If you’ve gone to the movies since the end of November, whether it was to catch the latest blockbuster, see a show during the holiday season or you’re just a film junkie who enjoys the silver screen, you may have noticed two rows of big red seats at Galaxy Cinemas and wondered what they were used for.
Well, those big red seats are D-BOX Motions Seats, in case you were wondering, and they are part of the new string of movie-going-enhancements Cineplex has been adding to their theatres across the country—and North Bay just got its hands on them at the tail end of 2016.
“We’ve been expanding our network of theatres with enhanced movie experiences and the new installation at Galaxy Cinemas North Bay was part of the partnership with D-BOX,” said Sarah Van Lange, Director of Communications at Cineplex. “We thought that the movie experience would resonate well with the community and based on the feedback we’ve had from guests already, we were right!”
Already within the first few weeks of the D-BOX in North Bay—conveniently in time for the box office hit, Rogue One, almost all of these seats have been sold out. These seats, which are oversized, plush and equipped with two armrests, each has individual intensity controls that allow moviegoers to increase or decrease motion effects, based on preference.
“We opened our first auditorium with D-BOX Motion Seats back in 2009,” Van Lange said. “We currently have 77 auditoriums with D-BOX Motion Seats at 70 theatre locations. For context, Cineplex operates 164 theatres with 1,676 screens from coast to coast and we serve approximately 77 million guests annually.”
“D-BOX Seats are an enhanced movie-going experience and one of the newest technologies in cinema today,” she said.
D-BOX Technologies Inc. (TSX:DBO) designs, manufactures and commercialize cutting-edge motion systems intended for the entertainment and industrial markets. This unique and patented technology uses motion effects specifically programmed for each visual content which is sent to a motion system integrated into either a platform, a seat or any other product. The resulting motion is perfectly synchronized with the on-screen action, thus creating an unparalleled realistic immersive experience.
Van Lange said the process of synchronizing the two experiences is an extremely painstaking process using incredible technology and precision.
“D-BOX Motion Code is embedded onto movies, frame by frame, by D-BOX Motion designers. It’s a painstaking process that takes an average of 400 hours per movie,” she said. “Results are subtle, refined, precision motion effects that create motion sensations that move seats in perfect sync with the action onscreen.”
Currently, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story can be seen in D-BOX in North Bay at Galaxy Cinemas. For more information on how to give this new option for enhanced movie-going a try, visit their website.
