Cinematographic Formats (III): Academy, VistaVision and 70mm

English version of Formatos Cinematográficos (III).

This article continues the historical survey begun in Cinematographic Formats (I) and expanded in Cinematographic Formats (II).

After Cinerama and CinemaScope, the search for theatrical spectacle moved in two directions at once. Some systems tried to make standard 35mm more panoramic and efficient. Others pursued a larger negative, finer grain, greater sharpness and more powerful sound through VistaVision, Todd-AO and 65/70mm formats.

Academy Standard Flat: 1.66:1 / 1.85:1

As a consequence of CinemaScope’s arrival, first in the United States and later in Europe, the Academy Standard Flat format was modified to make it widescreen as well. The original Academy ratio was 1.37:1, recorded on 35mm film with four perforations per frame.

Directors and cinematographers began to avoid using the upper and lower areas of the frame. They now composed for a new theatrical ratio, usually 1.85:1, created by not projecting those top and bottom portions. Since no important visual information was placed there, a significant part of the film frame was effectively wasted. The loss was not insignificant: around 25 percent of the negative/positive area, leaving a projected image closer to three perforations in height and reducing potential image quality.

A traditional 35mm negative, with the sound track on the right and the image area used for theatrical widescreen composition marked in red.

In Europe, a more modest widescreen ratio, 1.66:1, was used for many years. It was often achieved with a hard matte in camera, masking the upper and lower areas during photography itself. This prevented the unused part of the negative from recording image information that might later be projected by mistake.

The downside became evident when these films were prepared for 1.33:1 television broadcasts through pan-and-scan transfers. Since the hard-matted frame had no additional image at the top and bottom, the only way to adapt the image to the more square television frame was to crop it laterally.

Two versions of Touch of Evil (1958): on the left, the full negative image; on the right, the portion projected theatrically.

In the United States, the more common practice was to compose for 1.85:1 while protecting for television. This was the soft-matte approach. Cinematographers avoided placing microphones, lights, dolly tracks or other unwanted elements in the upper and lower parts of the negative, so that those areas could later be used for television versions. Although they did not contain essential composition, they allowed 1.33:1 transfers without necessarily cropping the sides of the image through pan-and-scan.

The new Academy-derived Flat formats could also accommodate four-track magnetic sound, but this was rarely used. In most cases, productions continued to rely on monophonic optical sound, which was far cheaper to produce and reproduce in theaters. As a result, most films not photographed or exhibited in one of the major special formats remained monophonic until the arrival of Dolby Stereo in the second half of the 1970s.

A Bausch & Lomb Super Baltar lens set, modernized and converted to PL mount.

During the 1950s, films photographed in Flat formats still tended to use the same Baltar and Cooke Speed Panchro lenses that had appeared decades earlier. Around 1967, Bausch & Lomb introduced the Super Baltar series, an improved development of the original Baltar designs. These lenses were designed for the Mitchell BNC reflex viewing system, which gave rise to the BNCR mount, similar in some respects to the later PL standard.

The Super Baltars were later echoed by the Japanese Kowa Cine Prominar lenses. Panavision also introduced its own spherical lens series in the 1960s, probably based on Cooke-derived designs or adaptations. But the 1960s were also the decade of the zoom-lens boom. Lenses such as the Angenieux 25-250 mm T3.9, made fashionable by the spaghetti western, or the 35-140 mm T4.4, used in France with front anamorphic adapters by the Nouvelle Vague, became part of the visual language of the period.

VistaVision

In 1954, Paramount launched its own format to compete with CinemaScope. The goal was to rival CinemaScope in image quality while also giving filmmakers more flexibility in aspect ratio.

VistaVision, as the system was called, was very similar to full-frame still photography. The 35mm negative ran horizontally instead of vertically, with the perforations at the top and bottom of the frame rather than on the sides.

VistaVision therefore used the same 35mm film stock as Academy Standard Flat and anamorphic systems such as CinemaScope. But by using eight perforations per frame instead of four, it doubled the negative area available for the image. The result was greater detail, finer grain and a cleaner image when reduced to standard 35mm release prints.

Because of this larger negative area, VistaVision required longer focal lengths to achieve the same angle of view as conventional 4-perf 35mm. Roughly speaking, a 50 mm lens in VistaVision produced a field of view similar to a 35 mm lens in Academy Standard Flat. At equivalent light levels, this meant shallower depth of field. Many still photographers and DSLR users will recognize the same relationship between full-frame 35mm and APS-C sensors.

A VistaVision print from To Catch a Thief (1955), showing different framing options within the 8-perf 35mm image.

The negative aspect ratio was 1.50:1, although VistaVision films were designed to be projected at ratios ranging from 1.66:1 to 1.96:1. A few projectors were modified to run horizontal VistaVision prints by contact, preserving the format’s full image quality. In practice, however, most VistaVision productions were released as optical reductions to conventional vertical 4-perf 35mm. Even then, the quality remained very high because the reduction came from a much larger original negative.

As a consequence, VistaVision gradually lost part of the aspect-ratio flexibility for which it had been designed. Most VistaVision films ended up being composed and exhibited in the increasingly common 1.85:1 format. The lenses generally used with VistaVision were a variant of the Cooke Speed Panchros: the Cooke Double Speed Panchro, also known as Duopanchro, which covered the larger 8-perf 35mm image area.

The VistaVision logo, promoting the high quality of the format.

Sound in VistaVision films was monophonic, although Paramount also introduced a pseudo-stereo system called Perspecta Stereo. It worked across three channels: left, center and right. Unlike true stereo, where different sounds can be reproduced independently through different channels, Perspecta routed the entire soundtrack — music, dialogue and effects — toward the channel required by the action at a given moment. Its use was therefore limited to a few scenes in each film.

The first film photographed in VistaVision was White Christmas (1954). Alfred Hitchcock became one of the format’s strongest supporters, using it on To Catch a Thief, Vertigo and North by Northwest. The last classical-era VistaVision production was Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks (1961). By then, improvements in negative emulsions had made such a large 35mm image area less necessary. In 1959, Kodak introduced the 50 ASA 5250 color negative, replacing the earlier 25 ASA 5248. That same year also saw the arrival of the famous black-and-white Double-X 5222 stock, rated at 200 ASA.

North by Northwest (1959).

Years later, the visual-effects supervisor John Dykstra, ASC, revived VistaVision around 1975. Working at the newly founded Industrial Light & Magic on Star Wars (1977), Dykstra understood one of the recurring problems of photochemical effects work: image degradation caused by repeated duplication of the negative.

In a simple blue-screen effect, for example, the foreground subject and the background might be photographed separately on two original negatives and later combined into a single duplicate negative. With every generation of duplication, image quality was lost and grain increased. ILM’s solution was to photograph shots requiring optical visual-effects insertion in VistaVision. Because the format used twice the negative area of standard 35mm, it could better withstand the multiple duplication steps and still intercut more convincingly with the 35mm anamorphic material printed by contact.

For many years, ILM and other effects houses used this principle to improve the image quality and invisibility of photochemical visual effects. During this period, very fast lenses originally created by Kenji Suematsu for Mitchell BNCR cameras were also used for VistaVision photography, in their different variants: Mitchell Hi Speed or Super Speed Baltar, FB CECO and Mobil Optics.

Todd-AO

Returning to the 1950s, the studios were still looking for a format that could approach the impact and quality of Cinerama at a much lower cost. Michael Todd, a former partner in the Cinerama company, took the next step.

Todd and American Optical developed a system called Todd-AO. It used a 65mm negative — for the first time since the large-format experiments of the 1930s — with five perforations per frame and a running speed of 30 frames per second. The image had exceptional definition and clarity. The negative area was roughly two and a half times larger than conventional 35mm, producing a spherical 2.21:1 image without the need for anamorphic lenses or squeeze on the negative.

As with Cinerama, the image was originally projected onto a curved screen, this time with a 128-degree curve.

Representation of a Todd-AO 5-perf 70mm exhibition print in spherical format.

The sound was equally spectacular. Since exhibition prints were made by contact printing onto 70mm film, the additional 5 mm outside the 65mm image area allowed for six magnetic soundtracks. Five channels were placed behind the screen, as in Cinerama — left, left-center, center, right-center and right — with a single surround channel around the auditorium.

The large number of screen channels allowed very precise sound localization. In many Todd-AO productions, dialogue was mixed directionally. If an actor was positioned on the right side of the frame, the voice could come from the right screen channel, and so on.

As with Cinerama, however, problems appeared quickly. The first Todd-AO production, Oklahoma! (1955), had to be photographed in two versions: one in CinemaScope and another in Todd-AO. The reason was the 30 frames-per-second speed, which made the format incompatible with standard 35mm reductions for theaters without 70mm projection.

The next production, Around the World in 80 Days (1956), was also photographed in two versions. One was shot at 30 frames per second. The other, instead of being photographed in CinemaScope, was shot in Todd-AO at 24 frames per second, making optical reductions to 35mm 4-perf compatible with CinemaScope projectors.

Todd-AO promotional material, showing the 128-degree curved screen, a single projector and the position of the six sound channels in the auditorium.

These issues, together with the difficulty of installing curved screens in theaters — screens that were not compatible with existing formats — forced a change in the specifications for the third Todd-AO production, South Pacific (1958). The film was photographed directly in a single 24 frames-per-second version and projected on a flat screen. This became the standard for later productions in the format.

Todd-AO also followed a curious policy in how it informed audiences. Only 70mm prints carried the credit “Produced in Todd-AO.” The 35mm reduction prints carried no format credit, perhaps to avoid disappointing spectators who were not seeing the full Todd-AO experience.

Picture by Hauerslev / in70mm.com.

The early problems did not prevent Todd-AO from becoming highly successful. It was less spectacular than Cinerama, but it was much cheaper. More importantly, it was still clearly superior to CinemaScope and VistaVision in image and sound.

Twentieth Century Fox, the same studio that had launched CinemaScope, adopted Todd-AO for its major productions throughout the 1960s. Titles included Cleopatra, The Sound of Music and The Agony and the Ecstasy. The last classical Todd-AO production was Airport in 1970, although the documentary Baraka revived the system in 1992.

The Sound of Music (1965).

The system had two variants, both developed by engineer Richard Vetter. The first was Dimension 150. It was essentially similar to Todd-AO, but used a lens system that allowed an even wider angle of view. It was used on two productions, The Bible: In the Beginning… (1966) and Patton (1970), although only the latter made full use of the wide-angle lens range.

The Dimension 150 projection system compared with other formats.

The second variant, Todd-AO 35, used only the Todd-AO name. As a format, it was much closer to CinemaScope. It appeared in 1971 with Roman Polanski’s Macbeth and lasted around fifteen years, appearing in films such as Logan’s Run, Hurricane, Flash Gordon, Conan the Barbarian and Dune, many of them productions by Dino De Laurentiis.

Even within Todd-AO 35 there were two lens series. In the late 1970s, a new series appeared based on the very fast Canon K35 spherical lenses. In addition to the original optics, the format gained 24, 35, 55 and 85 mm focal lengths with apertures around T1.5, as well as Angenieux zooms — 20-120 mm and 25-250 mm — converted to anamorphic use.

MGM Camera 65 / Ultra Panavision 70

After the forceful launch of Todd-AO, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, then in preproduction on its ambitious remake of the silent classic Ben-Hur, also felt the need to develop a proprietary system for its prestige productions. MGM contacted Panavision to create a new format together with the studio camera department.

The format credit in Ben-Hur (1959).

The result was called MGM Camera 65 and later Ultra Panavision 70. Todd-AO had demonstrated the value of 65mm photography, but MGM and Panavision added anamorphic lenses to the larger negative.

The anamorphic squeeze was moderate: 1.25x, or 25 percent. Applied to a 65mm negative, it produced the widest aspect ratio ever seen in commercial theatrical presentation: 2.76:1. The format also used five perforations per frame. Learning from the Todd-AO experience, MGM Camera 65 retained 24 frames per second, along with six magnetic soundtracks arranged in the same way as Todd-AO.

The system was developed so quickly that it was not first used on Ben-Hur, but on Raintree County in 1957. That film, however, was not released in 70mm. According to MGM, all available 70mm projectors were occupied by Michael Todd’s hit Around the World in 80 Days.

The format’s real screen debut therefore came with Ben-Hur in 1959. Both the film and the format were enormously successful.

Marlon Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty (1962).

Unfortunately, the third film photographed in the system, Lewis Milestone’s remake of Mutiny on the Bounty — with Carol Reed also involved — became a major financial disaster for MGM. The studio was forced to dismantle its camera department, the very department that had helped launch the format.

A total of eleven films used the system. The first two credited it as MGM Camera 65; the rest, after the format was separated from MGM, used the name Ultra Panavision 70. Khartoum (1966) was the last classical-era production in the format, until Quentin Tarantino and cinematographer Robert Richardson revived it in 2015 for The Hateful Eight. That film brought back the classical 70mm flavor with the widest aspect ratio ever used by the format.

Cinematographer Greig Fraser later used these lenses on Rogue One (2016), this time not on 65mm film but on the ARRI Alexa 65, whose sensor dimensions are comparable to the 65mm image area.

A frame from Ben-Hur showing multiple possible aspect-ratio extractions.

Except for William Wyler’s film — and Wyler reportedly disliked using the format on Ben-Hur — none of the classical Ultra Panavision 70 productions became major successes. The format itself was not to blame. It offered visual and sonic quality at least equal to Todd-AO. The problem was that its extremely wide aspect ratio was rarely exploited to its full potential, with the famous chariot race in Ben-Hur perhaps the clearest exception.

In many cases, Ultra Panavision 70 films were not projected in 70mm anamorphic at the full 2.76:1 ratio. Instead, 2.21:1 70mm spherical prints became common, with six-track magnetic sound. Other versions were reduced to 35mm anamorphic at ratios around 2.35:1 to 2.55:1, with either four-track magnetic stereo or monophonic sound.

Apart from later pan-and-scan television versions, this situation had been anticipated by the filmmakers. When using Ultra Panavision 70, they generally avoided placing essential information at the extreme edges of the frame.

Robert Richardson, ASC, during the shooting of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, which brought Ultra Panavision 70 back to life.

Super Panavision 70

During the research carried out for MGM’s 65mm format, Panavision had also studied the possibility of using the same 65mm negative without anamorphic lenses. In 1959, this led to a new format: Super Panavision 70.

Ultra Panavision had been created to improve on Todd-AO and, as far as possible, to emulate the scale of Cinerama. Super Panavision had a simpler objective: to compete directly with Todd-AO. In conceptual terms, it was essentially a clone.

It used the same basic elements: 65mm negative, five perforations per frame, 24 frames per second and 70mm exhibition prints with six magnetic soundtracks, again with five screen channels and a single monophonic surround channel.

Exodus (1960).

Super Panavision became a system identical to Todd-AO in visual and sonic quality, and it could be projected in theaters already equipped for Todd-AO or Ultra Panavision. The key difference was that the cameras and lenses used for production came from Panavision itself.

As usual, Panavision distinguished itself through the quality of its lenses. Many were medium-format still-photography lenses adapted for motion-picture use, because the enormous 65mm negative could only be covered by lenses designed either from scratch for the format or originally intended for large still-photography formats.

Like Todd-AO, Super Panavision was successful from the beginning. The Big Fisherman inaugurated the format in 1959, but it was the success of Exodus in 1960 that truly established it.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

Legendary and beautifully photographed productions such as West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia and 2001: A Space Odyssey used the format. Its continuous use ended in 1970, the same year as Todd-AO, with Ryan’s Daughter.

The format would not return until 1982 with Disney’s Tron, followed in 1983 by some sections of Brainstorm. In 1992, after Steven Spielberg and Allen Daviau had decided against using the format for Empire of the Sun — partly because the cameras were not quiet enough for direct sound — Panavision launched a new 65mm camera, the System 65. ARRI had introduced its own rival, the ARRIFLEX 765, in 1989. The format was then relaunched with Far and Away under the new name Panavision Super 70.

Kubrick, around 1965, with one of the early 65mm Panavision cameras, once again based on the Mitchell BNC design.

For many years, Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (1996) was the last production photographed entirely in 65mm, until Ron Fricke’s Samsara (2012), the continuation of Baraka. In the meantime, Paul Thomas Anderson used the format almost throughout The Master (2012), although cropped to 1.85:1. Other films, including The New World, Inception, To the Wonder, Jurassic World, Gravity and The International, have used 65mm for portions of their photography, or at least followed the same 5-perf 65mm concept, using either Panavision System 65 or ARRI 765 cameras.

Shooting The Master (2012) with the enormous Panavision System 65 camera.

Just as Industrial Light & Magic kept VistaVision alive after its disappearance as a production format, 5-perf 65mm remained active from the second half of the 1970s thanks to visual effects. Douglas Trumbull, and later Richard Edlund after acquiring Trumbull’s company and founding Boss Film, adopted the same idea: using a large format to prevent effects shots from losing too much quality through repeated optical compositing.

Todd-AO and Super Panavision cameras were therefore revived for effects work on films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner, Die Hard and Ghostbusters.

In this way, the world of visual effects became the niche in which these large formats — VistaVision and 5-perf 65mm — survived for many years, often combined with spherical or anamorphic 35mm photography.

Continued in Part Four

The survey continues in Cinematographic Formats (IV): Technirama, Techniscope and IMAX.

For a broader view of the series and related reading, see also:

• Cinematographic Formats (I): 35mm, Silent Cinema, Sound and Technicolor
• Cinematographic Formats (II): Cinerama, CinemaScope and Panavision
• Cinematographic Formats (IV): Technirama, Techniscope and IMAX
• A Guide to Cinema Lenses (III)
• The Anamorphic Format in Cinema: A Complete Guide

ON FILM & DIGITAL
© Ignacio Aguilar, 2015. Revised in 2026.

More English-language cinematography essays, reviews and technical articles are available in the ON FILM & DIGITAL English index.

The Author

Ignacio Aguilar is available for cinematography work, creative collaborations, lectures, workshops and international projects. He is a Sony Independent Certified Expert (ICE) and Cooke Optics Spanish Ambassador for Cooke SP3 lenses. Contact here.

Sources:
Widescreen Museum
in70mm.com, Thomas Hauerslev
American Cinematographer Manual, 10th Edition
Motion Picture Lens Database, Richard Bradbury
Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis, Barry Salt
Panavision

2026 update note: this version has been revised to improve heading structure, readability, internal links and image ALT text, while preserving the article’s original content and approach.