Superscope was conceived and developed by Irving and Joseph Tushinsky.
Their process was created in the laboratory rather than the camera. It was their contention
that Superscope anamorphic prints could be generated from straight 35mm negatives, or from
double frame (VistaVision) or other wide area negatives. As far as is known, no producers of
large format pictures took the brothers up on their offer but their concept was valid and
variations of it would appear as special venue prints made by Technicolor for Paramount's
VistaVision process and 35mm reduction prints from 65mm materials.
Photography in the Superscope process was generally no different than
normal non-widescreen films. The only difference was that the entire silent 35mm aperture was
utilized. Normal spherical lenses, much faster and lighter than the CinemaScope optics, were
used. Since the process involved cropping of the camera negative to create the final print,
shorter lenses with their inherently greater depth of field simplified production and didn't
require the high light levels generally used for quality CinemaScope work.
The illustration is from the opening scene of RKO's first Superscope production,
Underwater!, (1955).
The real work then began in the Technicolor labs. Technicolor produced
silver separation matrices extracted from the camera negative using a 2:1 aspect ratio. RKO
claimed to have canvassed theatres around the country studying the architectural environment
and determined that the 2:1 ratio, quite a bit narrower than CinemaScope's 2.55:1, was the best
option. In fact, the best option was to stay at 1.37:1 but RKO and the Superscope folks were
telling the story, not yours truly.
Seen here is the composition area used for the extraction. In making printing
matrices, Technicolor utilized the Tushinsky's Superscope printer lenses to impart a 2:1
anamorphic squeeze to the image. The squeeze was identical to CinemaScope's so that any theatre
equipped for that process could show Superscope with a minimum of fuss.
Well, a minimum
of fuss was the idea anyhow. No expensive stereophonic sound, no special camera lenses,
standard cameras, it was just chock full of good economical ideas. And a few minor bonehead
mistakes.
2x squeeze anamorphic print with standard optical sound. Since the screen ratio was 2:1 the
image on the print was .715" x .715". The direct extraction from the centered silent aperture
frame placed the Superscope frame in the center of the 35mm print. A black band was printed
onto the right side of the image since the full available width, used by CinemaScope, was not
utilized.
The big goof turned out to be the 2:1 image printed in the center of the film. Since
the advent of sound on film, the image was offset by the area taken up by the soundtrack. Every
theatre in the world had its projectors aligned for that offset. Even CinemaScope maintained
the same centerline as the standard academy frame. But exhibitors had two choices with RKO
Superscope, either show the picture off center on their screen or readjust their projectors, a
difficult choice since trailers, newsreels, and all other films on the program adhered to the
conventional image centerline.
Film as projected through a Superscope, CinemaScope, Panavision, or other standard
2:1 anamorphic projection optic.
Click the Superscope Logo to see R.K.O.'s demonstration card illustrating how the process works
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©1996 - 2004 The American WideScreen Museum
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com
Martin Hart, Curator
