ASC Museum Minute: VistaVision Camera

In the early 1920s, the William F. Fox Company commissioned the Stein Motion Picture Camera Company to develop a two-color film camera. Though that early experiment with red-and-green imaging was short-lived, it helped lay the foundation for what would ultimately become the Mitchell VistaVision Model V-V. In this episode, ASC Museum Curator Steve Gainer, ASC, ASK walks us through various aspects of the VistaVision camera, manufactured by the Mitchell Camera Company and introduced circa 1953-'54.

By turning the Stein camera — which is also featured in this episode — on its side and removing the divider between two frames, members of Paramount's camera department created a 35mm motion-camera through which film stock could run horizontally, enabling the capture of frames eight perforations wide.

The first film to make use of the VistaVision process, as Paramount trade-named it, was White Christmas, shot by Loyal Griggs, ASC; others that followed included The Ten Commandments, also shot by Griggs, and North By Northwest, shot by Robert Burks, ASC, both of which were photographed on the very Model V-V in the ASC's collection. More recently, films such as The Brutalist — shot by Lol Crawley, ASC, BSC, whose work earned him this year's Academy Award for Best Cinematography — and One Battle After Another, shot by Michael Bauman, have revived the use of the format to help achieve their desired looks.

This episode also spotlights ASC member Richard Edlund's innovative use of VistaVision for 1977's Star Wars, on which he served as the production's VFX-unit cinematographer.

Each episode of the ASC Museum Minute video series showcases a unique item in the Society's extensive collection of vintage cameras and other filmmaking tools. Previous episodes can be found here. More episodes are now in production.

The ASC Museum collection is curated by Gainer and co-curated by Richard Edlund, ASC.