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Following the success of the opening of "Windjammer"
introducing the Cinemiracle Process it would be all too easy to lull ourselves
into too deep a sense of complacency in spite of the fact that the system
technically is by no means perfected. The deficiencies have not been too
apparent because of skillful camerawork, both in actual shooting and in
maintenance, and to careful attention to detail in printing. We should not
permit ourselves the luxury of relaxing with our laurels as did Cinerama,
permitting competition to catch up. We must guard against fallacious "This
worked – Let’s not rock the boat" attitude.
This memo is not intended as criticism of anyone or
anything, but as an impartial critique of purely technical matters in the hope
that by summarizing numerous observations, we can all do better next time. Some observations relate to procedural
techniques by which deficiencies of equipment can be at least in part
minimized, a technique which has been quite successful in some of the printing
operations. By far the most numerous of
these observations relate to equipment, both operational and technical –
technical referring here also to equipment intended for initial calibration and
maintenance.
Since this memo is concerned only with the visual aspects of
the Cinemiracle process it concerns cameras, printers, and projectors in the
broadest sense.
Here it is necessary to define the only philosophy upon
which the system can ultimately be successful. That is simply that each unit,
camera, printer, and projector must each stand alone and meet its own simple
requirements as perfectly as possible. It is fallacious to assume that any one
of the units can compensate for the deficiencies of another. While the printer
can occasionally take up minor camera and projector errors, the very nature of
these devices tend to err in the same direction, and they can only with great
difficulty if at all correct for errors in another.
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