Large-screen image reproduction - Traditional cinema

Since the origins of the cinematograph (1895), there has been a constant quest to perfect and evolve image reproduction processes. Inventors, artists and promoters all wanted to explore the technical, aesthetic and sensational resources of cinematographic spectacle. As a result, a wide variety of processes and formats have been devised and developed. By format, we mean both the width of the film and the width/height ratio of the projected image. Alongside traditional cinema processes (the set of formats and processes usually used and standardized for photographically recording and projecting animated views), special formats (non-traditional cinema formats and processes) have been designed to achieve a strikingly "real" cinematic representation, using gigantic or three-dimensional images, multiple sounds, or original room and screen designs. The impression of reality specific to cinema manifests itself primarily through the illusion of movement and depth [1] . This notion, applied to special formats, is different and departs from established conventions. This is why it is explained in another article .

In this section, we'll take a look at the different ways in which images are rendered in traditional and large-format cinema. The notion of "spectacle cinema" is used to describe the desire to create a sensational effect that amplifies the setting and subject of the film — through the use of wide formats or panoramic, hemispherical, circular, stereoscopic, dynamic and olfactory processes —, whereas it is usually understood to mean the deployment of special financial resources to present a lavish staging crowded with extras and stars. In the first part, we'll review a few general points about the film chain (and exhibition in particular). Then, we'll describe the standard formats of "professional" cinema and the reduced formats of "substandard" (or amateur) cinema. Digital cinema will not be dealt with here, our intention being to summarize the characteristics of the various formats whose images are recorded photographically and projected onto film (the material on which the photographic emulsion or magnetic track is deposited).

The main aim of this document is to provide the reader (technician, engineer, projectionist, cinema manager, academic or student) with information enabling him or her to quickly assess the current state of traditional cinema formats and trace their technical evolution.