CINEMA SCOPE

CinemaScope is an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, Spyros P. Skouras, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.

The Robe was the first film to start production in CinemaScope, a project that was selected by Fox because of its epic nature. During production, two other films, How to Marry a Millionaire and Beneath the 12-Mile Reef went into production.

The anamorphic lenses theoretically allowed the process to create an image of up to a 2.66:1 aspect ratio, almost twice as wide as the previously common Academy format's 1.37:1 ratio. Although the CinemaScope lens system was made obsolete by new technological developments, primarily advanced by Panavision, the CinemaScope anamorphic format has continued to this day. In film-industry jargon, the shortened form, 'Scope, is still widely used by both filmmakers and projectionists, although today it generally refers to any 2.35:1, 2.39:1, or 2.40:1 presentation or, sometimes, the use of anamorphic lensing or projection in particular. Bausch & Lomb won a 1954 Oscar for its development of the CinemaScope lens.

A French inventor named Professor Henri Chrétien developed and patented a new film process that he called Anamorphoscope in 1926. It was this process that would later form the basis for CinemaScope. Chrétien's process was based on lenses that employed an optical trick which produced an image twice as wide as that produced with conventional lenses, using an optical system called Hypergonar, compressing (at shoot time) and dilating (at projection time) the image laterally. He attempted to interest the motion picture industry in his invention, but at the time the industry showed no interest. But by 1950 cinema audiences were declining due largely to competition from the new rival – television. However Cinerama and the early 3D films, launched in 1952, were defying this trend and seeing success at the box-office. This persuaded Spyros Skouras, the head of Twentieth Century-Fox , that technical innovation could help to meet the challenge. Skouras tasked Earl Sponable, head of Fox's research department, with coming up with a new, impressive, projection system, but something that, unlike Cinerama, could be retrofitted to existing theatres at a relatively modest cost - and then Herbert Brag, Sponable's assistant, remembered Chrétien's "hypergonar" lens

The optical company Bausch & Lomb were asked to produce a prototype "anamorphoser" (later shortened to "anamorphic") lens, meanwhile Sponable tracked down Professor Chrétien. By this time Chrétien's patent had expired, however Fox purchased his existing Hypergonars from him and these lenses were flown back to Fox's studios in Hollywood. Test footage shot with these lenses was screened for Skouras who gave the go ahead for the development of a wide-screen process based on Chrétien's invention, which was to be known as "CinemaScope".

Twentieth Century-Fox's pre-production of The Robe, originally committed to Technicolor Three-Strip origination, was halted so that the film could be changed to a CinemaScope production (using Eastmancolor, but processed by Technicolor). Two other CinemaScope productions were also planned: How to Marry a Millionaire and Beneath the Twelve-Mile Reef. So that production of these first CinemaScope films could proceed without delay shooting started using the best three of Chrétien's Hypergonars while Bausch & Lomb were still working on their own versions. With the introduction of CinemaScope, Fox and other companies would be able to re-assert its distinction from its new competitor – television.

As Chrétien's Hypergonars proved to have significant optical and operational defects (primarily loss-of-squeeze at close camera-to-subject distances, plus the requirement of two camera assistants), Bausch & Lomb, Fox's prime contractor for the production of these lenses, initially produced an improved "Chrétien-formula" adapter lens design (CinemaScope Adapter Type I), and subsequently produced a dramatically improved and patented "Bausch & Lomb formula" adapter lens design (CinemaScope Adapter Type II), and, finally, produced "Bausch & Lomb formula" "combined" lens designs, which incorporated both the "prime" lens and the anamorphic lens in one unit (initially in 35, 40, 50, 75, 100 and 152mm focal lengths, and later including a 25mm focal length). These "combined" lenses continue to be used to this day, especially in special effects units, although other manufacturers' lenses are often preferred for so-called "production" applications on account of their significantly lighter weight, or lower distortion, or a combination of both characteristics.

He is credited with producing many technological firsts in Telugu film Industry like the first Eastman color film Eenadu (1982), the first Cinemascope film (Alluri Seetharama Raju), first 70mm film (Simhasanam), first DTS film (Telugu Veera Levara) (1988) and introducing cowboy and James Bond styles to the Telugu .