User:LeftASlide/sandbox
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| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Movie camera Motion picture film format |
| Founded | 1937 |
| Founder | Fred Waller Ralph Thomas Walker |
| Successor | Cinerama Inc. |
| Headquarters | , United States |
Vitarama was a groundbreaking immersive motion picture exhibition created by film special effects pioneer Fred Waller that was demonstrated at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The system involved a film shot with eleven synchronized cameras and displayed with eleven synchronized projectors onto a hemispherically curved screen. The curved array allowed audiences a 160-degree by 60-degree view to include peripheral vision, accompanied by multi-channel stereophonic sound and live pyrotechnic flash bulbs, to give viewers a faux three dimensional experience. Waller, head of special effects for Paramount Pictures, had already been working on methods of using shooting with multiple cameras when he was invited to direct special projects for the World's Fair. The idea of a curved screed came in 1937 from architect Ralph Thomas Walker, with whom Waller collaborated on the centerpiece attraction, the Perisphere. The technology became the basis for the Waller Flexible Gunnery Trainer, a five camera/projector system used by the United States military to train hundreds of thousands of airplane gunners during World War II and beyond. In the 1950's, Waller used the same technology to create Cinerama, a three camera/projector system adopted as the first widescreen format put into use by major motion picture companies and film exhibitors.