Polyvision
Encyclopedia
Polyvision was the name given to a specialized widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....

 film format
Film format
A film format is a technical definition of a set of standard characteristics regarding image capture on photographic film, for either stills or movies. It can also apply to projected film, either slides or movies. The primary characteristic of a film format is its size and shape.In the case of...

 devised exclusively for the filming and projection
Movie projector
A movie projector is an opto-mechanical device for displaying moving pictures by projecting them on a projection screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illumination and sound devices, are present in movie cameras.-Physiology:...

 of Abel Gance
Abel Gance
Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse , La Roue , and the monumental Napoléon .-Early life:...

's 1927 film Napoleon. It involved the simultaneous projection of three reels of silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 arrayed in a horizontal row, making for a total aspect ratio
Aspect ratio (image)
The aspect ratio of an image is the ratio of the width of the image to its height, expressed as two numbers separated by a colon. That is, for an x:y aspect ratio, no matter how big or small the image is, if the width is divided into x units of equal length and the height is measured using this...

 of 4:1 (1.33×3:1). This configuration is considered a largely similar precursor to Cinerama
Cinerama
Cinerama is the trademarked name for a widescreen process which works by simultaneously projecting images from three synchronized 35 mm projectors onto a huge, deeply-curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. It is also the trademarked name for the corporation which was formed to market it...

, which would debut a quarter of a century later; however, it is unlikely that Polyvision was a direct inspiration for later widescreen techniques, as the triptych
Triptych
A triptych , from tri-= "three" + ptysso= "to fold") is a work of art which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works...

 sequence of Napoleon was cut from the film by its distributors after only a few screenings and was not seen again until Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow is a filmmaker, film historian, television documentary-maker, author, and Academy Award recipient. Brownlow is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era. Brownlow became interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent...

 compiled his restorations from the 1970s onwards.

Three film cameras
Movie camera
The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film which was very popular for private use in the last century until its successor, the video camera, replaced it...

 were stacked vertically to shoot the widescreen compositions which would be viewed across all three sections. Gance also used the three strips to create triptych compositions of panels contrasting or simultaneous action, mirrored sides framing the center strip, and perceptual cross-cutting. In this respect, Polyvision can arguably be said to have inspired split screen
Split screen (film)
In film and video production, split screen is the visible division of the screen, traditionally in half, but also in several simultaneous images, rupturing the illusion that the screen's frame is a seamless view of reality, similar to that of the human eye...

 compositions as well as in-eye edited experiments such as Mike Figgis
Mike Figgis
Michael "Mike" Figgis is an English film director, writer, and composer.-Personal life:Figgis was born in Carlisle, England and grew up in Africa. Figgis for several years had a relationship with the actress Saffron Burrows and cast her in several films...

's Timecode
Timecode (film)
Timecode is a 2000 American experimental film directed by Mike Figgis.The film is constructed from four continuous 90-minute takes that were filmed simultaneously by four cameramen; the screen is divided into quarters and the four shots are shown simultaneously...

. Gance was unable to eliminate the problem of the two seams dividing the three panels of film as shown on screen, so he avoided the problem by putting three completely different shots together in some of the Polyvision scenes. When Gance viewed Cinerama many years later, he noticed that the widescreen image was still not seamless, that the problem was not entirely fixed.

Polyvision was only used for the final reel of Napoleon, to create a climactic finale. Filming the whole story in Polyvision was impractical as Gance wished for a number of innovative shots, each requiring greater flexibility than was allowed by three interlocked cameras. When the film was severely re-cut by the distributors very early on during exhibition, the new version only retained the center strip in order to allow projection in standard single-projector cinemas. Brownlow's restored version finishes with a flourish intended by Gance: it uses red and blue tinted film on the left and right panels to create le tricolore
Flag of France
The national flag of France is a tricolour featuring three vertical bands coloured royal blue , white, and red...

—the flag of Napoleon's triumphant army.

Difficulties in mounting a full screening of Napoleon with three simultaneous projectors mean that a true Polyvision presentation is rarely seen, and the last screenings of Polyvision were the December 2004 Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...

 and December 2009 Cité de la Musique
Cité de la Musique
The Cité de la Musique is a group of institutions dedicated to music and situated in the La Villette quarter, 19th arrondissement, Paris, France. It was designed by the architect Christian de Portzamparc and opened in 1995...

 screenings of Napoleon. The next is scheduled for March 2012 at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

.

Gance continued to tinker with the system with Parvo camera designer Andre Debrie for several decades afterward, and by 1956, it evolved into a system called Magirama very similar to the later Cinemiracle
Cinemiracle
Cinemiracle was a widescreen cinema format competing with Cinerama developed in the 1950s. It was ultimately unsuccessful, with only a single film produced and released in the format. Like Cinerama it used 3 cameras to capture a 2.59:1 image. Cinemiracle used two mirrors to give the left and right...

 format. Magirama used three 35 mm film
35 mm film
35 mm film is the film gauge most commonly used for chemical still photography and motion pictures. The name of the gauge refers to the width of the photographic film, which consists of strips 35 millimeters in width...

 cameras at Academy format with the two side cameras shooting into mirrors; the projectors then used mirrors in an identical configuration in order to properly reverse the side images. This system was only used on a limited number of shots.
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