THE BACKLOT
By William Kallay
David Strohmaier doesn’t seem like a
raider of lost movie history. He’s a friendly sort who
invites you into his home where you’re greeted by his cat.
Strohmaier even offers you something to drink and fresh-baked
chocolate chip cookies. But some things strike you about
his house. His office is filled with the latest video
editing computers available. There are posters from
classic films on the wall. Yet off to the side are two
film projectors whose lenses peek through projection booth
portals. Walking into his living room, you’d think you
were in a classic movie theatre. Curtains cover up a movie
screen and surround sound speakers, well, surround you as you
sink into a comfortable sofa. The lights of his converted
family room dim, the curtains part and on the screen shines
Strohmaier’s documentary, “Cinerama Adventure.” Not only
has Strohmaier raided his memory to create the ultimate home
theatre environment, but he’s brought back a nostalgic look at
the 1950s wonder, Cinerama.
Had it not been for a few die hard fans, Cinerama would be a
footnote in film history. Within the confines of old movie
palaces during the 1950s, Cinerama immersed audiences into the
middle of a three-paneled screen and seven-channel stereophonic
sound virtual reality ride. The film, “This Is Cinerama,”
begins with a rather monotonous explanation by journalist/world
adventurer Lowell Thomas about the origins of film. This
takes place in the middle of the movie theatre screen in the old
Academy Format, an aspect ratio more akin to old-fashioned TV
screens. Then, the screen widens from one panel to three and
the audience now realizes they’re on a roller coaster ride, all
from the comfort of their theatre chairs.
Cinerama was such a hit, it spurred 20th Century Fox to
introduce CinemaScope, producer Mike Todd to unveil Todd-AO and
exhibition companies to either upgrade their theatres to
widescreen cinema for Cinemascope, or build cinemas specifically
for Cinerama and other film projection processes. The
impact of Cinerama is still with us today. Widescreen
movies, multichannel surround sound and even the term “rama,”
all stemmed from Cinerama.
But Cinerama had run its course by the early 1960s, as more
practical and less expensive widescreen processes were
developed. To many fans of the format, it was still
superior to almost any film presentation ever conceived.
By the 1990s, a few people revived Cinerama for modern
audiences. Projectionist John Harvey built a Cinerama
installation in his house, eventually moving the equipment to
the New Neon Movies [theatre] in Dayton, Ohio. Websites popped
up on the Internet with pictures, theatre programs and reams of
information about a bygone era. Billionaire Paul Allen of
Microsoft fame restored one of the last movie theatres in the
world built for Cinerama in Seattle, Washington.
Here’s where David Strohmaier enters the picture. Sensing
that Cinerama’s legacy was in danger of being lost, he began to
interview a number of people involved with making Cinerama films
and re-constructed history in “Cinerama Adventure.” He’s
included a number of clips from the era and clips from actual
Cinerama films. These are presented in the “Smilebox”
process, which is a curved version of letterboxing common on
DVDs. This is the only way in which to see all three
panels that Cinerama is famous for in a fashion that is
reminiscent of the original curved screen experience. The
end result is an exciting and poignant film. It shows audiences
not just a film format and its impact on the world, but of the
people who sometimes risked their lives to bring these films to
the masses.
Strohmaier’s 2003 film has been shown around the country to
audience and critical acclaim. The only downside to the
film’s popularity at festivals and screenings is that it hasn’t
been picked up by a distributor, yet. Why hasn’t it been
picked up? The story has adventure and intriguing stories
about the folks who put Cinerama on Broadway and beyond.
It’s a documentary which keeps your eyes glued to the screen for
93 minutes. It’s a celebration of the passion for movies.
If Strohmaier has raided Hollywood history, he has certainly
delivered audiences a wealth of jewels.
Strohmaier and I sat down in December of 2003 and discussed
“Cinerama Adventure.”
Beginning With A Passion For Cinerama
William Kallay, From Script To DVD: What was
the goal of making this documentary?
David Strohmaier: I suppose if there was a
cause, it would be the fact that motion picture history has
forgotten about Cinerama. How important was this stuff
when it first hit? It was a matter of luck and timing.
It happened at the right time. A bunch of entrepreneurs
got together and forced it to happen with their own money, their
own spit and bailing wire and created the widescreen revolution.
How about stereophonic sound and surround sound that we still
use today? It hasn’t changed yet. Even if it’s
digital, it still hasn’t changed. It started with
Cinerama. CinemaScope was wonderful and powerful. As
commercial as it was, that wasn’t it. It was Cinerama,
folks. You have the guys who split hairs, “Yes, but
‘Napoleon’...” That was one movie and they dumped it.
Fox Granduer was a bunch of newsreels. And the other one;
the big John Wayne movie.
FSTD: “The Big Trail”?
Strohmaier: “The Big Trail.” Cinerama created
all this other stuff. The timing was right. So it’s about
time that it’s given its due. I think the thing that
really pushed it over the edge for me was I was watching a
LaserDisc of one of Martin Scorsese’s favorite movies. I
forgot the name of the LaserDisc. He’s going through the
whole history of widescreen. And I was watching it and I
could tell he was getting ready to go into the widescreen thing.
Okay, good. We’ll see a clip from “This Is Cinerama,” “The
Robe.” No Cinerama whatsoever. It was all
CinemaScope! And that pissed me off, because here’s a
historian, a very valid, well-respected historian, who perhaps
maybe never saw Cinerama. I got to give him the fact that
could’ve been a possibility. But here he lived in New York
and was a movie nut. He’s a little older than me.
That made realize that this is going to be forgotten, other than
what John Harvey was able to pull off in Ohio. But then you’ve
always got the historians who say, “But that was a fad. I think
it lasted twenty minutes and they abandoned it.” You get
those guys. You know, fourteen years ain’t no fad! I
mean, bell bottoms, how long did they last? Five, six
years maybe? Give it some respect.
FSTD: If you look in some of the history books
on cinema, a lot of times widescreen and Cinerama are written as
footnotes. And a lot of times when they talk about the
history and facts, the facts are wrong.
Strohmaier: Quite often.
FSTD: So it’s only been in recent years that I
think that people like yourself have actually gone into the
history and really tracked it down. I was really surprised at
how popular Cinerama was.
Strohmaier: You could barely get tickets.
You know, in ’64, when I saw ‘How
The West Was Won’ in Denver, Colorado on a family vacation,
we had driven by the theatre. I had seen Cinerama earlier
as a kid in the ’50s. I said, “Dad! That’s ‘How The West Was
Won.’ They’re playing it at that theatre!” And I’m
figuring is it going to end tomorrow night? We called the
theatre and they said, “No, it’s going to be playing here about
another 10 months.” “Can we get tickets?” And they
were able to get us in. I’m thinking back as a fourteen
year-old kid, but there were probably ten empty seats in the
building. And it had already been playing there for over
six or seven months. They played these things for two and
three years.
FSTD: That’s why it’s kind of funny with people
nowadays just going crazy over the “Lord Of The Rings” trilogy.
They wait in line and see it four and five times. But
people have been crazy about certain films for years.
Strohmaier: Yes, and that’s the way movies used
to be distributed. “It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World” played for
twelve months or something like that.
FSTD: A very long time.
Strohmaier: Long time. “This Is
Cinerama,” in its New York run, played for over three-and-half
years.
FSTD: That is amazing.
Strohmaier: People watching the opera scene for
over three-and-a-half years.
FSTD: That is amazing. And in ’73, they
had the 70mm version.
Strohmaier: And that was hugely successful.
I remember the billboard. I moved into town [Los Angeles] right
about then, so I remember all these billboards around town with
the roller coaster on it. I was driving somewhere the
other day and I saw a Launderama.
FSTD: Bowlarama.
Strohmaier: There’s a Bowlarama in Glendale.
I think it’s something that happens once a month. I don’t
think it’s a place called Bowlarama. But I think they put up a
sign, Bowlarama, and once a month on a Saturday, they have a
special tournament or something. I remember reading about
it in L.A. Magazine. These are vestiges of what once was.
How Cinerama Adventure Was Made
FSTD: Tell us how you got “Cinerama Adventure”
made?
Strohmaier: The interesting thing about this
documentary is that the creative thing was all done here
on this computer [pointing to a high-end Apple Computer].
Once you've done that how do you get it onto a 35mm print?
How do you keep a certain amount quality without things falling
apart? That's where Eastman Kodak came in. That's
where Accent Media came in. That’s where Technicolor Labs
came in. Crest National. Riot. There’s a whole
laundry list of these [companies]. Laser Pacific, in particular.
They all came forward. And I stayed out of work for the
last two years to facilitate this.
FSTD: What made you go with the HD version of
“Cinerama Adventure?”
Strohmaier: It was Laser Pacific’s idea.
And the reason they wanted to do it, besides just being good
people, is that the American Society of Cinematographers [ASC]
got behind the project and started twisting people’s arms
around, saying, “We want this project done. It’s about
movies. It should be on film. So what can you do to
help?” Due to their clout, all these things started
happening, including everything you can imagine, like getting
composers and sound design. Richard Anderson, who does all
the big features in town at Weddington Productions, was in
charge of the whole dub; getting the seven channels lined up on
film. That went on for six or eight months, because they
had to do it in between other jobs. Because they
volunteered to do this for free, and because no way is there any
way I could ever pay to have this stuff done, I had to sit there
and go into another crisis and wait for their schedules to
loosen up. But they’re giving you hundreds of thousands of
dollars worth of stuff. You can’t say no.
FSTD: On what format was the film originally
intended?
Strohmaier: It started off to be an NTSC
documentary. The frustrating part is you never knew if
something was going to fall through. For example, one of
the companies promised a film-out from the HD to film. That fell
through three weeks before we had to have the film-out.
And that was the company that if they could have done it, it was
going to be dangerous anyway because they could only do so many
frames-per-second. And then you’re tying up that machine
for three weeks at Cinesite. If some big guy needs a
commercial done right away, you’re bounced.
FSTD: Was your video footage converted to 24p?
Strohmaier: Everything was converted to 24p.
Getting It Right
FSTD: There are a lot of clips and photographs
in your film. Did you run into any problems with rights?
Strohmaier: There were so many horror stories I
could tell you. We ran this [film] in St. Louis, and one guy
said, “You’re going to be really in trouble for using that shot
from ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones,’ because they’re going to
come down on you so hard.” I said, “I’ve already got a contract
that says thank you.” “You do? How did you get that?” A good
friend of George Lucas saw the documentary. I asked a couple
people, “Does anybody know who I should talk to at Lucasfilm?”
Someone gave me the name of George Lucas’ secretary. Then this
other guy came up to me and said, “Oh no, let me make a phone
call.” It was George Lucas’ roommate at college.
FSTD: Is that right?
Strohmaier: And instantly the lawyers called
me, “So you want to use the shot from ‘Star Wars?’” I said,
“Yes. It’s only about five seconds and it ties into widescreen.”
“Okay, that shouldn’t be a problem.” And I hadn’t even talked
to Paramount yet. Then I got a call from Paramount. The guy
from Lucas called the guy at Paramount about “Indiana Jones.”
So all these guys were just super about the whole thing. And
the 20th Century Fox Legal Department sent me a little note or
card saying good luck on your project. And I didn’t have to pay
a dime. I’ve tried to tell several people I think the real
story behind this documentary, besides that “idiot” doing this
with his own money to keep things rolling, was all these people
around town who saw it and said, “Yeah, that’s a valid piece of
motion picture history that’s never been told before. And no one
else is going to be stupid enough to do it, so let him have it.”
Finding A Distributor
FSTD: Do you think one of the reasons some
distributors don’t get “Cinerama Adventure” is because they
think it’s too technical?
Strohmaier: I don’t think we get too technical.
We could’ve gotten a lot more technical, but we didn’t want to
be too technical. I was talking to a guy who liked the
documentary. I was trying to get it into a distributor. They
did look at it and they did think about it, but they didn’t get
it. But they’d come and go to these corporate meetings and
they’d say, “What do we do with this thing called ‘Cinerama
Adventure?’” I’m inventing some scenarios. The answer came back
to me. First of all, I said, “Why don’t you guys have me in for
a meeting? Because I can probably within five minutes give you
an idea that’s going to either make it easier for you to say no,
or it’s going to make you think about what all the possibilities
are. Either way you’re going to gain something.” Nobody would
let me come to this meeting. Their recommendation was, when
they said no, “You know, this should be running down in Florida
at Disney.” They got it mixed up with Circle-Vision!
If a distributor gets involved with me, he hasn’t got a lot of
expenses because there’s a 35mm negative and a Dolby soundtrack
already. You’re not going to have to pay for that. That’s free.
Dolby came in on a weekend to do it.
The Interviews, Lucky Findings and Money
FSTD: In how many states and countries were your
interviews conducted?
Strohmaier: Anchorage, Alaska, Arkansas; Chicago;
Colorado Springs; Ohio; Hanover, New Hampshire; Hilton Head, South
Carolina; Las Vegas, Nevada; Portal, Arizona; Salt Lake City, Utah;
Santa Monica, California; Bradford, England; Cheshire, England; County
Kiltdare, Ireland; Oslo, Norway. There were fifteen different
cameramen; sixteen, including the guy who I used in New York and L.A.
who I took with me. That would be seventeen cameramen.
FSTD: On what format did you shoot the interviews?
Strohmaier: Beta SP. Again, that’s before we knew we
were going to go Hi-Def. Beta SP looks pretty good on 35mm film.
FSTD: Actually, it does.
Strohmaier: It’s amazing what they did to it! They
waved some magic wand over it got rid of the video
look. Research wise, things came from all over the world. I was
cutting that scene about the tents arriving in trucks. All I had was a
couple stills that I was going to have to milk and do motion control on
it, intercut it with these interviews. I got an email from a guy that
said, “I hear you’re doing a documentary on Cinerama. I’ve got a whole
bunch of footage of these trucks arriving that I found at a swap meet in
Paris. It’s got a French soundtrack.” He sent that to me and said, “If
you can use this, by all means.” It made that whole sequence come
together beautifully, because everything this guy was saying was there
on the screen. My wife would complain, “Why is it taking so long to do
this documentary?” In the second year, in between other jobs, I’d go on
hiatus. I’d start working on it again. “Aren’t you done with that
yet?” I said, “These things have to gestate, because things start
coming out of the woodwork towards the end, filling in all the gaps.”
FSTD: How much did the documentary cost?
Strohmaier: Personally, about $140,000. That didn’t
include the Final Cut Pro [editing program], because I’ve used that for
other things, so I never put that in the budget. The office supplies,
believe it or not, that’s one of the big items. Office supplies also
included publicity materials for film festivals, like posters. Most of
those cameramen around the world would shoot it at half-rate. Or Gerald,
my cameraman, would give me a half-day rate for a full day. Or he’d
throw in a free day. He thinks this is some of his best work that he’s
done. He’s worked on a couple of Kevin Brownlow documentaries.
FSTD: What type of industry help did you get?
Strohmaier: It was just unprecedented, almost
flabbergasting. They saw that I was persistent. The miracle of this
movie is that I didn’t have to adapt to anything. I got to do
everything I wanted to do. I could see a certain amount of impatience
from people as we were going into another session. “We’re going to
curve more shots? I thought we curved all the shots.” But no one ever
said no, which is a balancing act to a certain extent. I’d send out
emails to all of those people, including Roger Mayer [President, Turner
Entertainment], “Here’s where we are now.” It makes them feel like
they’re still part of the project.
FSTD: Was it easy for you to get cooperation on
interviews?
Strohmaier: I think there was only one or two that were
a little bit [difficult], because they were in the
movie business at the time. One of them we interviewed, which we never
used in the documentary, was the son of Spyros Skouras, who’s really
responsible for CinemaScope, as opposed to Darryl [Zanuck]. I mean it
was this other guy. He’s the one who got the contracts. He’s the one
who traced Henri [Chrétien] down. I’ve got a whole sequence that goes
into that. Warner Bros. was there a day late and a dollar short. I had
a shot of Jack Warner. All this was in the long version of the
documentary. Plato Skouras told me in his interview about a lot of the
stuff that was going on behind-the-scenes; his dad never got credit for
CinemaScope. He was like Roy Disney versus Walt Disney. Walt was the
guy who would get the credit, even though Roy was the businessman. He
said, “I will do an interview with you, but you need to straighten that
out. You need to give my dad credit as opposed to Darryl.” We go into
Spyros more than we do Darryl. Darryl’s just there making a comment or
two about every production “we do now is going to be in CinemaScope.”
So the newsreel footage has Spryos Skouras in it and Henri Chrétien.
Most everyone cooperated.
Doing The Festival Circuit
FSTD: Can you name off some of the film festivals in
which you’ve shown “Cinerama Adventure?”
Strohmaier: We ran our work-in-progress, the NTSC
version, at the Telluride Film Festival, where we actually entered the
documentary in with Cinerama itself. We projected Cinerama as the
documentary ended. We started right off on the roller coaster in real
Cinerama with all the seven channels of sound. So that was the real
premiere of the documentary. Out of that, we got a big full page review
by Todd McCarthy of Variety. And we didn’t expect that, because we said
it wasn’t finished yet. Usually you don’t get a review unless it’s done
and it’s got a distributor lined up. We thought that was good because
Todd McCarthy mentioned in his review that this could have a theatrical
life. This could go to every major city that had a Cinerama theatre and
people would come. Then there would be a long ancillary life to follow
with DVDs. You would think a distributor would be calling me up saying,
“Hey, I want to see your film!” Nobody. After Telluride, it went to
the Bradford Film Festival in England because they have a Cinerama
theatre there. There was Seattle in June 2003. Then it went to ArcLight
and then it went to Chicago, Denver, Reno, and St. Louis. And now in
January we’ll be in Palm Springs. And then after Palm Springs, possibly
Newport Beach, California and Palm Beach, Florida.
FSTD: And you’re showing the 35mm version?
Strohmaier: We can show 35mm now. And Dolby Surround
SR-D [Dolby Digital]. The whole bit. 1.85:1 [aspect ratio]. In fact
there’s an extra print out in the garage. Technicolor made two prints
of it. The misery was spread around town.
[laughter]
The Smilebox Process
FSTD: You have almost as many effects shots as a small
independent feature.
Strohmaier: It’s got to be a record for a documentary.
The physical shots that ended up in the film were about 124 CGI shots
[done on the Flame]. But behind some of those CGI shots were other
layers that had to be done at separate facilities in order for that to
happen.
FSTD: Is this where the “Smilebox” process comes in?
Strohmaier: It’s a 3-D Flame that they created at Laser
Pacific. They take the image and they bend the edges.
FSTD: Why did you decide to use the Smilebox process
rather than just a flat letterbox?
Strohmaier: It’s mainly because with letterbox the
first thing that comes out of people’s mouths is, “What’s so special
about that?” Everybody has seen letterbox. In fact, they’ll think
there are two scratches in it because of the panels. So we knew we had
to do something with it. I originally thought we were going to be
burning it onto a curved screen and having little “audiences” below it
so everybody would get the idea that there isn’t something wrong with
their TV. set when they watch the documentary. That’s the first thing
an executive is going to say. If you put this documentary on PBS, for
example, they’re going to bounce the Smilebox, because they’re not going
to understand it and they’re not willing to take time to listen to
anybody. And I think we set it up pretty well, because we do show an
audience on a couple of shots so you know what’s going on. If you come
in the middle of the movie, you might wonder. But we go back to the
thing several times. If you miss part of the documentary, you won’t
think there’s something wrong with your TV set and, yet, it still gives
you a little bit of the Cinerama feel.
Cinerama’s Impact On Strohmaier
FSTD: On a personal level, why was Cinerama so special
to you?
Strohmaier: I was probably six years-old when I saw
Cinerama. That was such a memorable
experience that it kind of stuck with me all these years. I think a lot
people have that [with other films]. Some people have that with
“Lawrence Of Arabia.” You name the title. Everybody has something.
That’s why I opened the documentary with something kind of corny about
me going to a movie and my parents taking me. There are a couple of
critics who criticized that, but that’s every man’s story. It’s an
every man story to suck you into the documentary to make it more
personal for you.
FSTD: Absolutely.
Strohmaier: In Chicago, the critics didn’t like that.
They commented, “Hokey opening, but great movie!”
FSTD: I think it gets you right into the film. You
emphasized that with Cinerama, you’re going to see a special event.
You’re seeing a special movie. You’re not going to get that almost
anywhere else. But do you feel that Cinerama was the best process that
the industry ever used?
Strohmaier: No. Personally, I would have to say
VistaVision. It was so adaptable to other things. And I do like 70mm.
70mm or VistaVision. Cinerama was meant for special venues like IMAX.
The closest thing they were trying to do with the dramatic Cinerama
films [“The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm” (1962) and “How The
West Was Won” (1962)] was just to get more theatres built. Lowell Thomas
was still trying to get Cinerama going on volcanoes, because everybody
loved that flying into the volcano sequence in “Seven Wonders Of The
World” [1956]. They were going to do one on nuclear power. They
actually started shooting that. So they had a bunch of ideas that they
were going to do. I suppose if Cinerama had kept going, they would’ve
improved it more. The join lines would’ve been almost totally gone.
They did find a way to totally blend them perfectly. Shooting it on
one piece of negative and splitting it three ways so you didn’t have to
change all the theatres. 16-perf 35mm. They had this giant lens, which
was like a Todd-AO lens, but bigger. It was filled with some kind of
clear oil. They did some tests with it and it worked. That was about
the same time they were going broke. Cinerama was also diversifying at
the same time in the ’60s. They were the first to develop the home
video camera. It was a black-and-white video camera called Tel-Cam.
And also they provided a lot of high speed cameras for NASA. They also
developed a panorama camera based on Fred Waller’s original patents.
And so they were diversifying into these other areas and normally for a
corporation, that’s good to do. In this case, it wasn’t. And so they
were starting to lose money and that’s how it all started coming to an
end.
Special thanks to David Strohmaier
Photos provided by David Strohmaier
Originally posted here on June 30, 2004