When I say that I see a sound, I mean that I echo the vibration of the sound with my whole sensory being. (Phenomenology of Perception, pg 234, Maurice Merleau-Ponty)
The experience of sound vibrating in a cinema room is the convergence of the spectator’s body, electroacoustic technology and the particular characteristics of the physical space. The darkened room is illuminated by the play of light projected onto the screen. The amplified sounds of the film’s soundtrack activate the acoustics of the space, vibrating the air molecules that surround the spectator’s body. The cinematic sound space is constructed spatially and socially within the cinema architecture itself and in the film work we see and hear. The cinema is an embodied multi-sensorial experience that unifies the spectator with the spatio-temporal site that they inhabit.
In 1974 the blockbuster movie Earthquake was released. For its theatrical premiere a unique subwoofer soundsystem was developed called “Sensurround”.
With the increasing populatory of television, Jennings Lang, a producer and former executive of MCA/Universal Television, identifed the need for movies to distinguish themselves as expanded entertainment spectacles that could provide a thrilling experience unique to the cinema setting. Inspired by a recent Los Angeles tremor experience, Lang approached the Universal City Studios Sound Department about making Sensurround a reality for a future earthquake film.
W.O. Watson, a retired former sound director for Universal, returned to work to join the engineering team that would go on to design and build the Sensurround system. In 1974 Watson told American Cinematographer:
“When I saw the Earthquake script I realized that we would be able to come up with a form of audience participation - something that would make the viewers feel that they were part of the action that was going on [...] We generate both sub-audible and audible frequencies that actually vibrate the torso and the diaphragm inside the body. You feel something going on in your flesh and the auditory nerves are also responding to the sensation. The viewer feels that the building is shaking. It isn’t really, but it feels that way. If you touch a thin plaster wall in the theater, or if you touch a seat that has metal in it, you find that the seats [are] actually vibrating.”
By 1977 there were reportedly 800 Sensurround equipped cinemas around the world, showing such films as Midway (1976), Rollercoaster (1977) and Battlestar Galatica (1978). By the end of the decade other extended low frequency formats like Warner Brothers’ Megasound began to be developed. This lead to the wider development and manufacturing of subwoofer technology both inside and outside the cinema.
Sources: The Earthquaking, Subwoofing Magic of Sensurround by Marke B.
Images: …in Sensurround by Thomas Hauerslev