DomeFest is almost here!

Dome Day Sept. 24
Cincinnati Museum Center

Sixth Annual Fulldome Showcase

Fourth FullDome Festival in the Jena Zeiss-Planetarium:

• December 15, 2009 - Closing date for registration of full-length feature shows
• March 3, 2010 - Closing date for entry of full-length feature shows
• April 5, 2010 - Closing date for entry of clips and student contributions

Building Bridges

Ed Lantz, IMERSA Founding Director

Much of our early work with IMERSA has been honing the mission of this fledgling trade association and developing the infrastructure to support our initial goals. IMERSA's quest is to supplement, not compete with, other groups serving the fulldome and immersive media communities and to remain strictly vendor-neutral.

Events and organizations such as the IPS (International Planetarium Society) bi-annual conference and regional conferences, DomeFest, the Immersive Cinema Workshop (Navegar Foundation in Portugal), the Zeiss Fulldome Film Fest and others provide a great service to the global digital planetarium communities. Furthermore, the fulldome Yahoo Groups list, dome-L, and a host of other online resources provide a platform for the exchange of ideas and opinions. With all of this excellent support for fulldome already in place, where can IMERSA make a unique contribution to the immersive media space?

We believe that IMERSA will grow into a focal point for all things fulldome, helping to catalyze standards efforts and consolidate many of the diverse resources and data now scattered across the web and in numerous publications and resources. We also see an opportunity to create web-based collaborative spaces that will engage diverse communities across the globe to exchange information and programming and to cluster into a myriad of special interest groups. We are currently working on our next-generation website with social networking and collaborative components.

However, we are now seeing that a unique function for IMERSA that no organization has addressed is building bridges between diverse immersive media communities who are now discovering fulldome (or even re-inventing it entirely). These communities can be grouped into four market verticals that are all experiencing or are entering into a growth phase: digital planetariums, giant screen cinema domes, events domes and themed entertainment. These "big four" immersive cinema markets promise to drive the growth of fulldome in the coming decade.

Better communication between all these interrelated groups is going to lead to better projects and more efficient production processes, a fact made more apparent to me since my move to Los Angeles. As an example, I recently met with the head of a visual effects production company in Santa Monica. They played a major role in the themed attraction "The Simpsons Ride," which opened last year at Universal Studios. The attraction converted the older "Back to the Future" domed screen motion ride from large-format film to a digital system, replacing the old film projection system with eight Sony 4K SXRD projectors. The producers had developed new custom software to provide a simulated view from any seat in the theater. Technically speaking, with its dome screen, digital format and multiple projectors, The Simpsons Ride theater system has a lot in common with a fulldome system. Would The Simpsons Ride have been done differently if its creative team had known more about fulldome? Would its guest experience have had different features? It's interesting to speculate. We're going to see more and more digital dome systems in theme parks, museums and other venues in the coming months and years, and all market sectors will benefit if we share knowledge, tools and resources.

As of yet, few designers or producers in themed entertainment know of the abundance of existing tools used by the fulldome community in their craft, and the many options for nearly off-the-shelf immersive cinema systems. The same is true in the events market where geodesic and inflatable domes are increasingly being used as immersive projection environments. These domes can now house up to 5,000 people under a single, large projection dome approaching 60 meters in diameter. Yet I am continually surprised by how many visual effects and technologically savvy directors and producers in Los Angeles know nothing of our many accomplishments. These are the leaders of innovation in cinema, yet they have never heard the terms "immersive cinema," "fulldome," or "digital dome." It's our responsibility to reach out to them. Like the parable about the fish who is unable to describe the very water that it swims in, we take it for granted that tech-savvy producers should be able to find us when, in fact, we are swimming in a fundamentally different environment that needs to be articulated and communicated to others outside of our space.

IMERSA has already made solid progress in building bridges between these diverse communities and the trade organizations that nurture them. Our May briefing of 250 Hollywood producers and themed entertainment professionals at the Griffith Observatory was warmly received. We worked closely with the Producers Guild of America (PGA) and the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) as well as Griffith Observatory, an IPS member and our gracious host. Many thanks to Dr. Ed Krupp, Mark Pine, Laura Danly, Don Dixon, Patrick So and the entire Griffith team for not only hosting the event, but contributing to the educational and fulldome presentations. Thanks are also due to IMERSA founding sponsor, E&S, for loading content and operating the system, and to Dina Benadon of Super 78 who was our energetic liaison with PGA, and to Daren Ulmer of Mousetrappe plus Gene Jeffers and Brian Szaks of the TEA. (Thanks also to our communications person, Judith Rubin, who having relationships with all three groups, had a lot to do with cooking up the whole idea for the event.) We will continue to build our relationship with the PGA and TEA, providing their members with access to fulldome resources, vendors and professionals.

Another successful bridge being built is between the GSCA (Giant Screen Cinema Association) and IMERSA. There is a potential convergence on the horizon between large-format film (now called Giant Screen) and fulldome. IMERSA is proactively guiding this convergence by joining the GSCA technical task force that is defining "giant screen immersive" and will ultimately consider standards or specifications for giant screen digital cinema. Our goal is that, as standards emerge for GS digital theaters, interchange of programming between fulldome theaters and GS domes will be seamless.

IMERSA was conceived at the intersection of two communities - IPS and DomeFest. We will continue to serve these and related communities with vigor as we bring allied communities into the mix. The resulting crossroads will span the four key markets mentioned earlier - and beyond. We are uniquely positioned to guide this convergence and assure that our pioneers are honored and recognized, that our vendors access the expanded marketplace, that our institutions benefit from the increased talent pool, and that relevant trade associations and media outlets are positively engaged. IMERSA expects to play an important role in the future of media, out-of-home entertainment, informal education and cinema. These are exciting times.