Looking back:

Widescreen becoming the international standard

In the middle of the 20th century, television caught on with enormous appeal. As more and more people stayed at home and turned their backs on the movies, the classic film industry was under pressure. How could the film studios lure the public back to cinemas?

The answer had already been provided by Henri Chrétien, who had attached an anamorphic wide-angle lens to a regular camera and compressed the wider image. “It’s like an inverse Galileo telescope, with an effect as though you’re looking through an opera glass from the wrong end,” says American cameraman and ASC film expert John Hora (“Twilight Zone”).

A big idea for the big picture

This early technology wasn’t advanced enough for a full-fledged Scope production on regular film. But thanks to anamorphic lens shapes, the “wide world” made it onto the big screen. John Hora: “In other widescreen formats, they masked the upper and lower part of the negative, thus reducing the quality because only part of the image was expanded to full height.”

“Scientific tests have shown again and again,” says Hora, “that shots filmed with anamorphic lenses results in a higher image quality than any other widescreen format filmed on traditional 4-perf. 35mm.” The reason is obvious: Unlike other formats such as 1:85 or Super 35, the anamorphic process uses a larger part of the available film area. “The resolution is higher, the image more defined and film grain poses less of a concern.”

“Again, I opted for Hawk Anamorphics, making a promise to the production team and my director: They should be more than satisfied with the anamorphic picture quality — much more than satisfied. I kept my promise.”

Gerard Simon

Download text as PDF