With continuous cinema design experience dating back to the early adoption of full Stadium Theatres and truly full width top-masked screens in 1995, we have specialized in the Entertainment Sector ever since. Entertainment Architecture has developed close ties with Cinema Exhibition over the years, with Staff being elected into the ranks of Australian Cinema Pioneers in recognition of our intrinsic and continued association.
Entertainment Architecture has been operating in its current configuration since early 2007, and has been at the forefront of the industry adoption of 3D projection, Dolby Atmos immersive sound and Dolby Digital 7.3 augmentation, remote digital projection, and the definition of the Full Premium Cinema experience. We are pleased to be recognized as an A+ Architectural Practice by the Australian Institute of Architects.
By Ian Gooding
The Cinematic Design process, when correctly performed, optimizes the many competing factors involved in visual and audio presentation, with patron comfort & immersion, and the prevention of potential discrimination. Such factors include, but are not limited to:
Optimum acoustic shape for minimizing natural echo paths.
Optimum room height for width to maximize the screen experience.
Room design allowance for HVAC delivery.
Sightlines, the measure of viewing the screen unobstructed, the methods to ensure it and to maximize sightlines within a given space allowance.
Screen proximity to seating positions.
View up-angles to midscreen and methods to maintain comfort conditions.
Horizontal view angles to midscreen, and maintaining within comfort limits.
Isodeformation (viewed picture distortion) where shapes become elongated as view angles from midscreen increase.
Subtended picture angles, both horizontal & vertical, at front and rear rows, and at wheelchair positions.
Screen brightness in Xenon and Laser configurations.
Projected picture distortion, and the limits of lens shift in handling projecting a picture not perpendicular to the screen.
Light coverage, based on screen gain and angles to prevent hot spotting and dimmer corner positions.
Stereophonic Separation optimized for realistic reproduction.
Dolby Atmos and Dolby Digital sound field design for full and equal coverage.
Limiting Contrast – the maximum screen contrast achievable based on reflections from Auditorium surfaces.
Room distractions – elements with unwanted reflections that can light up in a dark room to interrupt the immersive experience.
Discrimination factor arising from the chosen placement of wheelchairs and the paths of travel to these spaces, and for the ambulant disabled.
As many of these factors compete in opposite directions, the goal is to maintain them all within highly acceptable limits. To aid this, we have developed our own in-house software to ensure that changing one factor cannot push others into unacceptability. This is the cornerstone of our Cinematic Design approach.
The value in this lies with comparing seating positions both within rooms and across several rooms. In order to maintain a perceived screen size throughout a complex, the Relative Screen Size should be consistent at similar positions in each room, for instance front and rear rows, and particularly transverse positions where wheelchairs will be located.
The typical way of depicting screen visibility is by calculating sightlines, where the value Cv is defined as the distance above the eye level of the preceding row to a line projecting from eye level to the base of the screen.
This is a useful number, but it doesn’t in itself provide much definition in how it relates to the viewed experience, or how it compares to other rooms. It also doesn't allow for gender. Using a combination of anthropometric data, we convert various Cv measurements into a number we call Vprob – the percentage chance of full screen view based on patrons of varying heights sitting randomly in an Auditorium. These numbers relate more information on the potential view quality.
A second important factor is that current Premium armchair seating lay further back in their upright positions than more traditional Cinema seating. With 2 rows of the same seated height in standard seating you would require Cv=113 to achieve full screen view, but with Premium armchairs Cv=94 would achieve the same result (depending on the chair). Adopting this Vprob conversion technique allows us to accurately determine the view quality for each real life situation. Any such approach has to allow population distribution (male : female), and the various random seating possibilities (main in front of man or woman, woman in front of man or woman) with their different spreads of seated height.
Understanding the percentage chance of full screen view at any seat is useful, but it doesn’t allow us to rate the quality of view experience for the entire room or compare it to a standard or to other rooms. To do that, we expand upon the Vprob calculation by averaging it for all seats in the room to produce what we call the Room Probability Index (RPI). This single percentage figure depicts the view quality for the entire room and allows comparisons to base standards, across an entire project, and to past projects where the view has been experienced in person. As a guide, in current Premium projects we regularly achieve RPI figures in excess of 95%. At that level there will easily be opportunities for partners to swap positions should one have their view compromised.
This is not achievable with simple Cv calculations. Once you are guaranteed a full screen view (eg: Cv>210mm), it cannot contribute to improving the view in lesser rows. Capping probability at 100% achieves that (you can’t pour water into a glass that is already full).
