20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

I was watching Disney's classic 20,000 Leagues yesterday, as its a classic adventure film and considering it was released in 1954, is an amazing achievement. I recall watching it on the cinema in the sixties and marvelling at the giant squid attack sequence and the beautiful submarine, the Nautilus. However, looking at it with a modern perspective, the set design and general cinematography are outstanding, with each scene resplendent with a huge level of authentic detail.

Being a big fan of photography, I tend to browse a lot of blogs and sites which detail the history of cameras and lenses and recently, I found a very interesting video on Youtube, by one of my favourite creators, Mathieu Stern. Stern uses a lot of strange kit to create weird and wonderful effects in his camera work and is always searching the antiques stalls in Paris for exotic and strange equipment. His most recent video details a very rare find he came across at auction - something extremely rare and apparently lost for the last 70 years - a special lens adaptor, created especially for Cinemascope cameras, to make an 'anamorphic' frame possible. Basically, the adaptor squeezes the usual widescreen camera view down onto standard 35mm film and Walt Disney first used the device for 20th Century Fox release of the Jules Verne film. At the time, there were only a handful of the special adaptors available and Disney gambled on the new film, investing huge sums in the production, including the cost of hiring these special adaptors from the company who had built them especially for Fox.

Luckily for the Disney company, the film was a massive success and went on to recover the funds that Disney had invested in the production. Shortly after though, camera technology moved on and the adaptors were no longer required, as anamorphic lenses were being built specifically for Cinemascope and similar systems. As the special adaptors were now redundant, they were mothballed and found their way into museums. The item that Stern spotted at auction is one of the devices used by 20th Century Fox and may even have been originally used on the film itself. You can see the fascinating tale here: https://youtu.be/Vg0ftclnwzI?si=5iBmuA2-W0mtWpwN