SUPPORT CINERAMA ADVENTURE - LET'S GET IT OUT THERE!!
Whether you are old enough to have seen the original three-strip Cinerama in theatres, or perhaps even the less impressive 70mm single strip process (eg 2001: A Space Odyssey) doesn't matter.
Cinerama Adventure is a story about the 20th century. Fred Waller, Cinerama's inventor was as much a dynamo to not only the film industry, but also to the millions who enjoy water skiing (he invented water skis!), modern air training systems and military training systems (he invented the very first film based gunner training module - complete with light detecting systems to measure the levels of competence of individual military trainees - thus saving tens of thousands of lives during WWII) and of course virtual reality (his testing for the correct angle of curvature for the original Cinerama process was based on the limits of human peripheral vision and the success of the process rested on these data).
As Dave Strohmaier )the writer, director and co-producer of this fascinating documentary) takes us through Fred's inventions and techniques, showing in detail his work on such classics as King Kong and his incredible gunner system etc we get a glimpse of his genius and persistence that led to the process that changed the face of cinema as it was, to cinema as we know it.
Thanks to Cinerama, we got widescreen cinema (and TV), with Cinerama spawning CinemaScope, Todd-AO, VistaVistion and all the other big formats - but not only that, Cinerama was the first process to give us true "surround sound" on a grand scale - previously, only Fantasia and the storm sequence in Portrait of Jennie had used "stereophonic" sound. But Cinerama was bigger and better with 7 channels of sound - the forerunner of DTS, which is still the only process to offer this many channels.
It's not just that though - the film shows us the thrills and spills - as well as the tragedies that surrounded making the original three-strip films. It is a tribute to all that worked on this cinema-revolutionizing process.
Lively, witty, full of musical scores that you know (without necessarily knowing which films they come from) it offers a thrilling look back on the world 50 years ago: wooden rollercoaster rides that still make your stomach lurch, aerial fly-overs across 50s America and Europe, flights through the Grand Canyon and other spectacular locations (from which you see how George Lucas used the concepts in the Star Wars series), spectacles presented by natives in countries such as Africa and the South Seas islands - sights now lost forever because the world has moved on.
It's got enough technical history to satisfy those interested in the "mechanics", but it's presented in a way that makes it sexy for everyone.
It's one of those films that should be shown in every multiplex - even if only on a one day special - because thousands would watch it fascinated. You don't need to be a movie buff to have your spirits soar with this film. The fusion between Strohmaier's passion after having seen Cinerama in the 50s-60s (and all the other people involved in the film) and the thrill of the process itself makes this one of the most stimulating, exciting and moving films for a long time.
The biggest tragedy of all is that it has yet to find distribution. As you can read on other posts on here, Warner Bros were supposed to pick it up to run with an anniversary reissue of How The West Was Won - but as with the Warner involvement with Cinerama back in the 50s - it was short lived.
Please visit www.cineramaadventure.com or post your support on here - let's get the world alive to this special process. If you're near Seattle, Hollywood or Bradford in the UK - then go see the original versions on the BIG screen - it makes Imax seem like a postage stamp that outgrew its usefulness!!