Ultimately, Bausch & Lomb formula combined lens designs incorporated both the prime lens and the anamorphic lens in one unit (initially in 35, 40, 50, 75, 100 and 152 mm focal lengths, later including a 25 mm focal length). Bausch & Lomb, Fox's prime contractor for the production of the lenses, initially produced an improved Chrétien-formula adapter lens design (CinemaScope Adapter Type I), and subsequently produced a dramatically improved and patented Bausch & Lomb formula adapter lens design (CinemaScope Adapter Type II).
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The introduction of CinemaScope enabled Fox and other studios to respond to the challenge from television by providing a key point of difference.Ĭhrétien's Hypergonars proved to have significant optical and operational defects, primarily loss-of-squeeze at close camera-to-subject distances, plus the requirement of two camera assistants. So that production of the first CinemaScope films could proceed without delay, shooting started using the best three of Chrétien's Hypergonars, while Bausch & Lomb continued working on their own versions.
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Two other CinemaScope productions were also planned: How to Marry a Millionaire and Beneath the Twelve-Mile Reef. The use of the CinemaScope technology became a key feature of the film's marketing campaign. Test footage shot with the lenses was screened for Skouras, who gave the go-ahead for development of a widescreen process, based on Chrétien's invention, which was to be known as CinemaScope.Ģ0th Century Studios's pre-production of The Robe, originally committed to Technicolor three-strip origination, was halted so that the film could be changed to a CinemaScope production (using Eastmancolor, but processed by Technicolor). Meanwhile, Sponable tracked down Professor Chrétien, whose patent for the process had expired, so Fox purchased his existing Hypergonars, and the lenses were flown to Fox's studios in Hollywood. The optical company Bausch & Lomb was asked to produce a prototype "anamorphoser" (later shortened to anamorphic) lens. Herbert Brag, Sponable's assistant, remembered Chrétien's hypergonar lens. Skouras tasked Earl Sponable, head of Fox's research department, with devising a new, impressive, projection system, but something that, unlike Cinerama, could be retrofitted to existing theatres at a relatively modest cost. Yet Cinerama and the early 3D films, both launched in 1952, succeeded in defying that trend, which in turn persuaded Spyros Skouras, the head of 20th Century Studios, that technical innovation could help to meet the television challenge. Chrétien attempted to interest the motion picture industry in his invention but, at that time, the industry was not sufficiently impressed.īy 1950, however, cinema attendance seriously declined with the advent of a new competitive rival: television. That was done using an optical system called Hypergonar, which compressed the image laterally when the film was being shot, and dilated it when the film was projected. Chrétien's process used lenses that employed an optical trick, which produced an image twice as wide as those that were being produced with conventional lenses. It was that process which later formed the basis of CinemaScope. Bausch & Lomb won a 1954 Oscar for its development of the CinemaScope lens.įrench inventor Henri Chrétien developed and patented a new film process that he called Anamorphoscope in 1926. In film-industry jargon, the shortened form, ' Scope, is still widely used by both filmmakers and projectionists, although today it generally refers to any 2.35:1, 2.39:1, 2.40:1, or 2.55:1 presentation or, sometimes, the use of anamorphic lensing or projection in general. Although the technology behind the CinemaScope lens system was made obsolete by later developments, primarily advanced by Panavision, CinemaScope's anamorphic format has continued to this day. Skouras, the president of 20th Century Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal 2.55:1, almost twice as wide as the previously common Academy format's 1.37:1 ratio.
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CinemaScope logo from The High and the Mighty (1954).ĬinemaScope is an anamorphic lens series used, from 1953 to 1967, and less often later, for shooting widescreen films that, crucially, could be screened in theatres using existing equipment, albeit with a lens adapter.
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