A company is rolling out its 4D experience to add physical effects to the cinema experience:
Movie theaters are in for some very stormy weather now that CJ 4DPlex is rolling out its three newest effects: snow, rainstorm and warm air.
The inclement weather simulations will be shared with the public for the first time at CinemaCon, the annual exhibition trade show taking place this April in Las Vegas. It’s part of what the company has dubbed its 4DX experience.
The new additions join 4DX’s catalogue of standard effects, which include motion, water, fog, wind, air, lightning, bubbles, ticklers, scents and vibration. The idea of 4D theaters, which remain more popular in foreign countries than in the U.S., is to heighten the theatrical experience by pumping auditoriums with effects that mirror the on-screen action.
CJ 4DPlex says that the new effects will create a more immersive experience for any on-screen floods, explosions, earthquakes, tornadoes and fires. It also arrives just in time for a summer movie slate that includes disaster films like “San Andreas” and apocalyptic adventures such as “Mad Max: Fury Road,” both of which will be screened by the company.
4D theaters have been around in select places for several years now. My kids have dragged me to the Dora & Diego 4D movie at the Bronx Zoo scores of times; but, will such features find wider adoption? Will 4D succeed where 3D has failed to bring audiences back to the cinema?
(Score: 3, Informative) by caseih on Sunday April 19 2015, @03:18AM
3D seems overdone to me. It's like they use it as an excuse to put something in your face, even if its not a natural thing to do. People watch movies because they get into the story and what's being portrayed (whether it's a good plot or maybe blood and gore). Having physical sensations to go along with the movie is a novelty really and will wear off quickly, particularly if it's overdone. If it's not overdone, then it might add something but I doubt most people would even notice whether it's there or not.
Now in the realm of video games with full-immersion 3D first person, that could be interesting.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday April 19 2015, @03:29AM
3D seems overdone to me. It's like they use it as an excuse to put something in your face
Agreed. And when they DON'T do that, you forget that you are watching 3D, and it might just as well be 2D.
Some might say that is because the 3D tech we have is not convincing without the spear flying past your head, but I think 3D just isn't that necessary to the enjoyment of the film.
Of course, neither is color. I've seen more than my share of B&W films, and was not impressed with the ones they later colorized.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Adamsjas on Sunday April 19 2015, @03:21AM
I've only been to one 4D presentation and while it was a Novelty, I'm not sure it would ever be a mainstream movie experience, although it might be a novelty experience, akin to 3D, which I don't personally see as a huge attraction.
It seemed sort of Juvinile (It was at Disneyland after all) and it was all about the surprise factor.
As for rain, and snow, no thanks. I might want to SEE the movie, but I don't want to BE IN the movie.
(Score: 4, Funny) by mhajicek on Sunday April 19 2015, @04:11AM
What's next? Real bullets and shrapnel?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Sunday April 19 2015, @12:39PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday April 19 2015, @03:52AM
... novelty.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by gman003 on Sunday April 19 2015, @04:47AM
I can see a future where 3D is not a novelty. It's a future where 3D requires no glasses (or where VR movies are the most common format), a future where the effect is used to (literally) add depth rather than thrust in your face. And also a future where people prefer HFR and we don't have to deal with idiots who insist on holding technology back because of their own biases rather than any sound argument. I can't be sure this is the future we're heading towards, but it's certainly one we could be heading towards.
I cannot, however, imagine a future where movies regularly blow snow and water at me. For one thing, that would spoil the popcorn. It might become prevalent as a gimmick - it might even be used well as a gimmick - but it will always be a gimmick.
(Score: 3, Funny) by captain normal on Sunday April 19 2015, @04:58AM
Ah...but just think what this for the p0rn industry.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday April 19 2015, @04:59AM
If HFR = high frame rates, there seems to be a consensus that VR technologies need a minimum of 90 FPS, preferred 120 FPS.
I don't know if The Hobbit trilogy has done anything to change attitudes about higher frame rates in theaters and I haven't seen the movies.
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(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday April 20 2015, @06:04AM
Actually the first time I say a 3D film was in IMAX, where it was used for documentations, long before it came to regular movies. That was a very good use of 3D (especially combined with the IMAX big screen). The scenes were all natural scenes, and seeing then in 3D really added to the experience. There were no unusual perspectives; all they showed could in principle also have been shown on 2D.
I don't know if they still do it that way because where I live now there's no IMAX. Actually, I couldn't even say whether IMAX still exists at all.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Funny) by black6host on Sunday April 19 2015, @05:07AM
We had this back when The Rocky Horror Picture Show came out. No special theater required. Although extra maintenance personnel were required when we attended.
(Score: 2) by ah.clem on Sunday April 19 2015, @05:08PM
>> We had this back when The Rocky Horror Picture Show came out. No special theater required. Although extra maintenance personnel were required when we attended.
Just for those who might want to know, the longest running, continuous US showing of RHPS with the best audience participation and live cast I have witnessed since the late 70's (when I spent 3 years worth of week-ends attending midnight shows) is at the Clinton Street Theater in Portland, OR (every week-end since 1978). Well worth the visit if you want a taste of what the shows were like in the late 70's, early 80's.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 19 2015, @05:15AM
I think it was in the fall of 1983. A TV movie about global nuclear war, but depicted from the point of view of the american midwest. The scene that has always stuck with me has a USAF missile launch officer wrapped in a blanket and struggling to survive the nuclear winter.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2015, @12:05PM
Are you sure you're not thinking of The Day After?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2015, @05:21AM
What they are aiming for is re-makes of all the movies that have ever made them money (or not). The personal jet they just bought does not pay for itself, you know.
So something new (whether needed or not) has to be made and sold so they can continue to make money with their sub-standard work. Most of Hollywood is all show and no talent (except some exceptions maybe). Stars are made when someone high up decides they want a star that they can use to promote their agenda.
Modern movies are filled with actors who have little or no talent. But because they are a certain race, and/or fulfill some need a certain group of people (shadow groups) have, so these actor-clowns are promoted and made into stars.
I am thinking of (off the top of my head), the movie: "The book of Eli". Now see that the movie is set in a dystopian future where there are no factories, no soap, no shoes, etc. The actor still has crystal white teeth. I am guessing the black actor did not look good with dirty teeth. But because he fulfilled a need, so he was used.
There are so many examples of this: think Spock from the new Star Trek movies. Couldn't another actor do the same role, maybe better? (this particular actor is a declared homosexual, btw). The powers that be are promoting homosexuality and black heroes so much, that I've all but given up on today's movies. I don't think I am missing much.
If I wanted a temporary high, I would fire up an FPS game and get my high. Movies need to be something more than a temporary high, that you still remember years and decades later, that teach you something you didn't already know, were wrong about, or didn't see it in a certain way.
This new 4D is definitely going to be used for more anti-Nazi movies (using old Russian tanks painted with Swastikas). Come on people, learn history, not the history movies throw at you.
The question is not "when are they going to stop ?", but "who is going to stop them ?".
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday April 19 2015, @11:19PM
I have thought for a while that given the now ubiquity of smartphones and computers that they could make movies with n-dimensional plots, where you could add on new modules to the main story line that audiences can opt to follow in the theater, so that the show follows that plot branch instead of the main story line you've already seen. So, for example, think of the scene in Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf falls into the abyss. The story then followed the rest of the fellowship as they fled into Lothlorien. Later in Two Towers, it opens with a scene that follows Gandalf into the abyss, told as a flashback. In an n-dimensional movie, however, the audience could have indicated a desire to follow Gandalf into the abyss and seen that footage then. Or, as another example, fans could opt to follow the four hobbits after escaping the Riders at the ferry to the encounter with Tom Bombadil.
So, it would stand up under repeat viewing and engage the heck out of the fans. It's also something that you'd want to go to the cinema to experience because it is a group activity that might not follow the plot line you'd expect, so there would be new surprises and insights.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday April 20 2015, @05:18PM
Uh, you don't have to let this happen. Be a man, be the father and say no. For their well being and yours. At least have them spend their time with something educational or culturally significant.