Everything about Panavision totally explained
Panavision is a
motion picture equipment
company specializing in
cameras and
lenses, based in
Woodland Hills, California. Formed by
Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create
anamorphic projection lenses during the
widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product lines to meet the demands of modern filmmakers. The company introduced its first products in 1954; originally a provider of
CinemaScope accessories, the company's line of anamorphic widescreen lenses soon became the industry leader. In 1972, Panavision helped revolutionize filmmaking with the lightweight Panaflex
35 mm movie camera. The company has introduced other groundbreaking cameras such as the Millennium XL (1999) and the digital video Genesis (2004).
Panavision operates exclusively as a rental facility—the company owns its entire inventory, unlike most of its competitors. This allows investment in research and development, and the integration of high-quality manufacturing, without worrying about the end retail value. Maintaining its entire inventory also allows Panavision to regularly update all of its equipment, rather than just the newest models.
Early history
Robert Gottschalk founded Panavision in late 1953, in partnership with Richard Moore,
Meredith Nicholson, Harry Eller, Walter Wallin, and
William Mann; the company was formally incorporated in 1954. Panavision was established principally for the manufacture of
anamorphic projection lenses to meet the growing demands of theaters showing
CinemaScope films. At the time of Panavision's formation, Gottschalk owned a camera shop in Westwood Village, California, where many of his customers were
cinematographers. A few years earlier, he and Moore—who worked with him in the camera shop—were experimenting with
underwater photography; Gottschalk became interested in the technology of anamorphic lenses, which allowed him to get a wider field of view from his underwater camera housing. The technology was created during World War I to increase the field of view on tank
periscopes; the periscope image was horizontally "squeezed" by the anamorphic lens. After it was unsqueezed by a complementary anamorphic
optical element, the tank operator could see double the horizontal field of view without significant distortion.
In the 1950s, the motion picture industry was threatened by the advent of
television—TV kept moviegoers at home, bringing down box office revenues. Film studios began searching for ways to lure audiences back to the theaters with attractions that television couldn't yet provide. These included a revival of
color films,
three-dimensional films,
stereophonic sound, and widescreen movies.
Cinerama was one of the first widescreen movie processes of the era. In its initial conception, the cumbersome system required three cameras for shooting and three synchronized projectors to display a picture on one wide, curved screen. Along with the logistical and financial challenges of tripling equipment usage and cost, the process led to distracting vertical lines between the three projected images. Looking for a high-impact method of widescreen filmmaking that was cheaper, simpler, and less visually distracting,
20th Century Fox acquired the rights to a process it branded
CinemaScope: in this system, the film was shot with anamorphic lenses. The film was then exhibited with a complementary anamorphic lens on the projector that expanded the image, creating a projected
aspect ratio (the ratio of the image's width to its height) twice that of the image area on the physical frame of film. By the time the first CinemaScope movie—
The Robe (1953)—was announced for production, Gottschalk, Moore and Nicholson had a demo reel of work with their anamorphic underwater system. projection lens—debuted in March 1954. Priced at $1,100, it captured the market. The Super Panatar was a rectangular box that attached to the existing projection lens with a special bracket. Its variable prismatic system allowed a range of film formats to be shown from the same projector with a simple adjustment of the lens. Panavision improved on the Super Panatar with the Ultra Panatar, a lighter cylindrical design that could be screwed directly to the front of the projection lens. Panavision lenses gradually replaced CinemaScope as the leading anamorphic system for theatrical projection.
In December 1954, the company created a specialized lens for film laboratories—the Micro Panatar. When fitted to an
optical printer, the Micro Panatar could create "flat" (nonanamorphic) prints from anamorphic negatives. This allowed films to be distributed to theaters that didn't have an anamorphic system installed. To accomplish this dual platform release strategy before the Micro Panatar, studios would sometimes shoot films with one anamorphic and one spherical camera, so that nonwidescreen theaters could still exhibit the film. The cost savings of eliminating the second camera and making flat prints in
post-production with the Micro Panatar were enormous. The resulting system used a
65 mm film camera in conjunction with the APO Panatar lens, which was an integrated anamorphic lens (as opposed to a standard
prime lens with an anamorphoser mounted on it). This created a 1.25x anamorphic squeeze factor. Movies using the process had an astounding potential aspect ratio of 2.76:1 when exhibited with
70 mm anamorphic projection prints. Introduced as
MGM Camera 65, the system was used on just a few films, the first of which was
Raintree County (1956). As 1.25x anamorphosers for 70 mm projectors have become rare, most of the 70 mm prints of these films still in circulation are designed for projection with nonanamorphic, spherical lenses. The result is a 2.20:1 aspect ratio, rather than the broader ratio originally intended.
Although Fox insisted on maintaining CinemaScope for a time, some actors disliked the system. For Fox's 1965 production
Von Ryan's Express,
Frank Sinatra reputedly demanded that Auto Panatar lenses be used. Such pressures led Fox to completely abandon CinemaScope for Auto Panatars that year;
Von Ryan's Express was the studio's first picture with Panavision lenses. To meet the extraordinary demand for Panavision projection lenses, Gottschalk had Bausch & Lomb CinemaScope lenses retrofitted into Panavision housings with a new astigmatic attachment, improving them greatly. This was revealed many years after Gottschalk's death; a lead designer from Bausch & Lomb, who had been involved with the original CinemaScope project, came to work as a designer for Panavision and—after opening some of the older lenses—figured out the secret. This meant that equipment could be maintained, modified, and regularly updated directly by the company. When Panavision eventually brought its own camera designs to market, it was relatively unconstrained by retrofitting and manufacturing costs, as it wasn't directly competing on sales price. This allowed Panavision to build cameras to new standards of durability.
The new business model required additional upfront capital; to this end, the company was sold to Banner Productions in 1965, with Gottschalk remaining as president. In 1970, the last two feature films shot entirely with Super Panavision were released:
Song of Norway and
Ryan's Daughter. In the decades since, only a handful of films have been shot in 65 mm.
Panaflex is born
Albert Mayer led the next major project: the creation of a lightweight reflex camera adaptable to either handheld or studio conditions. After four years of development, the Panaflex debuted in 1972. A revolutionary camera that operated quietly, the Panaflex eliminated the need for a cumbersome
sound blimp, and could synchronize handheld work. The Panaflex also included a digital electronic
tachometer and
magazine motors for the take-up reel.
Steven Spielberg's
The Sugarland Express (1974) was the first motion picture filmed with the Panaflex.
During the 1970s, the Panaflex line was updated and marketed in new incarnations: the Panaflex X, Panaflex Lightweight (for
steadicam), the high-speed Panastar, Panaflex Gold, and Panaflex G2. Panavision came out with a direct competitor to
Tiffen's Steadicam stabilizer, the Panaglide harness. With new ownership came sweeping changes to the company, which had stagnated. Optics testing was computerized and, in 1986, the new Platinum model camera was introduced. The next year—responding to a perceived demand for the resurrection of the 65 mm camera—development began on a new model. The company was sold to Lee International PLC for $100 million in 1987, but financing was overextended and ownership reverted to the investment firm
Warburg Pincus two years later. In 1991, the company released its new 65 mm technology, System 65, The first feature films to use these latter two systems were, respectively,
The Perfect Storm (2000) and
Just Like Heaven (2005). The XL series not only had a much smaller camera body—making it suitable for studio, handheld, and steadicam work—but also marked the first significant change to the film transport mechanism in the camera since the Panaflex: two smaller sprocket drums for feed and take-up (a design similar to the
Moviecam and subsequent
Arricam) instead of one large drum to do both. As of 2006, Panavision has no further plans to develop additional film camera models.
Digital revolution
Ronald Perelman's solely owned MacAndrews and Forbes Holdings (Mafco) acquired a majority interest in Panavision in 1998, via a Mafco subsidiary. After aborted attempts to create a film-style video camera in the 1970s and 1980s, Panavision joined the digital revolution in July 2000, establishing DHD Ventures in partnership with
Sony. The new company's objective was to raise the quality of
high definition digital video to the standards of top-level Hollywood motion-picture production. This cooperative venture was established largely at the instigation of
George Lucas to serve his designs for the
Star Wars prequels. The collaboration resulted in the Sony HDW-F900
CineAlta HDCAM high definition video camera. Sony produced the electronics and a stand-alone version of the camera; Panavision supplied custom-designed high definition lenses, trademarked Primo Digital, and retrofitted the camera body to incorporate standard film camera accessories, facilitating the equipment's integration into existing crew equipment as a "digital cinema camera." The new system was used in the making of
Lucasfilm's (2002), described as "the first digital major feature film." The camera's electronics—including its CCD (
charge-coupled device)
image sensor—and
HDCAM SR record deck were manufactured by Sony. The
chassis and mechanics were designed by a Panavision team led by Albert Mayer Jr., son of the Panaflex designer.
Scary Movie 4 (2006), shot afterward, went into general release first because of the extensive visual effects work needed to complete
Flyboys. Subsequent to the completion of major design work on the Genesis, Panavision bought out Sony's 49 percent share of DHD Ventures and fully consolidated it in September 2004.
During the same period, Panavision began acquiring related motion picture companies, including
eFilm (acquired 2001; sold to Deluxe in full by 2004), Technovision France (2004), the motion picture camera rental arm of Canadian rental house William F. White International (2005), digital camera rental company Plus8Digital (2006), international lighting and equipment company AFM (2006), and UK camera companies One8Six (2006) and JDC (2007). On
July 28,
2006, Mafco announced it was acquiring the remaining Panavision stock and returning the company to private status. A $345 million credit line from
Bear Stearns and
Credit Suisse was secured to finance the company's debt as well as to facilitate "global acquisitions." That same year, Mafco acquired Deluxe Entertainment Services Group.
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