX designed specialized switching equipment to make TODD-AO compatible with existing cinema sound systems. Their special, relay rack, featured individual level and equalization controls for 20 magnetic tracks. This could accommodate two, 6-track TODD-AO projector sound heads, plus two more 4-track 35mm CinemaScope sound heads, (2 x 6) + (2 x 4) = 20. Switching between projectors during reel changes, and switching between the sound systems on different print formats, was easy and convenient. Five of the six TODD-AO tracks were deployed to 5 speakers groups spread out behind the screen. This facilitated stereo sound reproduction favouring left, centre, or right of screen depending on the screen action. Using these 5 speaker groups, it is possible to create an acoustic perspective that closely resembles reality, or indeed, artistically distort or accentuate it. The sixth channel was used for surround sound-effects through speakers located throughout the auditorium, including behind the audience.

It was Cinerama that introduced the deeply-curved screen. A 60 foot Cinerama screen curved to a depth of 16 feet. It heightened the sense of audience participation by surrounding them with the image. The TODD-AO screen curved to a depth of 13 feet for a slightly smaller 52 x 26 foot screen. But for a single-lens projection system like TODD-AO, it presented American Opticals with a host of problems. Light reflected from one side of the screen washed out the image on the other. AO came up with a lenticular screen which consisted of a plastic-coated fabric with an aluminum surface composed of an array of lenticles, which acted like tiny lenses. It concentrated the reflected light from the screen back towards the audience. Similar to CinemaScope's Miracle Mirror screen, it prevented the undesirable scattering of projector light throughout the auditorium.

Such deeply-curved screens cause distortion in the projected image. As you are projecting a flat image onto a curved screen, the horizontal lines increasingly curve towards the edges of the screen. American Opticals came up with an ingenious solution of deliberately introducing distortion in the release prints. This optical correction printing process compensated for, both the screen curvature, and the angle of projection. The TODD-AO film laboratory at Fort Lee, New Jersey, produced two types of release prints. One for projecting at angles of 10 to 15 degrees, and the other for angles greater than 15 degrees. TODD-AO successfully demonstrated that their "corrected" prints could accommodate projection angles up to 25 degrees onto deeply-curved screens. As CinemaScope didn't use corrective printing, that wide-screen process became distorted when projected onto TODD-AO screens from extreme projection angles. The screen designed for CinemaScope was, by comparison, shallow curving, approximately a third of the depth of TODD-AO screens. This conveniently kept the screen surface more or less at a constant distance from the centre of the projector lens. In other words, it's curvature is equal to the arc inscribed by the radius measured from the centre of the lens to the screen surface. This ensured the image was sharp all the way across the screen from one edge to the other.

It is interesting to note a later series of experiments carried out by the Mosfilm Studios, in the Soviet Union. The Russian's wanted to find out the effect of screen curvature, and therefore the optimum rate of curvature for their 70mm process. They filmed a tracking shot in which the sense of audience participation was rather high, and projected it as a loop. As the film was projected, they altered the screen curvature by means of a specially designed frame. They found that a deep curvature produced no significant improvement in the audience-participation effect, but did, on the other hand, introduce perspective distortion and loss of image definition at the edges of the screen. They concluded that a gently curving screen identical to the CinemaScope design previously mentioned, where the radius of curvature equals the projector throw, was the most desirable.

TODD-AO decided the corrective printing process was the way to go. It was technically more complex, but it did have its advantages. In particular, it helped reduce the cost of converting a cinema to the TODD-AO system, as existing projection booths could still be used without rebuilding them. Such architectural changes to an auditorium where often difficult, expensive and usually undesirable as it interfered with seating arrangements. The overall cost of the conversion to TODD-AO was approximately $40,000 for individual cinemas. This included projectors, curved screen, and the sophisticated, sound system. Unfortunately, many of the key cinemas across America had recently converted to CinemaScope at cost of about $25,000. For those houses, the cost of upgrading to TODD-AO was effectively much higher, as their brand-new CinemaScope equipment needed replacing soon after its installation This is in spite of the fact that the new TODD-AO projector/sound system was compatible with all standard 35/70mm formats, including CinemaScope. Those cinemas who wanted to upgrade to TODD-AO after 1956, were at a distinct economic advantage, because they could choose to avoid an unnecessary "double" conversion. They could get it all in one go.

As the technical problems were ironed out, and Magna geared up to shoot OKLAHOMA!, let me remind you of the incredible scenario so far. Firstly, an entrepreneur is literally risking a fortune on an incredible idea. He has convinced a prestigious optical company to help him realize his dreams. Further, he has convinced a leading cinema chain to risk considerable capital on the venture. The enterprise is spending hugh amounts of money to build an all-new motion picture process. The undertaking involves numerous companies. Between them, they must make special film stock, special cameras, special laboratory equipment, special projectors, special sound systems, and special cinema screens. They are about to shoot a film with revolutionary equipment that stretches existing technology to the limits. Moreover, the facilities are still being fabricated and perfected. The production of their first film alone will cost a cool $5 million. And the film they produce can not be shown in any cinemas without extensive refitting. Similar ventures during the course of cinema history had mostly failed. To call it a gamble is an understatement. Men like Michael Todd are a rare breed indeed.

Like Cinerama, TODD-AO wanted to create a supercircuit for theatrical exhibition. Magna started to lease cinemas across the country and equipped them to show the TODD-AO process. Skouras and Todd planned to premier OKLAHOMA!, in thirty major cities on an extended-run basis. Magna planned to lease these first 30 cinemas to increase its share of the box-office. They also sought out a select group of large, first-run cinemas, who could afford the $40,000 conversion costs. These cinemas would be rewarded with an exclusive product guaranteed not to screen in non-TODD-AO houses until the first-run market was virtually exhausted. TODD-AO versions of OKLAHOMA! ran continuously for more than a year in several cities. Additionally, Magna's partnership with United Artists Theatre Circuit provided a stable and guaranteed TODD-AO outlet of potentially over 100 cinemas in 50 major cities.

Magna ambitiously planned to convert 2,000 of the nation's 16,000 cinemas in the first two years to effectively saturate the first-run market. They fell short of their goal, and by 1957 had only 60 TODD-AO houses. The rate of conversion was hampered because only two TODD-AO films had been made at that time, OKLAHOMA!, and AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS. Although commercially, they proved to be hot properties, the continuing production of TODD-AO films was not necessarily guaranteed. The big studios were already trying to break into the wide-gauge, wide-screen market. Fox had CinemaScope 55, Paramount had Vistavision, and MGM, together with Panavision, had MGM Camera 65, an anamorphic 70mm system. Cinema management obviously wanted to wait for the volatile wide-film revolution to move towards standardization before outlaying the considerable cost of conversion to one or other system. They also knew TODD-AO films would be eventually re-released in 35mm CinemaScope versions, if they only waited.

Despite everything, Magna was not doing badly. The number of TODD-AO conversions more than doubled Cinerama installations nationwide, despite Cinerama's three year head start. Eventually, the TODD-AO partnership had approximately 700 first run cinemas in 92 cities. This relative handful of cinemas produced half of their gross takings. TODD-AO producers realized fantastic profits, as did the stock holders of TODD-AO and Magna Theatre Corporation. TODD-AO films were undoubtedly successful, and all indications were that the trend would continue.

It is interesting to look at TODD-AO's many connections to Broadway. Todd, himself was a Broadway producer. Two other Broadway producers, Rogers and Hammerstein, provided many of the theatrical properties that became TODD-AO films, OKLAHOMA!, SOUTH PACIFIC, and THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Although, AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, superficially resembled a Cinerama travelogue, it also had theatrical origins. It goes back to Todd's collaboration with Orson Welles in the late 1940's, on a short-lived Broadway musical version of the Jules Verne novel. TODD-AO producers would continued to ransack Broadway for material by adapting George Gershwin's PORKY AND BESS, and Cole Porter's, CAN-CAN. This trend would continue for future big-budget, wide-screen spectacles as TODD-AO evolved into other compatible 70mm systems.

Although Todd tried to sell the public on TODD-AO's sensational properties, he promoted the theatrical nature of TODD-AO films at the same time. He called them "shows" like on Broadway. He promoted his "shows" as something more than the conventional Hollywood product. Todd said, "I'm not interested in making movies. Movies are something you can see in your neighbourhood theatre and eat popcorn while your watching them." To reinforce this distinction between Hollywood's movies and his "shows", Todd insisted that popcorn could not be sold at TODD-AO film presentations, and put this condition in the contract with exhibitors. He tried to create the atmosphere of a Broadway theatre in his exclusive cinema chain. His shows had an intermission. Advance ticket sales were available, and seats could be reserved, as in the "legitimate" theatre. Maybe he hoped they would honour the event by turning up in tuxedo and evening gown. Whatever the audience wore, the association with Broadway theatre certainly reinforced the idea that this was indeed a class act.

In comparison to 35mm CinemaScope, the industry's reigning wide-screen process, TODD-AO was always associated with a highly exclusive, and distinguished product. TODD-AO was used to make one lavish production per year, compared to the high output of studio-produced, CinemaScope titles. In fact, the TODD-AO process was used in the production of 15 films in a 16 year period, from 1955 to 1971. By it's very conception, it was a highly specialized form of entertainment for restricted, and therefore, exclusive release. Later TODD-AO evolved to become just one of a number of compatible 70mm systems. This lead to a lot more production, which peaked in the mid 1960's, with the making of nine 70mm films in 1965. This included, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, a 20th Century-Fox release using the original TODD-AO process.

Because it was, and still is, the very best in theatrical film presentation, there is a special aurora attached to 70mm production. Audiences associate the format with the great epics like, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, the great musicals like, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, the classics like, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and not to mention the big-screen comedies like, THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES. Younger generations may have seen some of the hundreds of blockbuster movies re-released in 70mm versions around the world like, STAR WARS, APOCALYPSE NOW, etc. More than this, audiences know whatever the subject, its going to look and sound special if its presented in 70mm. Those who have experienced it want more, and those who haven't, want to find out what the fuss is all about.

The success of TODD-AO can be measured, in part, by the failure of its rival wide-gauge, wide-screen competitors. Fox's CinemaScope 55 was launched with, THE KING AND I, and vanished after it's third production. MGM's Camera 65 produced two anamorphic 70mm releases, before evolving into two virtually compatible systems to the TODD-AO process through their association with Panavision and what was to become their superior lens technology. These derivatives survive to the present day as Super Panavision 70, which is simply an improved, up-to-date TODD-AO, and Ultra Panavision 70, which is a 1.25 squeezed, anamorphic variant of TODD-AO, producing an incredible screen ratio of 1 : 2.76.

Then even 20th Century-Fox capitulated. Fox was the creator of theatrical widescreen through it's popular 35mm CinemaScope process, introduced just two years prior to the release of TODD-AO. CinemaScope was alive and well due to its adoption by all, bar one, of the major Hollywood studios. Despite their best efforts, Fox had lost exclusive control over the process, and became just another CinemaScope producer among many. Moreover, CinemaScope was passing beyond it's fad stage. Audiences were no longer drawn to a film primarily because it was in CinemaScope. Fox shrewdly saw the advantages of Todd's now-established process, with its larger negative, and superior sound. In 1958, just as AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS was experiencing record profits, 20th Century-Fox invested $600,000 to secure the rights to make films in the TODD-AO process. With Todd's tragic death in an airplane crash later that year, Fox gained a controlling interest in the Todd-AO Corporation. The United Artists Theater Circuit Inc. eventually bought Todd-AO Corporation and is still the owner. Todd-AO still exists today as a premier sound-mixing studio and a camera rental company.

Then came the phenomenon of the 70mm blowup. This gave the process an enormous boost by escalating 70mm exhibition many-fold. Apart from the boom year 1965, the annual output of 70mm films was approximately between one and four titles. Unless the newly released titles were capable of extended runs, and this was never assured, 70mm exhibitors started to feel a product shortage. During the in-between times, they increasingly tried to fill their huge screens by projecting 35m film with excessive magnification, and therefore producing a substandard image. In 1963, Robert Gottschalk company, Panavision, perfected an all new optical, liquid-gate system for blowing up 35mm films to make 70mm prints. The new blowup process was dubbed Panavision 70. These blowups looked much better than the 35mm prints in large-screen cinemas, as the degree of projector magnification was reduced to produce the same size image. 35mm films looked much sharper on the big screen from 70mm prints, compared to 35mm prints. Any they sounded better too.

Ironically, the 70mm blowup, while boosting the medium as a whole by increasing the number of 70mm cinemas, actually undermined 70mm production at the same time. Now any producer, at anytime, could release, or re-release in 70mm, if its seemed desirable or prudent. For many 35mm films, adding a 70mm exhibition circuit via 70mm prints, meant increased distribution for the product, and at a higher ticket price. It reduced the risks and increased the profits at the same time. After the introduction of the Panavision 70 print-up process, there have been about thirty, 70mm films produced, in the last 32 years. In the same time, there have been many hundreds of 70mm blowups, many more in Europe compared to America. One lab in Europe, Photofilm in Madrid, produced more blow ups for the European market (± 300 titles) by the early 1970's than were released in America by the late 1980's! (± 230 titles). And even more 70mm films were produced in the Soviet Union, the world's biggest producer of 70mm original films and blowups.

TODD-AO, through it's technological triumph, it's massive financial returns, and it's undying popularity, has became the undisputed wide-gauge, wide-screen standard process. 70mm survives to this day. The original TODD-AO system has evolved, into fully compatible and improved derivatives of the process known by other names, notably in American as Super Panavision 70, in European as Superpanorama 70 and Arriflex 765, and in Russian as Sovscope 70. They are all essentially the same as TODD-AO, although incorporating many improvements, especially in camera and lens technology. Now days, the brand names merge into one simple generic term, 70mm. 70mm, as a system, was never replaced by the many innovations in technology, but simply incorporated them. And there is still room to move, like replacing those old, analogue, sound tracks with digital tracks. The infrastructure is also there that keeps the system alive. In both America and Europe, there are state-of-the-art cameras and lenses, the latest "T-grain" 65/70mm film stocks, the bigger film laboratories handle post production, and there are still many 70mm cinemas spread across both continents. CinemaScope and 70mm became major formats in the Soviet Union, known respectively as Sovscope 35 and Sovscope 70. Although now in sharp decline, Russia was the biggest producer of 70mm films in the world. As production declined in the West, it continued in the Soviet Union.

Why did 70mm production go into decline? This is a complex question, as there are many interrelated factors. For one, the industry in general, was moving out of the studios and onto location. The cumbersome 65mm cameras and associated equipment were less desirable, because they were hampering that move. In addition, the cost of 70mm production became comparatively high by the end of the 1960's and early 1970's. Not long after, the world went through a long recession, which is certainly not conducive to filmmaking. The age of independent production with its independent producers began, but with smaller budgets than the studios had previously provided. 35mm was the best the new breed of producers could afford. Also, they were making compact, blimped, 35mm sound cameras by the early 1970's, like the Arriflex BL, which could even be hand-held with ease. Advances in 35mm camera and lens technology provided a less costly, and more flexible alternatives, for creating relatively large-screen movies. And there were big improvements in the quality of film stocks. Prior to Kodak's introduction in 1968 of a 100-speed colour negative film, the standard colour negative had an exposure index of 50. You can see from the films themselves than 70mm production was pretty much confined to brightly lit situations, which was part of the character of those films. The new faster, more sensitive film stocks, meshed with the newer 35mm production techniques that had become popular, and indeed, were expected by the public. Studio techniques, by comparison, look old-fashioned to modern audiences, and indeed, they were right. And 35mm produced a pleasing, high-quality image on the screen, even if it was typically, a relatively smaller screen. And the producers still had access to 70mm exhibition through the 70mm blowup. The image structure of 35mm Eastman colour negative film and associated laboratory technique was slowly improving all the time, meaning better 35mm widescreen and better 70mm blow ups. The 70mm blowup prints simply got better and better as time went on. Producers could decide if it was worth spending the extra money on 70mm exhibition, after the film was finished, and tested in the market place. The push towards multiplexing, which began in 1963, played a big part in the demise of 70mm in general, not just production. Multiplexing was a smart idea for exhibitors, as they could reduce overheads by housing several smaller cinemas in the one building. For existing cinemas, it meant dividing up their big auditoriums into a number of smaller cinemas. But even with newly-built cinemas, it all added up to the same thing, the screens got smaller. This produced a paradox; a 70mm projected image could actually be smaller than standard 35mm cropped wide-screen, especially in cinemas with screens literally as wide as the auditorium itself. The power of 70mm is derived from its unparalleled quality on a big screen, so there was even less reason to produce or exhibit in 70mm, as the big screens were getting smaller and staying that way.

Today, the situation is slowly reversing. During the late 1980's and early 1990's, there were dramatic breakthroughs in 65mm camera and lens technologies, driven by the popularity of special venue and ride films. We now have compact, state-of-the-art 65mm cameras and lenses. All the improvements in film and laboratory technology benefit 70mm just as much as 35mm. The cost of 70mm production is still higher, but proportionally much less so. Before, it was necessary to finance an epic production in epic proportions, but now 70mm production need be little different to normal 35mm production. Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC in referrence to the shooting of LITTLE BUDDHA, says, "Today we don't need anything different on the set compared to the normal shooting in CinemaScope for filming on 65mm negative; the only different piece of equipment that I requested was the big brother of the Pee-Wee dolly, the Hybrid." The film related parts of the budget still costs more, but the majority of items in the budget remain the same. Brian Grazer, co-producer of FAR AND AWAY, comments, "People ask me if it cost more to produce this film in 65mm format. It didn't add much to our overall budget. We are fiscally responsible people. If you enhance the entertainment value of a film, you bring more people to the box office, and add to the net revenues earned by the movie." Still the main stumbling block are those smaller screens that are an unfortunate legacy from multiplexing. Hopefully, circumstances may soon force them to 'grow' bigger again.

70mm seems poised for a major come back in the coming years in response to the introduction of digital television, or High Definition Television (HDTV). In knee-jerk fashion, the film industry has always responded to the rise in popularity of television. It has always hit back with impressive technical innovation to heighten the cinema experience. Television is the cinema's traditional rival, its only real threat. And future television and digital technology are very much bound up with each other. The film industry went along splendidly for over half a century, enjoying a monopoly on a big slice of the entertainment market, until the introduction of television in the late 1940's. Apart from sound, all the significant upgrading of the cinema experience was in response, in part or in whole, to the threat of television, including wide-gauge, wide-screen, stereo, and even colour film as we know it today. HDTV and Digital Betacam already rivals the quality of existing 35mm wide-screen, in both image and sound quality. Cinema, if it is to survive as a major industry, will be forced to stay ahead of its traditional rival, television, as it evolves into the digital age. Vittorio Storaro recalls, "I remember Bertolucci telling me in a very low voice, 'In a world of images created mainly with television in view, the 65mm system is perhaps the right one to prolong the life of the word cinema.' I believe him to be right."

Clearly, 70mm is the only real candidate to enter the competition, unless a whole new system is developed and accepted universally. It is unlikely that such a system would come about, as it would have to mimic the established and accepted 70mm system without being able to add anything really new or different to it. As mentioned before, digital sound tracks are easily incorporated into the existing 70mm format, likewise timecode, and other recent innovations. Significantly, the chemical/optical/mechanical technology at the base of the cinema industry, has nothing fundamentally new to offer the world at this time, except its ever increasing sophistication. Kodak tells us that silver-halide film technology still has the potential to improve ten times over today's impressive achievements. The film industry, as a whole, is forward looking. It has happily incorporated digital technology, especially in post-production with computer editing and special effects etc, but the chemical/optical/mechanical technology perfected in the last 100 years will probably have the leading edge for several decades to come.

Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC, comments, "I believe in HDTV, in the creative and industrial potential of this technical event, and in the possibility that very soon, any small screen in any multiplex will be replaced with HDTV - (and) that any movie will be directly recorded in HDTV instead of 35mm negative. This is a process that we can slow down or speed up, but not stop." I have little doubt that digital technology will eventually overtake the most sophisticated films processes. Cinema is, after all, technology from the last century. But it will take time. When they can encode digital information into the molecular structure of a simple piece of plastic like a credit card, for example, then these are grounds to forecast the end of a glorious era for cinema, as we currently know it. Meanwhile the digital industry has its own problems. The release of HDTV is delayed and delayed. Among other things, they are having trouble with the display medium, in other words, to make some sort of large-screen presentation that is cheap enough for the home. Existing HDTV displays for the home is little more than a glorified T.V. set that doesn't look that much better than the one you own already, yet costs 3 or 4 times more. And while they grapple with the problems, the technology for HDTV is already outdated. Things move so quickly in the digital world. The latest generations of home computers and monitors already surpass the quality of already technically ageing HDTV. It is out of date even before it is released. But never fear, they'll figure it out, eventually. In the meantime, a new age for the fullest exploitation of the creme de la creme of the cinema, 70mm production and exhibition, is perhaps, now dawning. It started with recent films like, Ron Howard's, FAR AND AWAY, and Bertolucci's partial use of 65mm in shooting, LITTLE BUDDHA, and more recently Kenneth Branagh's, HAMLET. Today's trickle may become tomorrow's raging torrent.

The ultimate undermining of cinema as we know it, could be distribution. This relatively innocuous step in the process could prove to be the Achilles' heel of cinema as we know it today. It is expensive and cumbersome to make hundreds of heavy film prints, and deliver them to individual cinemas around the world. With satellite and fiber-optic technology erupting everywhere, it will become cheaper to distribute films through the new, digital super-highway. With the product shown digitally, film manufacturing companies and laboratories will go into decline, creating a knock on effect across the industry as a whole. There'll be a strong push, combined with a new desire, to produce the images digitally, that are shown digitally. But will the audiences accept digital presentations? Not so likely with the display technology currently available. In the meantime, there is little doubt the public would continue to patronize 70mm cinema, because the experience could not be duplicated by digital means, or at least, not for quite some time.

Digital images may also take a hold by virtue of it's extreme versatility. Digital cinemas could spring up in every neighbourhood (much like the mushrooming of video stores in recent years), showing highly specialized programmmes like live sporting events, cultural happenings, and the like, on a relatively big screen with a quality sound system. And they will eventually perfect a cinema-like, big-screen display for the home; its only a question of time. Then even the possible deluge of neighbourhood digital cinemas will go into decline. The basis of your home cinema will be an interactive computer, with access, among other things, to hundreds of television-type channels, with software to help you decide what to watch. And more to the point, there will be 'Movies On Demand'. Countless movies titles will be instantly available from every era in cinema history, past and present, at the push of a few buttons. Just imagine, any title, at affordable prices, and right at your finger tips. No more trips to the video store, being home at the right time, or fumbling with the timer on the video recorder. No doubt, it will take that little extra nudge to get people back to the cinema. And if anything can do it, 70mm can, especially in the intervening years or, more likely, decades, before digital cinema, in whatever form, takes a hold.

In 1994, the Technology Council of the Motion Picture-Television Industry conducted an interesting film format seminar at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Interior and exterior scenes were filmed in 6 different film formats, ranging from Super 16 to 65/70mm. They represent the currently available formats considered practical for theatrical distribution/exhibition. All, but the Super 16 footage, were projected in both 70mm and 35mm print formats. Specifically, they were 65mm shown as a 70mm contact print and as a 35mm (anamorphic) optical reduction print. 35mm anamorphic shown as a 70mm blowup and a 35mm contact print. Super 35 shown as a 70mm blowup and a 35mm optical reduction print. Super 1.85 shown as a 70mm blowup and a 35mm optical reduction print. 1.85 cropped wide-screen shown as 70mm blowup and a normal 35mm contact print. Super 16 shown only as a 35mm blowup. The audience, who were not told what formats they were looking at, selected the images they liked best in terms of image quality and emotional impact. Technology Council, executive vice-president Rob Hummel, who conducted the seminar, says it was no contest. "The 70mm prints made from the 65mm negative scored absolutely the highest." The bottom line, according to Hummel, "The larger the negative area, and the wider the aspect ratio, the more engaging the film is ....." Director of Photography for FAR AND AWAY, Mikael Salomon, ASC, says, "Shooting a 65mm film is like comparing a compact laser disc to a vinyl record. You are getting a lot more fidelity out of the image. It's so pristine that you feel like you can step up to the screen and right into the picture. It's a different experience." Vittorio Storaro ASC, AIC declares his conviction, "After this experience (on Little Buddha), I really think that for the movies that I am called to collaborate on that are conceived for a big screen, I'll do every possible thing not to shoot them in CinemaScope, but rather on 65mm negative."

Here is the text from a trade advertisement for the new TODD-AO process which appeared in 1955, the year of its first release. It seems as prophetic now, as it did then. "..... ALL GREAT MOTION PICTURES OF THE FUTURE WILL BEAR THE DISTINCTIVE IMPRINT - PRODUCED IN TODD-AO .....THIS IS THE NEW MOTION PICTURE ERA ..... IT'S TODD-AO! ..... TRULY REVOLUTIONARY ..... ECSTATIC IN ITS REALISM ..... SUPREME IN ITS AUDIENCE EMOTIONAL INVOLVEMENT AND PARTICIPATION ..... TODD-AO IS SUPERSONIC IN ITS POSSIBILITIES ..... YOU LIVE THE ACTION ..... YOUR PART OF IT ..... TODD-AO IS THE ENTERTAINMENT MIRACLE BORN OF INSPIRED BOLDNESS AND DETERMINATION THROUGH THE HAPPY MARRIAGE OF SCIENCE AND THE MOTION PICTURE ART." Perhaps its time for a glorious renaissance.

Compiled Amsterdam, January, 1995.

Copyright © Peter Gray (January, 1995)

Peter Gray
(near Los Angeles)
P.O. Box 5132
Pine Mountain Club, CA 93222
United States of America
telephone: +1(661) 242-1234

dp@petergray.org