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"THIS IS CINERAMA!", part 2 |
Read more
at in70mm.com The 70mm Newsletter |
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| Written by: Greg Kimble | Date: 06.10.2002 | |
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 Front
view of The Waller Flexible Gunnery Trainer. Click picture to see a larger
version.When the Vitarama was rejected by fair organizers as "too radical" Fred, disciplined inventor that he was, simply moved on to phase two - five 35mm cameras arranged 2 over 3. With war looming in Europe, Waller adapted his idea to an extremely practical use - an aerial gunnery trainer, which saved fuel, freed up pilots and aircraft for actual combat and eliminated the very real problem of unskilled gunners hitting the aircraft and not the tow target. Since shooting at a slowly towed target didn't begin to mimic actual battle conditions, most gunners never really learned their job until they were in actual combat - and casualties were high. |
Further
in 70mm reading: Part 1 Part 3 Part 4 Home Cinerama Films Internet link: |
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 Rear
view of The Waller Flexible Gunnery Trainer. Click picture to see a larger
version.The Waller Flexible Gunnery Trainer was the first virtual reality experience - decades before the term was coined. Trainees wore headsets with actual battle and engine sounds, and a sophisticated photoelectric system scored their hits on the photographed planes diving in from out of frame. So realistic and effective was the trainer, that 1 hour was equivalent to 10 of real flying practice. The first group of graduates hit 80% of their combat targets and suffered no losses. At the end of the war, it was calculated that over 350,000 lives were saved by the trainer. Enthusiastic graduates wrote Waller, wanting to see this amazing technology used in a more commercial way. Waller, not surprisingly, was way ahead of them. |
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While installing
the 75 gunnery trainers contracted by the US Navy and British Admiralty,
research and construction was still going on at new facilities in an
indoor tennis court out in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Reflections within the
sphere had been a real problem on the trainer, so Waller dropped the 2
upper cameras and projected the remaining 3 images - totaling 146° of
horizontal angle - onto a curved screen. But the reflections remained, so
the screen was rebuilt as 1100 1" vertical strips, all parallel to
the viewer. This solved the problem, but made for a costly install. Recording
7-track sound in Oyster Bay. Click picture to see a larger version.The cameras and projectors were also custom made, as the new system used frames 6 perforations high instead of the usual 4, and ran at 26 frames per second instead of 24. Total exposed negative area was 6 times that of a standard academy aperture. The camera, while not the monstrosity the 11-header had been, was still a behemoth. Unblimped, it weighed over 200 pounds and made an awful racket. With its lead-lined blimp, it tipped the scales at 800 lbs. The lenses, custom made by Kodak for Waller, were the size of a contact lens, with a focal length of 27mm - the same as the human eye. |
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 Harry
Squire checking the camera.This huge expanse of screen real estate could hardly be complemented by a standard monophonic sound track, so Waller brought in sound engineer Hazard Reeves who developed a 7-channel discreet surround sound system. To accomplish this, Reeves invented fullcoat magnetic film - the first use of magnetic media in an optical sound industry. He proved invaluable in another way. When the Rockefellers and Time pulled their funding, Reeves kept the company afloat by buying the assets - for $1600. Reeves made one other important decision. He hired Mike Todd, a Broadway showman who had yet to produce a feature film, as his Cinerama producer, reasoning that his boundless enthusiasm and sales ability was a necessary asset to the new company. Todd also had a relationship with Rodgers and Hammerstein, and promised to bring their hit musical Oklahoma! to the new company to be filmed in Cinerama. One by one, heads of all the majors trouped out to Oyster Bay to see "Waller's Wonder." The 15 minute film included the roller coaster at Rockaway Playland and the Long Island Choral Society singing the Messiah, which had been recorded in the church, then photographed to playback on a set constructed at the tennis court. Both were in black and white. There were also traveling shots of fall foliage and scenes aboard the Rockefeller yacht, which marked the first use of the new Kodak monopack color negative film. Impressed as they were (instinctively turning around as the choir came in on the rear surrounds) they nonetheless knew that exhibitors would never endure the huge conversion costs, and correctly saw how impractical and expensive it would be for regular production. Compliments all around for Fred - and no callbacks. Waller realized that if Cinerama was to succeed, it would be without the help - and financing - of the established picture industry. Fortunately, Waller's Wonder had some very important friends. |
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It may be difficult to
imagine now, with so many talking heads clamouring for our attention, but
once the voice of Lowell Thomas was the single most famous in the world.
He was the country's second news commentator. His radio and television
career lasted 28 years including his long service as the voice of Fox
Movietone Newsreels. Lowell
Thomas filming "This is Cinerama"A constant traveller with an insatiable curiosity to see new places and people, he was raised in the gold fields of Colorado where his father was a surgeon. The endless parade of prospectors, saloons and cathouses sowed the seeds of his love of the colorful. He would become famous for his egalitarian courtesy, and counted among his friends everyone from the Dalai Lama to the doorman of his Manhattan apartment building. One of his most important friendships was with T. E. Lawrence, the Englishman who fought so hard for Arab independence during WWI. Thomas discovered him by chance while on a trip to Egypt and recognized instantly a great story. He single-handedly built Lawrence into one of the 20th century's great icons with his book and lecture series. Without Lowell Thomas, Lawrence of Arabia would have been but a footnote in history. |
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| Lowell Thomas
knew both Hazard Reeves and Fred Waller and had produced a Broadway show
with Mike Todd. There are various versions of which got the other to join
Cinerama. Upon seeing the Cinerama demo for the first time, Thomas knew
that this could provide him a success even bigger than Lawrence had been. Todd, dissatisfied with the 16mm he'd used at a recent show at Madison Square Garden, called it "the greatest thing I've ever seen. We must get control of it," and came onboard as producer. When the Lowell Thomas prestige attracted new financing, Mike Todd had his son reshoot the roller coaster in color, then took off for Europe with a small crew. Todd had charmed the IA (the parent organization of movie craft unions) into granting "experimental" status to the project, freeing it from all union requirements. |
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 Michael
Todd in Scotland photographing a sequence with the Cinerama camera.Possessed of what can most tactfully be called a bravura personality, Todd bullied and charmed his way across Europe. Ever the showman with an eye for the spectacular, he photographed the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a Venice canal boat parade, a Spanish bullfight (but thankfully not the final coup de grāce) and the Act II finale of Aida at La Scala, the first time cameras had every been allowed inside the venerable opera house in Milan. A few phone calls in Vienna turned up enough of the famous Boy's Choir to sing The Blue Danube Waltz for the huge camera. The footage, sent to NY for processing and so unseen by the crew, created a sensation back at corporate headquarters. But the board of directors was not happy with Todd's assumption that he knew best in all matters and it was becoming hard to attract more financing because, as Lowell Thomas candidly writes, "Wall Street hated Mike Todd." So he was quietly bought out and left the company, happily taking his money and developing Todd-AO, the 30 fps 70mm system with the huge bug-eye lens, which was designed to be, as he had stipulated, "Cinerama out of one hole." His first production? "Oklahoma!". This left the board with just over an hour of great footage - but no movie. Cinerama needed another friend. Quickly. |
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