Movies are an experience unlike any other. They have the power to provoke deep thought and emotion and relieve overwhelming stress. For some, they offer and escape, for others they offer a dream that may one day come true. The way people experience movies is different, but there is no denying their impact on society.
The mystique is often tied to the location where movies are shot. These locations provide one of the most tangible connections to what is often called “movie magic.” The vast majority of these locations are unassuming – one would scarcely be able to recognize them – but a new mobile application breathes new life into them with the help of augmented reality.
Augmented Reality Cinema is a new mobile application coming being developed for iPhone. It makes use of the devices cameras and GPS system to allow users to view popular scenes from movies that they love, superimposed over the environment in which they were originally shot. By pointing the camera at a certain location, a video will play of the movie that was shot there. In initial testing, that is the all program does, but augmented reality technology can offer much more than that.
Eventually, developers will make a more advanced version of the application. The future version will not superimpose a movie scene onto the environment; it will integrate it within that environment. The scene will react with the physical world, allowing for distortions and other effects. While such a development is still far off, this dynamic way of experiencing movies may prove to supplant the short-lived 3D craze that once stole the hearts of movie fans.
