The Cine-poetics of Fulldome Cinema

The fulldome immersive film format is chiefly about space. Immersive film production is currently undergoing stages of development towards a modern, cinematic language comparable to the development of rhythmic montage developed by Eisenstein and Soviet cinema and followed by the avant-garde cinema of the 1920s.

This paper explores the reciprocal interaction of cinematic montage with the fulldome format. In fulldome films, the metric aspect of rhythmic montage can be evoked through the translational time of the eye across the hemispherical screen. Immersion affords the extension of the internal logic of the film into the architectural space of the theatre. This external architecture becomes an organizing element in the compositional flow of the film, giving the viewer room to build their own field of associations to create meaning. This article questions what new cinematic language can emerge specific to a nascent avant-garde/experimental fulldome cinema, examining the potential of structural montage and collage techniques to create rhythm by combining spatial with chronological sequencing.