Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Wide Screen Film Formats

Starting point is 00:00:00 You might have noticed that your television screen today is a rectangle, but in the past, TV screens were more of a square. And sometimes you may have seen black bars on either the top or sides of a movie you're watching. The width, or lack thereof, of a film or TV show is known as its aspect ratio. Learn more about widescreen film formats, how they work, and why they were developed on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly.

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Starting point is 00:01:13 Better than this, Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19 speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility and optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. I've always had a soft spot for large screen and widescreen films. As I've mentioned before, I have a pretty sizable film collection,

Starting point is 00:01:51 and one of the things I've always gone out of my way to collect are widescreen films. Over the years, I've spent a fair amount of time researching not just the films released in these formats, but also the various techniques that were used. So I figured it was time to put all of that knowledge to actual use. Early motion pitchers used 35-millimeter film running vertically through a camera. A standard frame was four perforations tall and had an image close to 1.33 to 1, meaning the image was 1.33 times as wide as it was tall. This is the same ratio later associated with early analog television broadcasts.

Starting point is 00:02:33 When optical sound arrived on the late 1920s, the soundtrack had to be printed along one side of the film. that reduced the image area and briefly produced awkward nearly square ratios. So 1932, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences standardized what became known as the Academy ratio, which is 1.37 to 1. And this became the dominant theatrical format until the early 1950s. As I mentioned, for standard theatrical 35-millimeter film, the film runs vertically through the camera and projector. Each frame is normally four perforations high, often called four-perf 35-millimeter. Each perforation is a sprocket hole located on either side of the film. Many classic films from the 1930s and 40s, such as Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life, Citizen Kane, Wizard of Oz, and Gone

Starting point is 00:03:26 at the Wind, were all shot using the Academy ratio on 35-millimeter film. After World War II, television spread rapidly in the United States. In 1946, only a tiny number of American households had a TV set, but by the early 1950s, millions did, and by the end of the decade, television had become a normal part of American home life. This hit the movie industry hard. Before television, movie theaters were one of the main sources of mass entertainment. People went to movies regularly, often weekly. Television changed that by offering free entertainment at home. New, sports, comedy, drama, variety shows, and eventually movies themselves. Hollywood could not compete with television by offering greater convenience.

Starting point is 00:04:14 The TV was already in the living room. So the motion picture industry tried to compete by making theatrical movies feel bigger, more spectacular, and more immersive than anything a viewer could see on a small black and white television screen. The trick at first was how to use the same 35 millimeter film to create. something bigger. Now, before I go any further, I should note why widescreen formats are preferable to the Squarish Academy format, which is also used in early TV. Wide images appear bigger because they fill more of your horizontal field of view, which is how humans naturally perceive space. Our vision is wider than it is tall, so an image that stretches right and left feels closer

Starting point is 00:05:01 to the way we experience the real world. This is a special. true in a theater. A wide image extends towards the viewer's peripheral vision, so the audience feels less like they're looking at a picture and more like they're looking into a large environment. The format that really launched the widescreen boom was Cinerama, which was introduced commercially in 1952. Cinerama used three synchronized 35 millimeter cameras shooting side-by-side through three lenses. In theaters, three synchronized projectors through three three three separate images onto a deeply curved screen. The result was an extremely wide image, roughly around 2.59 to 1. Cinerama was astonishing, but also a nightmare to use. The cameras were

Starting point is 00:05:51 bulky, close-ups were difficult, and the seams between the three images were easily visible. And theaters needed special projectors, a huge curved screen, and careful alignment. The only remaining publicly operating venue that can present true three-strip cinnorama is the Pictureville Cinema at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, England. There are still Cinerama theaters in Seattle and Los Angeles, but they can't actually show Cinerama films. A better solution was needed that didn't require three times the film, cameras, and projectors.

Starting point is 00:06:27 The first truly practical mass market widescreen process was called Cinema Scope, launched by 20th Century Fox in 1953 with the film The Robe. Cinemoscope used ordinary 35-millimeter film, but added a crucial trick. Anamorphic lens. Anamorphic camera lens squeezes a wide image horizontally into a standard 35-millimeter frame. During the projection, another anamorphic lens stretches the image back to its proper width. Early Cinemoscope had an aspect ratio of about 2.5.5.5. 5 to 1, when used with magnetic stereo sound and no optical soundtrack. Later, when optical sound was added for wider theater compatibility, the standard settled

Starting point is 00:07:14 closer to 2.35 to 1, which was later than revised to the modern 2.39 to 1 theatrical anamorphic standard. Cinemascope mattered because it was practical. Studios could shoot on regular 35-millimeter film, theaters could adapt existing projectures with anamorphic lenses, and audiences saw a... dramatically wider image. But not every studio wanted to license cinemascope or deal with anamorphic lenses. The simplest alternative was called flat widescreen. It usually had an aspect ratio of 1.66 to 1, 1.75 to 1, or 1.85 to 1. This method used standard 35 millimeter spherical lenses.

Starting point is 00:07:58 The camera photographed a normal frame, but the top and bottom were masked off in projection, creating a wider rectangle. This was called matting. The image wasn't optically squeezed, it was simply cropped. The problem with cropping is that it exposes a smaller part of the film, resulting in lower resolution and lower quality.

Starting point is 00:08:19 There came a relatively simple solution to the problem of anamorphic lenses and cropping. Paramount introduced VistaVision in 1954, beginning with the film White Christmas. Instead of squeezing Using the image anamorphically, VistaVision used a larger negative area by running standard 35-millimeter film horizontally through the camera rather than vertically. As I previously mentioned, normal 35-millimeter motion picture film runs vertically and

Starting point is 00:08:49 uses a four-peroration frame. VistaVision turned the film sideways and used eight perforations per frame, producing a much larger image area. Paramount called this the Lazy-8 system. The drawback was that true horizontal VistaVision projection required special projectors. Most theaters simply receive standard vertical 35 millimeter reduction prints, which meant that audiences got some benefit, but not the full, large format experience. Paramount largely abandoned VistaVision as a primary production format in the early 1960s,

Starting point is 00:09:26 although it survived for decades in visual effects, because its larger negative was useful for composting. The original Star Wars films used VistaVision for its effects work. Cinerama, Cinemascope, and VistaVision were all attempts to try to use standard 35mm film to create a widescreen theatrical experience. But eventually, it became obvious that the solution wasn't trying to adapt 35mm film. It was the creation of a larger film stock. Film producer Mike Todd, one of the original promoters of Cinerama, wanted the impact of Cinerama, but without three cameras and three projectors.

Starting point is 00:10:04 The result was Todd A.O., introduced with the film Oklahoma in 1955. Todd A.O. used 65-millimeter negative film for photography and 70-millimeter film for the released prints. The extra of 5 millimeters on the print was used for magnetic soundtracks. The standard 65- or 70-millimeter frame used five perforations per frame and produced a very sharp image, commonly projected at about 2.2 to 1. And even though it was filmed in 65 millimeter, the film sizes just commonly refer to as 70mm. The format was expensive,

Starting point is 00:10:44 but the results were beautiful. 70 millimeter prints were brighter, sharper, steadier, and had richer sound than ordinary 35 millimeter film. For several decades, 70mm became the premium roadshow format for major releases. Now you might be wondering what is a road show. Roadshow films were major motion pictures presented more like a theatrical event than a regular movie. They usually had reserve seats, higher ticket prices, limited engagements in select big city theaters, souvenir programs, overtures, intermissions, and sometimes exit music.

Starting point is 00:11:22 Many were shown in premium format such as 70mm. The idea was to make a film feel prestigious and special closer to a film feel prestigious and special closer to a attending a Broadway show or opera rather than simply going to the movies. Other 70-millimeter formats soon followed. One of the widest major film formats was MGM Camera 65, which was later known as Ultra Panavision 70. It used 65-millimeter negative film like Todd A.O., but then added a mild anamorphic squeeze. This created an extremely wide projected ratio of about 2.76 to 1.

Starting point is 00:11:59 Super Panavision 70 was similar to Tadeo, but unlike ultra Panavision, it did not use an anamorphic lens. The heyday of 70-millimeter films was from about the mid-1950s through the 1960s, and some of the greatest films of all times, such as Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, The Sound of Music, and 2001 a Space Odyssey, were all shot on 70-millimeter film. By the 1970s and 80s, true 70-millimeter films declined in popularity. It was expensive, the cameras were large, film stock and processing cost more, and improved 35-millimeter film stock made smaller formats just look better. Many 70-millimeter releases were really just blown-ups from 35-millimeter rather than true 70-millimeter originals. However, 70-millimeter never really went away. One company in particular realized that you could make something even bigger. Just as VistaVision created a larger, wider image by turning 35-millimeter film sideways,

Starting point is 00:13:03 it eventually dawned on someone that they could create a truly monstrous image by turning a 70-millimeter film sideways. That company was IMAX. IMAX began in Canada in the late 1960s. Its founders developed a system using 70-millimeter film running horizontally, with each frame spread across 15 perforations. The result was an image area larger than any other film format. IMAX wasn't technically a wide screen format.

Starting point is 00:13:35 Its aspect ratio is usually 1.9 to 1, which isn't nearly as wide as other formats I've mentioned, but the sheer size of the screen more than compensated for that. A classic IMAX screen is often around 72 feet wide by 52 feet tall. That gives an area of 3,744 square feet. feet or about 348 square meters. The first IMAX film, Tiger Child, was shown at Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan. The first permanent IMAX theater opened in 1971 at the Sinosphere in Ontario Place in Toronto, where it showed the movie North of Superior.

Starting point is 00:14:15 IMAX theaters were primarily built in places like museums, theme parks, and zoos. The first IMAX movie I ever saw was in 1979 at what was. was then Marriott's Great America outside of Chicago. It was a specialty-built IMAX theater that showed the short film, To Fly. However, in the 2000s, directors began using large format films for parts of big budget movies again. Christopher Nolan became the central figure in this revival, using IMAX film for major sequences in The Dark Night, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Tenant, and Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was especially important because used both color and black and white 65-millimeter IMAX photography, helping turn 70-millimeter

Starting point is 00:15:01 iMac screenings into a major box office event. His 2026 film, The Odyssey, is the first feature film ever to be shot entirely in IMAX. Paul Thomas Anderson shot The Master, partly in 65-millimeter, and Quentin Tarantino revived Ultra Panavision 70 for the Hateful Eight. 2024's The Brutalist was shot in VistaVision, the first film shot in that format since 1961, and the 26 Best Picture winner, one battle after another, also used VistaVision. The reason for the current revival in widescreen film formats is, surprisingly, the same reason for the format's creation in the 1950s. Today, many people have high-quality, large-screen televisions in their homes and have access to streaming services. The motion picture industry needs to give people a reason to come to the theater,

Starting point is 00:15:54 and the way to do that is to provide an experience that can't be had at home. And this is done through gigantic screens and movies that can fill them. I'll close by answering a question that maybe some of you are asking yourselves. Nowadays, everything is digital. Movie theater projectors are digital. What would be the digital equivalent of 70 millimeter or IMAX film in terms of quality and resolution? There isn't a direct correlation between film size and digital resolution. A regular movie shot on 35mm film can easily be transferred to 4K, which is the highest

Starting point is 00:16:29 resolution consumer format available today. A 70-millimeter film could be transferred to 8K and probably even 12K resolution, and an IMAX film could probably be transferred to 16K resolution or higher if such a thing actually existed. I fell in love with 70-millimeter films when I first saw Lawrence of Arabia in 70-millimeter at the Cooper Theater in St. Louis Park, Minnesota in 1987. The theater has since been destroyed. They had a curved, parabolic screen designed for widescreen films, and it was something that I can still remember.

Starting point is 00:17:04 From the three projectors of Cinerama to the anamorphic squeeze of Cinemascope, from the 70-millimeter road shows to IMAX and modern large-format revivals, each single system was an attempt to expand what movies could do. Wide-screen formats were never just about making images wider for the sake of making them wider. They were about making movies feel larger, more immersive, and giving people a reason to go to the theater. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel.

Starting point is 00:17:37 The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps me. make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast. And links to those are available in the show notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you too can have it read in the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Wide Screen Film Formats

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