AllMovie

Promoter and engineer Fred Waller made his biggest contribution to film when he presented his 11 projector wide-screen process, Vitarama, at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. Though it was a tremendous hit, the cumbersome system was not commercially viable. The government had Waller modify the system and it was used for training gunners during WWII. Waller also continued tinkering with it and in 1952 released a three-camera projection system called Cinerama. The system worked by having the three machines project the same image to create a 165-degree screen. In the late '20s, Waller was the head of Paramount's special effects department.