![]() ![]() ![]() “You have to know when to draw the line and when less is more.” “You don’t want to sensory-overload the audience,” Yi said as she sat in the test theater near Grauman’s, scanning a computer that resembled a heart monitor. In the crash scene, should the seats rock side to side or sway back and forth to simulate the ship’s fall? How violently should they gyrate when debris and fireballs hit the ground? Should the giant fan in the theater emit one blast of wind or two? When should the canisters release the gunpowder smell? It takes 16 to 20 days to program the 4-D effects into a movie, using special software to control such things as wind level and seat vibration.įor director Ridley Scott’s sci-fi movie “Prometheus,” 22-year-old programmer Catherine Yi studied the “point of view” of the alien ship when deciding how best to insert effects. The theaters, containing up to 240 seats, also have giant fans and strobe lights to simulate wind, lightning flashes and explosions. In addition to the moving seats, it installs tiny nozzles that spray water, mist, bubbles, air and odors from a collection of 1,000 scents, such as rose garden, coffee, women’s perfume, burning rubber and gunpowder. Smell-O-Vision, used in 1960 with the movie “Scent of Mystery,” featured 30 odors - including brandy, flowers and gunsmoke - pumped across the audience at key moments.ĭirector John Waters used scratch-and-sniff cards with his 1981 suburban satire “Polyester.” Robert Rodriguez revived the idea last year with the release of his “Spy Kids: All the Time in the World.” Waters called his gimmick “Odorama.” Rodriguez dubbed his “Aromascope.”ĬJ Group insists it isn’t building theme park rides, and says theaters with its equipment offer a much richer movie experience. Gimmicks to get people to buy movie tickets aren’t new.ĭirector William Castle rattled audiences when he installed buzzers in theater seats for his 1959 horror film “The Tingler.” Years later, theaters deployed Sensurround, developed for the 1974 film “Earthquake.” Sensurround’s large bass speakers created such intense vibrations, Grauman’s Chinese had to install a safety net to catch falling plaster during screenings.įilmmakers have also tried to heighten the onscreen action with in-theater odors. The theme park attractions Shrek 4-D and Transformers: The Ride at Universal Studios Hollywood and Soarin’ Over California at Disney California Adventure Park use similar technology. They aren’t the only people working in the “fourth dimension,” and if their system gains traction, they’ll have plenty of company.ĭ-Box Technologies of Canada launched a limited number of moving seats in North American movie theaters in 2009 with “Fast & Furious,” and it now has about 100 locations in the U.S. “Theaters need to find new ways to bring people back to the multiplex and away from their couches, and this is one way of doing that,” said Theodore Kim, chief operating officer for the Los Angeles lab of CJ 4DPlex, operator of the specialty theaters. They say 4-D technology will help reverse the longtime decline in cinema attendance in the U.S. audiences are ready to shell out an extra $8 for the new movie experience. CJ Group executives say its 4-D venues already draw sellout crowds from Seoul to Mexico City, and they predict that U.S.
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