Anamorphic cine lens (Hypergonar and CinemaScope)
Lente anamórfica de cine (Hypergonar y CinemaScope)
- Date
- 1927 / 1953 · confidence high
- Place
- Paris, France
- Credited to
- Henri Chrétien
- Field
- Communication
What it is
A lens with cylindrical elements that squeezes the image horizontally when shooting and expands it on projection, giving a wide screen with ordinary film. Chrétien created it in 1927 and Fox adopted it in 1953 for CinemaScope.
Chrétien devised his Hypergonar for panoramic viewing from tanks and used it in Claude Autant-Lara's film Construire un feu (1927).
What it led to
- widescreen cinema (CinemaScope, Panavision)
- the 2.39:1 format of modern cinema
- anamorphic adapters for video