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- Creator
- Cinerama Corporation
- Call number
- MFL+++2831-37;+2838
- Physical description
- 8 boxes
- Preferred Citation
- Cinerama Corporation collection, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library
- Repository
- Billy Rose Theatre Division
- Access to materials
- Some collections held by the Dance, Music, Recorded Sound, and Theatre Divisions at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts are held off-site and must be requested in advance. Please check the collection records in the NYPL's online catalog for detailed location information. For general guidance about requesting offsite materials, please consult: https://www.nypl.org/about/locations/lpa/requesting-archival-materials
The Cinerama Corporation Collection includes scrapbooks, clippings, annual reports and programs concerning the activities and status of the Cinerama Corporation for the years 1950 through 1986.
Biographical/historical information
Cinerama, a wide-screen, cinematic process, was developed by Fred Waller of Paramount Pictures in 1932 and promoted by Hazard E. Reeves. Cinerama was first featured at the 1939 New York World's Fair as "Vitarama". In 1952, the process "Cinerama" was presented by the Cinerama (Corporation) at the Broadway Theatre in New York in a show entitled "This is Cinerama".
The original Cinerama process used three 35mm cameras to record three aspects of a single image simultaneously. When viewing the process, a special, huge, curved screen, angled about 165 degrees was used. Three projectors were used with images viewed at 26 frames per second. In the 1952 "This is Cinerama" production, the curved screen measured 75 feet across and 55 feet high. Because the films from the three projectors did not always match, a second Cinerama process was conceived. The Cinerama (Corporation) switched to a single lens system, using a 70mm process with a curved screen.
Administrative information
Source of acquisition
Gift, Estate of Hazard E. Reeves, 12/--/87Key terms
Names
Subjects
Material types
Using the collection
Location
Billy Rose Theatre DivisionNew York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor