Avatar helped popularize 3-D movies, and today 3-D movies are pretty standard in cineplexes everywhere. But what the heck is a 4-D movie?
You’re probably thinking that there are so many “D’s” that our eyes could capture and our brains could decode. To make matters more confusing, some movies or movie-based attractions in theme parks and elsewhere are advertised as 5-D, 6-D, and higher. It’s enough to make you completely dumbfounded, uncombobed, and dazed (and, to roll a fifth “D,” puzzled).
Do not despair. We will decipher, decipher and deconstruct the definition for you. 3D or 3D movies refer to filmed content that has been enhanced to show what appears to be three dimensions. In addition to the traditional height and width aspects, 3D movies add depth perception by displaying two separate images that are displayed simultaneously. Although the movies are projected on two-dimensional screens, the special glasses (which make audience members look like jerks) interpret the two images, merge them, and add an additional plane to the viewing experience.
But you already knew that, right?
4-D movies don’t add more visual shots. The additional dimensionality refers to the introduction of other sensory stimulants in addition to 3-D film. Typically, 4-D performances will add mists, snow machines, bubbles, theatrical fog, or other water-based effects to spray or envelop guests during key scenes. For example, hanging over a waterfall, the plight of a 3-D enhanced Princess Fiona seems even more precarious when accompanied by copious drops of water in Shrek 4-D at Universal Studios Florida.
With 3-D movies now routinely shown in theaters, the novelty has faded. However, theme parks like the ones Universal operates often enhance their cinematic attractions by converting them to 4-D. Parks are better suited for showing movies, as they can manipulate theaters to deliver the effects for long runs. It would be more difficult to adapt cineplexes with new effects every time a movie changes (although some are equipped to do exactly that).
In addition to the tactile, visual and thermal tricks delivered with water effects, other 4-D enhancements include:
- Smell : Spraying scents in cinemas can reinforce filmed action, often to hilarious effect. Perhaps the highlight of Disney’s It’s Tough to Be a Bug !, shown at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, is the funky smell that accompanies the stink bug, Clare from Room, as she, er, lets it rip.
- Moving Seats – The kinetic feel of vibrating or moving seats can help immerse audience members in an attraction. That’s what happens at DreamWorks Theater with Kung Fu Panda at Universal Studios Hollywood.
- Tactile Effects : Attractions sometimes include soft pricks, soft whips, or other delicate devices to scare the public. For example, puffs of air accompany some of the 4-D games in the Toy Story Mania games at Disney California Adventure and in Toy Story Land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida.
So what about 5-D and 6-D movies?
Okay, now you have control over 4-D movies. What, you’re probably wondering, does 5-D and all those other D movies and attractions mean? In typical theme park fashion, marketers always want to claim the biggest, the best, the latest, and the best, and will contort their attraction specifications to create bragging rights. If a competing park has a 4-D movie, why not put them together? In park-speak, a 5-D movie combines at least two sensory enhancements with a 3-D movie.
Very often, a 5-D attraction features a 3-D movie in a motion simulator theater (in which the seats move in conjunction with the action projected on a stationary screen) that also includes water or other effects. sensory tingling. Attractions in 6-D or higher include multiple sensory effects, such as water, odor, and puffs of air, as well as motion simulator seats and 3-D content.
In addition to theater-based attractions, 4-D movies are sometimes incorporated into moving attractions. Passengers wearing 3D glasses travel through multi-screen movie scenes in motion-based mobile vehicles and are bombarded with blasts of fire, water droplets, and all manner of sensory triggers on wild rides like Transformers: The Ride at Universal. Studios Hollywood and Florida and The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man at Islands of Adventure. The results are delicious, divine, fun, and delicious.
