The Technirama Process - Technicolor 100

Fighting to remain relevant after the demise of three-strip color photography, Technicolor entered the widescreen market with its own process. In 1957, it launched the large-format Technirama widescreen system in which the film was run horizontally through the camera instead of vertically, creating a larger, higher resolution film frame. On top of this, an anamorphic lens optics compressed the image horizontally to facilitate even wider compositions. Technirama’s improved image quality heralded a more expansive cinema experience, enabling the production of historical epics such as Spartacus (1960) and El Cid (1961).
This video was produced by George Eastman House as part of the eastmanhouse.or... website that celebrates 100 years of Technicolor through highlights from related collections at the museum.
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services grant number MA-10-14-0234-14. www.imls.gov/

[@ZulcanPrime]

Did you know that the first movie to be shot in widescreen was in 1930 The Big Trail starring a young John Wayne. It was released in 35mm because of the depression and the cinemas couldn't afford to update their projectors.

[@fredemny3304]

Yes.

[@robfriedrich2822]

I thought, it would be "The bat whispers". But interestingly, the Fox Grandeur equipment was used for Todd AO and the old name for the 70 mm wide-screen movies from 20th Century Fox.

[@robfriedrich2822]

Cinemas had enough investment for sound, amplifiers and speakers and couldn't see any advantage in bigger, sharper pictures. When television came, it was an argument to make cinema way better.

[@richardsisk1770]

Thank you. Your presentations are very well made. Thank you 😊

[@Anomaliayt]

Excellent, concise piece!!

[@martellofilms8954]

A very good film explaining the technicalities of Technirama. It was a system that was a huge improvement over Cinemascope and the mumps effect of close-ups in scope, and it also produced a wonderful 70mm experience as with Spartacus and El Cid. It seemed to me to be a good compromise when transferred to 35mm anamorphic because Todd-AO and Super Panavision needed to be cropped top and bottom for 35mm release prints, and Ultra-Panavision had to be cropped at the sides for 35mm release. I don't think much of the frame, if any, was cropped with Technirama. Ultimately 35mm Panavision anamorphic was good enough to supersede Cinemascope and Technirama.

[@matangox]

Would you be so kind to answer a question? For example the new blurays and 4k discs of Spartacus or The Leopard, were they scanned and digitalized from the original negative or from the 35mm copy? I presume it's from the original, but I'm not sure.

[@MsElladog]

I'd like to add though that the use of Eastmancolor film in the cameras was a feature of only live-action Technirama movies, as it wasn't necessary when making an animated movie in Technirama. You see, starting in the late '30s, animated movies made in Technicolor Process 4, while continuing to use the same overall function as before and as in live-action Technicolor Process 4 movies, began being made using the successive exposure technique, instead of 3 strips of black-and-white film and a beam-splitting prism. Taking advantage of the fact that animation is done using still photography, each frame (or arrangement of drawings) of the animated movie would be photographed 3 times (first behind a red filter, then a green one, and then a blue one). The reason for the rebuilding of the live-action Technicolor movie cameras and the switch to Eastmancolor film was that it wasn't physically feasible to have a camera that ran 3 strips of film all horizontally. With animated Technicolor movies not requiring 3 separate strips, the successive exposure cameras were simply either rebuilt to run a single strip horizontally or physically repositioned above the drawings to create a horizontal effect. Sleeping Beauty (1957, the first ever movie in Super Technirama 70) was made with a successive exposure camera, as evidenced here: archive.thedigitalbits.com/articles/robertharris/harris101308.html

[@pfritts3111]

Great video!!!

[@dudleydooright]

Had to check this process out after watching the 1957 movie, 'Night Passage'. I never seen a movie look so good from that time period!

[@bighands69]

If you had of seen the movies in the cinema at the time they were released they would have blown you away. I had the pleasure of seeing Vertigo on 70mm transfer in a cinema and it was just amazing looking. Imagine seeing that in 1958. Standard 35mm film has a resolution of about 8K equivalent and Vistavision and Technirama were probably pushing 12K resolution. And then when you layer the color processing on top of that it produces an immense picture.

[@paulwarner5395]

Thank you for the video. I always loved the bug 70mm roadshow presentations in the day. Unfortunately today it's like going to the supermarket.

[@blipblip100]

Very interesting - thanks!!!

[@kevinsupreme_ph36yearsago59]

Full frame anamorphic

[@78Dipar]

Using the 35 mm film horizontally had already been used by the VistaVision process. The only diffrence was that Technirama used a Delrama 1.5 ratio anamorphic lens which gave an aspect ratio similar to CinemaScope. But like VistaVision, it was almost never used for projection which was made using standard vertical running 4 perfs 35mm films, which involved losing most of the higher definition of the negative film. A few Techinrama films used 70mm copies, in this case the definition wasn't lost, and the result was amost as good as films shot in 65mm. In this case the process was called "Super Technirama". The best example is "Spartacus" by Stanley Kubrick with Kirk Douglas.

[@kevshrop]

Just to be clear, in this video it says the Super Technirama films were optically printed to larger negative. I believe that means not using the dye transfer process. Technicolor's imbibition process was really designed for just 35 mm release prints, I believe. But it's my understanding from an article on in70mm.com that Technicolor carefully supervised the making of these 70 mm prints. That makes me feel better when I see that Technicolor credit on a 65mm print.

[@rainlori]

Some years ago I saw an old but good-condition print of the 1956 VistaVision "War and Peace" in a large screen cinema that specialised in exhibiting older motion pictures. It was a notably sharper than normal image even though the print was 35mm, no doubt due to the larger negative image it was printed from, so I think VistaVision was worth the effort. (16:9 aspect ratio.) Cheers

[@78Dipar]

@@rainlori At the time was used I saw many VistaVision films in the best Paris movie theaters, the increase in sharpness wasn't really noticeable. The 1.85 format was better than the old 1.37 format but not as satisfying than the CinemaScope format. I remeber being much disappointed when I saw Cecil B.DeMille's "The Ten Commadements" in Vistavision. It also lacked sterephonic sound. It couldn't compete with 70mm films...

[@DGaryGrady]

Indeed, the video itself mentions VistaVision as an antecedent of Technirama.

[@DGaryGrady]

@@kevshrop The optical printing was necessary for two reasons, first because contact printing could not be used with a horizontal camera negative and a vertical interpositive/internegative for making release prints, but also because Technirama's 1.5x anamorphic squeeze was not compatible with a standard projection format. The negative aspect ratio was 1.5:1 with a 1.5x anamorphic squeeze for a 2.25:1 image. This could be optically printed to a non-anamorphic 2.20:1 70 mm print (essentially the same as Todd-AO and Super Panavision 70) or with a 2x squeeze and slight cropping for 35mm scope (2.35:1 prior to 1970).

[@jmalmsten]

I am curious about the unclusion of Star Wars in the examples. While I do already know that ILM used VistaVision Cameras for composited shots. I have always been intrigued about if they used the Technirama anamorphic process or if they stayed with the spherical VistaVision. According to what I have recently seen in released restoration footage online and a couple of old behind the scenes features, it does very much look like they opted to use the non Anamorphic process in camera. So I am a bit confused by Star Wars being here in the Technirama presentation. But, as the anamorphic bit was just an adaptor on the end of the lens system, most of the camera was a VistaVision camera. I guess ILM bought a bunch of decommissioned Technirama cameras and opted to not use the anamorphic adaptor. Mainly to keep the image as distortion neutral as possible on the negative.

[@Pauldjreadman]

The Eastman colour system was a renamed system what Germany had developed. The problem is it fades a lot faster, which wasn’t noticed until later. Even though Technicolour, was more expensive they held up over long periods. However, Technicolour, began to use Eastman colour down the road.

[@martinhughes2549]

Yes; sort of!. AGFA developed the first negative positive chromigenic film with built in colour dye couplers in 1939, but perfected in 1941. ( kodachrome introduced in 1935 added the dye couplers during processing) 15 feature films where made in this process between 1941 and 1945. However it was grainy, they had to print from the master negative, there was a problem with incorrect colour frequencies being printed due to compromises over the dye couplers that they used in the negative film. Kodak in Eastmancolor, minimised grain& developed color masking, making inter positive and inter negative film possible. A major step forward.

[@reviewgodusa9613]

@@martinhughes2549 which 15 feature films were these? Anything notable?

[@martinhughes2549]

@@reviewgodusa9613" Baron Munchausen" 1943. I saw it many years ago on TV. One issue why many of these films dont get shown is that they where made by the Nazi regime of course, and so are very problematic watches.

[@geharttalk5087]

Stephen - Sorry about that. The url seems to be missing the .php at the end (membership.php) thanks for bringing this to our attention.

[@pmajudge]

APPLAUSE, TO ALL WHO CREATED COLOUR IN MOVIES . SO WE WHO ARE NOT TECHNIC ENJOY ALL THE MOVIES . THANKS !! FROM U.K.(2021).

[@oldvideopro]

Thank you Geh. :-)

[@mrhyde5280]

As Technirama used the old Technicolor camera bodies, did they use the same gigantic blimps for sound? Or were the new internals soundproofed like later cameras? None of the photos show a blimp.

[@StephenBell]

Re your web membership web address as shown at the end of this, and the other videos in this series . . . Error 403 - Forbidden You tried to access a document for which you don't have privileges. ! ? Steve Bell.

[@ishrink4202]

Whom composed the music for this series? It’s beautiful.

[@karlkarlos3545]

Whom?

[@bobwoolcock]

So…The cameras still appear to have vertically mounted reels of film. Was the film twisted to run horizontally behind the lens and shutter, or was there a mirror or prism involved?

[@plestj]

A great Technirama film is “Auntie Mame” starring Rosalind Russel.

[@crist67mustang]

Vistavision and Technirama is the same?

[@Tlducken]

Sounds like they both have the negative pass through the camera horizontally but with Technirama they use an anamorphic lens to squeeze a wider image onto the negative. So Vertigo (Vistavision) has a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, whereas Spartacus (Technirama) has a 2.20:1 ratio without having to crop.

[@frankfarago2825]

If you ask someone working at Technicolor, Technirama was totally different from VistaVision, and obviously much better. Not sure how that is the case, as with VistaVision the film is also running horizontally front of the gate and the frame is 8.perforations wide. Of coruse, they had like over two dozen trade names for basically the same widescreen that we had first with CinemaScope in 1953.

[@reviewgodusa9613]

Technirama is just vistavision with an anamorphic lens.

[@bighands69]

@Frank Farago In my opinion all the processes looked amazing and when used artistically by directors they produced some very unique looking films. I seen a remastered transfer of Vertigo and it look absolutely amazing and I could not imagine what it looked like in late 1950s in the cinema.

[@78Dipar]

Technirama wasn't much different from VistaVision, they both used 35mm film horizontallty on a 8 perfs frame. The only diffrence is that Technirama used an 1.5 Delrama anamorphic lens, giving a final aspect ration similar to CinemaScope. Both process weren't used for projection, they were reduced to standard 35mm 4 perfs, so most of the negative higher definition was lost. A few Technirama films (such as "Spartacus") were projected with 70mm copies, in this case the definition wasn't lost, but not quite as good as with a 65mm negative, it was then called "Super Technirama".

[@78Dipar]

@@bighands69 This is because the restored version of Vertigo was printed on 70mm film, wich kept the original VistaVision negative definition. It wasn't the case in the fifties when VistaVision projection used reduced definition prints on standard 35mm 4 perfs films...

[@bighands69]

@@78Dipar Most distribution would have 35mm at 4 perfs and still would have looked amazing but there was still 70mm distribution and other methods used as well and it depended on where the theatre was and if it was a large theatre. In a small town they would have only got to see it in 35mm distribution better than any digital theatre today.

[@kthx1138]

At 1.5:1x, looks like a milder squeeze than Cinemascope.

[@sarpsarp8987]

Was this camera for shooting Eastmancolor films in wide screen?

[@notsorandumusername]

Have you actually watched the video?

[@ArtistCreationsPicturesInc]

Technirama = Amamorphic

[@geharttalk5087]

Stephen - Sorry about that. The url seems to be missing the .php at the end (membership.php) thanks for bringing this to our attention.