Woodlawn through an Anamorphic Lens (1955) - R. Niles Graham Collection

Duration: 0:02:54

Year Published: 1955

Sound: silent

Description: This 1955 home movie of bloomign cacti and Woodlawn, the Graham family home in Austin, notably uses an anamorphic widescreen lens. The camera operator first captures Austin leader Walter Long’s night-blooming cereus plants, covered in white blossoms, before turning the special lens on the exterior and grounds of Woodlawn. Anamorphic processes, like CinemaScope, use a special lens to compress a long, thin image onto a standard, square frame of motion picture film. To view the image in its intended widescreen ratio, it must be projected through another anamorphic lens, which is why these images are still compressed. Anamorphic widescreen had only arrived in Hollywood in 1952, so these home movies are a fascinating early amateur use of the technology.