A future of 3-D through the eyes of Blue Alien Giants

A future of 3-D through the eyes of Blue Alien Giants

As published in this month's Veritas et Visus magazine

It is being heralded as the 3D movie that will single-handedly save the stereoscopic industry, or, rather, kick-start it into full gear and propel it into the common man’s cinema diary and living room. Avatar.

All stereographers talk about it with awe and expectation, while salesmen of 3-D hardware excitedly shout out its name. But what is Avatar? A high-concept science-fiction film of the purest kind. Space marines, alien planets, a war between man in spaceships and helicopters and exoskels with machine guns and a jungle-bound alien race of blue giants.

Some would describe it as effects for effects’ sake, but whatever the case, it is not a broad audience movie. By all accounts Avatar is a niche market film, appealing to young men and even younger boys. Are our mothers and wives going to want to invest emotional energy into giant blue warmongering aliens? I seriously doubt it.

So in my opinion the subject matter alone is going to keep the female audience away from Avatar. And that is even before one starts talking about donning 3D glasses to see the movie stereoscopically. A big problem being bluntly ignored by professional proponents of 3-D is that the largest part of the cinema-going and movie-buying audience still needs to be convinced that wearing 3-D glasses is not stupid, annoying or even uncomfortable. Dissing anaglyph glasses is certainly not the way to convince, because it is the diss that is remembered, not the difference between dichromatic and polarized image separation. Yes, glasses could be physically more comfortable, but that does not take away the psychological barrier most people experience when faced at the box office with the prospect wearing them.


Honestly, you won't look like Nerd, nor will you go bald when you wear 3-D specs

So how can we remove this inbuilt reluctance and fear? By presenting the doubters and cynics with their favorite content in really well shot 3D and letting the power of word of mouth do its job.

What could this industry-changing content be then? Not a schoolboy’s wet dream of aliens and guns, but quite the opposite. In my opinion the key to a 3-D future lies in the romantic comedy, the costume drama and the psychological thriller. Taking real numbers as found on IMDB, less than 1 in 10 movies produced overall is a science-fiction or fantasy film (6%), 1 in 10 movies is a family film (including animation, 10%) while 5 in 10 movies are a romantic comedy / drama (47%), yet when it comes to 3D movies slated for a 2009 release, 3 out of 10 movies is a science-fiction / horror / action film (33%), almost 4 out of 10 is animation / fantasy / music (35%) and just more than 2 out of 10 is a documentary (24%). The remaining 1 out of 10 movies (9%) is reserved for music specials and naughty movies, while no romantic comedies of drama films are slated for 3D release. How can there possibly be proper penetration of stereo 3D as a mass-audience medium if the main types of cinematic story are not told in 3D? If Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep don’t look good in 3D, don’t even bother trying to sell the 3D Ready LCD screens.



In terms of broadcast TV, cooking programs and reality shows will have to work with 3D to make financial sense. Again, sales men are focusing all their energy on sports broadcasts and thus targeting boys and men. But what is one football match in a sea of time-filling content such as that of The Apprentice, Strictly Come Dancing, As the World Turns, Oprah Winfrey and Jerry Springer? That is what the reality of a 3D stereoscopic future is all about. We all know a tomato will look fantastic in 3D and that bargain diamond ring on QVC’s home shopping channel will sell very well when it pops off the screen, but what about book reviews and embarrassing celebrity reality filler? I, for one, will not feel enticed to don 3-D glasses to watch animals do the funniest things – in 3-D. But perhaps I just don’t know what I’ll be missing yet...


Oh yeah - LOLcatz in 3-D. It's the future of entertainment!

On the production side of things the only way for a true 3D switch-over to happen is complete standardization and idiot-proofing of recording, playback and delivery hardware. Of course us stereo experts will all be out of a job when everything is standardized and built-in, so we can all enjoy long weekdays in front of the 3D television. Fixed interaxials for studio shoots, fixed minimum distances to the camera, no more convergence control and a pipeline that allows for previewing and editing in the final screen size of choice all the way. No more need for lookup tables and heated discussions over what to do or not do in 3D.



Producers want a straight off-the-shelve stereoscopic camera and pipeline solution and that’s what they will get. We will see a return to cameras with three fixed lens options as standard in the 1950s and 60s. But what is the bulk of 3D films to be produced with such standardized equipment going to look like? Creative 3D control will go out the window. On most productions, that should actually be a blessing though: watch one movie with divergence and vertical parallax and you will agree with this point.

Experience is everything in 3-D shooting and even then, with veteran stereographers at
the helm, eyestrain can creep in. Automatic, real-time vertical parallax detection and correction hardware will remove the strain of having to precisely align a 3-D camera rig before every shot. Miniature cameras and lenses will mean effortless, small and light 3-D rigs that don’t even
look like they contain 2 cameras or lenses. And to top everything off, image capture will happen with inbuilt retinal rivalry correction and will be dual-stream compatible all the way down the pipeline without you even noticing it.


No more heavy camera rigs in the 3-D future

Will you still be excited about 3-D in this future? Well no, because it will be a normal, every-day, run-off-the-mill format – unless we will shoot extraordinary content in it and produce visual stories that have never been seen or experienced before. And although Avatar may be breaking new ground in terms of VFX and live-action integration, it is its story and characters that are going to determine whether we will want to see more science fiction films about giant blue aliens in 3-D.


Bring the wife, and your mother in law!

3-D LinkedIn Group and Dimension 3 Expo

Update (September 2009): The Stereoscopic 3-D Professionals Worldwide LinkedIn Group now has over 2,300 members.

The Stereoscopic 3-D Professionals Worldwide LinkedIn Group is growing rapidly on a daily basis and now has over 1,600 members. The 1,500 mark passed so quickly that I didn’t even have time to announce it! Members now include professionals from virtually all key companies in the 3-D Stereoscopic industry and of course most of the key 3-D Stereoscopic independent professionals on the globe as well. Check it out:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=51511

This plethora of 3-D professionals translates into very effective discussion forum postings and job postings getting answered by exactly the right people in no time. And the amount of 3-D jobs appears to be growing rapidly, despite the global recession. Through the group it is possible to find real, professional answers to your stereoscopic questions, find 3-D colleagues, meet new business partners and set up meetings at international 3-D events to meet any of the 1,600 members in person.

In that respect I would like to draw your attention to the upcoming Dimension 3 Expo in Paris, France, from 2-4 June 2009. D3E is Europe’s premier, biggest and most dedicated event revolving around 3-D Stereoscopic media production and display and is THE place to meet European stereoscopic 3-D professionals and manufacturers. NAB and IBC may have bits and bobs on 3-D, Dimension 3 Expo is purely dedicated to Stereo 3-D. More practical information on D3E at the website:

www.dimension3-expo.com



As I will be sitting on one of the panels of the Dimension 3 conferences (Wednesday 3 June - 2 pm), D3 is the perfect opportunity to meet me in person as well and I do indeed intend to organize LinkedIn 3-D Group drinks in one of the local bars. This will be a perfect opportunity to put faces to names of the group and talk advanced, ground-breaking and avant-garde 3-D with like-minded 3-D professionals. If you are interested in sponsoring the drinks, please do contact me: info [at] the3drevolution.com


Recognize Alexander Lentjes
at Dimension 3 Expo 2009

Announced attendants to D3E so far:

2AVI, 3D-Filme, 3DLized, 3D Revolution, 3DTV Solutions, 21st century 3D, 3D Entertainment, Alcorn, Alioscopy, AmaK, Apy, Artistic Images, Assimilate, Attitude Studio, Autodesk, BskyB, Beinrelief, Christie, CNC, Color Code, CowProd, Cube, Dassault Systèmes, Herold & Familly, Digimage Cinema, Disney Pictures, Dolby, Doremi Cinema, DPLenticular, Eutelsat, Geopack, Gobelins, Imax, Inition, In-Three, Iridas, Iz3D, Fraunhofer Institute, le Futuroscope, Geneva Film, Geopack, HDCC, Holo Image, Jon Peddie Research, Kolpi, Kuk Film Production, La Geode, La Ficam, L’Ecole Nationale Louis Lumière, Le Pôle, Lightspeed Design, LocaRed, Mercenaries Engineering, Nayade, Next3D, NVIDIA, Nwave, Orange, Panasonic, Passmore Labs, Planar, Polymorph, Principal Large Format, P+S Technik, Quantel, Samsung, Sensio, SMPTE, TeamTo, Tempere University of Technology, Thomson, Trioviz, R2D1, SMPTE, Swiss Rig, Sky High Entertainment, The Foundry, N3DLand, National Geographic, Nwaves, Universal Pictures, Université CRC, UP3D, Volfoni, Wild Bunch, Wow Factor Pictures, Xpand


I hope to see you there!

Alexander Lentjes
3-D Revolution Productions
www.the3drevolution.com

Not Keane on this Live 3-D webcast

Keane 3-D Live performance
The verdict

Let me start with a small warning here: this is a negative review of a live Stereoscopic 3-D event. If you are of a mind that all 3-D is good and must not be commented on in a negative way, then look away now. This review is not written for you. If, however, you are a producer or director looking to do a 3-D project and have come away from the live 3-D Keane webcast with a bitter aftertaste in your mouth and would like to know a) why and b) how to avoid this kind of bad 3-D for your stereoscopic project, keep on reading.


The results of BAD 3-D

Yes, live broadcasts are a lot of work and in 3-D they are even more tricky, but provided the hardware is in place (stereo rig, realtime stereo encoders, realtime webast encoders) there is no reason why material should be shot at poor interaxials, underlit, wrongly colour encoded and compressed with codecs that kill the 3-D altogether. Because that is my professional opinion of this production. All hail to digital 3-D and live 3-D broadcasts, but stereography actually does mean delivering pleasant and, where possible, impressive 3-D regardless of any shooting circumstances. And there's no hiding behind stereo lookup-tables when things turn out as flat as a pancake. It's not called 3-D for nothing, you know...


SI 2K Mini cameras in 3-D setup

On the Keane 3-D webcast firstly, and most crucially, the interaxial (interocular, camera distance) is WAY too small on all of the shots. Nice cranes and dollies, Spider Cams and SI Mini cams, but they don't change a thing about the interaxial. What were the Stereoscopic decision makers monitoring this material on; an IMAX screen? Apparently it was a 46'' 3-D Plasma screen - not exactly representative for what the webcast audience at home was looking at. Because, and correct me if I'm wrong here, this is a webcast with a screen size of 407x245. The interaxials of the shoot should have been selected with such a small screen size in mind because this is the way 99.9% of the viewers are going to be seeing the webcast. And that 99.9% of viewers are going to see an image that is practically flat. Unless a flat image is what the director was after here. The set may have been deep, but the back wall is too dark to see and the action happens within a space narrow enough to use an interaxial three times the amount that is used now. On the shots with closeby studio lights or microphone stands a dynamic interaxial should have been used. Yes, difficult to do, but that's what being a 3-D expert company is all about, right?


Actual webcast image size. Crane shot from behind a studio light

Compression on the clip is so high and so unrefined that most of the imagery ghosts. OK, so live webcasting does come with the big issue of compression versus bitrates and server load, versus available codecs and delivery systems. Flash video is of of course most versitile and accessible by the widest possible audience, but its ON2 compression is murder on anaglyph colours and thus very bad for 3-D. Windows Media is a lot nicer, RealVideo does an equally good job and Quicktime streaming does a decent enough compression streaming job as well. So in the case of this live anaglyph 3-D webcast the biggest question is: should we try and ensure a quality delivery of the 3-D imagery and choose anything other than Flash Video or do we prefer the benefit of a custom video controller in Flash, quality be d@mned? I know what the audience will choose given the option.


Killing compression for anaglyph 3-D with Flash Video

The biggest and most obvious problem with the video follows next. There is only one instuction that should be given to actors and band members about to appear in an anaglyph 3-D video: do not show up at the studio wearing blue or red clothing. So of course the main singer of Keane is wearing a blue t-shirt in this video - what elese can he do. Rock & Roll, baby! Or perhaps he just wasn't told this little detail by the producers.


You can wear whatever you like for the 3-D shoot - we'll fix it all in post!

An experienced 3-D expert will bring a fine selection of yellow, brown, purple and green shirts with him for this eventuality, but clearly not the people in charge of the Keane 3-D shoot. Sigh. It was my biggest bugbear with the Missy Elliot 3-D hiphop video of last year: 'Ching-a-ling', where dancers were wearing red, blue, and cyan shirts and no post colour correction had been performed on the material by Disney. No wonder most people in the world now seriously dislike analgpyh 3-D: uncorrected blue and red shirts hurt the eyes - and nobody appears to be correcting the blues or telling the artists!


The Ching-a-ling music video in 3-D: all colours of the rainbow used

In this Keane 3-D video some anaglyph colour correction was done, but it was done very poorly and indiscriminately, where none of the colours are tuned at all but just rammed down a blunt squeeze algorithm. It was probably a menu setting on the Sensio encoder used to colour combine the 3-D image into anaglyph 3-D. But black&white anaglyphs would have looked 10x better than this half-hearted mess!


Anaglyph 3-D colour correction

It is good to try and appease everybody and show colours in anaglyph 3-D, but if you are going to do this, do it right. Because right now it is a very dark, murky image with more black and gray than any other shade of colour.


Can you see what is going on in this shot? Is it in 3-D?

And then there are the deadly high contrasts, with lights and lit areas much too bright and dark spots much too dark. Who was lighting this? Were there stereographers on the set at all when the lights were set up? It is not only ghosting that results from this kind of high contrast lighting, but also loss of 3-D, with better lit objects taking a wrong Z-depth position in relation to the underlit or overlit objects. The end result is just plain bad 3-D.


High contrast strangles any 3-D left in this shot

I am sorry guys, but I have to conclude this 3-D presentation is a very poor one and will serve to do plenty of damage to 3-D overall and anaglyph 3-D in particular. Should you be looking to do a similar presentation in 3-D I can only suggest you consider getting proper 3-D stereoscopic consulting beforehand, especially if you are intending to use the production companies involved in the live Keane 3-D webcast. Get your 3-D shots down the way they should be and learn how to get them, before stepping into the studio or even into a 3-D production meeting.

Contact Alexander Lentjes of 3-D Revolution Productions for more information
www.the3drevolution.com


Shot from 'Watch How We Blow', a 3-D HipHop music video
with consulting from 3-D Revolution Productions

Get your $2 worth of 3-D

With film producers and distributors boiling down the Stereoscopic film equation to the $2 mark-up for a 3-D film ticket, audiences are starting to air their demands for $2 worth of 3-D entertainment...


The following article I wrote can be found in the excellent 3-D publication Veritas et Visus (3rd Dimension edition). I can highly recommend this online magazine for anybody working in the Stereoscopic industry, so do check it out: http://www.veritasetvisus.com/3rd_dimension.htm


...As the average 2009 cinema ticket price in the US is $7.20, that amounts to a mark-up of 22%. So a bit less than a quarter or a bit more than a fifth of the film’s duration should be using engaging, entertaining 3-D to keep the patrons happy. If you charge $2 more for 90 minutes of cinematic entertainment, you are going to have to deliver the extra 20 minutes of 3-Dimensional cherry on top.

When it comes to 3-D, that cherry is more often than not the in-your-face stuff: good old negative parallax, theatre space, the out-of-screen area. One look at the trailer for ‘My Bloody Valentine 3-D’ (2009) and it becomes clear how people equate the term ‘3-D’ with pick-axes flying at the camera and flames engulfing the theatre (even when flames are, in fact, 2D forms). Funnily, the trailer goes straight against the director’s own promotional words of how the 3-D is not used in a cheap and cheesy way like previous 3-D movies! Pretty much all promotional artwork for 3-D feature films throughout cinema history have featured objects jumping out of a cinema screen. It is undeniable that the two or three 3-D shots people remember when they come out of the theatre are almost always negative parallax shots so their importance in the bigger picture of a successful 3-D film experience is immense. That is not to say that a 3-D feature film should consist of an endless bombardment of negative parallax action - ‘Treasure of the Four Crowns’ (1983) is a very good example of what that looks like: throwaway fairground fodder.


Film poster of 'Treasure of the Four Crowns' (1983)

So far, storyboarders, designers, directors and cameramen have mostly underestimated the importance and complexity of a good negative parallax shot and underinvested in developing new grammar for this part of the visual language of stereoscopic cinematography. It could be because out-of-screen shots pose an almost impossible challenge for narrative visual storytelling: how can these objects coming out of the screen be used to enhance the story, action and character interaction without engaging with the viewer in first person? So far, only very few 3-D films have managed to have a decent negative parallax shot or two that is not out of place or totally obtrusive. A shot that comes to mind is Jared-Syn’s deadly arm in 'Metalstorm' (1983). The negative parallax in this shot serves a narrative function, is spectacular in slow-motion 3-D and doesn’t take the audience out of the movie. Suspension of disbelief is sustained. But no, it wouldn’t work for longer than the duration of that particular shot and later shots in the movie show the usual stretched arms holding guns, coming out of the screen. Not very intelligent use of out-of-screen space. But then most scenes involving theatre space in 3-D film scripts appear to have been written on the backs of beer coasters, with very childish visuals result.


Still from 'Metalstorm' (1983)

How would it fly with the audience if an actor of a play started talking to them or even waving a stick at them? And what if the actor were to walk into the audience and talk to the other actors on stage from there? It could be called ‘modern’, perhaps ‘abstract’, but in any case quite odd and probably not helping the flow of the story. It is this dilemma that 3-D film is facing and has always faced: how to make that oddity work in a serious, undamaging way. This is especially relevant as the discussed 22% of the film needs to pay off in the way people remember and love 3-D. And so far nobody has ever said that the deep scenery of a 3-D film has stuck with them for a long time.

3-D eye poking is very much like camera access, camera shakes, on-screen text and other camera-affirming techniques in cinema. It must be approached with the rules to these techniques in mind. The reason for using camera access, interaction with a camera, bumping into the camera, splatter on the camera lens and even showing a camera crew can be for comedic effect, to indicate the camera as a person, to talk directly to the audience in a medieval theatre style or to touch upon a documentary situation for heightened reality and closeness to the action. But with it comes the breaking down of the fourth wall and the illusion – disbelieve is unsuspended.


'Ferris Bueller's Day off' (1986) - constant camera access

A major issue is that the dimensionality easily distracts the viewer from the story and its characters and negative parallax pushes the viewer’s suspension of disbelieve to the limit. More often than not, these shots remind the viewer he is watching a movie and take the viewer out of it completely. The ability to lose one self in the story and character interaction gets dealt a heavy blow by objects sticking out into theatre space. By observing and analysing the negative parallax object, the brain switches sides from creative (left) to analytical observing (right): the worst possible thing that can happen when being told a story. It is especially wry when all a cinema theatre is trying to do is remove cues to the fact one is sitting in a chair watching a movie to enhance the cinema-going experience to its fullest potential. Paradoxically, by getting close to the viewer’s face, the 3-D movie reminds the viewer he is not actually part of the on-screen events. That which makes stereoscopic film great – the ability to get a film closer to the audience – can take away from the very factors that make for cinematic enjoyment.


'Dial M for Murder' (1954) - negative parallax fame

Basically, theatre space can be used a lot without a problem by movies that don’t take themselves too seriously, that are more of a realistic/documentary-style breed, films that are confident enough to use first-person and POV shots or those that are more or less glorified thrill rides. For movies that don’t want to sacrifice their serious nature, subtle negative parallax shots such as the scissors-grabbing shot in ‘Dial M for Murder’ (1954) may just about work, but they can’t fill a fifth of the available screen time with characters reaching into the audience. A solution to the problem may come from a recognition by producers, distributors, theatres and the audience that 3-D movies are a different medium altogether – neither film nor theatre, but volumetric narrative visual entertainment of its own. A new medium with new rules – where the fourth wall can be broken at will and where serious drama is followed by visual puns and an opportunity to examine objects and scenery in volumetric detail. Because an evolution of film won’t happen until old conventions and ideas are abandoned and new ones are fully embraced.


Pie-throwing in 'The Three Stooges - Pardon my Backfire' (1953)

3D or 3-D: the big question

There is a great confusion within the 3-D stereoscopic industry regarding the correct use of the term '3-D'. So what is it: 3D, 3-D, 3-Dimensional or StereoVisionScope-o-Rama? And should we actually still be putting the '3-D' label on a 3-D film poster?


Jaws 3-D Film Poster

Before computer graphics existed, right up to the 1980's, the term '3D' referred to both Stereoscopic imagery and Stop-Motion work and sometimes even multi-planing 2D imagery. The two didn't get confused because Animation and Live-action were in completely different leagues. For example, the Disney short 'Old Mill' (1937), was billed as a '3-D cartoon'. By that they meant multi-planing. The Fleischer studio went further and introduced multiplaning of cells on top of a real set: the 'Tabletop 3D Background Process' in 'Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves' (1937). Both processes were billed as 3D and 3-D, but neither was Stereoscopic.


Still of Popeye in the Tabletop 3D process

At the same time, since 1920 shorts and films have been released stereoscopically in theatres, billing themselves as '3D', '3-D', '3-Dimension' and 'Third Dimension', depending on the whim of the PR department.


Poster for Audioscopiks (1935)

There have been numerous creative terms used as well, such as 'DimensionScope', 'FreddyVision', 'Future Dimension' and 'HorrorScope' (it is a long list) and this tradition continues to today, with terms such as 'Fusion 3-D'. In 3-D, little changes over the years...

Since the 1980's, in general, '3D' is used to describe '3D CGI', so simply computer generated imagery, while '3-D' most often refers to Stereoscopic imagery.


Ultimate 1980's 3-D film fodder

One way of avoiding confusion is to employ the word 'Stereoscopic' whenever you write '3-D', or 'Stereo 3-D' for short (an abbreviation coined by James Cameron). Personally, I find the shortest abbreviation of 'S3D' or 'S-3D' (coined by Neil Schneider of MTBS3D) ugly and even confusing so I'd never use that.

On a side note, interestingly, techniques such as Pulfrich and Chromadepth should not be be called '3-D' at all, as they are not based on two unique images combined to form a single volumetric image, but rather play on the brain's laziness or confusion to create the illusion of depth (certainly not volume).

And then I have had Italians talk to me about '3D Lenses', which will be a literal translation from Italian. I am sure the Spanish use a similar term.

Still, 'Stereoscopic 3-D' is the international standard term and my advice is to keep using '3-D' in stead of '3D' when talking about two-eye imagery.


1950's 2D animated 3-D with Bugs Bunny

With modern day advertising and PR press releases, what strikes me as odd is the paradox of what Stereoscopic 3-D is made out to be and supposed to become, according to the over-quoted Katzenberg, Schklair and Cameron, and how it is marketed time and again. The famous ‘3-D’ logo on film posters should say enough of what 3-D is to producers and distributors: a marketing tool.

If 3-D is supposed to be the new standard and all films are supposed to be shot in 3-D, then why put the 3-D logo on the poster? And if people can choose between seeing a film in 2-D or in 3-D how can that be justified in artistic terms? Is the film shot for 3-D presentation or does the 3-D not really matter? Because do we offer cinema-goers the option of seeing films in black&white or silent, and is the fact that a film is shot in colour and with sound advertised on film posters? No, of course not, because that would be silly, right? Yet this practice is par for the course with 3-D.


My Bloody Valentine: 'modern' 3-D
with classic subject matter

Worryingly, punters are indeed already opting to see the 2-D version of 3-D films at their local cinema and have started lambasting plans for shooting upcoming films in 3-D in film forums because of indifference towards the artistic merits of eye-poking 3-D shots, the $2 surcharge for 3-D cinema tickets and an aversion to wearing 3-D glasses.

So I suggest this statement: that 3-D is not so much an evolution of cinema in the line of sound, colour, 3-D, as different medium, somewhere inbetween film and theatre. But that is a different discussion altogether. Actually, click here for that discussion...

Stereoscopic Fail Scarring the name of Digital 3-D Cinema

Scar 3-D (2007 / 2008)
Stereoscopic Fail Scarring the name of Digital 3-D Cinema


Scar 3D - promotional still

As Saw V is still running in cinemas and going strong, the public is clearly not tired yet of the old torture porn genre. But Scar 3-D (Scar 3D) just didn’t go anywhere. Released in 2007, it hit English theatres just two weeks ago in November 2008. Sadly, I have not yet been able to see Scar 3-D in my local 3-D cinema as they pulled it after only one week and it looks like other cinemas are pulling it faster than you can say: “3-D bubble”. As the movie was already out on DVD (in anaglyph 3-D), that makes for an odd situation of a film going from cinema to DVD to cinema to DVD, while never hitting any interesting boxoffice numbers. It must, then, have been a sly attempt by its distributor to cash in on the current good press 3-D cinema is getting. And by doing so, the press for 3-D cinema just got a lot worse again.

The fast removal from theatres should be a very strong indicator that this title should probably never have hit the cinemas. But because it did, it got seen by cinema reviewers and they have been giving it a 0% rating overall (Rottentomatoes average). Ouch! That is an epic 3-Dimensional fail.

"This is not our parents’ 3-D with silly red & blue glasses", journalists wrote. No, it is much worse than that: it is a non-existent entertainment shot and projected in digital 3-D. So what is the point of all the superior digital hoohah when the movie itself is painfully bad in the content department?

This is not just the failure of one movie. A 0% rating for a movie with good 3-D photography (judging from the trailer) says something about the use of 3-D for movies overall. The acting and drama in the trailer look like absolute dross, but the use of 3-D looks beautiful. Strong conclusions can be drawn.


Scar 3-D - 3D analgyph still

One of the four following statements must be true, partially or fully, for a 0% approval rating to happen to a 3-D movie with good stereoscopic camera work:

1) 3-D does not add ANY value to a movie, regardless of how bad it is and regardless of the quality of the 3-D photography.

2) No matter how good the delivery is of a movie (colour, digital, 3-D, CinemaScope), if the story, acting and / or direction is bad, it is a waste of time and money.

3) 3-D does not add extra revenue, audience draw or promotional value to a movie if the movie itself (story, acting and / or direction) is bad.

4) Scar 3-D has not managed to use 3-D in any way, shape or form that even resembles an improvement to the entertainment value of the film overall and the story, its characters and the direction in specific.


Scar 3-D - 3D analgyph still

These conclusions should not read as a major surprise. A colour movie is not better than a black & white movie just because it is in colour – that is absolute nonsense. Yet to current 3-D film producers and 3-D proprietors like James Cameron it comes as a shock. Wasn’t 3-D going to add the extra 2 Dollars to the cinema ticket price and wasn’t the audience prepared to pay this extra amount, regardless? You mean we are actually still having to make proper movies with real stories, proper acting and decent directing? Well snap!

This shock realization has happened twice before in cinema history, namely in 1953 and in 1983, when 2 or 3 decent 3-D movies were flanked by 100 exploitation titles. Surprise, surprise, 3-D has been having a really bad name ever since. The fallout of 3-D boom years has been devastating to the name of 3-D with film critics and the average film-going audience. Stereo 3-D film is barely just recovering from it all and already punters are booing stereoscopic 3-D when discussing the slate of 2009-2010 upcoming film releases planned to be in 3-D. Another box office 3-D bomb like Scar 3-D and the digital 3-D boom year may never actually happen. Because who wants to be associated with a medium that is used in sub-par film releases to draw the extra buck without delivering anything more?


Scar 3D - 3-D analgyph still

So what IS the hope for a prosperous 3-D film future? Let’s revisit the 3 statements of above.

1b) It is difficult to refute this statement, as the proper 3-D photography of Scar 3D did not add even 1% of a more positive review. Perhaps this is due to the fact that 3-D enhances, or enlarges what is presented on screen. So an enhanced bad trip becomes a really bad trip, while an enhanced dream of a picture will become pure heaven. 3-D really can do this, but keep in mind: stereoscopic presentation of your cinematic story amplifies and really exposes the quality of the presented imagery. A bit like super HD showing all the spots and wrinkles on actors faces, which can be a bitch when you were just going for an awe-inspiring high definition experience.

2b) More pleasant delivery of any material will at least take away the blame from the delivery format. Are your patrons walking out of the cinema after 5 minutes, well, at least it wasn’t because your film was in 2-D. But has 2-Dimensionality ever been a reason to stay away from a movie? Sure, movie critics will always find a reason to complain, so the better the delivery format, the more focus there will be on the content of the film. If the content is bad, the critic will write: “The 3-D didn’t help save the bad story”. If the presentation was in 2-D rather than in 3-D, the critic will write: “This movie was clearly shot to work in 3-D, because I couldn’t find any reason to like the story in 2-D”. Can you ever win with these guys? Well, perhaps by presenting a good film that is enhanced by great 3-D…

3b) Poor financial returns for some 3-D movies does not mean that Stereo 3-D cannot add financial value to a film release, as a good movie can benefit from the 3-Dimenasional addition, while really good 3-D, added to a really good movie, makes for big boxoffice success. But go figure, the key term here is ‘good’, not ‘3-D’.

4b) What does the budding 3-D film director need to do to make the 3-D add to the entertainment value of his picture? Enhance the volume of characters, flatten them out, create claustrophobic scenes, deep and wide vistas, poke scary and funny things at the audience, wow with geometric intrigue and dwarf or giantize scenery and characters? All that and more.

Top three 3-D movies of all time

Just a quick top three after a recent visit to Box Office Mojo:

The top three 3-D movies of all time
Numbes reflect total International Gross
Corrected for inflation (ticket price)

1. Spy Kids 3-D (2003)
35mm Anaglyph projection
$230,504,018

2. Jaws 3-D (1983)
35mm Polarized projection
$197,970,873

3. Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D (2008)
Digital 3-D projection
$96,387,658

So not only is the highest grossing 3-D movie of all time a very 'simple' anaglyph 35mm projection, its budget is definitely also the lowest of the three.

It is good to see a polarized 35mm projection on the number two spot, and then, finally, a digitally projected 3-D film. James Cameron must be hissing and huffing and puffing. Well, with his upcoming 3-D movie Avatar having a $195,000,000 budget and a niche Sci-fi market to play the movie to, he will certainly continue to do so...

And so which film of the top three is the most recognizable and memorable of them all? Exactly, Jaws 3-D. That film from 1983 that today’s journalists can’t bash enough – whenever they aren’t generally bashing anaglyph as a release format, that is. Too bad then it’s not them, but Robert Rodriguez who is laughing all the way to the bank with a hefty $186,000,000 cheque in his pocket for the anaglyph Spy Kids 3-D. People, wake up to the reality of what works in 3-D and why.

3-D film in 2009: Mindless Slasher Pics, IMAX Surfing Documentaries and plenty of CGI animation

3-D Releases in 2009:
Mindless Slasher Pics, IMAX Surfing Documentaries and plenty of CGI animation




Amateur Pornstar Killer 3-D. What to expect, hmm

2009 is turning out to be a very good year for 3-D film, with 46 feature titles slated for release. So what kinds of movies are these 21^st Century 3-D flicks going to be? Has the medium grown up since the last 3-D boom of 1983 and shed its horror / slasher / exploitation tag?

Ahhh, no. At least, not entirely.

11 of the upcoming releases next year are documentaries and IMAX pieces, most of them featuring water, waves, surfers and fish. 10 of the 3-D titles of 2009 are (CGI) animation features about a wide variety of zany subjects and crazy characters. All good fun, then. But what is the mainstay of the Stereoscopic live-action releases? You guessed it: mindless slasher horror pics, 9 of them to be precise.

Perhaps the phoenix re-rise of 3-D coincides with the resurgence of slasher horror, which had a peak of its own in the early 1980’s, which would explain why most of the 3-D films coming up are 3-D horror exploitation titles. No intelligent drama, no rom-coms, but some family films (4), science-fiction (3 titles), action (3 of them, two featuring Hulk Hogan), skin flicks (2) and thriller (2), besides the tween-pleasing musical film (2). Or is this just a representation of the types of 2-D movies out there already? Are we that obsessed as a cinema going audience with people being cut into pieces? Cannibalism Holocaust got it right after all (now that would make for a great 3-D remake)…

The upcoming 3-D titles for 2009:
As taken from The 3-D Revolution 3-D Film List
With film comments by Gary Palmer


1.8 DAYS*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Chuck Fallaw
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print
2.39:1

[Action-horror in which various criminals, all intent on killing each other for a number of reasons, are forced to band together when they find themselves under attack by something which the filmmakers don’t want us to know about just yet... Currently in production]


AMATEUR PORN STAR KILLER 3-D*

USA - 2009 - feature - col

[3-D parody of Shane Ryan’s Amateur Porn Star Killer trilogy (initiated in 2007), mock-documentaries which record the torture and killing of various starlets by a deranged killer, played by Ryan himself. Currently in development]


AROUND THE WORLD IN 50 YEARS*

USA/Belgium - 2009 - feature? - col
D: Ben Stassen
Dimensionalized 3-D
Dual-1570 and Digital 3-D release print
1.44:1 (1570)
1.85:1 (D-Cinema)

[Large Format item which follows the life of a sea turtle from 1959 to the present day, bearing witness to a series of environmental changes wrought by global warming]


AVATAR*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: James Cameron
Digital Widescreen
Fusion 3-D
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print
2.39:1

[Blockbuster science fiction adventure, set in the distant future, in which
humankind attempts to colonize an alien planet, only to face violent
opposition from some of the indigenous population]


BOOTY*

USA - 2009? - feature - col
D: Jim Byrkit
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[Family adventure film in which a group of sexy, sassy women are kidnapped by cutthroat pirates and turn the tables by stealing their captors’ ship, laden with stolen booty. Naturally, the pirates give chase... Currently in development]


CARNAVAL 3-D: THE MAGIC & THE MUSIC*

USA/Brazil - 2009 - feature - col
D: Brett Ratner
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[Documentary feature, co-produced by music maestro Quincy Jones, which explores the sights and sounds of Rio de Janeiro’s annual street party]


A CHRISTMAS CAROL*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Robert Zemeckis
Disney Digital 3-D
Dimensionalized 3-D
Digital 3-D release print

[CGI animated version of the Dickens’ classic, complete with all-star voice cast. Currently in production]


CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Phil Lord, Chris Miller
Dimensionalized 3-D
Digital 3-D release print

[Animated fantasy, based on the bestselling children’s book by Judi Barrett. Whilst attempting to solve the problem of world hunger, a scientist accidentally unleashes a ‘food storm’ which rains all manner of foodstuffs down upon the earth’s populace. Havoc ensues]


DAWN OF THE DEAD*

(aka: Zombies)
USA - 1978/2009 - 126m - col
D: George A. Romero
In-Three Dimensionalization
Digital 3-D release print
1.85:1

[’Dimensionalized’ version of Romero's 2-D shocker (scheduled for 3-D release in 2009), in which a group of disparate characters barricade themselves inside a shopping mall where they’re besieged by hordes of flesh-eating zombies]


DIGGER*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: John A. Gallagher
Fusion 3-D
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[Horror-thriller. An emotionally crippled young woman (Heidi Kristoffer) living on an isolated campus during Spring Break finds herself at the mercy of a monstrous killer who lives in the surrounding woodlands]


THE DIVE*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
Fusion 3-D
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[Drama based
on the true story of free-divers Francisco Ferreras and Audrey Mestre,
whose competitive nature resulted in extraordinary feats of underwater
endurance]


FINAL DESTINATION 4*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: David R. Ellis
Fusion 3-D
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[Fourth in the supernatural horror franchise (begun in 2000 by the original Final Destination),
in which survivors of a terrible calamity (in this case, a racing car
which ploughs into a grandstand full of spectators!) are stalked and
killed by Death itself. Currently in production]


FLYING THE FRONTIERS*

Canada - 2009 - short - col
Dual-65mm?
Dual-1570 (IMAX) release print
Sonics-DDP
1.44:1

[Large Format documentary which places audiences in the cockpit of a
bush-plane as it flies over some of the most awe-inspiring landscapes
on earth. Currently in production]


THE GATE*

USA - 2009 - feature - col

[Remake of the 1987 horror film, in which a group of teenagers stumble across
the gateway to hell in their back yard (as you do), unleashing a
demonic onslaught. Rumoured to be going into production soon, utilizing
an as-yet-unknown 3-D format]


G-FORCE*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Hoyt Yeatman
Dual-HD Video (live-action)?
Dimensionalized 3-D (animation)
Digital 3-D release print

[Family film, combining live-action and CGI animation, in which a group of
militaristic guinea pigs defend the Earth from a wicked tyrant!]


GINA D’S HAPPINESS-LAND ADVENTURE*

USA - 2009? - feature - col
Dimensionalized 3-D
Digital 3-D release print

[Musical fairy tale spoof, for children]


GODSPEED*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Dustin Voigt
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[Action-drama, currently in production]


GODZILLA: 3-D TO THE MAX

(aka: Godzilla vs. Deathla)
(aka: Gojira 3-D)

Canada/Japan - 2009 - 40m - col
D: Yoshimitsu Banno, Keith Melton
IMAX 3-D
Dual-1570
Dual-1570 (IMAX) and Digital 3-D (D-Cinema) release prints
Sonics-DDP (IMAX version)
1.44:1

[Large Format monster movie, currently in development, though the
on-again/off-again production schedule (and constant changes in key
technical personnel) means the film may not be produced anytime soon,
if at all]


GRAND CANYON: THE HIDDEN SECRETS

USA - 1984/2009 - 36m - col
D: Kieth Merrill
IMAX Digital 3-D
Dimensionalized 3-D
Dual-1570 release print
Sonics-DDP
1.44:1

[’Dimensionalized’ version of a popular Large Format film (originally released in 2-D) which explores the history and geology of the Grand Canyon. Though made available to IMAX theaters worldwide, a copy of the film will be housed on a permanent basis at the Grand Canyon IMAX Theater at the National Geographic Visitors Center in Arizona, USA]


GREAT WHITE 3-D

Canada - 2009 - 40m - col
D: Bob Talbot
IMAX 3-D
Dual-1570
Dual-1570 and -870 release prints
Sonics-DDP
1.44:1 (1570)
1.35:1 (870)

[Large Format documentary which seeks to debunk the prevailing view of great white sharks (propagated by the likes of Jaws, book and film) as little more than man-eating predators]


ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
Dimensionalized 3-D
Digital 3-D release print

[Animated sequel to the original Ice Age (2002), and the first of the series to be produced in 3-D. Currently in production]




JONAS BROTHERS IN 3-D*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Bruce Hendricks
Fusion 3-D
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[Following their guest appearance in Hannah Montana / Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour (qv), this concert movie toplines the Jonas Brothers - a wholesome US pop-rock band, aimed specifically at teenagers - recorded during their 2008 ‘Burning Up’ tour. Currently in production]


KUNG FU U*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
Digital 3-D release print

[Children’s adventure, starring wrestler-turned-actor Hulk Hogan as an instructor
at Brentwood Academy who takes charge of a group of nerdy rich kids and
transforms them into butt-kicking martial artists. Currently in
development]


LITTLE HERCULES*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Mohamed Khashoggi
Dual-HD Video (partly)
Dolby Digital
1.85:1

[Former wrestler Hulk Hogan toplines this children’s fantasy as Zeus, father of the young Hercules (Richard Sandrak) who opts to forego his god-like destiny and live as a mortal in modern-day LA. Various adventures follow, some of which are depicted in 3-D]


THE MAGIC TALE*

Spain - 2009 - 45m - col
D: Jordi Llompart
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D and dual-1570 release prints

[Family film, based on the director’s own novel ('El Corazón Sobre la Arena' - The Heart on the Sand), in which a lonely little girl (Eva Gerretsen) takes an imaginary trip to Africa where she experiences a wide range of magical adventures]


MASTER MIND*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Cameron Hood, Kyle Jefferson
Dimensionalized 3-D
Digital 3-D release print

[Animated superhero satire in which a major villain is fired after accidentally
killing his arch-rival Uberman. Currently in production]


MONSTERS VS. ALIENS*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Conrad Vernon, Rob Letterman
Ultimate 3-D
Dimensionalized 3-D
Digital 3-D (D-Cinema) and dual-1570 (IMAX) release prints

[Animated action-comedy, a spoof of 1950’s creature features. Currently in production]


THE MORTICIAN*

UK - 2009 - feature - col
D: Gareth Maxwell Roberts
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[Plot details are somewhat obscure, but Variety describes
this as a combination of ”urban noir, contemporary fairy tale and
psychological thriller... in which kindness triumphs over cruelty”.
Currently in development]




MY BLOODY VALENTINE*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Patrick Lussier
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print
1.85:1

[Remake of the 1981 Canadian film, in which a group of teenagers fall foul of a mad killer whilst celebrating Valentine’s Day in an ‘abandoned’ mine shaft]


OCEANS 3-D: VOYAGE OF A TURTLE*

USA/France - 2009 - feature - col
D: Jean-Jacques Mantello
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[Semi-documentary feature, in which an inquisitive sea turtle embarks on a journey across the world’s oceans, seeking the origins of a mysterious sound which echoes across the earth]


OWN3D*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: James Hergott
Fusion 3-D
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[Martial arts drama, currently in development. The title should actually read as
'Owned', but has cleverly incorporated the '3-D' tag]


PIRANHA*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Alexandre Aja
Digital 3-D release print

[Remake of the 1978 movie, in which shoals of prehistoric piranha fish are
released into Arizona's lakes following a minor earth tremor]


PIRANHAS*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
Fusion 3-D
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[The first in a proposed series of low-budget action epics, in which adventurer Aubrey Blaze leaps to the rescue of a caving party trapped in an isolated cavern overrun by deadly mutant piranhas]


RETURN TO EVEREST

USA/Canada - 2009 - 40m - col
D: Greg Macgillivray
IMAX 3-D
Dual-1570
Sonics-DDP
1.44:1

[3-D sequel to the 2-D Large Format film Everest (1998), which offers dimensional views of the eponymous mountain and the people who live within its shadow]


ROCK THE BOAT*

France - 2009 - feature - col
D: Fabien Suarez, Andre Bessy
Dimensionalized 3-D
Digital 3-D release print

[Animated feature, in which a porcupine and a cheetah disguise themselves as a
brand new species - a ‘porceetah’! - after being refused entry to
Noah’s Ark. The first major non-Hollywood film to test the digital 3-D
waters. About time, too.]


SANCTUM*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Gary Johnstone
Fusion 3-D
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[Underwater adventure, in which a deep-sea diving team encounters various dangers
whilst travelling through uncharted territory. Currently in production]


SHADOW VISION*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Eric Parkinson
Dual-HD Video
Digital 3-D release print

[Thriller, starring Vivian Schilling “as a blind woman who develops the ability to remotely sense and visualize crimes”]


STEP UP 3-D*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Jon Chu
Digital 3-D release print

[Third in the popular teen dance series (initiated by Step Up in 2006), announced as a stereoscopic production utilizing an as-yet unconfirmed 3-D format]


THE STEWARDESSES*

USA - 2009 - feature - col

[Remake of the 1969 film, announced for production in due course, utilizing an as-yet unknown 3-D format]




SURFARI*

Canada - 2009? - short - col

[This IMAX 3-D documentary - following surfer Laird Hamilton across the world
in search of the ‘perfect wave’ - has been ‘in development’ since 2005,
and there’s no sign of a release date yet. Should be pretty spectacular
when - or if - it arrives, though]


TINTIN*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
Dimensionalized 3-D
Digital 3-D release print

[The first of three ‘motion capture’ 3-D films based on the famous Belgian comic-strip character, currently in production]


TOY STORY*

USA - 1995/2009 - 80m - col
D: John Lasseter
Disney Digital 3-D
Dimensionalized 3-D
Digital 3-D release print
1.85:1

[Animated feature, in which a little boy relegates a beloved toy cowboy (voiced
by Tom Hanks) to second place in his affections after buying a
super-duper newfangled robot (Tim Allen). Typical Hollywood fluff,
originally released in 2-D and reworked for stereoscopic presentation
in 2009. Followed by Toy Story 2 (qv)]


TRANSFORMERS 2*

USA - 2009 - feature - col

[Rumoured to be going into production in an as-yet unknown 3-D format]


ULTIMATE WAVE*

USA - 2009 - short? - col
D: Stephen Low
Dual-1570 release print
Sonics-DDP
1.44:1

[Large Format documentary, in which champion surfer Kelly Slater explores the science of giant waves]


UNDER THE SEA*

USA/Canada - 2009 - short - col
D: Howard Hall
IMAX 3-D
Dual-1570
Sonics-DDP
1.44:1

[Large Format sequel to Deep Sea 3-D (qv), which explores the impact of climate change on ocean wildlife]


UP*

USA - 2009 - feature - col
D: Pete Docter
Disney Digital 3-D
Dimensionalized 3-D
Digital 3-D release print

[Sadly, not a 3-D remake of the Russ Meyer film (now that we'd like to see!), but an animated feature, in which a lonely old man is revitalized by his adventures with a young Wilderness Explorer]

Journey 3-D Review

Finally, a new 3-D Stereoscopic Film Review on the 3-D Review page of The 3-D Revolution website! This time it's a review of the Stereoscopic 3-D as used in 'Journey 3-D', or: 'Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D'. Check it out here.

You can still find the Beowulf 3-D review here and if Hollywood keeps its promise, there are plenty more 3-D reviews to come.

There are plenty of reviews of Journey 3-D that talk about how great the digital projection of the picture is, how the story is based on a Jules Verne book and how the 3-D HD camera system and the Real-D projection is amazing and digital.

But none of the reviews out there talk about the use of 3-D, and especially not the cinematic use of 3-D. That is mainly because most reviewers will copy press material released by the studio and distributor but also because film critics don’t necessarily know anything about 3-D and how to analyze and grade it. So here is a review that does just that: look very closely at the 3-D and talk about why it works when the 3-D is great and what makes for poor 3-D...

The 3-D Review

The Reality of 3-D Television

One of the biggest financial elements for any film production is the promise of DVD and broadcasting sales. Some productions even go so far as to part or gap-finance productions with DVD pre-orders; a practise possible with well-established properties enjoying a big fan base. But what of Stereoscopic 3-D productions?




As written before, films playing in Real-D and Dolby 3-D theatres are simply not released in 3-D on any type of DVD or broadcast on television. There may be the odd distributor taking the step of active or passive 3-D plasma screen format versioning, but such a hardware market is not a real consumer fact yet and work on small screen reversioning is currently still close to working from a belief in the existence of a home theatre 3-D market rather than a basing these costs on a commercial reality. Anaglyph 3-D is still the most accessible and cost-effective 3-D release format for the small screen, yet it is quickly acquiring a bad name in the industry.


How not to watch analgpyh 3-D...

For some reason (most likely a financial one), Disney has distributed only 1 million anaglyph glasses and then asks of home viewers to construct their own anaglyph 3-D glasses using felt pens, clear film and cardboard for the Hannah Montana 3-D broadcast and DVD release. No surprise then that the girls doing this will walk away with a justified hate of very poor quality 3-D, but sadly also a distrust of anaglyph 3-D as a whole. Proper filtering using the red and blue of anaglyph is certainly possible and the results can be on par with a polarized projection solution, minus the hardware headaches and investments that polarized projection bring with it. But of course the think-tank at Real-D will advice Disney to distribute Hannah Montanna’s 3-D concert in this DIY way: it will be yet another nail in the coffin of consumer trust in anaglyph 3-D. Journalists are certainly doing a great job helping them with this, bashing anything other than polarized, digital projection on a daily basis – often without ever even having witnessed a proper anaglyph presentation themselves. But that’s the way these cookies crumble.



Practically speaking, what would a saturated, well functioning 3-D television market look like? The daily news in 3-D (rising interest rates – now in 3-D), the weather report in 3-D (tomorrow: more stereoscopic rain), sports broadcasts in 3-D (poor refereeing in and extra time in 3 Dimensions), cooking programs in 3-D (carrots flying left and right out of the screen), talkshows in 3-D (talking to the hand that’s comin’ at ya, coz the 3-D face ain’t listening), soaps in 3-D (pregnant with her husband’s best friend – in stereo, so probably with twins)…



In such a future, 3-D is the standard and 3-D cameras will be simple to operate, locked down to an EBU standard interocular, with SMPTE limited convergence control and, finally, an industry standard handbook on how to work it all. 57 3-D channels and still nothing on! Maybe 3-D TV should stay limited to a 3-D film and special event channel. Hannah Montana 3D, U23D, the NBA and World Cup rugby final in 3-D, followed by a late showing of Hondo (in all of its restored 3-D glory), House of Wax, Chicken Little, Beowulf and a 3-D converted Wizard of Oz. That will work and it will keep 3-D special. Because everyday 3-D will become as dull as 2-D in our present experience.


3-D Converted still from the 2-D version of Hondo -
just to complicate things even further

The Ultimate 3-D Stereo Pair

I am far from being somebody who wants to bore people to death with baby photos, but I thought it would be nice to share my ultimate achievement in 3-D with you: a human stereo pair.

These are my twin boys at 3-Days old, photographed with a plain digital camera in cha-cha fashion. I then did some quick geometric correction in Photoshop to get to this full-colour anaglyph 3-D photo of what may be the first 3-D twins in history!



Aren't they cute? We're still working on the names, but strong contenders are Cyan & Red, Wheatstone & Lumiere and Left and Right. Poor fellows, maybe they don't even like 3-D...

By the way, the twins are also the reason why there has been a bit of a pause in the Blog entries lately :) Because as you know, doing things in 3-D means twice the work!

Alexander

A little bit of Stereoscopic 3D perspective

Toy Story 3-D: Something Pixar promised not to do

Toy Story 3-D. Pixar has said in the past that they could not see any reason to release their films in 3-D. When asked personally in 2007, Monsters Inc.'s Peter Docter was clear on the subject by stating: "We have looked at 3-D in the past and have come to the conclusion that there is little to no way in which 3-D can indeed enhance the quality of our storytelling or enhance the character interaction in a meaningful way". And as we all know Pixar is all about stories and character interaction. Lo and behold, Disney purchases Pixar and suddenly the news comes out in 2008: all Pixar movies will, from now on, be released in 3-D. Not only that, but Toy Story 1 and 2 will be re-released in 3-D as well, leading up to the 3-D release of Toy Story 3. So who or what is behind this sudden change of mind? Disney marketing? Why else does the animation studio with the most integrity in the industry change its mind overnight about 3-D, going against their own, strong beliefs about Stereoscopic 3-D film? In PR releases the reason mentioned is digital 3-D projection because, in some people's minds, projection equals story.


U2 3-D - anaglyph still not representative of the actual Real-D experience.
Don't worry. Fun to see an actual 3-D PR still, though, no?

Jon Shapiro, producer of U23D:
"3-D has been a gimmick in the past that has been used to fend of radio and then television, but now with digital technology we can shoot perfect 3-D to the pixel."

So how does shooting digital not make 3-D a gimmick, exactly? Because now you are shooting out-of-screen effects with digital cameras? What a strange argument... 'Spy Kids', 'Sharkboy & Lavagirl' and 'Ghosts of the Abyss' are, with all due respect, the living proof of why HD filming does not necessarily equal good 3-D. And why would it? HD is a recording format, not an artistic quality assurance. In fact, shooting HD with it's real-time playback ability appears to hurt a good 3-D end result as directors don't need to visualize shots in their head any more, but tinker and tweak on the spot. A shoot on a Monday morning will thus result in different 3-D camera parameters than one done on a Friday afternoon - as the crew will have different visual tolerances on the different days.


James Cameron switches back to a beamsplitter camera setup
after promoting the Fusion 3-D side-by-side camera for years and years

James Cameron:
"Even in its crude form when it (3-D) first debuted in 1951, 3-D cinema demonstrated the power to captivate audiences. However, inadequacies in camera and projector technology resulted in eyestrain and other viewing hardships that quickly killed the medium."

Cameron's 3-D response to those 'inadequate' 3-D movies? Shoot a 3-D film with 1080p cameras, with an interocular of 70mm and converge on subjects 1m away from the camera, while being underwater with deep, deep scenes, with dirt floating at 1mm distance in front of the lens. Then blow this material up to IMAX size and call it the future of 3-D. You mentioned eyestrain and viewing hardship? It's not the recording method that matters, it's using the medium to shoot pleasant 3-D and tell interesting stories. Why is the argument of gripping narrative and cinematic quality confused with projection quality? Because that's one of the very few elements that has changed dramatically over 55 years since Hollywood gave us 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' and 'Radar Men from the Moon' in 3-D.


Convergence, as used in the Fusion 3-D camera rig, is bad for 3-D

So are we seeing a real 3-D revolution? And are there other reasons for the historic failure of 3-D rather than just misaligned projectors? Time for a little reality check:


3-D Stereoscopic Film releases over the years from 1920 to 2010

The real 3-D revolution happened in 1953. There are no two ways about it. The camera and projection systems may now be called ‘inadequate’, but Hollywood had switched over to 3-D in a very real way. The amount of 3-D film released in 1953 and ’54 was not only larger in absolute umber by a factor of 10, compared to the amount of ‘regular’ 2-D films released in ‘53 and ’54, the percentage of 3-D films released and to be released in 2008 is also 10x less than the percentage in ’53 – ’54. So what is going on here? Is it a good old American cover-up of historical facts to the benefit of promotion of new technologies and new product? It is impossible to compare 1950’s 3-D movies to stereoscopic films of today because both eras produce(d) very different cinematic end products. 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon' may not make you scream in terror today, but back in 1953 it was pretty darn impressive stuff. So how can you call those 3-D films ‘cheap’, ‘naff’ or ‘inadequate’? As said, it is the cinematographic use of 3-D that should dictate the judgement of the stereoscopic entertainment, and if you do insist on focussing on the storylines and rubber suits, take a very close second look at today’s 3-D releases because what exactly are the stories being told in 3-D today? Exactly: horror, fantasy and spectacle films. It’s still a big House of Wax here!


House of Wax - still amazing 3-D

Stereoscopic 3-D advice for free

Recently, I have started the 3-D Stereoscopic Professionals Worldwide LinkedIn Group: a group for professionals working in the field of stereo 3D, who also happen to be on LinkedIn. The group is growing very rapidly and already includes members from the big 3-D producers such as 3-Disney, 3-Dreamworks, 3-Digital Domain (sorry, can’t help it) and Sony Pictures Imageworks.


Beowulf 3-D: Top-notch Stereoscopic Film Production

In the first round-e-mail I sent out, I asked the members why there is not more communication and cooperation between 3-D stereoscopic professionals and, more over, why there is no openness of information and a sharing of industry practises. It seems to me like a logical question and the desire to make the industry benefit as a whole by sharing information appears, on the surface, to be the only way to truly build a global 3-D industry. The immediate answers to this question were very positive and most group members responding agreed with my standpoint of cooperation rather than secrecy and greed towards 3-D information.


Shhh, don't tell anyone: it's a 3-D camera system!

It was not all calls to arms, though, and a little reminder about the reality of the 3-D industry was given by Disney’s top 3-D man: “Unfortunately, I know a lot of 3-D gurus who have been severely punished for their generosity”.

I get contacted almost daily by people who ask for 3-D advice and I am the last person to send them away with no information, as I strongly believe in helping out those who cannot find any information out there and are unable to pay for professional help. How else can a real independent 3-D film library come into existence? But sadly it is not only people unable to pay for professional help who try to get as much 3-D information out of me as possible before they disappear into the thin air... On the upside one can sometimes get rewarded with kind words about supplying free 3-D information and of course a fantastic end product to enjoy. Last year I was contacted by a small independent animation production outset with the words: "I just found your website & I must say I really appreciate all the information you have provided on stereoscopy. I'm doing some research for a 3D film project and this just about answered all of my questions. I do have one more question though.”, and: "There seems to be little information on the world of 3D cinematography on the Internet, with the exception of your website, which has been an incredible resource. Thanks for all your help.”


www.the3drevolution.com - the 3-D Revolution website

The metioned question pertained to how small an interaxial should be on a model shoot where the models would be integrated with bluescreened actors and what cameras should be used etc. The company was called Encyclopedia Pictura and half a year after the kind words and my free advice the news of Björk’s latest music video being released in 3-D reached me. Wonderful work by EP and nice & calm 3-D that never goes negative on the parallax but keeps the video in the small theatre of positive parallax, just the way Bjork loves it.


Wanderlust 3-D - dark in places, even for Björk's taste


3-D composition in Bjork's 3D stereoscopic video 'Wanderlust'

Staying with indie 3-D animation, I have done very brief consulting on an independent stereoscopic animation production in the Netherlands by the name of ‘The 3-D Machine’ and the production company Ka-ching Cartoons thanked me and sent me a complimentary DVD of the final product. If you’re going to take free 3-D advice, at least thank the Stereographer. I am of the opinion that the 3-D industry can only grow when information is shared, but not even mentioning the person who helped you accomplish great 3-D is not the way to work either. That only makes for 3-D professionals shutting their mouths again and keeping the stereoscopic information to themselves in the most paranoid way possible. Regardless I am still keeping my website open for business and the information keeps on flowing freely. Maybe stupidly, but that’s 3-D belief for you.


'The 3-D Machine' by Ka-Ching Cartoons

By the way, you CAN also hire me for your stereo 3D music video or professional stereoscopic 3-D film or video production. Contact me.

Alexander Lentjes
3-D Revolution Productions

Beowulf on DVD in 3-D? Not.

Beowulf in 3-D on DVD? Not happening. Not today.

So what’s up with this? An awful lot of talk about 'Beowulf' being in 3-D and then when it comes to DVD release time, no 3-D version in sight. Not even close, nada, nothing.

The studio and distributor refuse to have you, the paying consumer, choose to see this movie on DVD in 3-D, in whatever 3-D format you choose. You would pay for it and you may even be willing to don the gear, like anaglyph glasses, field-sequential shutterglasses, Sensio 3-D decoding or even on an auto-stereoscopic 3-D Plasma TV. But you can’t because the reasoning of the men in power is like this: 3-D is what makes people come to the cinema and be willing to pay more than a regular cinema ticket. Hmm, but what about getting even more cash from home 3-D sales? Well, the distributors have been told by the Real-D and Dolby 3-D people that there is no way in which a home audience an enjoy 3-D like in the cinema, so one had better not release it in any of the available 3-D formats at all. So much for selling 3-D Plasma screens then eh?



The same cruel fate has been bestowed upon the 'Polar Express', 'Monster House', 'Superman Returns', 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix', 'Chicken Little', 'Open Season' and 'Meet the Robinsons'. And forget about the 200 or so 3-D titles from before 2003. You will never see them again if it’s up to Hollywood, if only maybe, possibly in re-released cinematic form, if you’re lucky. 'Hondo' is one such title that has been restored and brightened up for a 3-D release. Not a re-release in 3-D, as this is the first time it will be played in 3-D in movie theatres. What I’m really talking about are such jewels of 3-D cinematic history as ‘Jaws 3-D’, ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’, ‘Kiss me Kate’, ‘Dial M for Murder’, ‘Metalstorm’... ah, the list goes on and on.

‘Shrek 4-D’, ‘Spy Kids 3-D’, ‘Sharkboy & Lavagirl’ and ‘Barbie & the Magic of Pegasus’ were all released in anaglyph 3-D on DVD, while ‘Ghosts of the Abyss’, ‘Nascar 3-D’ and ‘Santa vs. the Snowman’ were released in field-sequential DVD format. Did those releases make anybody stop from going to the cinema and see 3-D or 2-D movies? No, of course not, nor did it spawn a crazy 3-D piracy binge. So what’s stopping the movers & shakers of Tinseltown?



Analgyph 3D isn’t the only format possible for 3-D DVD release. So what is actually possible and not used to release current 3-D film titles on DVD or HD-DVD / BlueRay DVD in 3-D?

1) Anaglyph 3-D. Red & Blue. I can hear the likes of James Cameron shouting from the back of the room: “Boo! Red Blue Bad! Away with the Devil’s 3-D tool!” Well, it works, it’s cheap to produce, the glasses are easy & cheap and no modifications are required to the TV set. A no-brainer then? True, there are some problems with anaglyph for TV in terms of colour reproduction and ghosting, but it’s not as bad as Cameron makes it sound. Better to see a film in a lesser 3-D format than not at all, IMHO!



2) Field-sequential 3-D. Electronic shutterglasses, AKA CrystalEyes. No booing this time, other than for the slow refresh rate of the TV signal (50/60Hz), which means heavy flickering and bad results for epileptics. Until the broadcast and DVD signal go to higher refresh rates, this will remain a problem. Currently, there is little development in this area.



3) Polarized 3-D on a screen with an active polarizer / polarizing surface. Really wonderful and in terms of quality close to the cinematic 3-D experience. Just on a much smaller screen, so the 3-D is much less impressive and much flatter. But that happens with any 3-D presentation format. Technically, this is still a tricky proposition and I know of only one screen and one screen adapter that can polarize field or frame-sequentially. Again, frame refresh rate is an issue, unless the DVD is encoded in something like Sensio format or a side-by-side anamorphic or checker format playing off a computer. But then you’ll need some hardware or software to decode that signal to work with the polarizer as well. Not commercially available at Best Buy, nor easy to set up in a living room, practically speaking.



4) Freeview glassless 3-D on a Plasma screen. Really wonderful and the stuff of people’s dreams, but again you’ll need the specially encoded source material and hardware or software to turn that signal into a lenticular-ready image. Very difficult and expensive to set up in the living room, as yet.



5) Polarized projection with twin projectors or a 3-D ready projector, onto a silver screen. Projection in your living room? Better keep those curtains closed at all times and not paint the wall in that lovely creamy yellow. Otherwise, you’ll be good to go with something of a computer setup to drive the twin-projectors. Ah, yes.


Watch U2 3D with Bono at your local multiplex or at home -
if it's released on 3D DVD, that is.

In short I would conclude that in order for a 3-D revolution to truly take off, home entertainment must not be overlooked and 3-D titles must be release on DVD in present day 3-D stereoscopic formats. In terms of cost and availability of hardware that quickly points to anaglyph 3-D presentation. Boo! Hiss! Yeah, but at least people can enjoy the 3-D at home after having shelved out for the more expensive cinema ticket! And what could possibly be wrong with that?

Hit & Missy 3D in Stereoscopic HipHop Video

3D HipHop Music Video for Pure Slime's Watch How We Blow

A small, independent, low-budget music video production in 3-D: words that seem to be at odds with each other. East London-based Hip Hop act Pure Slime approached London directors Ashley Dagg-Heston and Bruno Sardinha of Ruffhouse Productions in January 2008 with a mission to produce an explosive music video for their latest release ‘Watch how we Blow’. Ruffhouse found DOP Robert McGowan, who quickly suggested doing the video in 3-D – the first one in music video history as far as they could see – as Ruffhouse had a clear vision of the artists propelling themselves into the living room from a ticking bomb. 3-D Stereoscopic Consultant Alexander Lentjes of 3-D Revolution Productions was approached to pull off spectacular 3-D on HDV, on a budget, with little more than inventiveness and professionalism on his side.


3D Still of The FrenchLine, another 1950's 3D musical

Being a 3-D film buff, Alexander was quick to note that this was not going to be the first 3-D music video in history. Although the very first British Hip Hop music video in 3-D, ‘Watch how we Blow’ has been preceded by 1953’s famous 3-D musicals ‘Kiss me Kate’ and 'The French Line', 1998’s infamous ‘Psycho Circus’ by Kiss, 2005’s 3-D Duran Duran video of ‘I don’t want your love’, and most recently in February 2008 Missy Elliott’s ‘Ching-A-Ling’.

Beaten in terms of release date, it was thus a case of beating these previous releases for 3-D quality and effectiveness. The over-hyped ‘Ching-A-Ling’ is certainly not 3-D Bling-A-Ling and can easily be called Hit-and-Missy 3-D. For the cinematographic use of 3-D and even the 3-D effect itself, the Hackney boys have got the LA Hip Hop superstar well beat. Where Missy spent 200,000 Pounds with ease, Ruffhouse had to work with something closer to 2,000 Pounds. But with 3-D, budget isn’t everything – understanding its potential is.


Missy Elliott watches her video Ching-a-Ling in 3-D

A 3-D HD shoot means twice the cameras, twice the compositing and a bit of work in getting the 3-D material aligned. There is always some deviation between two cameras, unless a very precisely aligned - and usually very expensive – camera rig is used. So that sort of 3-D post correction is unavoidable. Where big budget shoots opt for beamsplitting mirror rigs to control the interaxial value to human eye-distance and below, the rent of such 3-D rigs can quickly become prohibitive in terms of budget spend. With 2,000 Pounds it’s either a whole 2 day shoot and 3 day post or 1 day with a 3-D mirror rig and no studio.


Greenscreen 3D HD Shoot

Both the ‘Ching-A-Ling’ and ‘Watch how we Blow’ videos are intended to be seen mainly online and occasionally on TV. This means the main delivery format is relatively small in size and will have quite a bit of compression to it. But the high budget LA production of Missy Elliott uses 3-D interaxial camera values that are suitable for a movie theatre, which results in a very shallow and hardly 3-D volumetric end result in the actual release format. On top of this ‘think big’ mistake, the very fact that performers in the video are wearing red and blue clothes means that the 3-D presentation format of the video was completely overlooked. They may have had polarized projection and big frame sequential LCD screens in the Walt Disney studios where this was shot, but the main release format is anaglyph 3-D, which relies on red and blue colour values to filter the 3-D to the correct eyes. So seeing ‘Ching-A-Ling’ in its actual release format is a big disappointment and even an unpleasant experience. The production of ‘Watch how we Blow’ was determined not to make the same mistakes and deliver impressive 3-D in the way it is supposed to be experienced.


The way most people will see Ching-A-Ling in 3-D: online, small, compressed

Alexander Lentjes: “The brief I got was that the 3-D imagery had to be larger than life, in your face, and mainly exploding off the screen into your living room. That means extreme use of 3-D, with interaxial values that most stereographers would never dare touch being that close to the subject matter with the 3-D cameras. The budgetary constraint of having to shoot without mirror rig thus became a great strength as the side-by-side Panasonic HVX 200’s produced the exact interaxial I knew would create an extremely volumetric 3-D image. And I am very pleased with the actual end result”

As part of the 2-day shooting schedule was a green screen shoot, there was the ability to count on recentration in post, making the 3-D fuseable by eye and brain. After this frame distance change, the stereoscopic depth can be pushed even further with a composited 3-D background. Part of the video features 3-D background material shot with twin-Sony A1’s, shot at 1080i - as with the Panasonic material. Although the video will be presented in SD on TV and mainly through the web in sub-SD sizes, the HD format of the source material means much more manoeuvrability when it comes to 3-D recentration, scaling and cropping. These are production parts intrinsic to 3-D stereoscopic video and it can be very frustrating when there is not enough resolution to work with in post.


Still from Watch how we Blow in Stereoscopic 3-D

The music video starts as CCTV footage of a lab where a ticking bomb is about to produce the explosive act of Pure Slime. Because this footage is in Black&White, the 3-D footage will actually tie in well in the Black&White anaglyph format, where no attempt is made to reproduce colours naturally, but only red and cyan are used as colours. As they are opposite colours on the colour wheel, this means the end result in indeed Black&White. Any possible mistakes of red and blue clothes in an anaglyph video are certainly very much avoided in this way and when one chooses to present a video in anaglyph 3-D, which means ending up with difficult to distinguish colours through the red&blue glasses, why try very hard to have colours anyway? Leave that to the 2-D version!

Speaking of colour, a typical situation arose on the day of the Green Screen shoot, when the artists turned up with green shirts and hankies – the Pure Slime posse colours. Some quick switching over of shirts and sweaters solved that problem, but the boys were obviously not very happy about this. As green screen shooting imposes colour limitations on the subject matter, 3-D shooting for (colour) anaglyph has its added on do’s and don’ts. An unavoidable part of any 3-D technique is that it imposes limitations and every 3-D technique has different quirks. Anaglyph is particular on the colours, but in the same way polarized 3-D projection doesn’t work well with high contrast and very low lighting. When you know these limitations and respect them, you can produce professional quality 3-D, while using the stylistic peculiarities to your cinematographic advantage.

Some of the composited background material features rare declassified US military 3-D stereoscopic stock footage of Nuclear Blasts and destruction from the 1940’s and 50’s. A rarely known fact is that not just 3-D, but Technicolor was perfected for film use by the US military to be able to shoot Nuclear Blasts as detailed as possible. So the 3-D process comes full circle with a Hackney 3-D Hip Hop video shoot backed by original 3-D footage from the birth years of serious 3-D film development. What would those generals have said had they known this would happen? A very loud: “Blast!”


“Watch how we Blow”

By
Pure Slime
www.myspace.com/94057249

Featuring
Rawz Artillery
Dread Marachi

Produced by
Ruffhouse Productions
www.rhousefilm.com

Directed by
Ashley Dagg-Heston
Bruno Sardinha

DOP & Camera OP
Robert McGowan
www.mediaedit.co.uk

Stereoscopic 3-D Consultant
Alexander Lentjes
www.the3drevolution.com

Shot on
2x Panasonic HVX 200 P2 (HDV)
2x Sony A1 (HDV)

Stereoscopic 3-D Review of Beowulf

Beowulf 3-D
The 3-D review
by Alexander Lentjes

The official Movie Poster even refers to the 3-D eye poking

There are plenty of reviews of Beowulf 3-D that talk about how great the digital projection of the picture is, how the story is based on a medieval tale and how the motion capture is pioneering cinematic technology.

But none of the reviews out there talk about the use of Stereo 3-D, and especially not the cinematic use of Stereoscopic 3D. That is mainly because most reviewers will copy press material released by the studio and distributor but also because film critics don’t necessarily know anything about 3-D and how to analyze and grade it. So here is a review that does just that: look very closely at the 3-D and talk about why it works when the 3-D is great and what makes for poor 3-D.

Read the Review of Stereoscopic 3-D used in Beowulf at The3DRevolution.com


Blunt use of negative parallax with this spear comin right at ya in 3-D

Bratz the Movie is better than Citizen Kane

Lately, a lot of journalists and PR-material-copying bloggers (and everything in between) have been writing nasty things about 3-D film releases from before 2007. Blanket statements that would make even Stalin envious of their propagandistic bluntness - and impact - as everybody now appears to agree on the content of these statements.
Just three statements from different articles on modern day 3-D film production to illustrate my point here:

"The presentation of films in 3D is as old as the movie business itself, but clumsy technology and unrealistic effects have so far kept it out of the mainstream."
From C21 Media online

"Stereoscopic 3D, minus the red/green paper glasses, sea-sickness and headaches previously experienced in viewing this dimension."
From 4RFV News Article
"This is not our parent’s 3-D experience, a date night novelty."
From Animation Magazine online

When you look at the facts and actually compare 3-D movies from 1953-54 and 1983-84 (and everything in between) with the most recent 3-D releases, the statements that the latest stuff is always better simply fall apart. ‘House of Wax’ versus ‘Beowulf’? ‘Dial M for Murder’ versus ‘Spy Kids 3-D’? ‘Jaws 3-D’ versus ‘Chicken Little’? I know which movies understood the 3-D better and used the 3-D better - and the better 3-D - as a result. DLP projection of a movie with childish qualities does not outdo 35MM projection of a 3-D work of cinematic intelligence. It’s a story, silly, and a story you tell with the words, not with the book’s cover.

If it were up to these modern journalists, no movie from before the year 2003 is worth another look ever again – especially Stereoscopic 3-D films. As not many people have seen the old 3-D films (even when they write about them), let’s use as an example two well known regular 2D movies. When you follow this ‘newer is better’ line of thought through, you easily come to the following statement:

‘Bratz the Movie’ is better than ‘Citizen Kane’.

Crazy? Not true? Well, let’s look at the facts from the viewpoint of digital journalists.

Bratz was shot with modern day 35MM cameras in Super35 (its only shortcoming), in crisp, clear, modern colour. Edited through a Digital Intermediate on a Digital editing system it is digitally distributed and projected with the best possible, steady, stable, unparalleled digital image in Digital DLP-enabled theatres. Presented in state-of-the art cinemas in Dolby Digital Surround Sound in 2.35:1 widescreen, it engages with all senses and leaves no stone unturned in terms of audio-visual impact. Booming, rich, crisp clear sound and an image so bright and sharp you can cut a rock in two with it.


Bratz (2007)

The editing of the picture is completely of the 21st Century: fast, modern, totally this generation, ready to be beamed onto Cellphone, PSP & iPods with superfast Bluetooth & WiFi. The story is up-to-date and wastes no time with out-dated exposition, boring character-arcs and irrelevant narrative distractions like plot or direction. It is aimed clearly and purely at its target audience, unambiguous and totally clear on its one goal: entertainment.


Citizen Kane (1941)

Using the latest, best special effects, animation and post-production available, it does not fail its audience in any shape or form. There is nothing old, analogue, unstable, stuffy, mono, black & white or boring about it. Therefore, it is a million times better than anything that came before it, and that includes Citizen Kane. Because it simply is everything that Citizen Kane isn’t...

Looking forward to the release of ‘Journey 3-D’, though. Nothing wrong with a bit of innocent fun. Is that a mineshaft P.O.V. 3-D sequence coming up, by the way?


Journey to the Centre of the Earth 3-D

Interactive floor - now this is wild!

Now this is very cool: a Video Floor that responds to people walking over it. A bit like a giant touch-screen with very resistant glass. Can you see the potential? We certainly can! The featured football game alone is an amazing way to capture the attention of your potential advertising audience. Yes, this can totally be done in Stereoscopic 3-D as well, making for an interactive 3-D video floor - can you imagine the amazing sort of advertising that is possible?



You will need content for the Eyestep Floor to work, animated, live-action and programmed 2-D and 3-D. This is where 3-D Revolution Productions can help. Do not hesitate to contact us!

Glib Reduction

When reading recent articles about 3-D Stereoscopic production in the 21st Century, one cannot escape being snowed under by slick corporate press release material rather than being presented with objective news and facts about 3-D Film production. A recent article in a prominent and well-read television & film industry magazine provides a very good example. It published so many unresearched, uncritical, copy-pasted press release material that I decided to spring into action and reply to the editor-in-chief regarding the gross inaccuracies. Of course, an editor will never admit to these kinds of mistakes and no confirmation of receipt was ever sent back, so here are the article extracts and my responses to them for your 3-D fact finding pleasure.

---

Article:
"The presentation of films in 3D is as old as the movie business itself, but clumsy technology and unrealistic effects have so far kept it out of the mainstream."

Reply:
The 3-D boom of 1953-54, when over 100 Hollywood 3-D feature titles were released, did so using twin-camera filming and polarized projection - the only difference with today's technology being that it was done on 35MM film, rather than on HD video. You have clearly never seen a twin-projected film from 1953, as most of them blow today's 3-D releases right out of the water in terms of a 3-D cinematic experience. The claim of "unrealistic effects" is based on nothing, as exactly the same 3-D compositions, shots and camera moves are employed today as they were then.


Article:
"The technology to achieve and watch 3D has come a long way since cinema-goers wearing red and green glasses leapt from their seats during Jaws 3D. That was in 1983, when a film created for traditional projection was then rendered into 3D in post-production."

Reply:
Sorry, but this is completely based on fantasy and, I strongly suspect, misinformation supplied by modern day 3-D camera system providers. Jaws 3-D was shot with a 3-D camera adapter called StereoVision, on 35MM film. This was then projected using, as in 1953, polarizing projection lenses, but this time using special StereoVision projector adapters. The beauty of that system is that it all worked with existing technology and standards of the time - unlike today's need for digital switch-over before 3-D can be presented. No red-blue anaglyphs were ever used to project this movie other than maybe for poor cinemas in the Asian subcontinent and lagging-behind (or poorly supplied) Europe!


StereoVision 3-D adapter for 35MM film cameras

Article:
"The high resolution of the twin digital images can now be maintained not only in post-production but through to distribution and exhibition, as digital cinema systems replace 35mm print reels and projectors."

Reply:
I have to remind you about 70MM film 3-D presentations that were done in the 1970s - no newer format other than IMAX has ever gotten close to that image quality. And although digital projection is obviously more stable than 35MM projection, the eyes cannot distinguish between 35MM film projection of 3-D and digital projection of 3-D.


Article:
""There are very few technical challenges left for deploying 3D," declares Joshua Greer, president of RealD, which holds a monopoly on 3D presentation systems."

Reply:
There are at least 3 competing big name digital 3-D projection systems on the market, being Real-D, Dolby 3-D and NuVision, although I can understand that Joshua Greer would like to see that point differently. It is true, though, that Real-D does have the most aggressive marketing strategy and has managed to convince more theatres than any other 3-D projection brand to incorporate their technology in the new digital projection rooms.



Real D Projection adapter

Article:
"Four releases to date have suggested that 3D could drive studio profits in the next decade. Disney's Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons and The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D and Sony's Monster House all earned three times as much revenue per screen as the 2D version of the same film on their first weekend of release."

Reply:
The real fact is that the cinemas showing these movies charged more for the cinema tickets, explaining the higher profits. So although 3-D can mean higher revenue in the short term, it is not a sustainable and realistic business model in the long term, as consumers will not continue to pay higher prices for their cinema tickets. Will you? Especially if 3-D becomes something of a standard?


Article:
"It also currently costs an extra US$10m-15m to make a 3D movie"

Reply:
Compared to what exactly and for what kind of a movie? Animation will quickly cost 130-150% in 3-D, while live-action will easily cost 150-175% of a regular movie. Talk to any stereographer and 3-D consultant like myself and you will hear the same numbers.


Article:
""None of the 3D systems in the past allowed you to immerse yourself in the frame," Walden Media CEO Cary Granat tells Reuters."

Reply:
I am sorry, but that is just pure nonsense. Go and see 1953's 'House of Wax' or 'Dial M for Murder', followed by 'Chicken Little' or 'Meet the Robinsons' and have another look at that statement. Immersing yourself in the frame with 3-D is everything to do with the 3-D camera work, not the technology. And they did that a hell of a lot better in the 50s and 80s than they are doing right now.

---

If you are a journalist or an editor and you would like to learn more about 3-D Film, from a more accurate perspective, I will be more than happy to write you a piece on the subject. Large and well-respected magazines like Animation Magazine have already published some of my writing on 3-D focusing on 3-D stereoscopic animation production and the technical and creative implications of 3-D filming and animating.

Alexander Lentjes
3-D Revolution Productions

A meeting of 3-D minds - HD vs. 35mm vs. twin-camera vs. anamorphics for 3-D

Anamorphic Side-by-Side 3-D on Film - a bit like Cinemascope for 3-D

Very recently I had an e-mail conversation with 3-D Revolution’s Gary Palmer on 3-D, HD, the best 3-D filming solution currently available and the Pace Fusion 3-D camera issues. The conversation touched upon many core issues of current 3-D film production and, I feel, reflects what many stereographers today think and feel but are not saying out loud. Or maybe we just share a very different viewpoint of 3-D Stereoscopic Film Production from the stereographic profession. Either way, I though it would be a nice read and possibly even useful to publish this conversation in the 3-D Film & Animation Production Blog…
And so here it is. Alexander Lentjes

You can find Gary’s marvellous work on the 3-D Film List at 3-D Revolution Productions here:
www.the3drevolution.com/3dlist.html


Twin-HD machine camera 3-D setup

Gary Palmer starts with two questions:

First, what do you think would be the ideal 3-D shooting format? In all the years I've been studying this subject, my own 'favourite' has to be the 65mm single-strip system devised by Jan Jacobsen in the 1960's, in which left-right 35mm frames are placed side by side in the space normally occupied by a single 65mm frame, and subject to an anamorphic squeeze, resulting in a 2.21:1 aspect ratio. This allows for *full* 35mm resolution. Transferred to Digital 3-D format at 4K resolution (reconfigured to 2.39:1 AR), this would surely provide the best and brightest 3-D format of them all, above and beyond anything so far offered by HD origination…


The late Jan Jacobsen working on one of his camera systems


65MM Side-by-side film strip - photo courtesy of Roloff deJeu

Second, going back to those comments you made earlier concerning the poorly composed images from the Fusion 3-D rig. Surely in today's world of digital post-production, the kind of badly-converged imagery you mentioned would be noticed by someone in the editing suite? How on earth can such material make its way to the screen in today's digital environment? After all, if *you* noticed problems, surely it must have been evident to others? It'll be interesting to see how both SCAR and JOURNEY 3-D measure up when they're finally released to theatres in the New Year...


Steve Hines with his superior 65mm Hines Rig

Alexander Lentjes answers:

Hmm, an interesting question about the ideal 3-D shooting format. I would have to vote for the twin-65mm Hines Rig that Disney commissioned for the MAGIC JOURNEYS and CAPTAIN EO shoots and has used on all their subsequent 3-D productions. Yes, there is loss of light, but there is a same amount of loss in a lens adapter like the side-by-side one you describe. The disadvantage of a S-B-S adapter is the need for anamorphics, which will often introduce geometric distortions and thus parallax issues. It's much more compact, though, and if you compare one 65mm camera with a twin-65mm camera rig, it's clear which setup is the most practical of the two. So it's a choice of handle-ability vs. pure quality. If you have the lights and the hydraulic camera cranes and cable systems, go for the twin-camera solution!
Of course, in that light, one must mention the twin HDV camera solution as that finally means a portable twin-camera rig (shoulder mount or steadicam), but then again HDV uses a low resolution compare to true HD and 35mm so for theatrical release it may be not that interesting.

Twin-HDV 3-D Rig solution for hand-held shooting

A side-by-side twin-camera solution like Fusion 3-D is always going to introduce a big interaxial and for that reason alone it should be approached with due care. Why do you think there has been so much work going into getting those darn lenses closer together over the years? Surely not to then just ditch a century of cinema research and simply shoot with a 70-75mm interaxial!


A very large interaxial for a giant-POV type shot, dwarfing the imagery shot

Also, they shouldn't be touching that convergence button as much as they do. Sure, it's a tool in 3-D, but one that must be used with utmost limitation and due care - not per default and without any consideration for its consequences. Like HD is a step back in comparison to 35mm and especially 70mm, 3-D appears to be devolving with the current Stereo Camera trends...

3-D professionals should be able to see that the Pace imagery is uncomfortable to watch and dwarfs all subject matter. But it appears that somehow vertical parallax is suddenly acceptable on a professional level - and my biggest fear is that these professionals are just shooting themselves in the foot because Joe Bloke the Consumer is going to be very discomforted and angry when he sees that material in cinemas and on his brand new 3-D TV. The industry should acknowledge that 3-D filming is just not the same as 2-D filming - but they're selling (and buying) it that way right now!


Gary responds:

The reason I asked the question is because I share your aversion to the idea of HD replacing 35mm (or 65mm) film, and was wondering what might be used instead of HD. The various single-strip 35mm solutions are fine for what they are, but they involve cutting the 35mm frame in half, with all the attendant loss of resolution. I absolutely *despair* that Super 35 has become the widescreen format of choice these days (it isn't 'widescreen' at all, it's 'cropscreen') for that very reason.

The dual-65mm rig would certainly provide excellent images and would allow for high-grade digital prints (as long as 4K was used, of course). However, given the size of the cameras and the rigs needed to control them, it doesn't seem practical in modern filmmaking terms, especially if you need to cover a particular scene with two or three cameras at once.


True 65mm Twin-camera setup: bulky and heavy...

The post-production issues surrounding any future productions shot in single-strip 65mm should not be an insurmountable problem for any DP who takes such issues on board and is careful during principal photography… I think dual-65mm is too impractical for modern filmmaking practices and won't be considered anytime soon, whereas the development of lightweight cameras for single-strip 65mm amounts to a more reasonable expectation.

James Cameron and co. want HD to become the international standard. Not surprising, given that Cameron and most of his contemporaries have been trying to blur the boundaries between film and TV since around 1990. When was the last time you saw a film on a Big Screen which didn't look like a dress rehearsal for the DVD release? Note the preponderance of close-ups and medium shots, the 'TV-friendly' two-shots, etc.

It's still early days in the 3-D renaissance. And it's interesting that you and I both chose a 65mm solution, quite independently of one another. Who's to say 65mm *won't* be considered by Hollywood in due course, by filmmakers who care about the images they're creating (not an unreasonable assumption - parts of the new BATMAN film are being shot in Imax format, for example)? Who's to say lightweight cameras capable of single-strip/anamorphic (or even spherical) 65mm won't be developed as the 3-D revolution gathers pace, even as types like Cameron and Rodriguez continue to insist HD is the 'future of film'?


Spy Kids 3-D: shot on HD and almost fully against Greenscreen

Again, it's still early days, and no one is going to accept those flaws for very long. I say, wait until SCAR and JOURNEY 3-D arrive in cinemas next year. After all, it may not be the Fusion cameras at fault, but those who are using them!

So far, Joe Public has seen very little of the digital 3-D revolution except animated films. It's the *live-action* stuff that's going to decide the future of 3-D acquisition, and we haven't seen nearly enough of it to make a final judgement.


Chicken Little: remember that 3-D Animated CGI title?

We're on the brink of something marvellous. Along with colour, sound and widescreen, 3-D completes the illusion of film as a window on the world (and any other world filmmakers care to imagine!). We have the means to get it right this time, and I refuse to believe *everyone* who works in the format is going to stand for the 'second-best' option proffered by Cameron and his associates...


Aliens of the Deep: underwater 3-D by James Cameron & Vincent Pace

3-D Stereoscopic Post Production

An optical Printer - nowadays replaced by D.I. and digital magic
3-D Stereoscopic Post Production. The words strike fear into most Post facilities’ hearts. It is not surprising, as there are two major factors that determine a 3-D pipeline;
First and foremost you will need to truly understand 3-D to be able to do Post for it. Luckily, knowledge can be brought in by means of getting a 3-D consultant (aka a stereographer) involved in the (Post) Production process.


Twin HD shooting - two HD
streams to deal with

The hands-on side of 3-D postproduction is more demanding – and a lot more expensive. Editing is already a big leap from plain old flat 2-D to 3-D, with its requirements of slower cuts, convergence and interaxial matching from shot to shot and overall z-depth eye-guiding within the frame. But doing effects, colour correction, grading, geometric distortion correction, and playing it all back in 3-D is a very different game altogether. Of course, there is the issue of needing to be able to process and play back two streams of 2K or 4K D.I. or HD material, preferably without hiccups – as frame drops introduce out of sync 3-D, which is not only unwatchable, it is purpose defeating to the whole process of 3-D stereoscopic Posting.


The Quantel Pablo with 3-D Stereoscopic Editing capabilities

This is where very recent arrivals on the stereoscopic playing field come into play. Quantel suggests a 3-D solution that works with their ‘Pablo’, ‘iQ’ and ‘Max’ system. With the ability to play back 2 streams of 2k (1920p) material (or 1 stream of 4k material), it fits the bill for quick, rough 3-D editing and 3-D conforming. A few tools are introduced that allow for getting the two video streams in sync, both time- and colour/exposure-wise, while allowing for touch-up painting to get rid of nasty 3-D inequality like reflections, lens flares, scratches and other retinal rivalry-inducing artefacts. Besides offering rudimentary image distortion correction. The beauty is that it is all real-time and render-free. The choice of 3-D output is left up to the user, with two independent SDI / DVI streams coming out of the Pablo. So that can be anything from a field/frame sequential solution like CrystalEyes, plain old Anaglyph previewing or full-blown twin-projector polarized projection.


The Quantel Pablo 3-D interdace with Ghost of the Abyss under the 3-D knife

A very similar solution has been released by Assimilate within the ‘Scratch’ solution. This product boasts 2x 4k stream processing with all the horns and bells of the Quantel box, but with a similar price tag and running on Boxx PC hardware, not custom Quantel stuff. That price tag lies round about 70k in Pounds Sterling, but that is a price that would be incurred with a D.I.Y. approach with Boxx-like PC or Octo-Core PowerMac hardware as well, while frame stability is guaranteed in Scratch and Pablo, versus not-so-certain perfect playback in the D.I.Y. solutions.


Assimilate Scratch 3-D Stereoscopic Post Solution

It is certainly good to know there are working tools available to correct simple 3-D camera problems, but it is imminently preferable to shoot it all properly and trouble free in the first place. Quantel’s showreel contained a lot of Pace material, shot by Vincent Pace and James Cameron with the ‘Reality Camera System’, now renamed to ‘Fusion 3-D’. Pretty much every shot in that reel uses converging cameras, large interaxials, wide-angle lenses and fast camera moves. These clips are labelled (and considered) state-of-the art 3-D HD material, but by nature they are headache-inducing, poorly executed 3-D shots. Not exactly the ambassadors of 3-D film and television one would ideally want.


The Pace Fusion 3-D Camera

We’re not being negative about big names in 3-D image acquisition for the sake of it here, we’re trying to say that it’s time to look past the glib and to start really, closely looking at 3-D material to realize what is good 3-D and what is just not acceptable as a professional standard. Unless you are happy to correct every frame in post or leaving your audience with a big hangover from watching your 3-D film and television show, that is. If you are going to shoot in 3-D, you will have to use its own particular language, its unique pace, its different compositions. Respect the medium or discomfort your audience – just like with colour and sound, where too loud, all the time, is just not an experience people will walk away from with pleasant memories and smiles on their faces.

Top Twenty list of the Best 3-D Effects in Film

Wanting more

OK, there are quite a few more great objects that have come at ya in 3-D film history, so here’s number 11-20 of the list. Or you could call it a second top 10 list, whatever sounds better.

The Top Twenty List - numbers 11-20
Of items coming out of the screen in 3-D films
As composed by Alexander Lentjes of 3-D Revolution Productions

11. Wasps - Pirates (1999)

Dancin' like a butterfly, stingin' like a wasp

Pirates Is a 4-D show, so the chair buzzes as the wasps come close to the face. that kind of a connection makes story sense. The telescope of the opening sequence is a better 3-D effect, but the bees are very original indeed. It is difficult to find objects small enough to come out of the screen and still integrate with the story, at that small a size.

Apologies for this image not being in 3-D; it is almost impossible to get 3-D plates of 4-D attractions. If you know of a 3-D version, do let us know!

12. Borg medical probe - Star Trek: The Experience – Borg Invasion 4-D (2004)

Resistance to the 3-D effects is futile

On this list because the 4-D use of the chair is one of the most original employed, other than the bird poo simulation by water sprinklers in Pirates, that is. As the Borg implant approaches the viewer in 3-D, something in the 4-D chair pokes one in the back. This is a true surprise and pretty darn freaky. It magnifies the primal reaction to volumetric imagery, which has the viewer on his toes already. Extending it to real-world touch, in a way that perfectly integrates with the story.

Apologies for this image not being in 3-D; it is almost impossible to get 3-D plates of 4-D attractions. If you know of a 3-D version, do let us know!

13. Rebecca Morbidus - The Incredible Invasion of the 20,000 Giant Robots from Outer Space (2000)

I come in pieces

Yes, we made this short and we’re voting on our own work here, but it’s one of the three stop-motion releases in 3-D in film history and the first one to include CGI as well. That deserves a good mention, doesn’t it? The girl coming out of the UFO and out of the screen is Rebecca Morbidus, and this is the first time we see her. So it's the most dramatic entrace possible for a protagonist of the story. Because she is a stop-motion model - and the audience knows this - it is possible to have her come out of the screen and be as small as she is. It's an acknowledgement of the format and the medium, even referencing Ray Harryhausen style stop-motion. It’s very meta-cinematographic 3-D that way.

14. Metal T-1000 claws - Terminator 2: 3D (1996)

The future is not a happy, fluffy place

James Cameron’s early practise with 3-D and still shot with a proper 65mm twin-camera rig. As the T-1000 reaches for the viewer with his metal (CGI) claws, a basic concept of 3-D storytelling is employed: first-person camera work. You become the person being reached for by the T-1000, so basically with this shot you are John Connor and are watching through his eyes.

Apologies for this image not being in 3-D; it is almost impossible to get 3-D plates of 4-D attractions. If you know of a 3-D version, do let us know!

15. Severed arm - Jaws 3-D (1983)

3 Dimensional fish bait

The storyboard department was clearly struggling with ideas for stuff to come out of the screen in 3-D for this movie. In fact, the severed arm is only one of three proper in-your-face objects employed in the 90-minute film. It certainly beats the climatic 3-D shot of the shark itself swimming towards the camera (Jaws doesn’t actually come out of the screen in that shot). And it’s always nice to see prosthetics rather than CGI come close to the face – it’s got that realness to it that is difficult to approach with computer effects.

16. Bath bubbles - The French Line (1954)

After building that Chrysler engine in 3-D, J.R needed to scrub herself clean

J.R. in 3-D – need we say more? Well yes, actually, because Jane Russell was yesterday’s pin-up, and probably not well known any more with today’s movie going audience. She was a kind of a 1954 Jessica Alba. So besides knocking BOTH our eyes out, why is this 3-D shot in the nr. 11-20 3-D shot list?

Because it’s so incredibly rare to see a quality lead in 3-D, let alone a singing and dancing one with endless legs! The French Line and it’s focus on a 3-Dimensional J.R. is a great stereoscopic musical treat. This particular shot with the bubbles is an imaginative one, which ties in with the story and doesn’t overdo it. A very nice balance is struck, and that, too, is rare in 3-D.

17. Floating hunter robots - Terminator 2: 3D (1996)

Hunter Killer robots: it's the future

Before Avatar and even before Aliens of the Deep, James Cameron did Terminator 2: 3-D. The floating robots come out of the screen as they are searching for the Terminator and John Connor. These floating robots are in CGI, while the action behind it is all pure live-action film. They do make sense in the story and the 3-D is not out of place in this movie because it is preluded and followed by real actors on stage. I needn’t mention that the terminator also sticks his shotgun out of the screen multiple times throughout this Universal Studios 3-D theme park movie.

Apologies for this image not being in 3-D; it is almost impossible to get 3-D plates of 4-D attractions. If you know of a 3-D version, do let us know!

18. Jared-Syn’s arm - Metalstorm (1983)

Reach out and touch someone

In this hallucinogenic sequence Jared-Syn, the bad guy of the story, comes walking out of some background smoke and approaches the camera in slow-motion. He then reaches out to the camera and is thus reaching out for you, the viewer. Because being touched by him means dying (as is often the case with out-of-screen objects), it can be a scary effect. The fact that it is in slow-motion makes this shot very effective – it is truly hallucinogenic to see an actor move in 3-D in slow-motion.

The biggest beauty of this shot, though, is Jared-Syn’s costume, which is very round and volumetric. Probably the best costume design for 3-D film ever employed. This film was made for 3-D release and almost all shots are set up for impressive 3-D. Too bad the story is rubbish and the acting forgettable...

19. Hungry Giant’s head - Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus (2005)

Lunchtime - and one dream of Bratz is very close to getting fulfilled

I could be called a rubbish movie with sections in 3-D purely for extra sales of the DVD (it’s a straight-to-video release), but this one shot employs a clever trick that is really only possible in 3D CGI. The head of the giant grows physically smaller as it approaches the (virtual) 3-D camera, so that it can stick further out of the screen. The thought of Barbie being cooked up and eaten by this giant is also a most pleasurable one. Sorry, girls.

20. Spraying canister - Medium – Still Life (2005)

Fish head!

Small particles like water splashes, dirt, sparks, etc. normally don’t work well in 3-D because they move too fast and are too many to focus on. Objects coming out of the screen, so those with negative parallax, require individual attention. On top of this, objects can only come so close to the camera before they become unfusable to the eyes. This then destroys the 3-D results. The spray canister, though, still works because it’s a cloud rather than independent particles and a glass plate was used to stop the spray before the camera and before the closeness to the camera that is unfusable.

At 3-D Revolution Productions we can seriously help you to create compelling, thrilling and well thought out 3-D shots. Just contact us for more information on how we can assist you with your 3-D Film, TV or Web Production.

Top Ten List of 3-D stereoscopic film shots

Top ten

List of stuff chucked and poked at the audience in 3-D
throughout the history of stereoscopic film

About as far out of the screen 3-D as anaglyph 3-D will allow

Eye-poking 3-D

There is a lot more possible in stereo 3-D than poking stuff in the eyes of the audience, but it's usually the one part that everybody remembers of a 3-D film. In fact, it is probably the very thing that made you interested in 3-D films and 3-D film production in the first place!

So out-of-screen (negative parallax) 3-D is a good place to start when thinking of producing a 3-D stereoscopic film or video. And the best way to learn about what works well and what caused nausea and headaches, is to look at how it's been done before. Because he who does not know the 3-D past is doomed to repeat its eyestrain mistakes.

Out of Screen 3-D: how and how much

First, a little bit more about out-of-screen 3-D effects. It doesn't hurt to understand what it really is you're trying to accomplish here! Creatively, the 3-D in your project needs to pay off to actually be worth all the trouble and still integrate with the story being told. Because, narratively speaking, there is no good reason to poke stuff in the eyes of the audience. Normally, that only takes the viewer out of the story and reminds him that he is watching a 3-D movie.

Overall, the dimensionality easily distracts the viewer from the story and its characters. This way, the viewer is removed from the experience of enjoying the story and has to switch brain sides to enjoy the technicality of the 3-dimensional spectacle. And herein lies the paradox of 3-D film: you need the of-screen effects, but they can take the viewer out of the movie. Subtlety needs to be employed.

This is something special-effects-driven movies without a good plot have in common with stereoscopic cinema, and its audience may be wooed in the first few minutes, but will be unimpressed by the whole thing at the end of the movie. Also, when watching a 3-D movie that does not perform the usual bag of out-of-the-screen tricks, its audience will question the need to shoot the film in 3-D in the first place.

Can 3-D out-of-screen shots be used without acknowledging the existence of the camera (camera access) and the existence of the audience? How can in-your-face 3-D be used without taking the viewer out of the story? The 3-D directors of today and tomorrow have to ask themselves these questions to take 3-D film to the next level of cinematic evolution. We certainly have! Because not employing intelligent 3-D is going to be seen as clumsy as the first attempts at cinematic storytelling of the 1900s.

Without further ado then, here's the of top ten items coming out of the screen in 3-D films and TV programs:

There are, of course, many more fantastic 3-D eye-poke shots in existence. Should you know of shots that would sit comfortably in this list any any future extended list, please don not hesite to contact 3-D Revolution Productions and we'll see if we can get our hands on that particular piece of 3-D movie magic.

The Top Ten List
Of items coming out of the screen in 3-D films
As composed by Alexander Lentjes of 3-D Revolution Productions

1. Fuzzball - Captain EO (1986)

He's so cute! Now imagine him up close... very close...

You can't fault a 3-D film shot by Francis Coppola, produced by George Lucas and shot with a dual 65mm Hines rig. It's pretty much 3-D perfection. And the shot with Fuzzball coming closer to the audience than any furry alien sidekick creature ever did is one of the most memorable off-screen moments in 3-D film history. A true shame this 70mm twin-strip film is locked up in a movie conservation vault, somewhere in Disneyland. With no way to even get a glimpse of the 3-D effects for research purposes...

So apologies for this image not being in 3-D; it is almost impossible to get 3-D plates of 4-D attractions. If you know of a 3-D version, do let us know!

2. Brains - The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (2005)

Your classic 3-D brain drain


Featuring this high on the list because it's the most bizarre object in 3-D ever. The effect itself is not that memorable, but, uniquely, the brain does hit a virtual camera lens and slides down as if real brains and cameras are involved. A very rare use of the acknowledgement of the presence of a 3-D camera.


3. Paddleball ball - House of Wax (1953)

Duck! Or cover your eyes

The classic of classics. Serves no function other than to come out of the screen and hit you in the eye. Especially because the actor is talking straight to you, the viewer. It was a bit of a tradition in ‘53/’54 and before to have producers talk to the audience about the 3-D process involved and about how to put on the 3-D glasses just before the start of the movie. But having the paddleball scene happen mid-movie in a special interlude, that is something very unique indeed. It is actually quite clever to use an ‘Interlude’ to do some extreme off-screen 3-D, because that kind extreme effect will definitely remind you that you are watching a 3-D film and will take you out of the story. This way, the story and its characters remain intact and the storytelling spell is not broken.

4. Piranhas - The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (2005)

Don't forget to feed the 3 dimensional fish

The predominant use of 3-D for horror movies ties in with the primal reaction that volumetric images still have on us. It is still a unique, very real experience, and a medium that really benefits from this emotion is horror. 3-D is also still a medium in its infancy, and is thus being used for very basic, primal stories.

Without a doubt, using dangerous animals like piranhas does exactly that: tie in with our primal reaction to both volumetric imagery and predators. Using piranhas at their actual size is a clever way to work with the size limitation of out-of-screen objects. This size limitation is dictated by the fact that 3-D images mustn’t be cut off by the screen edge and the available space in which objects can come out of the screen is thus a narrow, cone-shaped area.

So all round, using piranhas is a logical, well thought out 3-D solution.

5. Tarantula - Shrek 4-D (2003)

A big, fat, hairy spider - right in your face!

Staying with the small animals, this 4-D special animation is so well balanced, it should be used to research good 3-D. A big, fat, hairy spider is always nice to see dangled in 3-D before your very eyes – very real and very scary! And its presence ties in perfectly with the story at that point. It’s a shame this shot is followed by a whole bunch of tarantulas coming down at once, because it’s simply too many out-of-screen object to focus on. 3-D one-upmanship is a dangerous practise.



6. Pistons - Motor Rhythm (1936)

An animated Chrysler engine - they don't make 'em like that any more

You may wonder how pistons manage to make their way into a 3-D movie and even floating out of the screen. Motor Rhythm is a promotional film for Chrysler, so it all makes sense. And it’s eye-poking in stop motion, as early as 1936. Of course objects were sticking out of the screen in 3-D as early as 1923, but never in animation, let alone in stop-motion! Amazing quality of this short overall, but the objects that come out of the screen do get way too close to the camera, resulting in unfusable imagery. A bit clumsy and strange for such an otherwise perfect 3-D presentation.

7. Van Gogh’s paint - Medium – Still Life (2005)

Painting in 3-D was driving Van Gogh crazy

Very creative use of 3-D. Here we have Vincent van Gogh pouring paint onto a sheet of glass just over an upward-looking camera and then start brushing it to start his painting. Well though out, very well executed, but why is this section in 3-D again? This episode of Medium struggles to come up with a good reason to do 3-D and although the use of the 3-D is very well done, there is no real story-driven reason to suddenly have 3 dimensional scenes in an otherwise flat episode...

8. Lance with liver - Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)

Quite a dramatic de-livery

Pure gruesomeness and extreme fleshploitation - Andy Warhol at his film making best. This 3-D shot is a classic pole-poke as employed in many, many 3-D films, but with the added bloody liver at the end of it. Maximum gore, if pretty much fantasy, in your face!

9. Birthday Cake - The Three Stooges – Pardon my Backfire (1953)

The Three Stooges doing what they do best: good ol' pie throwing

Suspended on wires to approach the camera at a slow speed, in a straight line. Perfect for 3-D. It also fits in perfectly with the whole setup of this Three Stooges short: every shot is thought out to be able to chuck things at the camera in a complete clowning around vaudeville slapstick act. Nothing wrong with a little bit of pie throwing, but if you’re going to do it, do it right, just like this!

10. Fish Head - Jaws 3-D (1983)

Fish head!

You’ve got 90 minutes of film, a big production budget and an amazing franchise as a subject to do some interesting things in 3-D with. So what do you decide to have come out of the screen? A fish head!

That’ll please them for sure. A fine example of why 3-D didn’t stick around longer in the 1983-84 fad, being outdone in amount of releases and quality by the 1953-54 wave of 3-D films. Here’s hoping and preying the current 2008-09 period of 3-D popularity manages to find better objects to poke at the audience.


At 3-D Revolution Productions we can certainly help you seriously to do just that: creating compelling, thrilling and well thought out 3-D shots. Just contact us for more information on we can help you with your 3-D Film Production.

The first full 3-D Feature Film?

Every time a new 3-D movie is released, silly claims are made about its unique status. ‘The first 3-D feature film’ is heralded over and over again, ‘The latest technological breakthrough in 3-D’ is employed on a steady basis and it’s always ‘The first 3-D movie to envelop you completely’. What would you say if every new regular movie release claimed to be the first colour movie or the first release with sound? It would be laughable, and yet 3-D stereo releases employ this PR silliness time and again.

Up until now, 3-D movies have been directed by 3-D technicians and directors who have not understood, or used, the possibilities of volumetric storytelling. You can’t say directors of stereoscopic movies have been doing a good job when only about 230 3-D movies have been made so far since the invention of cinema, of which 225 are happily forgotten and 5 are actually really remembered by moviegoers and film historians.



Dial M for Murder: one of the best (and most restrained) 3-D films ever made

It is time we create and foster a new generation of 3-D film directors. This can be done properly when a stereoscopic film school or 3-D film program at a film school is introduced where a new generation of 3-D filmmakers can emerge. Film production company-wise, there is the same need for education on the possibilities and pitfalls of 3-D.

Especially because stereoscopic 3-D is a complex medium with many technical and creative parameters - that can all go horribly wrong. Because he who does not know the past is doomed to repeat its mistakes! As with technology, 3-D is a craftsman’s tool, and a hack’s toilet paper. And when it comes to the history of 3-D movie production, there have been a lot of hacks around.

3-D stereoscopic film education should not just be about how to put two cameras together, but also about how to use these two cameras to produce tomorrow’s 3-D cinematic masterpieces. Are you just creating a 3-D space or are you actually using it? Because 3-D hasn’t been around for longer than 2 years per fad – in 1923, ‘53 and ’83, 3-D direction is still in its infancy. Just like the directors of the 1920s who were discovering the benefits of utilizing cuts, 3-D is still being discovered by today’s producers, directors and editors. And therefore it is often still used in a very childish way – with actors literally chucking pies at the camera – think of the very recent ‘Meet the Robinsons’.


Meet the Robinsons - Disney's latest 3-D release

You will hopefully agree with me that 3-D film education on a student and a corporate level is vital for the survival of 3-D cinema. Because how is the consumer expected to value the stereoscopic image of the near future if it will be a clumsy, uneducated and unimaginative audio-visual visual product? Let alone a product that causes headaches with its audience!

Whenever I talk to people about 3-D film making, the first thing they say is: “But isn’t modern technology going to solve all those problems?”, followed by: “I saw a glassless 3-D plasma screen with images in 3-D”. But what were those images in 3-D? What is the content? Digital projection is fantastic and HD is a real solution, but problems with 3-D have almost always stemmed from bad use of 3-D, both technically and creatively.


Title sequence of Friday the 13th: Ouch!

It is human nature to blame technology for personal mistakes and stereoscopic 3-D has suffered some of the worst examples of this trait. Tomorrow’s camera and projection systems are not going to solve tomorrow’s misuse of these systems.

Hopefully, current 3-D releases will stick with proper 3-D filming techniques long enough for a new generation of stereoscopic filmmakers to learn the trade and eventually really exploit the marvellous new possibilities of this closely related, yet very different cinematic art form. Having a digital and even a glassless way of presenting 3-D will never take away the need for decent 3-D content.

Because stereoscopic or not, content will always remain king.

3-D glasses for 3-D movies – can we do without?

Nature follows the Path of Least Resistance

Like water finding its way down a hill, people take the easiest route to their goal. And when it comes to entertainment, every barrier is one too many. With 3-D movies, people hate wearing the 3-D specs and the sheer mention of the need to wear special glasses can turn people away from a 3-D film. Almost every article and Blog entry about 3-D screens and 3-D films mentions the need or absence of the need for 3-D glasses. Bloggers and journalists cry: ‘Silly glasses’, ‘Cumbersome specs’ and ‘Goofy glasses’ as a standard. Why this resistance to 3-D eye wear? Is it really that bad to wear plastic or cardboard glasses for 90 minutes when 1/3 of the world’s population wears glasses on a daily basis? From the adverse reaction, I gather it must be. Very well then, but what ways of seeing a 3-D film currently actually exist?

On the side of glasses there’s:

Polarized glasses
Used in Real-D cinemas, using horizontal and vertical light wavelength separation. So horizontal lightwaves will pass through the left-eye glass and the vertical lightwaves through the right-eye. This means full colour 3-D images, but the need for a silver screen to retain polarization of the light.


Dolby 3-D
Interference wavelength, or colour bandwidth separation. Using slightly different parts of the RGB spectrum, full colour 3-D images are possible with the use of a normal cinema screen. Pretty amazing technology, sometimes also called 'souped-up anaglyph'. But it doesn't bear any resemblance to anaglyph 3-D whatsoever.

The Dolby 3-D glasses will look a lot like shutterglasses, only flatter and lighter



Artistic impression of how Dolby 3-D works


Anaglyph
Red-blue or red-green filters. Been around for over 100 years and is unbeatable for its simplicity and application in pretty much all 3-D media. Film, print, web and RGB TV (4:4:4 transmission and viewing).

Dr. Who donning anaglyph 3-D glasses to see a dimensional rift

ColorCode
Amber-Blue filters; basically anaglyph but with two other Colour Triangle opposites. Another possibility would be Green-Purple. Quick, patent that idea!


Chromadepth
Hue-dependent colour-depth placement. As you can see, it limits the kind of imagery you can display with this technique.

Red comes forward, blue recedes

Pulfrich
One dark, one transparent filter for delayed image reception by the right eye. Combined with a spinning camera or horizontally moving imagery on different planes that makes for pretty well working 3-D. Dizzying, though.

3rd Rock from the Sun made Pulfrich famous with their special 3-D episode

Field/frame sequential
On-off-left-right electronic shutters. These are most often used for TV and computer viewing of 3-D and can also be found at some IMAX 3-D performances.

Wireless shutterglasses

Chroma
Hold-your-head-very-still parallel side-by-side viewing with a plastic separator. A great idea with wide-angle 3-D results, but don't move or tilt your head!

Anachrome's Chroma glasses


Glassless methods available are:

Lenticular
Like the famous Philips 3-D Plasma screen and Spielberg’s plans for a massive LCD/DLP video wall for use in future cinemas. Horizontal striped lenslets do the work, halving resolution of the image and applying a bit of a blur to the 3-D end result.

Artistic impression of a Philips 3-D screen. Of course the chip can't fly past the screen's edge...

Fresnel
Lenslets that work much the same as lenticulars, but in a round fashion. This allows for more angles of view, but less detail in the image.


Raster Screen
The Ivanov Soviet idea of a fine horizontal mesh in front of a screen with imagery pretty much equal to lenticular imagery. This technique reduces the available viewing zones dramatically, but when in a sweet spot, the 3-D is impressive. And oh-so glassless!


Curved Screen
Very sweet-spot sensitive reflective curved surface. Nice for single-person display, not good for a large audience.


Holography
This is a very different way of creating and displaying 3-D imagery and cannot really be mentioned in this lineup because in holographics the subject manner is captured as-is, from all angles, rather than from a set, fixed angle as happens in stereography. Stereo=2 angles, Holo=all angles. In this way, holography is a form of virtual theatre with no specific camera angle as opposed to cinematography, with a controlled camera angle. Also, holographic imagery requires an insane amount of bandwidth to be recorded and transmitted, making theatrical display a thing of the distant future.

Strong & weak points

All methods have their strong points and their drawbacks. The most obvious drawback of glasses is the need to wear them. After that, the quality of the materials used will influence the ability to separate left-eye and right-eye imagery. And thirdly, it’s inconvenient for distributors and theatre owners as the glasses cost money, get dirty, break and get lost. Most glasses options also suffer from colour problems as the 3-D is encoded in the image by using colours, and thus resulting in different colours going to different eyes. Anaglyph 3-D being the most obvious example of this issue.

The glassless options all have the big problem of angle of view (with varied degrees of precision sweet spots), where not sitting in a sweet spot, or viewing zone, means losing the 3-D image, seeing an inverse, hollow 3-D image or seeing mid-image artefacts that ruin the enjoyment of the picture. The only technique escaping this problem is holography, but, as said, it’s got some serious other drawbacks.


Kodak's silly 3-D HD solution. It certainly fixes the sweet-spot issue!

The problem with viewing zones can be attacked by placing cinema seats in a specific pattern, basically resulting in much fewer seats in the house. The Soviet 3-D cinemas employing the Raster Screen technique indeed had much fewer seats than normal cinemas have. With subsidised cinemas that’s not a problem, but in a free market economy such a solution is uneconomical. And in a home situation, will people be prepared to always sit in an exact spot on their sofa, at an exact distance to the screen, or is wearing a pair of specs to watch 3-D TV the path of least resistance?

Philips WOWvx 3-D TV screen

This screen is rally amazing, making possible glassless 3-D on a 42in plasma screen. Your movie, your ad and your product never looked better, coming out of the screen or inhabiting an exciting 3-D world inside the screen. It requires 3-D content – and that’s exactly what we can provide for you at 3-D Revolution Productions. Tailored to the best 3-D screen to look as good as 3-D television gets!

Red-Blue bad?

Lucas, Zemeckis, Rodriguez & Cameron

Recently, as you probably well know, James Cameron has been doing the rounds promoting polarized DLP projection and twin-camera HD 3-D shooting as the way forward for the 3-D film industry. It is a very valid point that the polarized Real-D projection solution is a massive step forward for 3-D film and its chances of survival (for longer than two years). Because of the standardisation of Real-D within the DLP architecture, combined with the fact that Real-D projection can’t be screwed up by projectionists, 3-D cinema has now got a fighting chance to not hurt the audience’s eyes and thus stick around for longer – as long as the quality of 3-D films stays above abysmal quality levels.
But Cameron takes the argument a step further by making the attending audience shout: “Red-blue, bad!” But why? There is nothing wrong with anaglyph 3-D. It’s been around as long as stereoscopic film itself has and has never gone away because of its versatility, ease of use and cheapness. In fact, Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) still uses it for their 3-D monitor previewing.


Anaglyph 3D image of 'The Incredible Invasion...'

A big point that people make nowadays about anaglyph 3-D is that they think it causes discomfort and headaches. True, it is not an ideal format in terms of colour and separation, and your brain will attempt to compensate for the colour filters by turning your vision blue and red, inversely to the glasses. But it is misuse of 3-D, not the presentation format, that causes real headaches.

It’s tempting to think that the progress of technology has solved all problems with 3-D film production and screening. It hasn’t because it can’t. The biggest problems with 3-D filming stem from the physical limitations of what the eye and brain can do and subsequently how far 3-D cameras can be separated (the interocular distance), rotated inward (convergence) and how close they can be to the subject. No technology can solve breaches of human physical ability and a painful 3-D experience must almost always be blamed on poorly thought out and executed 3-D direction and camera work.


The cast of Jaws 3-D argues over which 3-D lens adapter to use

The biggest issue is of course the proven fact that one bad 3-D presentation can ruin it for the rest. People will happily equate the pleasure of 3-D with that of the last presentation they have seen and if that presentation was a poor one, that audience will label 3-D bad overall. It’s not fair, but that’s the way 3-D has been treated in 3-D film’s rise and decline of 1953-54 and 1983-84. So it’s time to stop pointing fingers and start shooting good 3-D, with a proper story that is enhanced through the stereoscopic visuals!

Today is Yesterday’s Tomorrow

Wax Darth Maul in a 3-D photograph

The title sounds obvious, but what it means is that the marvels of the future that were talked about in the past, should be happening just about now. An excellent example of how that doesn’t necessarily hold true is the assertion of Jaws 3-D director Joe Alves in a 1983 Starburst interview that:
“(…) I can definitely see Superman 4 or the new Star Wars (Return of the Jedi) being made in 3-D. (…) Imagine flying a space ship over the audience’s heads, or having Superman fly out? Actually, the latter would be difficult.”

Besides having a point about Superman flying out of the screen being difficult (he’d look like a miniature Superman and couldn’t fly anywhere off-screen effectively), he missed the mark on his assertion of those two films being shot and released in 3-D. Hollywood lost interest in 3-D film very quickly when the audiences got tired of the onslaught of 3-D movies after just one year of 3-D film exhibition in 1983. 25 mediocre 3-D movies in one year can do that to an audience. With the 1953 boom more than twice that amount were released theatrically: 65 3-D movies within two years alone!

Ironically, Star Wars: a New Hope is right now being dimensionalized for 3-D re-re-re-release next year (with ‘Empire’ and ‘Jedi’ on hold until this proves to be a profitable undertaking) and Superman Returns utilized dimensionalized sections in its IMAX release. Clearly, New Hollywood feels that digital projection is a guarantee for audience acceptance of 3-D, ignoring the possibility of audience exhaustion and bad use of 3-D being a factor in 3-D film’s previous crashes.


Dan Symmes shooting with his Dimension-3 Camera Adapter in 1982

In another of yesterday’s articles on 3-D film, written by a fresh-faced Daniel Symmes in 1983’s Cinefantastique, Dan writes:
“(…) Most filmmakers simply don’t understand the possibilities and limitations of the process. (…) Properly used, 3-D is probably one of the last frontiers of magic, but it’s very rarely used properly. Right now, 3-D is thrown at you, poked at you and so sloppily done that it creates eyestrain.”

The assumption Symmes made was that filmmakers would, by now, be using 3-D as an integral part of the story and use it in a proper, educated way. Because 3-D filmmaking was never taught in any film school, though, this never happened and with the disappearance of 3-D off cinema screens for 20 years, the existing knowledge of 3-D filmmaking gained a thick layer of dust. Now, with 3-D’s latest resurgence, directors who get their hands on a 3-D project for the first time and have to use the medium without fully understanding it will indeed run the risk of making terrible mistakes. Because although the concept of 3-D may be easy to grasp, its correct execution is a finely tuned piece of professionalism that cannot be underestimated.


Dreamworks' Monsters vs. Aliens

3ality Digital’s Steve Schklair shares this vision with us, telling us:
“One of my biggest concerns is the quality of 3D that reaches the screen during the next two years. This business is now in its infancy and as such is very fragile. Our audience does not know the difference between 3D and good 3D. Someday, after a few really well shot films reach the market, the audience will be able to discern between the two. But for now, the market can ill afford a really bad 3D film in release by novices. This concern is shared by many of us in Hollywood, including Dreamworks and RealD.”

Well said.

Siggraph 2007 Next-Gen Displays

Neit 360 degree 3-D display

Two bits from a VFX Newswire article:

VFX Newswire article at
http://www.vfxworld.com/index.php?atype=articles&id=3369

SIGGRAPH 2007 Emerging Technologies: Next-Gen Displays

J. Paul Peszko speaks with John Sibert, SIGGRAPH 2007 co-chair of Emerging Technologies, about this year's focus on display technology.


(...)
One category of displays centers on digital projection. "DLP-3D TV is new technology that T. I. (Texas Instruments) has developed that will enable you to do on a home television HD display 3-D stereo that you would normally see at a place like Disney or possibly in theaters," explains Sibert.

(...)
Another interesting display technology is the Interactive 360-Degree Light Field Display being developed by the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. "The thing about 3-D displays is that they don't show very well on a web page," states Sibert. "The cool thing about this display is that you don't have to wear glasses, and it's based on kind of an old idea of a rotating mirror that reflects the image, which appears to be three-dimensional. Usually 3-D images are hard to move around or change the shape of in realtime. This one works fast enough that it can actually do that. Also, people can stand around it in a group and see the full 3-D."

Holographic Display as illustrated in VFX Newswire

Our comments on the article:

It’s very exciting to see 3-D display technology taking leaps and bounds, headed for our homes very soon. So it’s time to create 3-D content for all these wonderful screens. Unless you’re happy to watch cooking programmes and quiz shows in 3-D all day, that is…
3-D recording and filming is still a specialization because its parameters can be very tricky. So you will want expert stereo 3D help. 3-Dimensional imagery is shot using two cameras and the look of the resulting 3-D effect is as mouldable and creatively controllable as the regular film and video image. The 3-D equivalents of focal length, aperture size, lens size, depth of field, and use of colour are seriously underemployed! An amazing amount of different things can be done with stereoscopic 3-D, while currently not much of all that potential is tapped into by 3-D filmmakers.
3-D stereoscopic content creation is something we can help you with, from script to screen. Your creative 3-D ideas on tomorrow’s screens, in the best possible way!



Of course, one has to make a clear distinction between stereo 3-D and holographic 3-D imagery. They are different mediums. Why? Because holographic 3-D (including the 360-Degree Light Field Display imagery) has no framing, as opposed to stereo 3-D.
3-D is filmed with two cameras, while holographics are recorded with light hitting an object from a very wide array of angles. A real or virtual actor on these displays will be looking in one direction, while you, the viewer, may be looking at his side, his front or even his back. So there is no controllable eye-line and your fellow-viewer will always see a different image from you. In this way, cinematography cannot be employed for these displays; rather these moving images have to be approaches as you would theatre or a stage show. This is a very important distinction to make, and once you recognise this, you can create the best possible entertainment for these displays rather than doing something that equals a ‘radio show on TV’.

Time to get creative in 3-Dimensions!

Stop-motion animation in 3-D

A very exciting animated feature is slated for 2008 release in 3-D: 'Coraline', by Henry Selick’s animation studio Laika. A stop-motion feature film in stereo 3-D!
The first stop-motion feature in film history, but not the first 3-D stop-motion release. That honour goes to ‘In tune with tomorrow’ (aka ‘Motor Rhythm’), shot by John Norling in 1936. The second 3-D stereoscopic stop-motion short in history is then ‘The Adventures of Sam Space’, produced by Paul Sprunck in 1955. The third and latest stop-motion production in 3-D is ‘The Incredible Invasion of the 20,000 Giant Robots from Outer Space’ by 3-D Revolution Productions’ Elmer Kaan and Alexander Lentjes, released in 2000. This short is also the first 3-D stereoscopic animated short to employ CGI alongside stop-motion in film history.



So Henry Selick’s production company Laika is producing this first feature length stop-motion film in 3-D. But strictly speaking it is more the first stop-motion feature shot in 3-D rather than the first stop-motion feature release in 3-D, as the dimensionalized re-release of ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ (also directed by Henry Selick) begets this title. An interesting point of this particular 2-D to 3-D conversion being that it cost ILM tens of Millions of Dollars and years of blood sweat and tears, in the US and in outsource location Hong Kong, to do the conversion, for which money they could have re-animated a whole new stop-motion feature. But that’s Hollywood logic for you.


3-D photograph taken by one of the Nightmare animators on-set.
So not the conversion's end-result

Apparently, Coraline is being shot using calculation of interocular values rather than using pre-viz to establish what interaxials will work best for particular shots. A very dangerous approach since you don’t want to get the interocular distance wrong when the stop-motion animation will have to be re-done completely when the shot turns out not to be working. Of course experience is something that can help a lot with calculating camera spacing, but it’s just not worth the risk of getting it awfully wrong when doing a particularly tricky shot like one with an animating camera and /or with an animated interocular.

With 3-D, the interocular and convergence values cannot be changed or corrected in post, unless dimensionalization is employed on one of the two view points or intermediate view reconstruction is employed. It would be really strange to have to do this in a medium that provides the producer with ultimate control, while for live-action a thing or two can be said about getting 3-D values wrong on location in the heat of filming. This is actually a big reason why the Real D and digital 3-D releases up until now have all been animated shorts and features and why live-action is being done in CGI (Beowulf, Battle Angel Alita / Avatar): total, perfect camera control.

U2: 3-D 4U

A very exciting project coming to a 3-D enabled theatre near you (Real-D or Dolby 3-D) is of course U2 3D. A big point Real D and Dolby are making about digitizing and 3-D enabling your local cinema is that is can also host digital HD broadcasts of events like the World Cup and big concerts, especially 3-D broadcasts. But because there is no 3-D broadcast infrastructure at the moment (something that technology like Sensio can help facilitate) we’ll have to settle for a produced and post-produced 3-D concert like U2 3D. A great start because U2 knows how to fill a stage in 3 Dimensions and really exploit the medium of concert entertainment. They sure know how to satisfy all senses.



And we are certain 3ality will do an amazing job at getting U2 3D in the digital can. No doubts about the quality of their large scale 3-D production operations!

Three simple reasons to choose 3-D Revolution Productions for your next 3-D film project:

1. We have been working in the field of stereo 3-D for over 7 years. Stereoscopic 3-D film, video and animation are our specialty and we know the medium absolutely through and through. We understand the medium and its possibilities and employ its full potential rather than just trying to copy what has come before.
2. We create stereoscopic content, with a background knowledge of 3-D hardware, rather than being 3-D hardware manufacturers who do a bit of 3-D image creation on the side. At 3-D Revolution Productions we are all trained film makers, animators, directors and FX specialists with a background in feature film and broadcast television production.
3. We incorporate the latest advances in 3-D technology as much as the proven, unfailing techniques of the rich stereo 3-D past to make your 3-D dreams into a screen reality. We’ll do whatever it takes to get to the best possible 3-D end result!

Psychology of 3-D - Memories

Metalstorm 3-D. The most successful 3-D movie trailer of all time

The success and the future of Stereo 3-D film making depends on a psychological factor: memories. How do we, humans, perceive the world and store our memories? Storytelling is the conjuring up of situations and images in our minds. We identify with the hero of the story and imagine ourselves in his or her shoes as the story is being told. This is equal to the written or spoken word or the visually presented one. So when we see a movie or television program we compare the images presented to the images stored in our memories. And how are these images stored? Flat. Not in 3-Dimensions.

Seeing a 3-D image will put a viewer in the now, in an abstract mode of fight or flee, as this is real life, real danger, real objects right in front of him or her. It does not touch upon our memory banks, recognition or fantasies, as these are all stored and imagined flat. So the experience of stereoscopic 3-D visuals cannot escape the factor of ‘here and now’ and the viewer of 3-D images will not be taken away on a dream cloud of story and fantasy. Instead, he or she will take in the volumetric images ‘as is’. More or less like a circus act.
Think about it: what sticks with you most, thinking back to a recently enjoyed 3-D movie; the moment the hero kissed the girl or the shot where he poked his sword out of the screen, right into your face?


The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl

Clever, intelligent use of 3-D can overcome this serious limitation. 3-D film making has to grow up and evolve to escape the primal imagery and primal reaction it manages to conjure up at the moment. 2-D film making has a slight advantage with 100 years of cinematic culture versus a total of about 8 years of 3-D film production (1923/24, ’53/’54, ’83/’84, and 2007/’08). There is some serious catching up to do!

Machinima in 3-D

Recently, my curiosity was awakened by the latest generation of machinima; animation created using games engines, their cameras and their characters in combination with original dialogue and music. An interesting medium that is closer to puppeteering than animation, depending on the amount of post-production employed. Because the more post-production, including animation refinement and image manipulation is employed, the more it becomes what animation is: fully controlled, frame-by-frame film.

Right now machnima all have clumsy elements that detract from the enjoyment of their end result and their classification as serious competition to the art of animation. Mostly, the preset animation loops of characters in games are game-specific and to tell a narrative story, unfit animation has to be used regularly. Also, when dialogue is involved, lipsync is almost always off, with generic open-close positions to the mouth. Facial expressions are equally generic with smile/frown/surprise being the basic range of emotions available.


Only the strong survice - by Riot Films

However, machinima’s saving grace is that a good story is always gripping, no matter how clumsy the animation or low-poly the rendering is. We are humans and love to see human interaction (or humanoid creatures, humanoid objects or otherwise anthropomorphic character dialogue).

So where does the stereo 3-D come into play? Well, being computer-generated, rendering machinima in 3-D is relatively easy to do. Nothing new there, but there’s one more element to this new medium that makes it very interesting indeed in terms of 3-D transmission. I am talking about the way games transmit their animation data online. Basically, because computer games work with client-side rendering, based on a collection of textures, polygons, character rigs and image rendering rules, only the character rig animation control points’ coordinates, the environment’s parameters and the camera’s position and settings need to be transmitted over the internet to create a machinima. This, and of course the original dialogue and music & effects tracks. So not much more than the amount of data transmitted in a high datarate audio stream, and definitely much less than today’s standard Mpeg-2 (satellite, digital antenna and DVD) datastream standard.



Recording wise, actors and presenters are only motion-captured and scanned for their face’s, body’s and clothes’ textures and their dialogue is recorded for the audio stream.

What we are looking at is a possible future of television. It is a different, inverse way of thinking compared to how we watch TV now, because this is active client-side rendering in combination with a small datastream, rather than our current passive, bandwidth-consuming image signal reception.
The most obvious benefit is the endless scalability, as seen in streamed Flash animation, so a HD or SHD end result (there is talk of 8K broadcasting in Japan), is no longer a problem in relation to available bandwidth. No need for a nationwide fibre-optic network. Only a need for very powerful computers on the receiving viewer’s side to render all the imagery in real time, or with a slight delay. And computers are becoming more powerful at a higher rate than the implementation of fibre-optic networks.

Of course, the real issue with this way of doing TV is the need for items like textures, rig configuration, polygon models etc. to be sent ahead of each channel’s program. And that bit of transmission can quickly go up to hundreds of megabytes, which, at Mpeg-2 data speeds, can take anywhere between 30 seconds to 3 minutes. Not very realistic then, unless a fixed preset of textures and models is used for every program. And that would be a bit samey and Big Brother-esque…

We keep on thinking about it, and in the mean time, enjoy another episode of Red vs. Blue…

Imax vs. DLP vs. Anaglyph

IMAX has provided for a guaranteed way to keep 3-D movies playing for a long period of time, creating more money and more word-of-mouth advertisement for these films and their directors. By creating the process of DMR, films shot of 35MM and HD can be blown up to IMAX size. So this means that a producer looking to generate more money from his film will happily go IMAX and ideally go 3-D. People like James Cameron and George Lucas who can take financial risks are willing to try out this different distribution model and film their next project in 3-D. Indeed, had ‘Aliens of the Deep’ for example not been in 3-D IMAX, it would not have had a very warm welcome in regular cinemas. The upcoming conversion of Star Wars to 3-D will most likely go the IMAX 3-D route, with a detour in the few 3-D enabled DLP cinemas in America. Strangely, the existing and perfectly working 3-D systems of the 1983 craze are not even considered for these releases. If it is the 3-D that counts, Lucas & co should be suggesting these much cheaper and readily available systems to theatres and distributors and not use the films as an excuse to make cinemas purchase or rent 3-D DLP projectors. Or release anaglyphically.



The frantic search for a technical breakthrough in 3-D display, which has been going on for more than 100 years now, is fuelled by the promise of an evolutionary step in visual entertainment. But most of the current audio-visual industry perceives 3-D as a means to re-sell old product in a new shell and moreover, being able to charge more for the same product but with the added 3rd dimension. This statement can be backed up by the observation that there are no real plans to develop a new visual language once the 3-D revolution happens – nobody is being educated or trained in 3-D filming, there is no literature on 3-D cinematography other than technical manuals and even those are mostly unread by the handful of present day 3-D filmmakers.



Recent examples of this failure to do research on the technicalities of 3-D are Robert Rodriguez’ films ‘Spy Kids 3-D’ and ‘The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D’. The wish to display all colours whilst still using anaglyphic glasses is an obvious mistake because reds and blues should not be visible through both lenses. It is very basic knowledge but simply ignored, consciously or unconsciously. There are simple ways to show colours through anaglyphic glasses whilst not destroying the 3-D encoding – not just by omitting reds and blues but by simulating them in the end result as seen through the glasses - but these technologies are sadly ignored and the visually painful experience is used as ammunition for the argument of 3-D DLP projection even though these are two separate issues. And strangely, Rodriguez is in the DLP promoting club, whilst releasing his 3-D films using anaglyphics.

A little more on the history of 3-D display systems

Jaws 3-D: over-under 3D projection

Inventors and investors in the field of 3-D have since day one been looking for a way to display the 3-D image in a better, cheaper and mostly in a less obstructing way. This idea has proven itself to be a must over the last century if 3-D cinema is to climb out of the depths of obscurity and cheap-thrill exploitation. The golden egg of 3-D image display would without a doubt be a worldwide glassless cinema / TV system. A system where consumers will not need to purchase new equipment, pay more for their theatre ticket, TV subscription service or DVD and where distributors, broadcasters and theatre owners do not need to make additional investments or have direct costs. So this would be a system that works on current hardware, both in the cinema and at home, or on the up and coming hardware systems like DLP projection and HDTV. However much that means a transitional period of backwards incompatibility, and however much all parties involved agree this is an acceptable sacrifice.



An auto-stereoscopic system is not likely to happen in cinemas, though. S.P. Ivanov devised a perfect one in 1940 for use in the Soviet Union and it worked beautifully, but seating was limited to a few seats in the middle of the theatre. This spelled financial doom for glassless 3-D in cinema.
The best and most practical system ever devised is the polarizing system developed by the Polaroid corporation in 1929. Light travels in both horizontal and vertical waves, so this property can be used to separate the left-eye and right-eye image by means of transmitting one by horizontal light waves and the other by vertical ones. This can be done by using polarizers which let through only one angle of light. Being an optical system, this works perfectly in cinema with its projection through light, but not with television. Only those people with a beamer at home will be able to use this system to view 3-D films. This system was used almost exclusively in the 3-D boom of 1953 and of 1983. Different ways of projecting through these polarizers was used, though, in both years. First, two synchronised projectors and two strips of film were used, later one strip of film with (anamorphic) side-by-side or over-and-under imagery, projected through recombining lens systems.

The field- or frame-sequential system works in different ways for cinema and television, where at the moment it is only used in IMAX theatrically, employing a system of 48 fps film, infrared emitters and LCD glasses responding to these emitters by opening and closing left-eye and right-eye glasses at 48 fps as well. For television, the systems uses even and uneven fields to display the left-eye and right-eye image sequentially, resulting practically in an image that runs at 12.5 fps on PAL and 15 fps on NTSC. This low frame rate and the resulting flicker can cause quite some discomfort with viewers. However, this is the only system useable on current televisions that can display proper 3-D without resulting in ghosting or the need for spinning cameras like in the Pullfrich system.

A short refresher on 3-D film history

Chicken Little in 3-D by Disney

3-D film, or stereoscopic film, is a peculiar art form. Stereoscopy, the art of displaying images the way we see them with our two eyes - and combining brain - has been around since the renaissance. The moment these visionary painters understood space and the ways eyes see space better, they were experimenting with drawings in stereo. And so 3-D photography has been around as long as regular photography has, yet it has always stood in the shadow of its natural brother. There is no problem at all in placing two lenses next to each other instead of just one, using the same film but splitting the image on the negative in two for left-eye and right-eye image representation. But a device is then needed to view the stereoscopic photograph; a stereo viewer - on which the Viewmaster™ was later based. This necessity of an external viewer has always been an inhibition to a visual art form, which should have overtaken regular photography as the going standard. It never did because the obstacle of the viewing device proved to be too great a one.

After building the first practical movie camera in history, the Lumiere brothers built a stereoscopic one as well. A lot of their experimental film is actually one of the two reels they normally used to shoot their 3-D. The arrival of a train at la Ciotat (1895) was filmed in 3-D as well as ‘flat’, so the audience did not just run from a train on screen for the first time, they ran for a train approaching them in 3-D for the first time! However much more spectacular 3-D film proved to be over regul