Movie-going a moving experience
4D seats, fog machines and fans help accentuate blockbusters like Jurassic World
LOS ANGELES — Mike Koenig sat back in his seat for a recent screening of Mad Max: Fury Road. But this was no ordinary theatre chair.
As the theatre darkened and death machines rumbled across the desert on screen, Koenig’s chair rumbled with them. As bullets whizzed by Furiosa, the movie’s heroine played by Charlize Theron, puffs of air shot out of Koenig’s headrest. Wall-mounted fans in the theatre gusted desert winds and fog machines pumped smoke from the mayhem.
The 46-year-old software salesman’s Wednesday matinee was a 4D movie experience, the kind of rollicking thrill factory once reserved for theme park rides.
With domestic movie theatre attendance stagnant in recent years, more theatre owners are looking to provide these immersive jolts to goose both moviegoers and box office revenues.
“I loved it,” Koenig said, having forked over $26.25 US for a “4DX” ticket at Regal Cinemas L.A. Live Stadium 14 in downtown Los Angeles. “If you ever rode bumper cars as a kid, you’d like this.”
Motion seats touting a “4D” experience can sometimes occupy a row or two in an otherwise normal theatre. More souped-up models like the one at L.A. Live can take up an entire auditorium decked out with strobe lights and pneumatic lifts.
With the summer movie season in full swing, movies like San Andreas, Jurassic World, Ant-Man and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation are being programmed by motion artists with the bumps and sways necessary for the seats to come to life.
It’s one way for theatre owners to offer something that can’t be experienced at home for the average fan.
Shelby Russell, vice-president of marketing for L.A. Live, says the 100-seat auditorium that was retrofitted with the 4DX system last June has tripled its revenues, thanks both to greater attendance and the $8 US ticket upcharge, not to mention the $4 add-on if the movie is also shown in 3D.
The setup has helped attract visitors to L.A. who come for the theme parks and studio tours and drop by the 4DX theatre for another thrill, he said.
4DX is backed by Korean conglomerate CJ Group, which has set up 170 theatres in 33 countries, but just one in the U.S. at L.A. Live.
Another company, Californiabased MediaMation Inc., has outfitted about two-dozen theatres worldwide with its similar “MX4D” system, but there’s just one in the U.S. in the L.A. suburb of Oxnard.
Canada’s D-Box Inc. leads the pack with nearly 330 installations of its “MFX” seats at theatres worldwide, including 175 in North America, most of which are in the U.S.
However, its seats only sway, vibrate and jostle, and are usually placed among non-moving seats in auditoriums. While the less-expensive installation cost has helped D-Box grow quickly at theatres, there’s no snow, fog, scents or strobe lights. The range of motion is more subtle, though the company argues it’s also more refined than newer entrants.
“We are 15 years ahead of them,” said motion artist Jesse Auclair, during a visit to D-Box’s encoding studio in Burbank. The company’s experience stretches back to the time it made motion seats for wealthy home theatre owners along with industrialgrade car and flight simulators. “We’ve evolved so much, it feels so much better now.”
CJ4D Plex, behind the 4DX format, says its experience offers many more sensations than other seat-movers.
Leg ticklers reach out to give you a surprise tingle, lightning is punctuated with a strobe light. Even scents, from raspberry to burnt tires, help audiences immerse themselves in the onscreen world.