D-Box Chair Can Bring Action To the Seat of Audience’s Pants

0

Many of us have, over the years, seen movies that have “rocked our world.”


That experience could become commonplace if D-Box Technologies Inc.’s chairs, couches and loveseats equipped to literally move DVD viewers catch on.


As part of agreements with distributor Deluxe Digital Studios and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC, next month the companies will begin releasing home entertainment content with special coding embedded to let viewers with D-Box chairs “feel” the movie. The movements are audio-triggered, driven by signals overlaid on the soundtrack to interact with the “sensors” in the D-Box chairs, so when viewers hear an impact or motion on the screen they will feel one in their seat.


Established 10 years ago as a speaker company, D-Box transitioned into other technologies and has spent the past five years developing and manufacturing the motion-enabled seats. Company representatives spent last week meeting with studio executives about integrating the technology into DVDs that are released or in special edition formats.


Eventually, D-Box is looking to install its technology in theaters so moviegoers willing to pay a few extra dollars per ticket can experience motion with the movie.


Michel Paquette, D-Box’s North American sales director, said the company wants to bring the technology to movie theaters and eventually even live events, like hockey games. (Who wouldn’t want to “feel” themselves being clothes-lined by a defenseman?)


It will be some time before the masses are rocking and rolling in their loveseats, however. Each DVD takes 75 to 150 hours to individually code and the cost is out of most people’s range.


The furniture is currently available at high-end equipment retailers like Tweeter and ranges from about $3,500 to $10,000.



Instant Auteurs

Filmaka.com has launched an online competition for aspiring auteurs backed by some of the industry’s top independent filmmakers. The top prize: your feature film gets produced.


Twice a month, Filmaka will announce contest topics for contestants, who can upload their one- to three-minute films to the site. Peer judging will reduce the numbers to 15 semi-finalists, whose work will be assessed by an all-star panel.


Among the filmmakers who have agreed to serve on the jury for the project are Paul Schrader (“Taxi Driver”), John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love”), Colin Firth (“Bridget Jones’s Diary”), Bill Pullman (“The End of Violence”) and Deepak Nayar (“Bend It Like Beckham”).


The winning filmmaker from each monthly contest will win $3,000; the runner-up will win $2,000. Both will get a chance to compete against other winners and runners-up at the end of year for the feature film deal.


The final winner will receive a feature film production deal with the L.A. company and its principals.



Staunch Defender

When veteran rock and roll publicist and manager Ronnie Lippin died last week at the age of 59, most of the obituaries focused on her starry client list that included Eric Clapton (for more than 25 years), Elton John and the Bee Gees.


The president of L.A.’s Lippin Group was such a fixture on the music scene she was cited as a model for the manager Bobbi Fleckman in the film “Spinal Tap.” The Brooklyn, N.Y., native got into music publicity when she moved to Los Angeles with her husband, Dick Lippin, three decades ago.


Though her demeanor could be Zen-like, she was a fierce defender of artists’ rights.


“I never want to compromise ethical standards,” she said recently of her approach to public relations. “It can be a lonely road once in a while. We don’t accept every client who asks us about representation, and there are some relationships that are relatively short-lived.”


She and her husband have passed on some of their ethical insights to the next generation of publicists by sparking debates at the university level. The couple helped start an ethics program at Brandeis University in Massachusetts and a course at Penn State University.


“It no longer matters how people get from point A to point B,” explained Lippin of her rationale for reaching out to youth. She uses the proliferation of file-swapping services used by college students as an example: “Essentially they’re stealing from a performer.”


At the time of her death, she was president of the Lippin Group. She is survived by her husband and a daughter, Alexandra, who also works for the Lippin Group.



Boom at the Inn

Composer Phil Kline is bringing his “Unsilent Night” electronic caroling parade to Los Angeles.


Citizens armed with “boom boxes” the 1980s-era cassette and CD players are invited to Pan Pacific Regional Park at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 17. Participants who bring out their vintage equipment and walk through park will press “play” at orchestrated moments throughout the route to compose the piece.


Similar events in New York, San Francisco and Philadelphia have drawn more than 1,000 participants. A $1 donation is requested to benefit A Window Between Worlds, a non-profit group in Venice Beach that aids victims of domestic violence.



Home for ‘The Holiday’

HomeExchange.com, the L.A.-based company that specializes in setting up short-term home trades, plays a key role in the new film “The Holiday.”


Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz play women who swap homes in an effort to avoid relationships in the Sony-Universal release written and directed by Nancy Meyers.


The studio contacted Home Exchange in early summer 2005 about using the site and concept in the script, and ended up consulting with the company throughout development. Like the vacation rental swaps available on the Web site, no money changed hands in the movie deal it was all for pure exposure.



Staff reporter Anne Riley-Katz can be reached at

[email protected]

or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 225.

No posts to display