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state of
the art |
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Report by Mark Newbold and Steve Simon |
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Ok, so who
wouldn't want this as your own personal home cinema room? Steve
Simon of Miami, Florida based company Home Imagineers certainly did, and
he went to great lengths to make it happen, showing just how dedicated
us Star Wars fans can really be |
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Here's the process
of the build, from initial conception right through to the finished
product in steve's own words... |
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Steve - "I
am a Star Wars fan. I was first in line for all three theatrical
releases in a popular movie theater here in South Florida—they had
plenty of media coverage and it was all over the TV. I am a fan of all six
films as well as some of the expanded universe. I collect action
figures and frequently visit the Star Wars Weekends at Walt Disney
World." |
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A
prior example of Home Imagineering's handy work |
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Steve
- "The
theater took me about 1 year to finish because it has been a work in
progress during my down time at work. I purchased my new home in
November of 2006 and we worked on it for about two months before we
moved in. Once we moved in I took the 2 car garage we had and began
sketching a home theater possibility out of it. I brought the
measurements to my design guy and he laid it out on his AutoCAD
(Architecture Design Software). He came up with dimensions, and seating
limits. We came up with a 19 foot x 14 foot space that would allow for
7 comfortable reclining top of the line theater seats (I may be
upgrading the seats now into D-box chairs. I just recently became an
approved D-box dealer and this is the way to go in theater seating. If
you haven’t heard of d-box go to
www.d-box.com).
I knew I wanted a Star Wars themed theater, but I didn’t know which way
to go." |
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View from the screen |
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Steve
- "One
day I was sitting with my design guy and I asked him if he could design
some wall sconces to resemble the sconces in Palpatine’s office. Sure
enough that lead to deciding on making the whole design based on the
office itself. How cool would it be to have the faux windows on the
walls have a view of Coruscant? Well, we tried to contact Lucasfilm and
got through to someone in licensing. We wanted a hi-res image of
Coruscant that we could use as a backdrop, but Lucasfilm denied our
request. So, we were about to scrap the whole idea when my design guy
says “I can do it”. Andrew is a genius when it comes to design, and
being a Star Wars fan himself he took the job with passion. He
designed the backdrop, each building one at a time and then added the
sunset effect to it. A 10 month ordeal of at least 8 hours a week
dedicated to it and the final result was stellar. All the panels (every
single piece of wall) you see are made of acoustic paneling material.
These makes the room acoustically perfect as well as sound proof. The
window images are printed on acoustic material using high-end matte
painting technology onto acoustic mesh. We call it the cinescape line.
If you visit my website
www.homeimagineers.com
and click on theaters there are 10 pictures with most using this
technology. Even the movie posters are reproduced with this material.
Notice the wooden columns with the curve towards the floor like in
Palpatine’s office too. We really wanted to put detail into this
theater. This is a show piece!" |
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Left
aspect of this amazing cinema room |
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Steve
- "The
equipment is also top of the line. We have a 7.1 digital
surround sound system using the following:
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View from the right. Note the sconces |
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Steve
- "So
it basically took two weeks to install everything once we had the room
built out inside the garage, but the most tedious part was designing the
Coruscant windows." |
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The
view of the screen itself in all its glory. |
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Steve
- "Home
Imagineers
is my home theater company. We design themed home theaters and install
top of the line equipment. We travel world-wide and can work with
almost any budget. We take pride in our work. We are currently working
on a quote for an Indiana Jones themed theater, which I hope will
materialize because we could do wonders with that." |
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