PERHAPS it’s revenge cinema-going but lately I’ve been catching a lot of movies. After two years of watching on the small screen, it’s go big or stay home.
I’ve gone back to the cinemas where I am always freezing – I bring beanies and puffer jackets along and pretend I am in Iceland – and sometimes, the sound is so loud from the loudspeakers that I have to put my gloved hands over my ears.
I enjoy the communal nature of movie-going. With fellow theatre goers, I guffawed through “Everything Everywhere All At Once”, cringed through the violent scenes of “Bullet Train”, gasped at the aerobatics in “Top Gun: Maverick” and sniffled my way through “Elvis”.
Lately though I’ve been enjoying a different kind of cinema experience – the kind that’s outdoors, in a spectacular setting like Marina Bay Sands’ SkyPark Observation Deck, and that’s silent.
Working with Cinewav, a startup whose technology allows you to listen to the movie’s audio through your own headphones, Klook has created these exclusive “Movies In The Sky” on what in the daytime is one of Singapore’s top attractions, offering spectacular views of the city.
By night, it’s even more magical and what better place than to watch two of my favourite science fiction movies, “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind” and “The Matrix” (the original). The venue, under the moon, stars and clouds, makes the movie, the movie makes the venue and the technology makes the experience.
This, to me, is tech at its best – when it’s invisible and it allows you to enjoy and be truly immersed in the experience.
Your noise-cancelling headphones cuts off all the noise of the city – even the music from Ce La Vie, the club nearby, is muted – so that it’s just you and Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) going crazy from the images of Devil’s Mountain in his head or Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) wondering if he’s The One, and you allow the silence of sound to transport you into another world.
Follow the neon-lit winged angel
Just as this silent audio technology can transform the movie experience – any place can literally become a cinema – it also has the potential to transform tours. Last weekend, as part of the Singapore Night Festival, I went on the “Yesterday Once More: Queen Street by Inch Chua and Tim De Cotta” tour, which tells the history of the Bras Basah arts district through a mix of stories and live performances, using silent audio.
Dance performance as part of the tour
You bring your phone and headphones, download the audio narrative created by the two artists Inch and Tim, and follow a “neon-lit winged angel” through the streets and as you walk, you listen to the stories of people who used to live in the neighbourhood – the Indian laundryman and the noodle sellers. Then you stop for a dance performance, walk through the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd and you listen to De Cotta’s parents talk about their childhood and what it takes to stay married for 40 years, and it ends with an acrobatic performance on the grounds of the church (video below).
It’s an interesting feeling – you are with people yet you are alone in your head with the audio. Communal yet individual.
Inch Chua, who’s a singer-songwriter, told me she worked with the Cinewav technology because she loves audio. “It leaves so much more to people’s imagination,” she said. She and Tim wanted to share the history of Bras Basah but in a different way, from traditional tours.
Unlike traditional tours, you don’t have a guide sometimes shouting at you because the group is too big or you are too far away. This is audio streamed right into your ears and you are free to move as fast or as slow as you want – to explore a place at your own pace. Of course, the audio has to be interesting and this is where artists like Inch and Tim have the edge, they know how to create engaging, entertaining content.
A caveat – I am an early investor in Cinewav which started way back in 2018 because I, well, love movies as I said – and I liked the invisibility and silence of the tech.
