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    <title>RotoScope: The Smith-Carney Widescreen System</title>
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  <h1>RotoScope</h1>
  <h2>A Forgotten Widescreen Movie Process</h2>
<p>A 50's theater owner (Rowe Carney, Jr.) was impressed by <i>This is CineRama</i>, but CineRama was too expensive, so he partnered with a projectionist (Tom Smith) & made his own version, using mirrors to stack four images on a single frame of 35mm film.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnUKQOkqtME">Video, from the Carney's son.</a> And <a href="https://www.rotoscopefx.com/">here's his website.</a>

<p>They called it RotoScope. Apparently, they hadn't heard of the Fleischer Brother's cartoon tracing method. It took about ten years to get it right. They started working in 1953, & had created a short travalog demonstration film by 1962. By then CineRama had lost its luster. Most widescreen movies were shot with anamorphic lenses or on 70mm film, or both. After a test presentation, RotoScope faded into obscurity.

<p>Here's more info from the Missouri Historical Society: <a href="https://shsmo.org/manuscripts/rolla/r1499.pdf">The Inventor was from Missouri.</a>

<p>And From Widescreen Museum: <a href="http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/smith-carney.htm">Where I 1st heard of it. He calls it the "Smith-Carney System."</a>

<p>Here's the patent: <a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US3144806A/en">Kinda neat.</a> It looks like there's some sort of special lens arangement to keep the bottom & top two images lined up.

<p>Here's what it looks like on the screen: <br><img src="rframe3.png" alt="A 180-Degree curved screen.">

<p>Here's a frame of film: <br><img src="rframe.png" alt="See the stacked images?">

<p>Truthfully, I'm not sure how he got it to line up correctly: <br><img src="rframe2.png" alt="See the repeted patrs of the images?"><br>Perhaps there's some overlap?

<p>Pics taken from Widescreen Museum, for illustrative purposes. He got them from an old magazine. Should be fair use in either case.

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