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these booths and of the large cuwed screen will adapt existing theatres to show Cinerama films.

Projection Angles Match Cameras' From angles like those of the camera lenses, the projectors throw the
three sections of the picture side by siqe on the screen. The centre section of the screen is cuwed, usually on
a 25-foot radius, and two flat wings are tangential to this cuwe. The depth of focus of the projecting lenses is
great enough so that the cuwature of the screen presents no problem.

An innovation in each projector is a mechanical device nicknamed a "gigolo", because it jiggles up and down.
Just as a photographer makes a vignette, this mask wi1h a saw-tooth edge moves along the border of a film, so
that the picture gradually fades from view at its edge. Thus adjoining films blend together on the screen without
a conspicuous dividing line.

For realistic sound effects, 6 microphones in the field made individual tracks on a single 35mm soundfilm used
tor this purpose alone. Theatre speakers, arranged in the same pattern as the microphones, are individually
operated by the sound tracks. This produces the striking "sound-perspective" illusion that makes voices and
music come from the right directions. A favoured technique places 5 microphones and speakers, respectively,
in a row across the full width of the movie set and the theatre screen. The sixth microphone is put some
distance behind the camera and picks up "off-stage" sounds, reproduced in theatres by a speaker at the re3r of
the audience.

Magnetic Sound Recording. Recent strides in magnetic recording have led to the choice of magnetic-type
sound film. which needs no laboratory processing and can be played back at once.

Like conventional movies in their infancy, the preview films are not entirely ftee of technical faults: for exam-
ple, straight lines are distorted by certain camera angles, which must be avoided. As the sponsors point out,
these are experimental films, which will be bettered as the possibilities and limitations of the novel technique
are more fully explored.

Estimates as to the cost of Cinerama equipment installed in a theatre range from $15,000 to $50,000 per set-
up, and although no figure has yet been named by Cinerama sponsors pending further development work, it is
likely that the established price will lie somewhere between these extremes. Typical of the non-technical
person's reaction to the Cinerama system are the following excerpts from a column by Robert Ruark, widely
syndicated Scripps-Howard writer:

Typical Layman's Reaction "I have just looked at the movies' answer to television, whether the movies know
it or not. .. Its introduction into the average movie theatre is as inevitable as the adoption of sound pictures ....
"As many fusty movie moguls hated the idea of the switch-over to sound, so are they cold to this new type of
projection. But today many theatres are also installing massive TV equipment, with an eye to buying rights to
big special events, for which they will block free showing on normal TV channels and for which they will charge
admission. They are already frantic about TV in-roads and figure to become more so. This is when you will get
the modern miracle of the movies.~

Ruark may be right; but the motion picture crowd will have to snap out of its coma to prove him so.

Reprinted from International Projectionist. November 1950

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: Coming Events :
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• 23rd of October Next Meeting- 9.45 at the Carlton Moviehouse •
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• 6th of November Capitol Open Day •
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• 13th of November 9.30 a.m. Brighton Bay Inspection, •
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• 11 .59 a.m. B.Y.O. Picnic/B.B.Q. and movies at Harvey Hutchison's.:
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