{"id":2367,"date":"2024-11-01T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/?p=2367"},"modified":"2024-10-29T16:40:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T23:40:51","slug":"out-of-town-and-a-visit-with-the-mitchell-fc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/2024\/11\/01\/out-of-town-and-a-visit-with-the-mitchell-fc\/","title":{"rendered":"Out of Town \u2026 And A Visit with the Mitchell FC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I am out of town for a couple of days this week at my daughter\u2019s wedding, but I didn\u2019t want to leave you all without a post. While I am away, I thought we might revisit the fascinating Mitchell FC 70mm Fox Grandeur camera. We recently passed the 94th anniversary of the release of the Fox Grandeur western epic \u201cThe Big Trail\u201d which our subject camera worked on. The Grandeur system was the pet project of William Fox who dreamed of bigger theaters with bigger, higher fidelity projection on massive screens. And of selling his wide film system to the rest of the industry. Earl Sponable, head of Fox\u2019s research and development team, investigated several systems for capturing and projecting widescreen images to mass audiences, before settling on an enlarged version of the industry favorite Mitchell Standard camera, which now became capable of shooting 70mm 4-perf pull-down film. Prior to his work on Grandeur, Sponable was part of the team that developed the Movietone sound-on-film process. He brought this technology to the Grandeur system with its larger soundtrack and picture areas. Sadly, only 4 features were shot in the Grandeur system, culminating in \u201cThe Big Trail,\u201d the only film of the 4 that took full advantage of the scenic possibilities of the 70mm wide film format. While the story is a bit bland, there are so many spectacular scenes in the movie that make it definitely worth a watch, at least in its Grandeur incarnation. The restoration of the 70mm Grandeur original of \u201cThe Big Trail\u201d is widely available to rent from the various streaming services and is a must see. If you are interested in more of the history of how this system came to be, and why it failed, check out our website where we have assembled a concise history: <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3YHzlwH\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/bit.ly\/3YHzlwH<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery aligncenter has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" data-id=\"451\" src=\"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-1-sq-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Mitchell FC sn. 8\" class=\"wp-image-451\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-1-sq-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-1-sq-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-1-sq-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-1-sq-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-1-sq-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-1-sq-2048x2048.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" data-id=\"453\" src=\"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-3-sq-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Mitchell FC sn. 8\" class=\"wp-image-453\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-3-sq-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-3-sq-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-3-sq-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-3-sq-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-3-sq-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-8-3-sq-2048x2048.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"819\" data-id=\"458\" src=\"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-interior-8-1-1024x819.jpg\" alt=\"A view of the internal workings of a 70mm Mitchell FC Grandeur camera, sn. 8\" class=\"wp-image-458\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-interior-8-1-1024x819.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-interior-8-1-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-interior-8-1-768x614.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-interior-8-1-1536x1228.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fc-interior-8-1-2048x1638.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am out of town for a couple of days this week at my daughter\u2019s wedding, but I didn\u2019t want to leave you all without a post. While I am away, I thought we might revisit the fascinating Mitchell FC 70mm Fox Grandeur camera. We recently passed the 94th anniversary of the release of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[35,42,32,10,92,22,111],"class_list":["post-2367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cameras","category-history","tag-70mm","tag-fox-film-corp","tag-grandeur","tag-mitchell-camera","tag-mitchell-camera-co","tag-mitchell-fc","tag-the-big-trail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2367"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2370,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions\/2370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}