The Cannes Film Festival has revealed that the Grand Auditorium Louis Lumière at Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, which earlier this week hosted the world premiere of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, was recently upgraded with Dolby Atmos Audio.
While it may only now be catching up with your local multiplex, the upgrade means the renowned auditorium, is now Europe’s largest Dolby Atmos installation. In combination with the already installed 4K projection system, it means the legendary movie theater, famous for screening many of the Official Selection movies at the Cannes Film Festival, now has modern audio visual capabilities.
As I have seen up close with the Odeon Leicester Square in London, upgrading classic venues with state-of-the-art audio is no easy task. Installation began last summer with initial calibration in September.
Dolby Atmos is a highly-immersive audio format that offers high precision placement of sounds in a 3D space and ensuring coverage across the huge 2,309-seat Grand Auditorium Louis Lumière required fitting 128 main speakers and 20 height speakers powered by 29 amplifiers, all connected by five kilometres of cabling.
David Lisnard, the mayor of Cannes, described the benefits of the upgrade eloquently, saying:
“In Cannes, we promote cinema as a total sensory experience, where sound and image form a duo capable of moving, engaging and bringing people together. The adoption of Dolby Atmos technology for our emblematic movie theater is much more than a technical enhancement: it’s a strategic and cultural choice that embodies our commitment to excellence and to artistic creation in all its forms. Offering film-makers and film-goers the optimal conditions to experience cinema as it was intended, affirms Cannes’ role as the capital of cinema, both faithful to its heritage and resolutely committed to innovation.”
According to Variety, Friedrich Deininger, Dolby’s senior director of cinema and partner management for EMEA and India. said that installing the height speakers required installers to rappel from the ceiling, something that Tom Cruise would no doubt have been delighted with.
