Boxoffice - October 2016

TECH TALK > BARCO ESCAPE
ums. The approach allows exhibitors to
use the auditorium flexibly—showing
standard 2D and 3D movies and Barco
Escape releases in the same auditorium—all
by simply switching the system
on as needed.” Nifty and thrifty.
For the pre-show, the theater
presented a snowboarding short that
showed off Escape in spectacular fashion,
with Barco’s Auro sound equally
Star Trek Beyond was the perfect fit for the Escape experience
Since my Star Trek Beyond adventure,
I have learned a few more details
about Barco Escape. As to retrofitting
theater space, Barco’s team works with
theater operators to select the appropriate
auditorium where the rake of
the room, dimensions of the space,
seat count, and viewing angles are all
carefully evaluated.
Barco works with a number of
immersive. Our seats were perfectly situated with the side screens just
inside our peripheral vision—no side-to-side head turning to take it
all in. It was all quite startling.
Star Trek Beyond was a good film to initiate my Barco Escape
experience. Grand, action-packed, with a powerful soundscape of
phasers, starships, and Idris Elba’s villainous basso profundo, the
movie showed off Escape’s promise of being truly immersive.
It’s important to note that the entire film was not presented in
the three-screen format. Quiet, introspective moments between
characters, expositional Sorkin-style walk-and-talks are limited to
the central screen, making the sudden expansion to the triple-screen
setup during action beats all the more thrilling. I kept an eye on the
vertical seams between the screens, wondering if the break would
be distracting. Seamless. My daughter, a production assistant for
Boxoffice, was enraptured—she’s an anime-convention-going, cosplay-dressing
nerd. Had this film been Warcraft, her head would have
exploded. My pal, a guy with thousands of dollars of PC gaming gear
in his flat, was very impressed, as was his like-minded date.
screen vendors to select the correct solution for its cinema partners.
It’s an end-to-end, turnkey setup—the additional screens retract to
the walls and are covered with curtains when theaters are projecting
more standard fare—no need to wonder what Bridget Jones’s Baby
would be like in Escape.
One of the challenges I see in Barco Escape’s widespread adoption
is patron awareness. I work for this magazine, so of course I had read
about it. But my gaming pal had not; I showed him the special Escape
Star Trek Beyond trailer and he was all in. The theater, in a prime
downtown location, had standees promoting the film, and there was
a big crowd at the screening. Barco has had success with its social
media efforts: local press outreach, digital ads (which is how I learned
of the enhanced Star Trek release), contests, and giveaways.
As audience members, we were transported. Star Trek Beyond was
the perfect film to use this new widescreen technology. Kudos to
Paramount, Barco, Cinemark, and the brain trust that concocted this
return to widescreen nirvana. Now how about that Barco Escape It’s a
Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World remake. Get on that. n
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30 BoxOffice ® OCTOBER 2016