You Ought to Be in Pictures

Most theme park fans are familiar with on-ride still photo systems. A bank of digital cameras automatically takes photos of all passengers during a particularly thrilling moment on roller coasters, log flumes, and other major rides. When they disembark, riders are routed through a kiosk where they can view their moment of theme park glory on monitors and purchase the keepsake photos if they wish. Paramount's Kings Dominion is taking the concept to the next level. The Virginia theme park will soon be able to give riders the option of purchasing a DVD featuring full-motion video of themselves aboard one of its signature coasters. The innovative system will include video cameras mounted in every vehicle and trained on all passengers of selected attractions to capture rides from start to finish. At the end of each ride, passengers will be able to purchase a take-home DVD of their reactions to all of the drops, twists, and turns as well as point-of-view footage showing what the experience looked like. According to the park's Sarah Lovejoy, the DVD system will debut sometime this fall for a test run on Taxi Jam, a junior roller coaster. King's Dominion is planning to add the technology to more of its coasters and rides next season. She said that the park had not yet established a price for the DVDs.
Paramount's Kings Dominion Photo Gallery