NAB
What museums are to
art, cinemas to movies and concert halls to music, Illuminariums are
to experiential entertainment. That at least is the grand claim of a new
visitor attraction launching July 1 in Atlanta in a project which could expand
to a city near you if successful.
It also fits into
the growing desire - and market for - virtual experiences shared in concert
with other people and therefore plugs right into the Metaverse.
Illuminariums are
described as “reprogrammable immersive theaters that surround visitors in a sensory
space of sight, sound and scale” according to its operator Legends, which
already runs over 150 venues and attractions around the world.
The Illuminarium concept
is backed by $100 million in funding from various investors.
The heart of the
enterprise is a an 8,000-square-foot room featuring 350-feet long, 22-feet high
projection screen offering a 240-degree field of view. On this, visitors can
view a 50-minute film called Wild which emulates being on safari.
“We are in many
ways VR without the glasses,” Alan Greenberg, Illuminarium’s CEO says “VR’s
a singular experience, hard to share, hard to talk to people, hard to have a
‘wow’ moment with somebody. We’re not strapping a computer on your back and
fitting goggles on your face.”
A second location
will open in Las Vegas next January, another at Mana in Miami, planned for fall
2022 with other US homes being considered including New York City,
Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, LA and Austin.
According to
Fastcompany, the actual experience of visiting Illuminarium will
involve a timed entrance into an 8,000-square-foot room where the walls and
floor will be covered in the projected safari film. Broken down into distinct
chapters, covering different parts of Africa, the film itself is nonlinear, and
able to be entered at any point in its roughly 50-minute run time. Visitors can
walk throughout the space or find a place to sit.
It's the kind of
attraction that has been a staple of theme parks since at least the 1950s. It’s
reminiscent of French theme park Futuroscope which opened in 1987 housing multiple
moving image experiences. It included attractions with screens on the floor and
walls, motion simulators, projection domes and an IMAX screen showing the first
IMAX dramatic film ‘Wings of Courage’ starring Val Kilmer (prior to then IMAX
films were docu-style immersions of natural wonders or space).
Kamen says the
sheer scope of its video projection and cutting-edge interactive elements will
make the Illuminarium experience unique.
“It’s only in the
last few years that you could really contemplate doing what we’re doing,” he
says.
This includes
haptic effects in the floor that will make visitors “feel the rumble of a lion
walking nearby”. Responsive elements in the bar space we feel “like a flock of
birds that bursts from a tree when visitors approach.”
Other elements,
drawing on decades-old of sensory cinematic gimmicks, include “dust” that might
kick up as you walk by, and even “authentic scents” that will let you get a
whiff of your virtual surroundings, says Variety.
The kit list
Techwise, the $10
million film was shot by production company RadicalMedia on location
in South
Africa, Botswana, Kenya and Tanzania using a specially
built array of six cameras. Images are stitched together to form the panorama
and projected using Panasonic 4K laser projectors.
Panasonic has also
made “a unique lens for Illuminarium to produce an enhanced immersive
experience”. According to the firm, Panasonic's engineers collaborated to
create for Illuminarium an ultra-short throw lens with minimal offset
and loss of light.
Other manufacturers
involved in the venture include Holoplot, which provides “proprietary
beamforming and wavefield synthesis technology with the ability to localize and
isolate sound” across the venue; Ouster’s OS0 ultra-wide view lidar sensor
which responds to guests’ movements, and Powersoft which is responsible for the
haptic infrasound floor.
Adjacent to its
venue in Atlanta, Illuminarium is building a R&D and
post-production center called The Illuminarium Lab. Panasonic,
Holoplot and XR specialist Disguise are involved here in developing future
experiences.
Like walking into a
film
The technological
hurdles were only part of the challenge, says RadicalMedia CEO Jon Kamen.
Creating a film for this type of space—with people moving through, entering and
leaving at different times, and only able to see a small amount of the entire
experience at any one time—called for a new kind of storytelling.
“It’s a bit of a
mind-bender, to be honest,” he says. “You have a much bigger physical
responsibility, because anybody in the room can be looking in any direction at
any time. It’s a completely different discipline of filmmaking.”
Venue designer
David Rockwell, founder of Rockwell Group, added perches and areas where
visitors can peer out into the space or walk right up to elements of the
film.
“To tell a story
spatially you have to leave seams in the story for audiences to find themselves
in it,” he says. “If it’s a hermetically sealed, complete story, there’s very
little opportunity for people to bring themselves into it.”
Exit through the
gift shop
The core business
model of the Illuminarium is depressingly familiar. The press release
says visitors can also “experience” The Illuminarium Café, offering
an outdoor patio “facing the BeltLine”. The café is being sold as an
“extension of the immersive experience content, serving authentic dishes,
beer, and wine from the African continent.”
A $50
“all-inclusive” ticket gifts you a $10 voucher for the café or gift shop which
will “retail a wide variety of gifts inspired by the safari
experience.”
Further, Illuminarium venues
will be promoted as nightlife destinations with a bar “letting visitors
experience different virtual settings, from a Tokyo city street to fantastical
dreamscapes.”
All this is perfect
for Vegas where Paris and Venice themes barely disguise shopping malls but may
not live up to the hype if visitors come expecting to be wowed by experience
that truly immerse them in the atmosphere of places they have never been.
According to the
PR,“Each environment evolves throughout the night to deliver ever-changing
visual destinations rendered in real-time. Guests may toast friends as they
float on billowing clouds that overlook a glowing sunset; the following night
they may encounter the fluorescent light animations and holograms decorating
the surfaces of a futuristic street in Tokyo.”
I’m reminded of the
distinctly underwhelming World Showcase at Disney World’s Epcot which claims to
represent different cultures like Mexico, France, Italy and the UK but are
little more than shells for overpriced cafes and gift shops.
Not stopping
there
Illuminarium expects
to have 25 to 30 of its venues open in the world's “great megacities and mega
tourism locations” within the next five years. These will be
launched as joint ventures.
After ‘Wild’, its next
production is ‘Spacewalk,’ will let visitors “stroll across Moon and Mars.”
Also planned is film about the depths of the world’s oceans.
“It’s not a movie,”
says Greenberg of the space trip. “You’re going to be able to walk on the
surface of the Moon!”
For that you’d need
a gravity field about 1/6th that of the Earth. It can be done (see NASA flight
sims) but I’d wager the experience will be more like a glorified terrestrial
planetarium.
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