Designer Times
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52. Movie Cameras and Projectors - Iwerks Entertainment

One of Disneyland's memorable early attractions was the 360 degree movie theater - Circarama. In later years this was known as Circle Vision-360.

Walt Disney had the idea that (9) conventional 35mm movie cameras could be arranged in a circular array to photograph a scene totally surrounding the viewer. When projected in a round theater, the viewing audience could turn and look in all directions....just like really being there.

Walt had his original Walt Disney Productions co-founder, Ub Iwerks, figure out how this system could work. Iwerks, along with the Studio Machine Shop staff led by Roger Broggie, built the world's first 9-camera rig. Ub Iwerks son, Don Iwerks, was one of the rig's developers. The Machine Shop had a very extensive Camera Department which had been inventing all sorts of custom movie equipment since the early 1930s.

I was designing vehicles for Disneyland in 1955 while employed at the Machine Shop, but never paid much attention to the special movie stuff. We had a first Autopia car running around the Studio lot for testing. Iwerks thought that a first screen test of his 9-camera rig would be very spectacular if he could shoot a car driving around the rig. So I drove this Autopia car as fast as I could around the rig, which was set up in front of the Studio gate next to the Disney lot gas station. So, I got to be a movie actor running around in circles.

Fast forward to February 1992. Don Iwerks had founded his own company years before, and had made several 360 films using the rented Disney 9-camera rig that his dad had invented (37) years earlier. Don had a big 360 film contract coming up, but the old Disney rig would not be available in the future for outside rental. No longer having direct access to the old rig, no one could quite remember just how the thing was built. Don had some fresh ideas on how a new one could be built. Rather than have his busy shop figure out a new rig, Don suggested that maybe I could have a fresh go at a new design since I knew nothing of the camera business.

Well, this scared me, but I was willing to take a look. At that time Don was confined to bed at his home with a potentially serious condition. He could think and doodle ideas for me to look at, but not be physically active. I had just started to use a 3-D CAD design system called Vellum that Don thought would make it ideal for me to easily design the rig. Since all (9) camera mountings are identical, I could just design one set up, then duplicate the other eight at the click of a mouse....saving a ton of drafting work.

I reminded Don that I knew zilch about optic paths and such. "Time for you to learn then". It turned out that optic path stuff is really precise geometry....ideal work on a CAD system. I learned that the old Disney rig was very custom and had to use individually fitted dedicated cameras. Don needed a rig that would use rented Arriflex cameras from different rental outfits in several world locations. I found that I could make (9) identical camera base quick-change mounts that, once adjusted accurately, would allow any rental camera to fit exactly in any location using just two bolts. This would eliminate any need for fiddling in the field.

The central core of the rig was made of a very sturdy aluminum structure to which all the (9) cameras and associated wiring and controls could be mounted. The rig core could be attached either top or bottom to dollys, cars, boats, and even helicopters for all kinds of shots. Don's guys did a masterful job building this new creature. It looked just so cool with everything black anodized and all the hardware looking so expensive. I was so proud to have poked my nose into the movie equipment business and see a fabulous looking instrument as a result.

Don Iwerks called again in October 1994 with a real crazy idea. He wanted to invent yet another custom rig, only this time is was to be a new-fangled movie projector. Asked why his prototype development shop technicians shouldn't be doing the job, his answer was again "you're not in the business and can come up with original ideas". The more I looked at a lot of movie equipment I could see how much slow evolution must have taken place over decades. I sensed a monkey-see-monkey-do type of cautious development....safe but ingrained progress. I looked at one store-bought piece and found I could get the same function with 1/4 the parts.

This new projector was called a Reversing Projector. The idea was that since movie film moved thru the projector in one direction, it must be re-wound before showing again, just like video tape. For short films, endless film loops were common. But Don needed a long film, far longer than would be practical for a loop system.

Don had a clever idea. Shoot a 35mm film but process it onto 70mm film stock as two side-by-side image frame strips. Run the film forward thru the projector, then shift the film gate sideways in front of the light path and run the film backwards. Now you could put twice as much running time on one length of film while eliminating re-wind time. You'd only have a momentary pause in the action half way thru the movie....hardly noticeable. You could sell this gizmo at the price of a video projection system but get 35mm image quality, no re-wind time loss, and no human projectionist required.