Week 16- TODD-AO

Going Bigger

Other widescreen formats popped in the 50s: Superscope, Technirama, Cinemiracle, Vistarama  just to name a few… But there is only so much you can do with 35mm film. Film engineers had to go bigger.

Mike Todd

Todd AO – developed by a former Cinerama associate and Broadway Producer Mike Todd along with American Optical company was a 70mm film format that sought to do what Cinerama did but with only one camera and one projector.

Using an aspect ratio of about 2.20, Todd AO was first used on the film version of Roger and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma in 1955 (which was shot concurrently in Cinemascope) followed up by Around the World in 80 days – both major hits. Todd AO would dip back into the Roger and Hammerstein repertoire with South Pacific and Sound of Music.
And with the addition of D-150 lenses, shaped the look of Patton in 1970.
In 1954, in the midst of this rush to widescreen, a small company named Panavision started manufacturing anamorphic lenses for cameras and for projectionists to fill the shortage of lenses. Originally only working with Cinemascope, they soon became an industry leader solving many of the technical problems that plagued early Cinemascope. And by the late 50s, Panavision began to replace cinemascope itself. Using their success, they started developing and acquiring new camera systems and formats. This including the MGM 65 which used 70mm film to capture the Ben Hur chariot race scene in an super wide aspect ratio of 2.76.