Althouse: "But in the future, you will physically be inside the experience, which will surround you top, bottom, on all sides."

October 12, 2005

"But in the future, you will physically be inside the experience, which will surround you top, bottom, on all sides."

Says Steven Spielberg, who's apparently invented something movie-like. I'm picturing a helmet of some sort. We go into the theater and a thousand helmets descend individually on each head. Good luck trying to eat popcorn or smooching. On the bright side, maybe people will shut up.

But no, I must be wrong, because this new Spielbergerama will be on the top, sides, and bottom. It's actually a tad frightening! Are you going to inject dreams into our heads, like in "Total Recall"? So what the hell are you talking about, Steve?

"I've invented it, but because patent is pending, I can't discuss it right now."

Feel free to discuss it for him in the comments.

22 comments:

jeff said...: Does the USPTO list pending patents anywhere?
Yep, it does.

If Steven Spielberg applied for the patent, it wasn't in his name.

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=spielberg&FIELD1=IN&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=PG01
is all pending patent applications with Spielberg in the name.; 10/12/05, 1:07 PM
jeff said...: Sorry - try this:
http://tinyurl.com/9sgsd

It's short for this:
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Se
ct2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.htm
l&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=spielberg&FIELD1=IN
&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=PG01; 10/12/05, 1:08 PM
Ron said...: maybe he can combine it with smell-o-vision and those charged seats like they used in theatres when they showed "The Tingler."; 10/12/05, 1:38 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Wouldn't this be more along the lines of virtual reality than movies? Then again, I guess it might be a hybrid. Virtual reality in which the user has no control aside from choosing where to look.; 10/12/05, 1:44 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Here's a guess - a Video machine of some type that one day will be compared to the Segue (a failed product to date).

Why do I say this? Cause very few successful entrepreenuers can make a leap to another field.; 10/12/05, 1:48 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Frankly, I think it would be annoying. I care about composition, so I like to see a frame around the picture. I'm already annoyed by the curved screens. I've seen movies projected on all four walls around me -- at some theme park (MGM Studios?). Do you really want to sit in an audience full of people whipping their heads around every which way? If it's not a helmet-like concept, the other people are going to take you OUT of this would-be all-encompassing experience.; 10/12/05, 1:51 PM
pst314 said...: "I like to see a frame around the picture."

Exactly. Art involves selective attention. Trying to show everything is a sign of a bad artist.; 10/12/05, 2:10 PM
neo-neocon said...: He's talking about the feelies, from Brave New World.; 10/12/05, 2:35 PM
knox said...: "maybe people will shut up"

I'm glad to see someone else is as grouchy about this as I am. I wish they'd bring back those ushers with the flashlights to patrol the theaters.; 10/12/05, 2:45 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I care about composition, so I like to see a frame around the picture.

Chalk up another "Exactly" with pst314. The visual composition is just as important as the story. I don't like the idea of being inside a movie.

That said, maybe this will open up a whole new art of film composition. There wouldn't be a frame, but the viewer would be at a fixed point in the film's three dimensional world. Really I think having images in every direction would be an entirely different medium than current movies.

Sort of like IMAX. IMAX movies generally aren't like regular movies. Regular movies composed and edited for the "frame" tend to make people feel ill when projected IMAX style.; 10/12/05, 2:59 PM
Eli Blake said...: Eddie P:

They are already bringing back 3-D for some kids movies. And last year I went to Universal Studios Hollywood and they have a short (about 15 minute) 'Shrek 4-D' movie where you not only wear glasses and get 3-D, but the seats move and squirt you with water and all kinds of stuff. In fact, when we went to Disneyland, they had a very realistic set of earphones you put on for a short on 'meeting Mr. Lincoln' about a soldier on his way to the Civil War. It was so good that you heard a fly buzzing in your ear and everyone kept turning around try and shoo off the fly.

Should we be surprised? Technology is growing so fast, that pretty much anything that you can imagine, will be reality sooner or later.

As to Steve, I hope he makes hundreds of millions off of this. It could spur even more innovations at the movie theater (after all, movie attendance was down for a couple of decades, so anything that brings people back is a good thing.; 10/12/05, 4:10 PM
Matt said...: Actually, a pending patent might not be listed, at least in any detail. Because of (obvious) fears about confidentiality, patent applications are typically held in the utmost secrecy until published, so it's probably at an early stage.

Hell, even once a patent's published, they're often so incomprehensibly written that you can't figure out what the hell they're saying.; 10/12/05, 4:19 PM
vbspurs said...: Oh no he didn't!

Tell me Spielberg is not going to mess up one of the few wonderful, communal experiences we have, by making people put on HELMETS in theatres...

What next, sports stadia with jacuzzis??

Well, alright. I've read the other comments, and it seems it's not a helmet, but a 3-D like experience we should expect.

Come on, that's so 1950's. Bring us films with Smell-o-Rama!

"Smell Brad Pitts' pits", etc.

It'll catch on.

Cheers,
Victoria; 10/12/05, 4:57 PM
P_J said...: Spielberg has invented a Holodeck?; 10/12/05, 5:10 PM
SippicanCottage said...: I watch Gladiator, and cgi lets me see the battle of the teutoborg forest. I watch slackjawed in amazement. Ten minutes later, I'm watching a Victor Mature movie. I watch the first twenty minutes of Private Ryan, and am transported amazingly to Omaha Beach. Then I have to sit through two hours of Spielberg trying to turn world war two into a dorm room bull session, complete with a lack of overarching meaning. Disney has fired the last paint and brush animator. Who needs them to make Geppetto dance with Pinocchio anymore?

Now that they can make anything appear in the movies, it's useless because they've forgotten how to tell a story.

Spielberg will no doubt go from setting HIS hair on fire to distract us from the movie to setting OUR hair on fire to distract us from the movie. Yawn.; 10/12/05, 5:27 PM
Felice Luftschein said...: Didn't Fahrenheit 451 have a modular TV system that you could expand to cover all the walls, and that was somewhat participatory?

Yeah, that's the road we should go down...; 10/12/05, 8:21 PM
Pat Patterson said...: As much as I think that Spielberg's films are boring and heartless he must be given credit for doing away with the frame, proscenium arch in Jaws. Spielberg essentially put the audience into the film without the imaginary wall seprating them from the stage. George Lucas has also had some patents issued which made the theaters more loud and even less inviting, if that's possible. Spielberg still has to tell interesting stories regardless of the tricks.; 10/12/05, 8:30 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Miklos: For a movie about hallucinating in isolation tanks, see "Altered States."; 10/12/05, 9:36 PM
vbspurs said...: Miklos wrote:

Virtual reality will be the only reallity humans will know.

Did any of you guys see this 1983 flick with Natalie Wood and Christopher Walken, called Brainstorm?

I saw it years after it came out, but it was really the first time I learned about virtual reality.

The premise has to do with a helmet (yes!) which if put on, causes you to physically experience sensations.

You can be skiing down the Materhorn, or being operated on, or indeed, experiencing a heart attack -- and you will FEEL it.

Of course, being humans, one of the sleazy characters uses the device to have virtual sex.

The orgasm scene is great. :)

Unfortunately, this film wasn't so great for ole Natalie Wood. She was drowned during the filming of it, and some of her latter scenes had to be worked around -- always interesting to pick out which.

Just look for the copious shots of the shoulders.

Cheers,
Victoria; 10/12/05, 9:39 PM
Ann Althouse said...: And let's not forget the Orgasmatron (from "Sleeper").; 10/12/05, 9:45 PM
Lonesome Payne said...: Jaws was great. E.T. made me really uncomfortable, and then later when I saw Joseph Campbell and Bill "I'm sorry about helping facilitate Viet Nam, so let me spend the rest of my life imposing my penance on all of you" Moyers talking about it as some sort of legitimate modern sprituality, I went to bed for a week. Saving Pvt. Ryan was built on one of the most heinous cinematic lies of all time.

So anyway, on balance I don't trust Spielberg to lead me anywhere.; 10/12/05, 11:44 PM
goesh said...: I'm going to put up yet another bird feeder this winter - the hell with helmets.; 10/13/05, 7:05 AM