Imax Vs Cinerama

[Thomas Dafnides]

For those who experienced the original Cinerama of the 60s/70s and have seen Imax movies.... which would you consider the more immersive cinema experience ? And could you give your personal relative rating of one to the other.... ( example : Imax 10 Cinerama 8.5 )

[Osi Osgood]

Technically, IMAX would seem more immersive, the screen, in just my own opinion, is too big, the Cinerama screen, because your not overwhelmed, would at least feel more immersive

[Mark McLaughlin]

I have seen several authentic Cinerama movies projected. At John Harvey’s home and theater in Ohio when guess alive and at the original Dome In Hollywood. I am friends with the people who restore the prints and created The “Smilebox”. In my humble opinion Cinerama was a gimmick. CinemaScope Todd AO etc. worked better to immerse a viewer. IMAX is also excellent. If the original and true Cinerama did not have those screen lines running in sections of the screens it would have been more impressive.

[Ken Finch]

I agree with you Osi. However, it’s not the size or aspect ratio alone that makes a film more immersive for me, it is also other aspects regarding the way the film has been made. It also depends to some extent ones viewing position.

[Walter Stanton]

A lot of it depends on the subject matter. Some films I've seen presented in true Imax & Omnimax theatres about space or the ocean felt wonderfully immersive. I've seen Cinerama films at the Cinerama Dome and although I thought the presentation was spectacular, I could never 100% get past the visible frame/join lines.

I also remember seeing Doug Trumbull's Showscan demonstrated years ago at their HQ here in Los Angeles and depending on what was onscreen and how it was shot, scenes/objects that were filmed 1:1 (as if they were in the room with you) were indistinguishable from reality. The problem is, you can't shoot an entire film from that perspective. However, no one was used to anything like 4K or UHD at that point in time, so the images onscreen during the presentation were literally breathtaking.

[Ed Gordon]

Cinerama was the most immersive. Seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey on the 146 degree curved Cinerama screen in Ultra Panavision 70 was an unforgettable experience. I have since seen it on some large scope screens, and it simply is not the same experience.

[Mark McLaughlin]

But Ed. 2001 was not ever in Cinerama. Maybe presented on a cinerama style screen without the annoying panel lines but not a Cinerama film at all

[Brian Fretwell]

It was billed as Cinerama (even on the soundtrack LP) and used the same screen as three strip Cinerama, which I have seen on a smaller screen than at the casino Cinerama in London at the Pictureville in Bradford. I cannot truely be sure that the Casino one was more impreesive as I saw it at an earlier age and was more easily impressed., but seeing 2001 on the IMAX screen on the Southbank was less impressive than either The most impressive IMAX productions I saw were "Beavers", "Grand Canyon" and especially "Space Station 3D" not story films.

[Ed Gordon]

The Cinerama theater in Seattle was built for the 146 degree curved screen and the projection booth was not "above" the screen to avoid distortion. When they switched to Ultra Panavision 70, they kept the curved screen and used custom lenses and rectified prints to minimize distortion problems.

For Cinerama single film projection, Ultra Panavision films could be printed with optical "rectification" that removed the anamorphic squeeze and replaced it with a gradient squeeze beginning at the center, with no squeeze at all, and gradually applying a squeeze towards the outside edges that would be naturally removed by the image being projected against the oblique curved sides of the Cinerama screen.

Source:http://www.widescreenmuseum.com

When the theater converted to straight 35/70 mm projection, the curved screen was removed. During Paul Allen's ownership the theater, the curved screen was re-installed to show 3 strip and 70mm Cinerama. In the video below you will see the regular screen being replaced by the 146 degree curved screen.

The curved screen and it's size make all the difference in the world in terms of being a very immersive experience.

Tearing down the silver screen for the 146 degree Cinerama Curve

Digital Cinerama

[Osi Osgood]

What's presented is a good point. Even though it has nothing to do with Cinerama or IMAX, there was a moment in the Tom Petty music video for "Walls", in which, in black and white, a little girl points at the viewer, (and Tom Petty), and as the pointed finger gets closer to the camera, you'd swear it goes 3D, and points right at you. Though not immersive, of course, the subject matter gives you an illusion of perspective that wouldn't usually be there.

[Mark McLaughlin]

Your comments are great. I saw a rare print of Porgy and Bess at the cinema theater in 1999. The print was faded and pink but nonetheless spectacular to see on that incredible screen.

[Ed Gordon]

Your comments are great. I saw a rare print of Porgy and Bess at the cinema theater in 1999. The print was faded and pink but nonetheless spectacular to see on that incredible screen.

You are very fortunate to have seen Porgy and Bess at all, let alone an original Todd-AO print on a curved screen. My understanding is that the copyright owners of Porgy and Bess no longer allow exhibition (or Bluray releases, etc).

Todd-AO began as a high resolution widescreen film format. It was co-developed in the early 1950s by Mike Todd, a Broadway producer, and United Artists Theaters in partnership with the American Optical Company in Buffalo, New York.[1] It was developed to provide a high definition single camera widescreen process to compete with Cinerama, or as characterized by its creator, "Cinerama outta one hole". Where Cinerama used a complicated setup of three separate strips of film photographed simultaneously, Todd-AO required only a single camera and lens.

So, in addition to Cinerama and Imax, we need to consider Todd-AO and Dimension 150 (D-150) as "immersive" presentation methods.

Curved screen vs. flatWhile Todd-AO was intended to be "Cinerama out of one hole", the extreme wide-angle photography and projection onto a very deeply curved screen (which is what that would imply) saw little use. Most Todd-AO theatre installations had only moderately curved screens and the extreme wide-angle camera lenses were used only on a few shots here and there. Todd-AO films made after 1958 used a conventional flat widescreen, and resembled ordinary films, except for their greater clarity and six-track stereo sound. A variation on Todd-AO called Dimension 150 did, however, make use of Cinerama-like deeply curved screens. Only two films were made in Dimension 150 – The Bible: In the Beginning..., directed by John Huston, and Patton, starring George C. Scott. In some venues, however, Todd-AO and Dimension 150 films received their first run in Cinerama theatres in order that they be shown on a deeply curved screen – such as the first Atlanta showings of The Sound of Music.

[Brian Fretwell]

Also remember that the original Tod-AO format was 30fps to achieve better sound quality. I remember a talk from Dolby ay the Museum CInema (now NFT3) on Southbank where they brought an early Tod-AO short to compare sound quality. The 70mm projector could manage 30fps and the Dolby people were very impressed by the sound.

[Ed Gordon]

Also remember that the original Tod-AO format was 30fps to achieve better sound quality. I remember a talk from Dolby ay the Museum CInema (now NFT3) on Southbank where they brought an early Tod-AO short to compare sound quality. The 70mm projector could manage 30fps and the Dolby people were very impressed by the sound.

That reminds me of Douglas Trumbull's Showscan system that he wanted to use for the 1983 film Brainstorm:

The film was conceived as an introduction to Trumbull's Showscan 60 frames-per-second 70 mm film process. "In movies people often do flashbacks and point-of-view shots as a gauzy, mysterious, distant kind of image," Trumbull recalled. "And I wanted to do just the opposite, which was to make the material of the mind even more real and high-impact than 'reality'".

MGM withdrew its plans to release the experimental picture in the new format. Trumbull instead shot the virtual reality sequences in 24 frames-per-second Super Panavision 70 with an aspect ratio of 2.2:1. The rest of the film was shot in conventional 35mm with an aspect ratio of approximately 1.7 to 1.

[Mark McLaughlin]

I remember seeing Brainstorm when it first came out. The matting on the screen actually moved to showcase the different ratio of the POV scenes. And that was at a small mini mall theater in Boulder Colorado!