The History of Immersive Sound in Cinema - Text 3
After the Second World War, magnascopic projection saw a fleeting return with the magnificent film Portrait of Jennie, made by William Dieterle in 1948. In this film, the images in the final colour sequence were larger and the sound was reproduced throughout the hall. The complexity of the image and sound process limited its large-scale use, and it quickly fell into oblivion. We should also note that this magnascopic production employed a dual magnetic track, which provided greater sound quality but at prohibitive cost for its time.
Immersive sound in cinema reappeared in spectacular fashion in September 1952 with Fred Waller’s Cinerama process. Technological advances resulting from research carried out during the Second World War made possible the development of new systems for magnetic sound recording. The possibilities of multi-channel systems facilitated sound immersion through the use of sound tracks created exclusively for the rear speakers. For the first time in the history of film sound, viewers were literally surrounded by high-fidelity and stereophonic sounds in four rear channels! The stereophonic sound effects recorded on separate tracks were exceptional, and heightened the dramatic intensity of the film considerably.
The Cinerama process, which operated on the fringes of conventional film exhibition, saw numerous technological evolutions, such as the development of a transistor amplification system to provide the soundtrack with greater realism. The most significant improvements, however, came from the process’s competitors, Cinemiracle in the United States and Kinopanorama in the Soviet Union. In the early 1960s these companies increased the number of sound tracks by adding two groups of loudspeakers to the ceiling.
The Cinerama audiovisual experience set in motion a degree of enthusiasm unprecedented in film history, which altered course dramatically in the widescreen and stereophonic sound period. CinemaScope in 1953 and Todd-AO 70 mm in 1955, which offered stereophonic systems, would also take up (in a simpler manner) the principle of sounds broadcast from the rear used by Cinerama in order to intensify the dramatic atmosphere of the films’ principal scenes. While the quality of the magnetic sound was up to the task, the fact that the rear sounds were monophonic limited their sensorial impact.
