PIGEON FORGE, TN — The Dollywood theme park’s Christmas celebration was updated for 2008 with The Polar Express 4D Experience, which added scents and motion seats to a 3D movie experience created by two Digital Projection Lightning 45 HD-3D projectors. “The 3D projection is so realistic we’ve had guests take off their 3D glasses thinking that the snow in the Polar Express 4D experience was being blown into the theater,” said Pete Owens, Dollywood public relations manager.
The Polar Express 4D Experience was the first production in a renovated Dollywood theatre that required “about $1 million to basically gut the screen area and build a new, rounded screen plus install the best projection equipment in the industry,” he said. Julian Angus and Shane Nichols served as consultants.
Along with the 34 x 63 curved screen, treated with a surface coating to optimize 3D effects, the theatre uses a Quvis cinema player as the video source and lwerks motion pods for the seat motion effects. Each movement of each chair was programmed using the Iwerks motion pods and a joystick, adding up to what Angus called “a really good multi-sensory experience.”
During a scene where the tap-dancing serving crew makes its way through the rail car, for example, the audience can smell hot chocolate and feel a rush of wind and the seat motion as the train bumps and lurches along its route. "We've heard from people at parks all over the place and they're telling us there's no better 3D in the world," said Dollywood Construction Manager Mike Teske.
The holiday production runs through Jan. 3.
For more information, please visit www.digitalprojection.com.
