[Sydney Morning Herald]
Sydney’s newest tourist attraction is a small cinema that appeals to more than just the usual two senses of sight and hearing. The Sydney Tower Eye has a floor that vibrates as waves crash against rocks on screen, a spray of mist as a skiff crosses the harbour and rushing wind as a father and son fly kites during a short 3D film that shows off the city’s sights.
”It’s a 4D experience, then you experience the views for real on the top of the observation deck,” says Rob Smith from Merlin Entertainments (Australia), whose parent company also runs 4D cinemas at the London Eye and Blackpool Tower in England. …
Around the world, cinemas have been carrying out some fascinating experiments. In New Zealand, Hoyts has a D-BOX cinema with seats that move and vibrate during mainstream Hollywood movies.
In South Korea, cinemas went one better by showing Avatar in 4D. Viewers who paid about twice the normal ticket price had moving seats, the smell of explosives, sprinkling water, laser lights and wind. The success of these cinemas is prompting expansion to other countries, though nothing has been announced for Australia so far.
An Indian company installs even more extreme cinemas for trade fairs and shopping malls, with seats that move in all directions – including free-falling, vibrating and flight simulation – and have a ”back poker”, ”butt poker”, ”leg tickler” and ”neck blasts”. The effects include rain, snow, bubbles, a storm, lightning, wind, strobing and fog as well as water and air jets.
David Seargeant, the head of Amalgamated Holdings, which runs the Event Cinemas chain, believes 4D has potential in mainstream cinemas. ”The [Hollywood] studios have made a commitment – I’m aware that three, if not four, have – that they are supportive of embedding the digital print with the coding to enable those effects to take place,” he says. ”How popular it becomes, only the trial of that sort of technology will tell.” …
SYDNEY TOWER EYE 4D CINEMA
TICKETS Adult $25 ($22.50 online, $12.50 after 7pm), child (15 and under) $15/ $13.50/$7.50, sydneytowereye.com.au, 9333 9222.
TRAVEL 100 Market Street, Level 5. Close to Elizabeth, Pitt and George streets bus stops and Market St taxi rank.
OPEN 9am-10.30pm, seven days.
Target senses – a history of 4D
1984 The Sensorium, screening at an indoor theme park in Baltimore, is reputedly the world’s first 4D film.
1986 The Michael Jackson short film Captain EO screens with lasers, smoke effects and starfields.
1991 Muppet*Vision 3D at Disney theme parks features such 4D effects as robotic Muppets in the cinema and soap bubbles from the ceiling.
1999 The 3D short film Honey, I Shrunk the Audience has viewers on a moving platform.
2002 PandaDream, a Dutch theme park attraction based on the activities of the World Wide Fund for Nature, features moving seats, splashing water, blowing wind and a tree branch that falls into the audience.
2003 Shrek 4D brings extra dimensions to theme parks, including Movie World on the Gold Coast.
2006 The short Pirates 4D has such effects as bursts of air, vibrations and wires pushing against the viewer’s feet. At the end, water cannons soak viewers in the front row.
2009 Avatar gets 4D screenings in South Korea and Hong Kong.
2011 Merlin Entertainments, which has a ”pre-flight 4D Experience” at the London Eye, opens a similar cinema at Sydney Tower.
2011 Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D revives the scratch-and-sniff card.
Read the full story here: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/cinema-with-a-new-dimension-20111006-1la3c.html