High-tech animation brings viewers inside "Inside Out"
Most people know Dolby for sound. Now the company wants to do for video what it did for audio.
Pixar's new animated feature "Inside Out" introduces viewers to five little voices of your subconscious: fear, sadness, anger, joy and disgust. Pixar worked with Dolby Cinema, which used its sound prowess and new ways of creating enhanced colors to make it feel like you're really getting inside your own head.
"The idea behind Dolby Cinema is that you are immersed in that world," Pixar post production supervisor Paul Cichocki told CBS News' Lexy Savvides. "To be able to sit in that space where there is no ambient light, there is this beautiful picture in front of you, and immersive sound all around."
Disney's "Tomorrowland" was the first film to be released for Dolby Cinema, but at Pixar, the challenge is how to make the experience relevant for animation.
The cinema experience combines a laser projection system called Dolby Vision with existing Dolby Atmos sound technology. Dolby Vision delivers enhanced colors and contrast to allow filmmakers to display a high dynamic range image.
This gave director Pete Docter the ability to make scenes set in the inside world really stand out. The colors are extra vivid and the contrast levels are more intense than you typically get to see on the big screen.
"Blacks are so black that the room is completely dark," said Cichocki.
Scenes in the outside world uses a simpler digital cinema color space, more like what you see in a regular theater.
On the audio side, the Dolby Atmos system treats sound as individual objects, so Pixar engineers could place them anywhere in three-dimensional space.
Letting your emotions run high is all part of turning the movie experience inside out.