American Cinematographer - August 1994 - 62

dramatic

(0 on

depth to high-impact

immersive entertainment.

"One of my ideas was to
a simulation theater,
where we would take the audi¬

design

c

experiential journey
archeological expedi¬

ence on an

during

an

tion. I felt

could make it a
better ride than Back to the Fu¬

0

ture

we

by making it smaller/'

Trumbull. "When

we were

says
pro¬

ducing Back to the Future, we used
M

4*

IB
3

much smaller theater to look at
dailies and program the ride.
That allowed us to project a much
a

your

75th

brighter image on the screen, and
the difference in impact was as¬
tounding. The other advantage of
having a smaller theater is that
over the
long-term, if you are go¬
ing to bring movie rides into the
mass culture,
they have to fit into
existing structures at retail shop¬
ping centers without requiring
construction of new buildings."
Under the title of Secrets

of the Luxor Pyramid, four main
characters
two good and two
-

4*

evil - discover the remnants of
an ancient advanced civilization
and struggle to find and exploit
the power of the pyramid, a lost
obelisk. In the first film, repre¬

3

senting the past, a couple on an
archaeological dig finds evidence

h

of

^ Anniversary
e

i

o

0

an

unknown civilization. This

Lowel-Light Manufacturing, Inc.

wide screen in a theater banked
at 45 degrees - an experiment on
Trumbull's part with a ratio more
similar to the way we take photos
and present images in the print
media. The program runs for 15

minutes, and the theater holds
350

people.
Having been in the business of
special-venue films
pretty much from the begin¬
ning, Trumbull and company
have enjoyed the new technolo¬
gies that have come to make their
craft easier. "We used

lot of
on

the

Luxor

projects, which is a lot
finer-grained than the older 100speed films. One of the biggest
advances is the new T-grain
(Eastman EXR 5244) intermediate
stock. It doesn't add any grain,
and that's important because

grain is magnified

on a

big

screen."

Digital technology, of
course,

allowed them to do things

they hadn't found possible be¬
fore. ""We did a lot of visual ef¬
fects digitally at TCI, though we
Cinesite for

tion film

180-degree wrap-around image
spherically-curved screen.

a

(Eastman EXR) 5248 film

went to

high-resoluscanning. Generally, it's
astounding that we can send our
negative out, get it scanned, get it

on a

back

The four-minute film holds six
Ridefilm motion simulators, each
with 15 seats, as well as a static

postproduction digitally, and

bay for handicapped ridegoers.

negative in quality and grain
structure and sharpness.

The second film, "Luxor Live," is

parody of a live talk show and
produced in Showscan for¬
mat and rear-projected on a
screen, which is part of the set. It
also employs a live actor, video
projection screens to simulate a

a

was

The third theater, repre¬

senting the future, "is

a

little

accessible, more melodra¬
matic, and there is sufficient char¬
more

Brooklyn New York 11220

718 921-0600 Fax 718 921-0303

60

ond, the film is projected on a
vertical, 70-foot-high by 35-foot¬

format at 48 frames per second,
and used a fisheye lens to paint a

sode runs for 17 minutes and the
theater seats 135.

140 58th Street

development and dialogue

for the audience to grasp the con¬
cept," says Trumbull. Shot in
VistaVision at 48 frames a sec¬

segment was shot in VistaVision

live TV feed, and a 3-D compo¬
nent, projected at 48 frames a sec¬
ond on a huge screen. The epi¬

louieF

acter

August 1994

on a

cassette, do all of our

then write it back onto film that
looks exactly like the original

"There were scenes in
2001 that were held in the freezer
for over a year, waiting for matte

paintings to be filmed. We had to
build miniatures, and some of it

[consisted ofl painted back¬
grounds and starfields. Earth was
added

as a

backlit animation

pass. Now, you can do most of
that in a computer with CGI and

output to film."
Kleiser/Walczak Con¬
Company contributed a
great deal of CGI augmentation
to the films. "[TCI] generally crestruction
American Cinematographer - August 1994

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