Los Angeles Theatres: Grauman's Chinese: projection addenda

Vistasonic at the Chinese:

The theatre got an installation of the VistaSonic sound system in time for the December 12, 1980 premiere of Robert Altman's "Popeye." The system used four very narrow optical tracks in the normal soundtrack space on the print. One story is that there were so many issues that they switched to a normal Dolby print during the initial screening. In any case, the equipment wasn't used again at the Chinese.

Michael Coate comments about the "Popeye" premiere:

"All I know is that the Sunday advance ad touted Vistasonic runs in Hollywood and Westwood. But by opening day and continuing through the run those format notations were no where to be seen. There was trade press about the 'Popeye' producer flipping out over the audio quality at the premiere, and so this suggests to me he ordered those prints withdrawn.

"If you ask me, I have a hunch the producer was confusing Robin Williams’ mumbling performance with some technical issue. There’s no record of 'Popeye' being a Dolby release and so if it was in stereo (and people have recollected it was) either they made some (un-promoted) 4-track mag prints or they kept the Vistasonic prints in circulation but ceased promoting them."

"Dragonslayer," the next and last film using the process, had a non-Vistasonic run in 70mm at the Hollywood Theatre. See Michael's article on the site In70mm. He comments:

"Although Vistasonic prints weren't used in LA, I have confirmed some Vistasonic playdates in other markets. So Paramount / Disney didn’t throw in the towel after 'Popeye,' but appeared to do so after 'Dragonslayer.'"

Unverified data about the system appeared in a post by Disclord on LaserDics Database, and is quoted in a forum on the site Film-Tech:

"'Raiders' sound was mixed to be played in the VistaSonic Sound system that Paramount had previously used on 'Popeye' and 'Dragonslayer.' Unlike Dolby Stereo that used a matrix to encode 4 channels to 2 optical tracks, VistaSonic used 4 discrete optical tracks in the place of the normal 2. Since they were much smaller tracks, they were noisier, so a noise reduction system was used to improve fidelity. Stereo surrounds could also be employed by use of the SQ Quadraphonic matrix system - the stereo surrounds were encoded onto the Left and Right front channels with SQ - the discrete mono surround track then wasn't used.

"The playback head used a CCD based reader instead of a photodetector to keep the tracks and their phase response aligned better. The system was invented by Terry Beard who is also the inventor of the theatrical DTS system - while he owned NuOptix, a company that built much of the equipment used to record optical soundtracks, he also worked for Paramount's sound department as a technician in charge of research.

"There were many problems with VistaSonic during the 'Popeye' and 'Dragonslayer' showings (it had to be turned off during 'Popeye''s premiere at the Chinese theater), so Raiders was switched to Dolby Stereo at the last minute - some minor remixing had to be done to accommodate the limitations of the Dolby logic decoding. The 70mm prints used the 4-track discrete VistaSonic mix unaltered except for the addition of Baby Boom subs. The DVD's 5.1 mix is the original VistaSonic mix so it's slightly different than the Dolby Stereo mix used on LaserDisc. The VistaSonic system was never used again - it had a nice logo though."

Paul Zotos talked about VistaSonic in comments on a 2023 post on the Los Angeles Theatres Facebook page:

"In 1979, James Elliott was hired by Michael Eisner to invent Vista-Sonics. I worked for Mr Elliott. He invented it in a year and we installed it in the Chinese Theatre. Mr. Elliott put computer code on the film and it directed the sounds to 14 different speakers in the theatre. He also added the secret gizmo to the projectors.

"We showed the first 'Star Trek' by Robert Wise and 'Popeye' by Robert Altman and a few others before Eisner left for Disney. We showed the process to every director in town in those days. It was amazing. We also installed it in about 50 theatres around the country. Mr. Elliott's name is on the patent. The Chinese Theatre never sounded so good. Even Doug Trumbull was involved with his FX reel 'Night of the Dreams.'"

"There was no meltdown [at the 'Popeye' premiere]. With different sound coming from all over the room including the ceiling the reporters didn't.understand what they were listening to. Poor Robert Altman worked for months getting just what he wanted, and they thought voices and sound were coming from sources off screen. They blamed his stage-play style. We needed to show a pre-movie doc to explain what was going on.

"They did did replace the film so reviews could be written. But history was being made. Mr. Elliott died in a freak diving accident and Mr. Eisner left... The Klingons battle with the Enterprise [in 'Dragonslayer'] was what we.used to show off the process... I got to watch them mix the sound. Even John Dykstra was involved at one point...We were like kids. We had the keys to the Chinese Theatre from 6am to Noon everyday to install and show."

Los Angeles Theatres

Grauman's Chinese: projection addenda

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