by Mark Ollig
Remember those paper
scratch-and-sniff stickers?
The 1981 movie “Polyester” featured
numbered scratch-and-sniff cards which allowed the viewer (when prompted by a
card number) to smell what was being shown on the movie screen.
It was promoted as Odorama.
Placing a fragrance coating on a
piece of paper or cardboard is one thing; however, I had no idea of the long
history of inventive devices used in dispersing smells while watching a movie.
Hans Laube and Michael Todd were
involved in the creation of a device called The Smell-O-Vision.
Laube went on to build a machine
that discharged a variety of odors, scents, and smells which would coincide
with the events happening during a theater movie or stage play.
Hans Laube was issued US Patent
number 2,813,452 titled MOTION PICTURES WITH SYNCHRONIZED ODOR EMISSION Nov.
19, 1957.
Laube’s device would disperse
various mixtures and dilutions of liquid scented perfumes, and included one
scent neutralizer.
Todd is credited with calling this
device Smell-O-Vision.
“Scent of Mystery” was a 1960 movie
using an updated version of Laube’s device that circulated up to 30 different
smells into theater seats when prompted via specific signal markers on the
movie’s film.
Disappointingly, this did not work
very well, and as such, no future movies were shown using the Smell-O-Vision
device.
The one scent I fondly recall as a
youngster while seated inside my hometown’s local theater, was the addicting
aroma that drifted in from the popcorn machine in the front lobby.
One of the earliest attempts at
combining a motion picture film and smells goes back to 1906, when Samuel
Lionel Rothafel, working at The Family Theater in the mining town of Forest
City, PA., came up with an idea.
While a motion picture newsreel film
of what is believed to have been the 1906 Rose Bowl parade was being shown
inside the theater, Rothafel took a wad of cotton wool soaked with rose oil,
and placed it in front of an electric fan. This caused the smell of roses to be
wafted throughout the theater and amongst the seated patrons.
A rose by any other name would smell
as sweet.
It is interesting to note Samuel
Lionel Rothafel was born right here in Minnesota, in the city of Stillwater in
1882.
An in-theater “smell system” was
installed in Paramount’s Rialto Theater on Broadway in 1933. Blowers released
various smells during the movie, but proved unpopular as it took hours
(sometimes days) for the scent to finally clear out of the theater building.
There is quite a variety of aromas
in this world – and countless opinions on the number of unique scents the human
nose can distinguish.
Trygg Engen, a Brown University
psychologist, wrote in 1982 that an untrained person can identify 2,000 odors,
and an expert, 10,000.
“The human nose can detect and
differentiate 350,000 smells; it’s just that we shouldn’t smell them at the
same time because you get anosmia – nose fatigue,” according to Sue Phillips, a
fragrance expert.
In the book, “The Future of the
Body,” Michael Murphy cites his source as saying a real expert (smelling
expert, I would assume) “must distinguish at least thirty thousand nuances of
scent.”
Ernest Crocker, a chemical engineer
and MIT graduate, used a mathematical rating system and came up with 10,000 as
being the number of recognizable odors a human can detect.
Mixing smells with your favorite
movies, gaming, and television programs is becoming a reality through a French
company called Olf-Action.
No doubt the company name is a play
on the word “olfactory” which relates to the recognition of smell.
Olf-Action uses Odoravision.
Odoravision is a copyrighted term
used to describe the concept for the delivery of odors, or particular scents,
in combination with motion picture films viewed in movie theaters.
This method of odor-delivery has
also been called: smell-synchronization.
Olf-Action’s Odoravision System can
administer 128 scents with three simultaneous odors over the course of one
motion picture film.
One aroma diffuser I saw connected a
video source to Olf-Action’s Olfahome model 4045 scent dispenser device.
The model 4045 is a 44-pound
rectangular, box-like device which was attached to the ceiling approximately 10
feet in front of, and above, the movie viewers.
The diagram for the
Olfacine/Olfahome model 4045 showed 40 individual, open-air nozzles.
The scents are stored inside
cartridges.
Some of the scents listed included:
cakes, gasoline, flowers, roses, wood, sea water, smoke, candies, fabrics,
trees, polluted city smells, and one I like; the smell of freshly cut grass.
Olf-Action listed several movie film
titles available in Odoravision, including one many would like to see and
smell: “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
My concern is when we watch an
Odoravision movie and tell people it stinks, they won’t know whether we meant
the movie’s plot or the smells in it.
I can’t wait until Apple’s App Store
starts selling the “iSmell” application.
Then we will be able to watch people
sniffing their iPhones while they watch videos on them.
Do I hear laughter from some of my
readers?
Folks, you just can’t make this
stuff up.
