Exclusive/Hammer Goes Widescreen in Hammer Horror Forum

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Exclusive/Hammer Goes Widescreen

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Bob Furmanek	Exclusive/Hammer Goes Widescreen	Lead	[-]
Jul 21 12 2:37 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm currently documenting precisely when Exclusive Films began composing for widescreen. Based on the original material that I've located so far, the switch to widescreen cinematography took place in possibly June but certainly by August 1953. The initial public presentation of widescreen in the UK took place at the Odeon, Leicester Square on May 14, 1953. My findings as well as documentation from primary source materials will be published very soon. For more information on this period of transition, please visit: https://sites.google.com/...d-myths/early-widescreen Bob Furmanek 3-D Film Archive www.3dfilmarchive.com Last Edited By: Bob Furmanek Oct 4 12 4:16 PM. Edited 2 times.
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Bob Furmanek		#1	[-]
Oct 4 12 4:15 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	UPDATE: I've mentioned two dates, please allow me to clarify one important point with respect to Exclusive/Hammer switching to widescreen cinematography. Robert Lippert was financing these productions and he switched to widescreen cinematography on May 13, 1953 with THE SINS OF JEZEBEL. In late June 1953, Exclusive commenced production on THE BLACK GLOVE. This may be composed for widescreen but is not yet confirmed. HEAT WAVE, which rolled on August 4, is confirmed 1.65:1. From that point forward, all Exclusive/Hammer productions were composed for 1.65:1 widescreen until late 1954/early 1955. Exclusive's first color film is MEN OF SHERWOOD FOREST, photographed for 1.65:1 widescreen and Eastman color. Filming begins in May, 1954. In 1956, they produced the following: January 23 - X THE UNKNOWN May 28 - QUATERMASS II late August - THE STEEL BAYONET When shooting commenced on CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN on November 19, 1.75:1 would have been the intended ratio. See this thread for more info: http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/sreply/875439/CURSE-OF-FRANKENSTEIN-bd-UK-on-October-15th- Last Edited By: Bob Furmanek Nov 15 12 2:24 PM. Edited 1 times.
Tumak		#2	[-]
Oct 5 12 3:36 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts
Bob Furmanek		#3	[-]
Oct 15 12 9:11 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	New documents have come to light which confirm that Exclusive was composing for 1.65:1 with a common top: http://www.hometheaterfor...search/1140#post_3989270
arriman		#4	[-]
Oct 18 12 5:36 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Hi, There was never a 1.65:1 aspect ratio. They meant 1.66. Miles
kmntopanga		#5	[-]
Oct 19 12 12:26 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Interesting discussion. I just visited the hammerfilms.com website. Clicking on "Blog" at the top of the page takes one to a pretty extensive piece on Hammer's aspect ratios.
rjesimpson		#6	[-]
Oct 31 12 11:19 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I don't wish to turn this thread into the same vitriolic mess that has blighted both the Zeta Minor and Home Theater Forum strands, and I don't have active memberships in either. But I do have one here, so I'd like to make a couple of brief comments as myself in independent researcher mode. Some of the material presented is fascinating, but when it comes to Hammer/Exclusive (bear in mind the thread is about aspect ratio research generally, not just the whole Curse of Frankenstein debate) it is misleading. Contrary to the image some posters have chosen to present, Hammer do actually pay attention to these things and have been conducting research of their own. A huge amount of the opinions voiced are just that - opinions. Subjective, and in some instances ill-informed. I've addressed some of the processes and presented additional findings here: http://www.hammerfilms.co...ing-hammer-aspect-ratios There's a lot more material to be drawn upon, and I'm sure as we go through additional documentation and individual films we'll turn up more of relevance/interest. I also do find Bob F's post here: http://www.hometheaterfor...search/1560#post_3994408 a little disingenuous. Bob, you're an historian, so please do cite your sources, at least as a courtesy to other researchers. You've lifted a document (two trade adverts) I presented without a link to the original article, and with the following line "Additional documentation has been discovered which indicates this [Face the Music] was indeed a widescreen production. In checking with my source for the viewing material which led me to mistakenly confirm 1.37:1, it appears the image harvest was manipulated in telecine". You've done some very good work and started off an interesting discussion (sadly sidelined by TCoF), but you simply aren't the only one interested or actively researching this with regards to Hammer/Exclusive. As I suggest in my own article (which references your thread) "History is always written with an agenda in mind, and source material tends to be chosen in order to further one argument or another" - by not including the link to an article on the Hammer films page which contains research that you are happy to utilise (but not cite properly - presumably as I take umbrage with some of your other statements) the suggestion that Hammer don't care about the presentation of the films in their catalogue is erroneously perpetuated. And finally, I still disagree completely with the assumption that because a film was released in any particular ratio or format, that it was necessarily composed in same. But just because people don't agree with me, I'm not going to assault them over it. Life's too short and all that.
Bob Furmanek		#7	[-]
Nov 11 12 9:48 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Hi Robert, My sincere apologies for the over-site. I had originally included a link to your article in my post but when I went back to edit and add an image, the link was accidentally deleted. I'll correct that now. If you find any additional data on Exclusive and widescreen, please share and I will do the same. Many thanks! Best, Bob
Bob Furmanek		#8	[-]
Nov 11 12 9:55 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	arriman wrote: Hi, There was never a 1.65:1 aspect ratio. They meant 1.66. Miles Miles, in the UK, the widescreen ratio was initially 1.65:1. See documents in this post: http://www.hometheaterfor...search/1140#post_3989270 It changed to 1.66:1 sometime between July 1954 and February 1955.
rjesimpson		#9	[-]
Nov 12 12 5:03 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Bob Furmanek wrote: Hi Robert, My sincere apologies for the over-site. I had originally included a link to your article in my post but when I went back to edit and add an image, the link was accidentally deleted. I'll correct that now. If you find any additional data on Exclusive and widescreen, please share and I will do the same. Many thanks! Best, Bob Thanks Bob... there's nothing more frustrating as a researcher than research presented without source acknowledgement! The widescreen issue with Hammer/Exclusive will probably run on for months, but if/when I find anything conclusive I'll be sure to post.
Bob Furmanek		#10	[-]
Nov 12 12 12:34 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Not at all Robert, I appreciate the heads up. I haven't checked this thread in a while and would have updated sooner. I suspect the announcement for Exclusive going widescreen will be found sometime in May/June of 1953 shortly before production began in late June on FACE THE MUSIC. Do you have access to Kinematograph Weekly? I've got all the U.S. trade journals but don't have any trade journals from the UK. Also, just so you know, it has been my experience with U.S. studios that once the switch to widescreen occurred, there were only documents referencing the intended ratio for the first few months of filming under the new policy. After that, all departments knew what was required so references to photographic ratios were not specifically mentioned in production documents. As an example, at the bottom of this page, you'll see a September 25 memo for THEM instructing for 1.75:1. http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/home/top-10-3-d-myths Warner Bros, as a matter of studio policy, had converted to 100% widescreen in June of 1953 so this production was still early in the transition. You will not find any such memo for productions in 1954 and beyond because composing for widescreen and protecting for the standard academy ratio was the normal operating procedure by that time. I suspect the same will be true for Exclusive. For these same reasons, theaters and advertising literature only mentioned widescreen for the early titles. Once widescreen had become the accepted standard, it was no longer necessary. The exceptions would have been the various anamorphic processes which more often than not required promotional credit for use of the various lenses. The files for either FACE THE MUSIC, HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE or MURDER BY PROXY should have the appropriate widescreen data. Kit Parker, the distributor who acquired the Lippert holdings in the U.S., told me his files indicated widescreen for the post September 1953 productions. Robert Lippert stated to the press just before leaving for England on September 20, 1953 to sign a distribution deal with Exclusive: "All future product will be made for widescreen presentation, ranging from 1.85:1 to 1.65:1." This was reported on September 21, 1953 in Motion Picture Daily: Volume 74, issue 57, page 1: "Lippert Sees Diminishing Market for 'Small' Films" I look forward to your findings! Best, Bob Last Edited By: Bob Furmanek Nov 12 12 1:36 PM. Edited 3 times.
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rjesimpson		#11	[-]
Nov 15 12 5:51 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Hi Bob, We are of course assuming that Exclusive made an announcement that they were only going to go widescreen from a certain point on. With Exclusive's hand in distributing as well as making, and still handling a lot of reissue material from the 30s and 40s, supplying 16mm prints (which they did - I have a small collection of them) etc. they may never have gone exclusively widescreen. Michael Carreras would have had everything shot in scope if he could, but aside from Michael and Val Guest, nobody else ever seemed too taken with it as a format. Whether this was producer or director choice, one can only speculate (in Michael's case, I guess it was both!). I certainly don't dispute the information from Kit Parker, but Exclusive's deal with Lippert wasn't permanent either. But Hammer/Exclusive didn't work exclusively with Lippert. During the 1950s they continued working with other small producers and distributors in the UK and further afield. Its an area I have a particular interest in, but still needs an awful lot of work. I have access to a partial run of the Kine's which I've been trawling through for a number of years. I'll not get a chance to get into them again until the new year. My plan for next year is to go through all the 1950s issues I haven't yet had access to. That should hopefully help a little. Not sure yet whether its true of other directors, but Fisher does seem to have (regardless of what the eventual projection might have been) been working full-frame/academy on most of his pictures in the widescreen era. Dracula was matted 1.66:1 in camera by the looks of it (the neg and all subsequent prints appear to be at this ratio), but his films either side - Curse of Frankenstein and The Mummy were both shot open-matte/full-frame (or whichever other term makes most sense to you). Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell is the same. Going into the research on this or any individual film's ratio, I try not to make too many assumptions. Just because something has been widely available in a particular ratio (for example), doesn't mean that it was always 'intended' that way. There's also a need to double check, because people make assumptions and mistakes regularly. Going back through the paper archives has proven some long-established 'facts' wrong. And in other cases I have been able to confirm the proof for other facts (something which occasionally needs done for legal reasons). The historians and archivists here will probably appreciate that sort of approach, others may view double and triple checking as a waste of time. But it pays off. I have details somewhere in my notes about Hammer's tv deals, but contrary to what you might expect, they were making arrangements for TV fairly early on. Jimmy Carreras presumably saw potential for another source of income, and I do suspect that this was born in mind when most of the features were shot. Its easy to forget that straight after The Curse of Frankenstein, Hammer were developing a projected television series with Screen Gems (with the intention to shoot half of the series at Bray with the usual Hammer crew). Robert Last Edited By: rjesimpson Nov 15 12 6:01 AM. Edited 1 times.
Bob Furmanek		#12	[-]
Nov 15 12 11:10 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	They would have been composing for wide and protecting for the standard ratio, which was the U.S. policy into the 1960's. Jack Theakston has handled 35mm materials on DRACULA and confirms that it is hard-matted. Last Edited By: Bob Furmanek Nov 15 12 11:48 AM. Edited 3 times.
rjesimpson		#13	[-]
Nov 15 12 11:38 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm still not convinced that Fisher in particular was primarily concerned with widescreen, based on what I've seen of his films, and comparing the various framings - sure, the widescreen is fine, but a fuller, academy type ratio seems even better composed. Ultimately that's a personal interpretation, as Fisher can't comment himself, and I appreciate there are plenty of people who disagree with me. I haven't personally handled any of the Dracula elements, so with that one I've been reliant on information being passed down. I only got confirmation via official channels last night that the negative itself was hard-matted. At least any speculation on Dracula is easy to clear up
Bob Furmanek		#14	[-]
Nov 15 12 11:57 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Here are some important clippings from Kinematograph Weekly. The first states their widescreen policy in March 1954: The following is an extract from a KINE WEEKLY article dated June 23 1955. A bit of background – many British exhibitors were worried about the increasing number of films being released in the anamorphic format. For those cinemas who had yet to install the lenses etc, it meant they couldn’t show these films, and so the supply of films in ‘standard’ prints was vital, hence the importance of the CEA (Cinema Exhibitors Association) compiling these kinds of statistics. The statistic that really strikes me is that for the period in 1954, there was a clear breakdown between the number of anamorphic, widescreen and “normal” (aka Academy) prints. A year later, it was just between anamorphic and “standard wide screen”. In the UK at least, by the summer of 1955, the Academy-only print was pretty much dead in the water. Also, keep in mind the changes at a studio once widescreen becomes the standard operating procedure. These comments were sent to me by a retired cinematographer. One of the things that no one takes into account is continuity---the continuity of studio operations. Once committed to a process or technique, the studio must re-gear and TOTALLY COMMIT to the process. There is no going back-and-forth between wide-screen or 1.33-1 films or surely someone will screw up. Once the studio has committed, the Camera Department must set its standards, regrind or re-mark the ground-glass camera finders, re-jigger the matte box, set new aperture plates; the Art Department must change how it builds its sets, height and width; the Electrical Department decides how low the "greens" will be set on the soundstages and if the wider set requires more ground cable on the stage floor; the Title Department must have new markings for its safe-title areas; the Company Trademark must be re-designed and shot; new release print and negative leaders must be designed with new information; Distribution exchanges must know what format a film will be released in---how wide, what sound system---so they can sell the films to the theatres who can run them properly. The list is endless.
rjesimpson		#15	[-]
Nov 15 12 1:31 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm not going to get into this in too much detail at the moment - I've read these articles before when they were posted elsewhere. As I have pointed out elsewhere, Exclusive may have said they'll release 15/20 films in a 1.65:1 ratio in 1954, but that isn't even half of the number of films that Exclusive/Hammer released that year (and that doesn't mean that they were going to produce 15-20 films in 1.65:1). The company was responsible for at least 47 titles in 1954. And as I responded to your comments in my article on the Hammer site, Hammer did switch ratios on a regular basis. They moved from a standard ratio through widescreen, through scope, and would even package films of varying ratios together. During the original London run of The Quatermass Xperiment (whether that was screened in academy or widescreen as some have suggested) it was packaged together with The Eric Winstone Band Show which was a scope production. Hammer shot a number of pictures in scope, but they never went over completely, and that was even though they had their own branded "Hammerscope" process. You say "the studio must re-gear and TOTALLY COMMIT to the process. There is no going back-and-forth between wide-screen or 1.33-1 films" but they did. And they had to. They weren't just a production company, they were a distributor of other companies' materials, and their Bray Studio facility (and crew) were also a studio for hire - with other non Hammer/Exclusive material including film and television being shot there. Your assertions are probably fine as a general rule, but the evidence would suggest that Hammer wasn't playing to the rules.
Bob Furmanek		#16	[-]
Nov 15 12 1:54 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Hammer was looking to remain competitive in the theatrical market which was always the primary intent for their productions. As the above June 1955 clipping illustrates, 1.37:1 was dead in the UK by that time. They were switching between standard widescreen and anamorphic 2.35 because that's what the industry was doing at that time. Look at this listing of other UK production entities in February 1955. You'll note that none of them were filming for 1.37:1. You can not compose for academy and have it work in widescreen, you must do the opposite. That's what Exclusive would have been doing after the summer of 1953. Can you please share the documented evidence from primary source materials that Exclusive/Hammer was composing for the standard ratio of 1.37:1 after the fall of 1953? Last Edited By: Bob Furmanek Nov 15 12 2:26 PM. Edited 1 times.
Bob Furmanek		#17	[-]
Jan 3 13 1:58 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	As I wrote on November 12: I suspect the announcement for Exclusive going widescreen will be found sometime in May/June of 1953 shortly before production began in late June on FACE THE MUSIC. The official documentation on Exclusive/Hammer adopting widescreen cinematography has been found: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/319469/aspect-ratio-research/1770#post_4020081
Stephen Pickard		#18	[-]
Jan 3 13 4:03 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Bob, there seems to be a discrepancy in the report above. The report for British Lion seems they are describing Pinewood as Rank were mostly the only company in England shooting in VistaVision, not British Lion.
Bob Furmanek		#19	[-]
Jan 3 13 7:23 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Hi Steve! Happy 2013. Hope you're doing well. Perhaps at that stage, British Lion was considering something in VV in their future? I've cleaned up the important document on Exclusive announcing their widescreen plans. This is from Kine Weekly: July, 1953
Stephen Pickard		#20	[-]
Jan 3 13 8:25 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Bob Furmanek wrote: Hi Steve! Happy 2013. Hope you're doing well. Perhaps at that stage, British Lion was considering something in VV in their future? I've cleaned up the important document on Exclusive announcing their widescreen plans. This is from Kine Weekly: July, 1953 Hi Bob, Happy New Year to you. I mentioned that because there was no statement about VV at Pinewood. I thought they had them switched around. Interesting document. Are they describing the new stage that didn't open until around mid 1957?
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