A Canadian entertainment firm is redefining cinema, as we know it today with the introduction of 3D technology at the 20th Century, writes TONY MOCHAMA

IMAX’s Addams Kahindi leads the writer and a Zippy Muli past the flat-topped, marble-foyered complex where the popcorn machines no longer pop (because they’re gone) on the mezzanine floor of the 20th Century Plaza building, and into the main cinema-hall where the 21st century is under construction.

A few minutes earlier, we had sat with the stunning Russian IMAX director Anna Ratnikova at the adjacent ‘Dancing Spoon’ restaurant as she explained exactly what they are doing with the famous 20th Century Cinema, to bring it into the 21st Century:

The new-look 20th century brings experience of reel-time theatre in 3D so that the patron is ‘completely immersed’ in that cinematic world. [PHOTO: COURTESY/STANDARD]

"IMAX Corp is an entertainment technology firm incorporated in Canada, specialising in motion picture and large-format motion picture presentations," said IMAX director Anna Ratnikova.

"Our main business is the design and manufacture of large-format digital and film-based theatre, which we sell or lease under revenue sharing arrangements to commercial theatres, particularly multiplexes like this one. Thereafter cinema is known as IMAX theatre," she said.

"We operate with large format 15-perforation film frame, 70 mm format (15/70-format) projectors and we convert two-dimensional conventional film into 3D Hollywood feature films for exhibition. The former 20th Century will be the first IMAX theatre on the entire continent of Africa."

Back in the cinema hall, one’s eyes don’t have to acclimatise to the 21st Century because the light spilling in from the outer foyer is sufficient. Pollina, a young Ukranian woman with dark hair and light green eyes is in charge of the construction that is very nearly complete, the chairs for the now unified giant theatre hall having just arrived from Mombasa.

"The grand launch of this IMAX theatre is Thursday, March 29," she announces confidently. "It will be like nothing Kenya has ever seen before."

Talking of seeing, up in the projector room as we dangle a few foot from the drop into an abyss that leads to concrete and planks with nails sticking out, a space that will soon be all plush chairs and red carpet and sound-proof wall, the Project Manager Taras Melynk farther explains their ground-breaking technology:

"To create the illusion of three-dimensional depth, the IMAX 3D process uses two camera lenses to represent the left and right eyes. The two lenses are separated by an interocular distance of 64 mm (2.5 inches), the average distance between a human’s eyes.

By recording on two separate rolls of film for the left and right eyes, and then projecting them simultaneously, viewers experience 3D image on a 2D screen.

By wearing special glasses with lenses polarised in their respective directions to match the projection, each eye only sees the image intended for that eye since the lens’s polarisation will cancel out the other eye’s image."

On top of this ‘coming soon’ techno-world, the writer remembers the first film he ever saw here three decades ago with the title ‘The Island at the Top of the World’ when the 20th Century cinema was still in the 20th century because it was the 20th century.

Tech revolution

Now a 21st century audio-visual technological revolution is set to take place and transport Kenyans into 2012 with the opening IMAX 3D film ‘The Wrath of the Titans,’ the sequel to the globally successful ‘Clash of the Titans.’

IMAX Chief Executive Alexei Serkov has this angle to give: "Over the last 10 years, many Hollywood films have been re-mastered for IMAX. The Harry Potter film franchise in IMAX maximised the money investment in the technology. In 2004, the company released the animated movie ‘The Polar Express’ in 100 IMAX theatres, making at least a quarter of the film worldwide gross of $ 300 million."

That would be about Sh6 billion, or Sh60 million raked in per theatre. The entrance fee to the theatres will be slightly over Sh1,000 per ticket, Alexei tells me, but the experience of reel-time theatre in 3D so that the patron is ‘completely immersed’ in that cinematic world will be worth it.

I think of the hall from whence I’ve just emerged, with its floor to roof scoop screen inlaid into soft woods and the carved faÁade; this is no farce.

Cinematic technology seems to have taken a polar express to the top of the world, pardon the pun, since we first came here in the 20th Century.

And, in the process, is carrying us along on a wild three-dimensional ride.