Panavision is a motion picture equipment company based in Woodland Hills, California. It was founded in 1953 as a manufacturer of anamorphic projection lenses for CinemaScope films. In 1972, Panavision helped revolutionize filmmaking with the lightweight Panaflex 35 mm movie camera. Panavison operates exclusively as a rental facility, unlike most of its competitors.
About Panavision in brief
Panavision is a motion picture equipment company based in Woodland Hills, California. It was founded in 1953 as a manufacturer of anamorphic projection lenses for CinemaScope films. In 1972, Panavision helped revolutionize filmmaking with the lightweight Panaflex 35 mm movie camera. The company has introduced other cameras such as the Millennium XL and the digital video Genesis. Panavison operates exclusively as a rental facility, unlike most of its competitors. The Superatar projection lens was the company’s first product, and was sold for $100,000 in 1954. The Panatar was awarded a patent on August 11, 1954, and five years later, it captured the market for the Panatar system, which was used in the Superatar feature film of the same year, “The Great Gatsby” (1954). The Superar was the first product to be sold for more than $1,100, and it was sold in March 1954 for $200,000. It is still the most popular widescreen projection lens in the world, with sales of over $1.5 billion in 2013. The lens is used in many of the world’s most popular films, including “The Godfather,” “The Hobbit,” and “The Lord of the Rings” (2013) and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2” (2014) The Supermarionation lens was designed by Walter Wallin, who was an acquaintance of William Mann’s. 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, the image could be shifted manually, switching between non-anamorphic feature trailers and feature films. The film was then exhibited with a complementaryAnamorphic lens on the projector that expanded the image, creating a projected aspect ratio twice that of the image area on the physical frame of film. In the 1950s, the motion picture industry was threatened by the advent of television—TV kept moviegoers at home, reducing box office revenues. Film studios sought to lure audiences to theaters with attractions that television could not provide. These included a revival of color films, three-dimensional films, stereophonic sound, and wides screen movies. In this way, 20th Century Fox acquired the rights to a process it branded CinemaScope: in this system, the film was shot with anmorphic lenses. The system required three cameras for shooting and three synchronized projectors to display a picture on one wide, curved screen. The process led to distracting vertical lines between the three projected images, which led to tripling equipment usage and cost. The first CinemaScope movie, The Robe, was announced for production in 1953. In 1954, the company introduced its first products, including the Superar projection lens, which became the industry’s leading product.
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This page is based on the article Panavision published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 02, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
