Girard Kinney and George Lucas
The founder of Kinney & Associates, Girard Kinney, has even worked with George Lucas! Check out this article Inc. Magazine! http://www.inc.com/magazine/19861001/3058.html
"It was the memory of an enraptured young moviegoer from a small Texas town that dictated the design of the new theaters. "I don't want a lobby," he told architect Girard Kinney, "I want a stage set." So rather than a ceiling at the Arbor there is an evening sky with twinkling stars and puffy clouds. An audio tape of thunder and lightning plays every five minutes. A two-story clock tower rises over the concession stand, decorated with a festive red-and-white candy-striped awning. Antique-style lamp posts mark the way past the prewar British telephone booth and into the auditoriums.
Stretch out: there are 42 inches between rows rather than the standard 39. The seats, imported from France, cost about twice the standard American model. The picture itself plays on either 70- or 35-milimeter prints, on a screen about 50 feet wide. The sound is even better, one of five theaters in America to have been constructed for George Lucas's THX system: 12-inch solid walls with two inches of soft insulation, special air-conditioning and heating systems, plus giant speakers that bathe the audience in dialogue and music. A letter from Lucas on display in the lobby rates the Arbor as the best theater in America to see a movie."
Girard Kinney also worked withLucas and THX creator Tomlinson Holman to create the first prototype theaters capable of fully utilizing the sights and sounds of the true THX experience.
