This week at Flashbak, I also remembered
the glories of Universal Studios’ Sensurround.
Here’s a snippet and the url: (http://flashbak.com/remembering-sensurround-a-startling-new-multi-dimension-of-super-reality-361068/)
“In
the mid-1970s, Universal Studios launched a new gimmick to lure viewers away
from their homes (and TV sets) and back to the movies.
It was
called “Sensurround.”
Sense
Surround. Get it?
To
describe this technological advance in simple terms Sensurround was a sound system
add-on which would generate a low frequency "rumble" at just the
right time during a movie’s action. The process was described in Universal’s
promotional materials as a "startling
new multi-dimension" of film-going.
So it
wasn't so much that an audience member heard noise at appropriate times, it's
that they felt the noise
reverberating throughout their body. It was more than a vibration; it was a
rumble.
That
was the upside to Sensurround.
The
downside occurred if viewers happened to be seated in a different theater close
by, sharing a wall with a movie screened in this particular format.
You
would get rattled too -- whether you wanted to or not -- and whether or not it
appropriate to your film’s narrative or action.
Additionally,
there have been, across the decades, anecdotal reports of theater damage due to
Sensurround equipment.
In
other words, ceiling tiles might shake loose and drop in the auditorium as the
Sensurround rumble carried you off -- and immersed you -- in another world. Of
course, in some movies, that might be an appropriate “sense” effect.
The
first Sensurround movie released by Universal was just such a movie: Earthquake
(1974) starring Charlton Heston. The film’s
a warned viewers: "You will feel as
well as see and hear realistic effects such as might be experienced in an
actual earthquake."
Please
continue reading at
Flashbak.
Ah, "Earthquake!" Where Ava Gardner was cast as Charlton Heston's mother! Oy.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny how, desperate to drag people back from TV in high numbers, Universal adopted a gimmick not notably different from the tongue-in-cheek marketing ploys of William Castle? Interestingly, viewing "Star Wars" a couple of years later, the Dolby Surround experience in the theater was at least as physically exhilarating as Sensurround was intended to be. When it held over and then moved to other theaters for return engagements in town, you really could FEEL the Dolby experience at the next-door theater--and flotsam and jetsam did tumble from the walls then, as it had NOT done during "Earthquake" in my experience.