The main elements to the Back
to The Future ride for me were that it was
kind of the ultimate immersive
experience that brought together giant
screen IMAX Dome projection, photographic
effects, special cameras.
The whole idea of motion-based
entertainment a kind of a perfection of
the motion envelopes and where the the
synchronization between the senses what
you feel
by virtual the hydraulics that are
activating the
the DeLorean car and what you see are
perfectly coordinated and I think that's
one of the reasons why that ride was so
successful. It was also successful because
was based upon a trilogy of pretty
famous and well-known motion pictures so
that by the time the audience goes to
see the Back To The Future ride, they
already know who Marty McFly is who
Doc Brown is and you know what's really
going on and so they're able to get into
a four-minute story pretty readily. What
it meant to me was that some of these
crazy things I've been working on for so
many years which was how to explore
giant screen immersive cinema. How to
explore simulation rides. How to explore
physical sensations, audio sensations,
visual sensations, bring them all
together came together
as best they possibly could at the time
with the Back To The Future ride. There
was still some significant deficiencies
in the ride that annoyed me. I tried to
get Universal to agree to up the
framerate 48 frames a second because of
the tremendous amount of blurring and
strobing on the screen. We have to design
the film around that. The screen
brightness was low when you're spreading
that much light out over a giant 90 foot
diameter dome.
I think we've had three and a half four
foot lamberts of illumination which is
not enough brightness to give you color
saturation and contrast.
But all in all it was very successful.
I'd like to go to the next step
someday.
I believe there's a huge reserve
untapped
resources and technology that are way
beyond film,
we're way beyond the limitations of
current television and video and digital
systems. There is a very bright future ahead.