Page 12 - 2014-09

small number (two or three) of prints
struck in the 8-perf VistaVision
format in which they were shot.
Aside from these prints all other
VistaVision films were shown in the
conventional 4-perf format.

Although the clarity of these 8-perf
prints was striking, they were used
only for premiere or preview
engagements between 1954 and 1956
and required special projection
equipment. The projectors were
made for Paramount by Century
This exhibition process was
impractical because for the footage
to travel through a projector at the
normal 24 frames per second, the
film had to roll at 3 feet per second,
double the speed of 35 mm film,
which caused many technical and
mechanical problems.
Regular 35mm 4 perf. VistaVision A pair of Kalee Horizontal VistaVision projectors
In Australia, all VistaVision releases
were in the standard 35mm 4 perforation
format. The VistaVision film image covered staff touched the top of his screen (at the
the full frame size, which meant it could still be appropriate ratio) and the framing was set for
projected in the old Academy Ratio of 1.33:1, the rest of the reel.
or it could be screened in one of the three wide While most competing widescreen film
systems used magnetic audio and true stereo-
screen ratios that was recommended. I recall
seeing a number of VistaVision films at my phonic sound, early VistaVision films carried
local suburban theatre, which had made no only Perspecta Stereo**, encoded in the optical
track.
change to their screen size, so I guess they were
still projecting
in Academy Alfred Hitchcock used VistaVision for many of
his films in the 1950s. However, by the late
Ratio.
1950s with the introduction of finer-grained
The negative color stocks and the disadvantage of shooting
was "scribed" twice as much negative stock, VistaVision
with a new became obsolete.
form of cue
mark, at the Since the last American VistaVision picture,
start of each One-Eyed Jacks in 1961, the format has not
2000-foot reel. Similar in shape to an F, the cue been used as a primary imaging system for
mark contained staffs that directed the American feature films. However,
projectionist to the top of the frame for the VistaVision's high resolution made it attractive
three recommended aspect ratios. The for some special effects work within some later
projectionist racked his framing so that the feature films.

12 REEL DEALS September 2014