Leica Goes to Hollywood: 1954

Do you have permission to use that trademark Charles? I hope some hungry lawyers aren't reading this forum ;-)

Interesting info though, I only bought 'North by Northwest' last weekend!

Were the Leitz lenses anamorphic too?

Cinemascope (affectionately referred to as "Skinnyscope,") compresses the widescreen format onto the standard frame, where it is later "stretched back" through the anamorphic projection lens.
Vistavision simply used a much larger image frame which was played back on special VV projectors. VV prints were also "shrunken" into the normal frame size for standard projectors, and this is how the prints are normally found today. This conversion from the larger negative resulted in a very fine-grained image, which may also be apparent in some of these movies.
North by Northwest is definitely a movie you want to own.

very interesting....

Thanks for this info CK - I'll add a reference to it in the Leica FAQ I maintain.

BTW, kinda makes you wonder why they don't shoot films in this format nowadays. Combined with 800 ISO film emulsions, you would be able to get v.high quality low-light images, and not the grainy muck you see in almost every film (eg. the remake of "Ocean's 11", a reasonably entertaining movie spoiled by a continuous blizzard of grain).

Charles... I thought that Star Wars was shot in 70mm, or was that only the DykstraFlex shots? I know there were release prints made in 70mm so, so the assumption was the whole thing was shot that way.

Thank you for the information, very interesting. Nowadays, is it IMAX which is using the largest film format? (15 sprockets / 70mm) Shouldn't grain be washed out pretty much when looking at 25 frames per second? So probably other advantages of a larger format create the (clearly visible!) quality improvement (tonality, colour saturation, resolution...)?

The optical problem, of course, was coverage for the shorter lenses;
and this is when they turned to Leitz.
Their smallest lens able to handle the 75-deg coverage was a 24mm.
For the reformatted prints, resolution improves only at the plane of focus.
Star Wars (1977) marked the brief return of VV.
They're shot in digital now.

The VistaVision camera is still used for filming special effects. I read about this in the American Cinematographer. They reduce the image to the standard frame size for the release print. In one article I read, they took the "Vistacruiser" emblem from an old station wagon and attached it to the camera dolly (a little humor).

Vista Vision was only used for effects shots in Star Wars. The rest was standard Panavision 35mm.

Very few full-length features have been shot on 70mm, and the few that were were in the 1050's and 60's (2001, Lawrence of Arabia). Most 70mm prints are blowups from 35mm.

The thing that's amazing about the first Star Wars film is that it was actually a low budget production, so much so that Alec Guinness agreed to take a percentage rather than a flat fee to hold down production costs.

He seem to have made a few shillings out of it :-)

A pair of Todd-AO 70mm cameras on the set of Around the World in Eighty Days in 1956
Leitz optics? Vistavision and 70mm cameras required similar lenses.
Leitz made a 19mm lens for VV, the smallest I've heard of.

My favourite Hitchcock movie is 'Rear Window' with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly.

In the documentary that comes included on the DVD (and VHS?) called 'Rear Window ethics' they talk about Hitchcock only using a 'normal' perspective lens for most of the movie. Anyone know what that lens was maybe? I cannot remember if Rear Window was Vistavision or not. I will check next time I watch it.

OT.....

For the night-time candlelit shots in Kubricks 'Barry Lyndon' a modified Carl Zeiss 50mm f0.7 lens is employed to great effect. Kubrick only wanted natural lighting in these shots and they are amazing. (Especially the scene in the cottage with the Farmers wife and her young child.)

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/ac/len/page1.htm

The rest of the film is a visual feast even though a Canon lens was used for a lot of it! Kubrick seemed to opt for a very natural / low contrast look in this film. (Reminds me of the Fuji Reala 'look'.)

Charles, you seem to know a lot about motion picture tech. Can you (or anyone else reading this tread)recommend some web pages that discuss technology and equipment (mostly cameras and lenses)? I’m more interested in classic film equipment – no video. <p> Thanks.

Sheldon,

I'm just getting ready to turn in, but I remember printing out some info from websites last year on different film formats, history of motion picture camera formats, explanation of the Technicolor three-strip process and imbibition printing, etc. I'll scrounge around the house tomorrow and post the web addresses off the printouts. If you're interested in cinematography, subscribe to the American Cinematographer. There are a bunch of good books on the technical history of cinema that are laying around here somewhere. I'll post the authors and titles for you. I won't get around to it till late Wednesday evening.

Sheldon,
I was a projectionist during my younger years and ran many movie theaters. I was one of the last operators in this area trained on the "old" equipment, that is, manual projection systems which required changing over from one machine to another using 2000' reels, and using giant arc lamps as light sources.
The new automated systems have done away with the need for old-style projectionists and many owner-operators of these multiplex cinemas have never seen a que mark in their lives.
There's tons of old cine equipment out there, and deciding on the right route to take can be confusing.
You have to decide exactly what your needs are.
Why do you want to shoot in film rather than digital video?
What format do you want to use? 8, S8, 16, 35?
What are you shooting and how will it be exhibited?
Is the difference between the film "look" and digital enough to justify the cost for you?
If you're new to the field, I suggest you start out with video until you are proficient enough with directing, editing and photography until you can handle the demands of film formats.
Good cine equipment still fetches high prices and processing costs are very high, although, it is possible to shoot film "on the cheap" using classic equipment.

Sheldon,

Try these links; within them you'll find links to a lot of other film sites:

http://home.att.net/~B-P.TRUSCIO/FILMBASE.htm

http://www.film-center.com/fformats.html

http://www.xs4all.nl/~wichm/filmsize.html

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/

http://www.widescreen.org/index.shtml

For a general history of cinema photography, look for Brian Coe's book, The History of Movie Photography (1981). It's a UK publication and out of print, but you'll find it on the Internet from used book dealers.

Charles & Jeff, thanks very much!