Paradigm shift

Daniel Sait checks out a subterranean cinema project with Wig Canadian loudspeakers, Italian projector and Frenchwall panelling

A 'GROUND UP' design by UK firm Seymour AV Design, albeit in a below-ground basement space, this relatively compact movie room is something of a departure from the custom install norm, complete with angled walls, U-shaped seating arrangement and vintage style wall-lights. And, according to Seymour AV's managing director Tom Banks, it was a project with two main challenges.

'One: due to Covid we couldn't visit the site until it was time to install everything. The second was the room itself. The client wanted us to divide the awkward shape of the room into a cinema plus a rack/storage room. The decreasing angle of the room meant that the larger you made the cinema room, the smaller the screen wall became.

'We had a target of 100in minimum screen size, so this, paired with maximising the projector's throw ratio, required extreme precision. All this without being able to visit the site!!

Pick and mix

System demonstrations, at Essex-based custom install distributor Pulse Cinemas, helped nail down