Definitions for "Cinerama"
a wide-screen filming process that first used three cameras and three projectors to achieve an encompassing view of the subject matter, and was projected on a curved screen of about 160 degrees. Examples: in This is Cinerama (1952) and How the West Was Won (1962).
Originally, a wide-screen presentation utilizing three separate 35 mm films, each containing one third of the total image (6 perforations high), and projected on a deeply curved and vertically slotted screen from three projectors located in booths on the main floor of the auditorium. The sense of involvement was extraordinary, but the ever-present seams between the separate projected images were quite distracting. Current Cinerama presentations use 70 mm film containing a single image that is purposely distorted. During projection, the image distortion is corrected by the deeply curved screen and the original Cinerama sensation is recreated.
Cinerama is the trademarked name for a widescreen process which works by simultaneously projecting images from three synchronized 35 mm projectors onto a huge, deeply-curved screen, subtending 146° of arc, and for the corporation which was formed to market it. It was the first of a number of such processes introduced during the 1950s, when the movie industry was reacting to competition from television, and it had a great impact on the motion-picture industry.