70mm Film Festival

200 electronic music acts are coming to town this week for the Decibel Festival, but I'm passing on Moby and Araabmusik and Zomby and Amon Tobin. I know I won't like most of it and will just come away depressed about the future of electronic music.

OTOH, there is something to get excited about here in Seattle over the next two weeks: the 70mm Film Festival. It may be the last chance ever to see real Cinerama presentations as they were intended to be exhibited. If you are in or near Seattle you may want to check it out, especially those of you under 50 who have probably never seen a Cinerama presentation.

Most Cinerama films were shot on 70mm film, allowing them to be displayed really BIG. Three projectors were used on a wide, curved screen. In its heyday, late 50's to mid-60's, there was nothing like it. People dressed up and made reservations. It was a big night out to go to a Cinerama movie. (It was pricey, too: $3 a head!)

Unfortunately, the cost of making such movies was very high and as the novelty wore off Cinerama theaters started to lose money. Cinerama movies started getting cheesy and low-budget ("Ice Station Zebra" with Gregory Peck was a memorable stinker). The downward spiral was brutally quick. In just a few months Cinerama was dead.

Seattle's Cinerama franchise survived for a while by playing conventional films. It was still the biggest screen in town - I saw Lord of the Rings there and it was pretty awesome. But the owners eventually put it up for sale. It was scheduled to be razed for a parking lot.

Local film fans thought that was a travesty and started raising money to buy the property, but downtown real estate's pretty expensive, and they only managed to put together a small percentage of the $8M needed. Fortunately, one of the flyers they passed out on the street happened to be handed to one Paul Allen, who decided it was a worthy cause and coughed up the dough, probably out of pocket change.

Not only did he save the Cinerama, he did a major overhaul of the place, turning it into a proper showplace. Of course, he put in digital projectors and digital movie posters and killer sound. Paul's my kind of billionaire.

But even though he'd planned to someday show Cinerama films there (the original curved screen is still there, behind the flat one they use now), the projectors were in bad shape. He must have gone around the world scarfing up projectors from defunct theaters just to get parts. Eventually, they got the gear up and running.

Next step was to find the 70mm films. Sadly, half of the movies made for Cinerama either no longer exist or were badly decomposed. One of them won the Oscar in 1956 for Best Picture - no longer in existence. But they were able to find enough of them to put together the upcoming festival, which starts Friday night.

The lines will be long, I'm sure. But there may never be another opportunity to experience this lost format in all its glory. I, for one, would not miss it.

I saw Star Wars on one of those big, curved screens while in Denver. It was cool.

Amon Tobin's visuals for ISAM look pretty stunning, http://www.youtube.com/wa...Ff_SM&feature=related.

("Ice Station Zebra" with Gregory Peck was a memorable stinker)


Never seen it myself but this was the one Howard Hughes watched 3000 times in a row.

I'll be thinking of you Bit!!!!

I'm ragingly envious... there I said it.

Has bapsi flown in yet?

best,
mike

I don't think Gregory Peck was in Ice Station Zebra. Perhaps you mean Rock Hudson.

70 mm film was used for technicolor and most wide screen movies. It was not just for Cinerama. If it was use for that at all. If 3 projectors are needed its very possible they were 35 MM not 70 mm.

Tod AO also use 70 mm film.

I had a 70 mm back for a Speed Graphic many moons ago.

One thing that was very annoying about Cinerama was the picture was in 3 parts that were plainly seen.

The above is from memory and may not be 100 % accurate.

The seams between the three frames were noticeable if the equipment wasn't set up properly

I've never seen one that didn't have the seams. LOL

I forgot about How the West Was Won. That was one I saw that had the seams. Heck I thought it was a part of the viewing. LOL Any rate enjoy!

CinemaScope was the other type to Tod AO not Technicolor. Both were better than Cinerama from my view point.  Sorry for the wrong info. Technicolor used a 3 negative system with filters and a beam splitter. Believe it or not the film used for technicolor was B&W. 

One thing is for sure great movies should be seen on big screens.

...then there was PanaVision....

Totally forgot about that.