What is 4DX? Description of cinemas with wheelchairs

When audience members take their seats to watch “Bullet Train” in Hall 4DX this weekend, they will be greeted with a choice. Inside the armrest is a small button that allows viewers to switch between two options: “turn on the water” and “off the water”. The device serves as a harbinger – and perhaps a warning to 4DX newbies – of the full sensory experience that is about to unfold as Brad Pitt fights for his life against an army of opposing killers.

With live broadcasts and other home entertainment vying for consumer attention, 4DX employees see the format as an added incentive to draw audiences to movie theaters. Korean parent company CJ Group first envisioned the technology as an answer to the question of how to innovate the cinema experience and make it more relevant in the public eye.

Over the course of “Bullet Train,” Pete will be wounded, stabbed, thrown, and chased as he untangles a complex web of conflicting jobs. Those who decide to watch the movie in 4DX will experience every movement on the screen as movement in their seats, which vibrate and oscillate with the rhythm of the movement.

“We have what we officially call the three degrees of freedom — our chairs move with pitch (a rolling motion forward and backward), yaw (spinning left and right motion) and swaying (a up-and-down elevating motion), explains Paul Kim, Senior Vice President of Studio Relations and Production at 4DPLEX “Then there are the vibrations and then we have 21 different effects across all of our devices.”

The bells and whistles of 4DX auditorium include wind instruments, strobe lights, simulating snow (it’s foam), the smell of smoke, and an in-seat device that slams into the audience members’ shoulders.

“I checked with our artists. They don’t call it the back puncher. They call it back kicking,” Kim laughs.

With so many gadgets inside each hall, it can be easy to simply move everything and put the room to a full blast. But the 4DX experience is not a matter of sensory burden. Instead, each one is meticulously orchestrated through a weeks-long process in Korea to match and optimize content on the big screen.

Each year, the group creates 4DX trials for more than 30 US productions, along with 40 other titles from China, Korea and other domestic markets. Once the 4DX experience is completed, the encrypted instructions are distributed wirelessly to company halls around the world. They are then run from local servers within each site.

“There are two teams in Korea. The action team takes the first stab. It takes about two weeks to finish. Then comes the effects team,” says Duncan MacDonald, head of global marketing and stage development at CJ 4DPLEX USA. “They work very closely with each other. This team has been doing that for a long time and it’s really cool how they’re taking a movie and adding 4DX to it. It’s such a proven and very specific talent.”

“I think a lot of people assume this is done through an automated process,” Kim adds. “They sometimes go frame by frame to make sure that every impact, every movement, every vibration is transmitted correctly according to what you see on the screen.”

As MacDonald describes, the “bullet train” is “very appropriate” for the 4 DX. The abundance of rock-im-suk-im fight scenes in the movie causes the seats to rock back and forth. Powerful kicks activate the “kick-back” on every seat. As the bullets fired, gusts of air shot out near the heads of those present.

But the use of 4DX goes beyond the emphasis on violence in “Bullet Train”. Some comedic moments have an unexpected emphasis, like when the image of an erupting bidet shoots a mist of water from the nozzle in front of each seat. In addition, the film’s setting evokes its own environmental character, from occasional gusts of wind to the lighter, more uniform seat vibration that goes along with the effect of the railcars.

Some filmmakers are becoming more invested in how 4DX is implemented through their work. CJ Group is pleased to invite them to participate in this process. Earlier this year, Joseph Kosinski, director of Top Gun: Maverick, Lightyear director Angus MacLane, and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” editor Bob Murawski visited the company’s Hollywood screening room and provided feedback. Then sent to teams in Korea to modify the experiment.

“We work with filmmakers or studio representatives to make sure the quality is there,” Kim shares. “We worked directly with director Joseph Kosinski on Top Gun: Maverick.” He’s been in our theaters, in our screening room, testing and making sure everything aligns with his vision of how the movie should be shown.”

By inviting the parties closest to the filmmaking process to collaborate, 4DX teams can better achieve the goal they are set for – immersion.

“If the seats are moving throughout the two hours of the movie, I don’t think they really benefit from 4DX,” Kim says. “4DX helps the audience feel that the movie is more immersed in the movie. We want to make sure it’s the right scene and we want to make sure it makes sense when certain effects are used.”

After the new releases leave theaters, 4DX Hall instructions remain archived within the CJ Group, should the films be re-released down the line. The company also continues to explore opportunities to implement 4DX with older films; Joe Dante’s “Gremlins” was released in concert during the 2019 holiday season.

The first 4DX auditorium opened to the public in 2009, with a venue in Korea that welcomes moviegoers to watch James Cameron’s epic sci-fi movie “Avatar” in wheelchairs. In the years since, the entertainment arm of CJ Group has greatly expanded the format’s global footprint, with 57 theaters in North America and 783 worldwide. The company has also focused on another premium format – ScreenX, which is a panoramic hall that projects images around audiences with 270-degree screens.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be a turbulent period for the theater industry in general, CJ Group notes that studios and consumers have shown greater interest in 4DX as the lockdown is lifted. Top Gun: Maverick surpassed $50 million in box office sales across the halls of 4DX and ScreenX – its highest release to date across the formats.

“People just wanted to go out and try something different,” MacDonald says. “4DX is something you can’t get at home. It’s very different from the normal movie watching experience. I think people were looking for that after the pandemic. We get polls after every major title and there is a huge positive feeling as much as it is a fully immersive experience. Nothing.” Too much. Not too many backhand punches – just the right amount.”

As the popular legend says, the audience of the 1890s who first saw the film “A Train Arrival in La Ciotat” by the Lumiere brothers was so upset by the image of a locomotive running towards them that a panic broke out in the room. Now, more than 125 years later, the halls are instead drowning viewers inside the onscreen train, as Brad Pitt sends him off the rails.