It's a strange kind of alchemy that makes the cinema a place to immerse yourself.
The blanket of public darkness, the smell of popcorn, the glimmer of the billboard-sized screen - exhibitors are forever looking for ways to bank on the appeal of an experience too big to get at home.
The launch of a new technology in Canada last week is an attempt to broaden that appeal. D-Box seating uses special chairs to mimic the action on the screen, vibrating with explosions, arcing back and forth to simulate flight, or swaying to the gentle rhythm of a train en route.
In an auditorium at the Cineplex Odeon Queensway in Etobicoke, a row of 18 red seats marks the debut of D-Box in Canadian movie theatres.
It's a trial run of technology that, if successful, could take its place alongside 3-D and digital projection in Cineplex's tech-based attempt to drive audiences from their home theatres to the box office. The seats are already installed at six theatres in the United States.
"We do as a company focus on being on the leading edge of new technology," said Pat Marshall of Cineplex Entertainment LP. "We've shown leadership in terms of having Imax locations and 3-D locations. This is one more element that we are sharing with our guests."
D-Box works through a painstaking process of digital encoding. During postproduction, the company's motion designers go through a film frame by frame, deciding when and how to make the seat move to echo the scene.
They use two kinds of effects. A tilting or jolted motion is based on visual events like the swerves in a car chase. But the seats also vibrate based on more intuitive effects like changes in the soundtrack.
The encoding takes between 300 and 400 hours for each movie. Motion signals are then digitally embedded into the movie (the seats only work with digital projectors), the same way a soundtrack is laid down to match the visuals.
Pistons in the base of the chairs are wired to transmit those signals into movement. The setup looks like half an accordion holding up an airplane seat. On average, it moves about one-third of the time.
Claude McMaster, president and chief executive officer of Longeuil, Que.-based D-BOX Technologies Inc., says the product shouldn't be confused with some sort of amusement park attraction.
"It's not a ride," Mr. McMaster said. "At Disney World, they don't try to replicate reality, they try to give you a ride, something that after three minutes you'll have a headache. But with D-Box that's not the purpose at all. It's meant to allow a moviegoer to be immersed in the action as though he or she were the main character."
Theatregoers who want that experience can expect to pay $7 more per ticket for their reserved D-Box seat. The system works on a revenue-sharing model, and that premium is split among the company, the exhibitor - in this case Cineplex - and the studio.
D-Box started off marketing its equipment for home theatre systems. Its first technology was a kind of platform that could be placed underneath a sofa to make it move. That cost roughly $30,000. Nowadays, the home version looks more like a big easy chair, and is one-third the price. A motion chair the company will put on the market in the fall will work with both movies and video games, and will cost closer to $4,000.
But Mr. McMaster sees no conflict between the two sides of the business.
"The home theatre setup is a high-end system," he said. "The cinema version is meant for everyone."
That experience can be a bit distracting. D-Box made its debut in Canada alongside the latest in the Harry Potter franchise, and while it's novel to feel the tilt of takeoff on a Quidditch broom, it's also easy to get caught thinking more about the gimmick than the movie.
Mr. McMaster said that's normal for any new technology.
"It's like surround sound, when they introduced it," he said. "Initially, people were looking around to see where the sound was coming from. Nowadays, it's impossible not to have it."
© The Globe and Mail
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