STEWART FILMSCREEN
The history of cinema is always also a history of technology. And so there are numerous moments when technical achievements have permanently changed the medium. 16 September 1953 marks such a moment in film history, because on this day the first feature film in Cinemascope format premiered with Das Gewand. Since then, the cinematic view has had this epic expanse that is still inseparable from the cinematic experience today.
There is no exact record, but it is not unlikely that this historic premiere was shown on a Stewart Filmscreen screen. The company, which was only six years young at the time, was one of the first to be able to seamlessly produce the necessary size of screen cloth. Founded in 1947 as Roy C. Stewart & Sons, the screen manufacturer specialised in true customisation from the start and pioneered the development of screen cloths. As a reward for decades of intensive development in this field, Stewart can boast of being the only screen manufacturer to have been awarded a "technology Oscar" twice.
Stewart Filmscreens gained its experience during the great era of cinema, and the current products for home cinema still benefit from it today. Probably the best known example of this is the unique MicroPerf technology. Since the early 1950s, Stewart Filmscreen has been supplying perforated projection screens that allow sound from the speakers mounted behind the screen to pass through as unhindered as possible. Of course, the brightness and quality of the projected image must not suffer in the process. That Stewart has achieved this goal with MicroPerf is proven by the THX-Ultra certification of the process, in which only about 10 % of the reflective screen material is "sacrificed" to the sound-permeable perforation.
The MicroPerf technique, for example, can be used with virtually any projection screen fabric that Stewart currently offers. In addition, the exact orientation of the perforation pattern is precisely adjusted in each case depending on the image size ordered to enable optimum image performance.
Another of Stewart's specialities is to provide a real cinema feeling even in environments that are not ideal for video projection because of the lighting conditions. With the Phantom HALR, for example, the manufacturer has a screen fabric in its range that is dyed black for optimum image contrast. A special reflective coating nevertheless allows for a strong and colourful home cinema image even in difficult lighting situations.
Of course, this material can also be combined with all the options Stewart offers. Firmly stretched on a frame or rolled up by motor, with masking or without, acoustically transparent perforation or not - the options are manifold. That is why every home cinema screen from Stewart Filmscreen is an individually manufactured one-off. However, they always have their fair share of Hollywood magic.
