Todd-AO

Todd-AO was a widescreen extremely high definition film format developed in the mid 1950s. It was co-developed by Mike Todd, a flamboyant Broadway producer, with American Optical Company. It was memorably characterized by its creator as "Cinerama outa one hole." Unlike Cinerama, the process required a single camera and one set of lenses. Four kinds of lenses (35 mm to 56 mm, 63 mm, 65 mm, or 70 mm) covered -128, 64, 48, 37 degree field of view. Films were shot in 65 mm negative and the images then transferred to 70 mm prints (to accommodate sound tracks) for projection. The aspect ratio of this format was 2.20:1. While the 70 mm film width had been used long ago, most notably in Fox's Grandeur process around 1930, those earlier processes are not compatible. Todd-AO actually combined the idea of 65 mm photography with frames 5 sprocket holes tall (also a process with a history extending back to the silent era) with 70 mm wide prints and the magnetic sound that first appeared with CinemaScope, although improved with 6 channels and much better fidelity. The 70 mm print adds 2.5 mm extra down each edge to accommodate some of the soundtracks. Thus the print actually carries 65 mm perforations and the 65 mm negative is contact printed directly to the 70 mm print stock as the sprocket holes align.

Overview

The concept of 65 mm photography and 70 mm printing became a standard adopted by others. Super Panavision 70 (essentially Panavision Company's version of Todd-AO) and UltraPanavision 70 (the same mechanically but with a slight 1.25:1 anamorphic squeeze to accommodate extremely wide aspect ratio images) are both 65/70 processes. Other processes creating 70 mm prints also follow the Todd-AO print layout. The Soviets also copied Todd-AO with their own fully compatible process identical in all regards except that their camera stock was 70 mm not 65 mm. But as with the prints this was still 70 mm with 65 mm perforations and wide areas down each edge.

The original version of the Todd-AO process used a frame rate of 30 frames per second, slightly faster than the 24 frames per second that was (and is) the customary standard. The difference does not seem great, but the sensitivity of the human eye to flickering declines steeply with frame rate and the small adjustment made the film appear noticeably less flickery, steadier, and smoother than standard processes. Only the first two Todd-AO films, Oklahoma! and Around the World in Eighty Days employed 30 fps photography. Because of the need for a conventional 24 fps version the former shot simultaneously in 35 mm CinemaScope. The latter shot a simultaneous 2nd Todd-AO version at 24 fps. All subsequent Todd-AO films have been 24 fps. About 16 feature films were shot in Todd-AO.

The Todd-AO Company (which has since evolved into a well regarded sound mixing and audio post-production firm owned by Ascent Media) also offered a 35 mm anamorphic process technically similar to 35 mm Panavision or CinemaScope. This may cause some confusion if a Todd-AO credit (not necessarily the more specific Todd-AO 35 credit) appears in some widescreen films made in the 1970s and 1980s. It becomes even more confusing if 70 mm prints were made as some were for films like Dune and Logan's Run. (During the late 1970's through the early 1990's as 65 mm photography such via processes like Todd-AO or Super Panavision became rare it nevertheless became common for some major films to have 70 mm prints made by blowup from 35 mm negatives mostly for the benefit of 6-track sound. These prints would typically play only in a few theatres in a few large cities while everyone else viewed the film in 35 mm. The advent of digital sound in the 1990's obviated the need for these very expensive prints.) These "blow-up" 70 mm prints also followed the Todd-AO layout although in the case of films made with a 1.85 : 1 aspect ratio it was retained in the 70 mm version with the sides of the 70 mm frame left black.

While Todd-AO was intended to be "Cinerama out of one hole" the exteme wide angle photography and projection onto a very deeply curved screen (which is what that would imply) saw little use. Most Todd-AO theatre installations had only moderately curved screens and the extreme wide angle camera lenses were used only on a few shots here and there. Most Todd-AO films resembled ordinary films except for the much greater clarity and grand 6-track stereo sound. A variation on Todd-AO called Dimension 150 did however make use of Cinerama-like deeply curved screens. Only two films were made in Dimension 150 - In the Beginning, John Huston's only Biblical epic, and Patton, starring George C. Scott.

Todd-AO films were closely associated with what was called road show exhibition. At the time, before the multiplex theatre became common, most films opened at a large single screen theatre in the downtown area of each large city before eventually moving on to neighborhood theatres. With the road show concept a film would play in 70 mm at a Todd-AO-equipped big downtown theatre exclusively sometimes for a year or more and generally a "hard ticket" policy was in effect which meant that tickets were sold for specific numbered seats. Most Todd-AO films through the late 1960's including films like "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" or "The Sound of Music" were initially shown on a roadshow basis. The road show era ended in the early 1970s.