So, how far will you go for a film?

Thumb rule to do with the eyes and screen that Irsquove followed since the late great director Shyam Benegal introduced me to it is mdash ideally your eyelevel while watching say a movie should be at a distance thatrsquos two and half times the diagonal of the screenWhich makes sense when I catch anything on my phone for zero distraction or complete immersion The sound anyway canrsquot be clearer than the headphoneWhatrsquos the best seat at a cinematheatre thoughIrsquove heard multiple theories including the cinemarsquos last row being the horizontal line of 7 and grabbing any seat in it or that diagonal works bestGeneral perception appears to be the middle seats twothirds back from the screen perfectAs it turns out therersquos less science to it than that itrsquos a cultural thing ldquoPreferences change depending on the countryterritoryrdquo Friedrich Deininger Germanbased senior director at Dolby tells me over a Zoom callFriedrich Deininger senior director at DolbyDeininger says ldquoIn Central Europe people love being all the way back which are the most expensive seats In other territories nobody particularly cares for the last row thatrsquos no different from the firstAnd people might pick seats depending on legroom recliner bigger picturehelliprdquoI just head to the centreseat third row from the screen almost always Which isnrsquot where I sat to watch James Gunnrsquos Superman in 3D at City Pride multiplex Kharadi Pune which houses Indiarsquos first Dolby Cinema that opened in July 2025The stadium style seatingplan seemed gently curved enough that yoursquod have unrestricted line of vision regardlessWhatrsquos a Dolby Cinema Of which there are merely 277 in the world as we speak Firstly itrsquos not to be confused with Dolby Theatre in Hollywood where Oscars have been held since 2001 Thatrsquos an auditoriumWhat do you associate Dolby with Topclass cinema sound what elseA still from War 2 the first Indian film to release at a Dolby Cinema in India PicsBy Special ArrangementAs in Dolby Atmos that over 800 screens in India are fitted with already pushing that extraclarity with even catching the sound of a cigarette burning loudly that I havenrsquot heard in real life ever Let alone imagining objects placed beside you while theyrsquore really ticking on the screenWhat about Dolby Cinema then Spokesperson Deininger tells me over the years the audiotech giant had been consulting with filmmakersstudios to arrive at what the community felt was a muchneeded upgrade for cinema as a visual experienceDeininger adds the talents globally were clear about one thing ldquoGive us better pixels mdash to optimally use the data that modern cameras capture in terms of colour contrast ratiohellipldquoWherein the black and greys donrsquot get washed out on the screen and you can find nuance in low light areas For instance the contrast ratio in a Dolby cinema is 1 million 1 which is 500 times more than the DCI screenrdquoDCI being Digital Cinema Initiative a consortium formed by Hollywood majors Disney Warner Sony etc to ensure uniformstandard for digital cinema systems acrossTo be sure Irsquom not a tech geek to tell lambert from laser wavelength or colour range from contrast ratio during my conversation with DeiningerBut I can figure what he means from when I entered the Dolby Cinema first slightly struck by its jetblack interiors to ensure no light bounces off the wallsceiling You donrsquot notice any speakers over 60 of them for ldquostudiograde soundrdquo eitherThe ldquoscience behind itrdquo is that apparently when you canrsquot see where the soundrsquos coming from it automatically becomes more immersive The 3D glasses feel closer to headsets than plastic and paper cups wersquove grown up onLike many I remain a lifelong critic of 3D They bloody dim the damn lights manThe Dolby 3D screen on the other hand felt just as luminescent as regular 2D if not more obviously with the depth of field that you could hope to walk inside the big screen Which makes sense when Deininger says ldquoThere are two laser projection systems serving each eyerdquoOf course I could contrast this experience with a theatre near me But Irsquod have to watch Gunnrsquos pointlessly scripted Superman all over again rather drill a hole in my headDeininger tells me SS Rajamouli was the first Indian filmmaker to champion Dolby vision He got that colourgrading done in Munich for RRR That tech is now accessible at Annapurna Studios in HyderabadNTR JrHrithik Roshan starrer War 2 would be the first Indian film to play at the only desi Dolby Cinema that I drove 300 kilometres plus MumbaiPuneMumbai to watch Gunnrsquos crappy SupermanTo be fair enough people travel citiescountries for film festivalsI have once boarded a flight to Surat got on the bus from that airport straight to the mall and the same way back in about seven hours flat mdash for a press preview of a film during the pandemic because theatres in Maharashtra hadnrsquot reopened yetBut those travels are still about watching films This was a trip to Pune for a pure audiovisual experience Could I do this again if not regularly until therersquos a Dolby Cinema in Mumbai Very tempted toI do live in Chembur As it is some believe itrsquos a suburb of Pune Well not really or not yet anywayMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass cultureHe tweets mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper