Can we get over 3D now please?

[Francesco Bonomo]

With some of the new 3D titles that are coming out in the next year, I can almost promise you will see another 3D movie. You won't be able to stay away from seeing what these truly creative directors do with big, non-effects-driven titles.

; )

Lucas

Lucas, no offense, but I guess I know myself better than you :-)
I can't wait to see some of the titles currently in production or near release, and there's no way I'm going to miss the Scott/Wolski sci.fi thing-y, or the new Scorsese movie, though I may skip the Hobbit, Spider-man, 3 Musketeers and many more. But I'll see those movies the "old-fashioned" way if I'm given the option to.

[Elmer Tenkink]

In the end making movies is all about what the public want to see, and how they want to see it.
If the public rejects 3D then 3D is on the way out, if they embrace it, evolution of 3D will continuing
I don't want to say 3D is a hype, it is much to early to say that, and it takes more years of analysis to be sure it has a real change to stay.
The studios have been pushing it a bit to much, and one big success like Avatar ain't the right way to validate it.
For the moment i am not bedding my money on it, for me right now it is heading for " blue ray disc" all over again.
But I really hope finally 3D will stay!!

[Erich Ocean]

For the moment i am not bedding my money on it, for me right now it is heading for " blue ray disc" all over again.

Is this the same Blu-ray disc that's had a faster rollout rate than DVD? Sounds like you're actually bullish on 3D (though presumably you meant the opposite). ;-)

[danbrazda]

Once again, for me, it all gets back to artistic expression. If an artist thinks 3D is the best method to deliver his or her message, isn't it great that they have the option in their creative toolbox? The same can be said about 2D. I happen to prefer the latter but appreciate the artists who don't just use 3D as a gimmick but at least attempt to use it as an enhancement to their storytelling.

I think the technology definitely needs to take the "3D blind" phenomena seriously though as it certainly plays a major role in acceptance by audiences. I for one am not even sure if I "see" 3D or am partially "blind" as well. Every 3D film I've seen (and I'm sorry to say that includes Avatar) looks LESS dimensional than 2D to me. It looks like the Pop-Up books that were a novelty when I was a kid. Layers of flat 2D images. Again, not knocking anyone's desire to pull at will from the creative toolbox but merely suggesting some specifics that need to be addressed if there is to be widespread acceptance of 3D.

[Dan Hudgins]

It looks like the Pop-Up books that were a novelty when I was a kid.

Its called "cardboarding" and would show in 2D to 3D conversion and compressed images.

3D stereo requires about 100x the bandwidth of 2D images to show the full surface detail and roundness since the difference between the R and L views that make the stereoscopic effect are very small deltas, compression trys to remove such small birghtness differences making more cardboarding the more you compress.

You need to see two projector synchro interlock of 35mm film to understand what non-cardboarded images look like.

==

Don't blame 3D, blame the people who don't know what they are doing, don't care, and hype inferior work to make a fast buck and leave a bad taste in the viewers mind along the way spoiling the well for everyone. The same happened with 65/70mm when people started making blow-up prints and hyping them at 70mm rather than shooting in 65mm, adding words adds "value" when in fact you are not giving the full deal...

[Elmer Tenkink]

Is this the same Blu-ray disc that's had a faster rollout rate than DVD? Sounds like you're actually bullish on 3D (though presumably you meant the opposite). ;-)

yeah sorry it is late here, after a long day working i am not so sharp.

But indeed as you say 'had' a faster roll out rate, it is never embraced fully like DVD did, and it is now already on it's way out (streaming/download and iptv / internet as competition) as of course DVD is going now.
I really hope that 3D will not have the same faith, as there has been invested a lot into it.
But maybe it is better for this subject to include 3d TV sales rates to analyze public behavior on 3d content and not only ticket box offices of movie theaters.
And analyze "why" the public don't embrace it as aspected, as I guess it has to do with the additional fee too (we still life in a hard economic weather).

[Kevin Rasmussen]

Don't blame 3D, blame the people who don't know what they are doing, don't care, and hype inferior work to make a fast buck and leave a bad taste in the viewers mind along the way spoiling the well for everyone. The same happened with 65/70mm when people started making blow-up prints and hyping them at 70mm rather than shooting in 65mm, adding words adds "value" when in fact you are not giving the full deal...

I think your in luck, like I mentioned in the original post audiences arn't going for bullsh*t 3D anymore. No one is interested in bad 3D. Hopefully this leaves room for GOOD 3D to get the real hype it deserves when it comes along.

People have said that Pirates is a bad example of representing the demand for 3D but 70% of tickets sold for pirates 4 were 2D and 30% went to 3D and Pirates is a MASSIVE franchise with a built in fan base that like the movies for how "fun" they are so naturally 3D would seem like a good fit. It wasn't. North America is the PERFECT testing market for 3D because it's been around the longest here and is most prevalent here, on top of that North America represents the largest world wide movie going audience so how is it not the best place to get these numbers from? This is the most relevant market for studios.

We've seen so many horrible 3D films that no one [audiences] is interested myself included so we don't want it shoved down our throats and we want our 2D screens set back up properly not left to rot by the side of the highway because 3D films are "all the rage" according to studios and pundits. They arn't.
I hear Kung-fu Panda 2 is good. Animated films are fine in 3D, I didn't mind Toy Story 3D, but my right eye and side of my head were still killing by the end.
The problem with kids movies in 3D is that kids statistically HATE the glasses, and no one wants to sit through a movie with their kids complaining.

3D has a long, long, long way to come in pretty much every department before it has a chance of catching on and it's still not going to ever be mainstream because it will never be cheap enough to produce for something like a Judd Apatow comedy, and never fast enough to shoot properly for a guy like Terrance Malick. So I just can't see it ever really taking off to the point where 'Every film is benefitting from 3D.' At least I can't see that happening. Having done a ton of reading on it in the last few days and going through your very educational posts Dan, it's clear that to do it right it's a very complex, slow moving process and I'm not sure how that will change even as the tools become more efficient. The process remains the same right?

So lets stop treating it like it's going to change the world. It's a fun new medium for some of you, and that's awesome! Have fun! Remake that muppets movie I used to love as a kid at Disney World and I'll pay to see THAT in 3D :)

I'm more interested in IMAX formats and improving digital dynamic range, how 'bout IMAX becomes the next big rage :D

[Marc Wielage]

Roger Ebert has some interesting thoughts on the problem of 3D theaters and 2D compatibility, "The Dying of the Light":

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011...the_light.html

And TheWrap.com has a fairly damning report, "3D Slammed Anew After Format's Weak 'Pirates 4' Opening":

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/articl...-opening-27648

To me, 3D is not that big a deal, but I am troubled by the current loss of overall image brightness in screen projection, which requires a lot of compromises in color-correction and kind of gets in the way of storytelling. But I don't think 3D is appropriate for all movies, yet at the same time, I think there's a way to do 3D well, and I also think it will get better over time.

[Ravi Kiran]

With regards to POTC, the second film had the highest domestic opening weekend of the series, the third one had a lower one, and the fourth one had an even lower one. I think US interest in the POTC series is waning, regardless of 3D. Given the extra cost of 3D tickets, looks like the number would have been even lower without 3D. The movie is doing extremely well overseas.

Whatever your opinion of 3D is, don't blame a film's underperformance on it, and let a few years pass before judging whether or not audiences have accepted or rejected the technology.

If anything, prices are a huge factor. For a family, the extra cost of 3D tickets quickly adds up. Even as someone who usually goes to movies alone, I would have to REALLY want to see the movie in 3D to pay extra for it. One, it would have to be a movie I'd want to see anyways (I wouldn't see most 3D movies even in 2D), and two, I'd have to believe that 3D would enhance the experience vs. a 2D presentation.

[Dan Hudgins]

Dan, it's clear that to do it right it's a very complex, slow moving process and I'm not sure how that will change even as the tools become more efficient. The process remains the same right?

What I think one of the complaints is about is that shooting in 3D causes some loss to the "Language of Cinema".

But Digital Conversion of Broadcast TV has also done that, as did "talkies".

How many lap dissolves have you seen on TV lately, none. Lap dissolves were common on analog TV shows and in movies, but they are not used much any more because on H.xxx compression the image breaks up into low res blocks during fast fades and lap dissolves much of the time. The same with moving camera causeing motion estimation issues and image breakup.

Those image breakup issues relating to compression are a much bigger deal for 3D since they not only cause a decrease in resolution, the edges of the blocking artifacts make 3D edges that are false and give incorrect 3D depth information.

So when you shoot 3D and then compress it for digital release you need to limit some parts of the Language of Cinema.

Its kind of a "new speak" for Cinema, if you have read "1984" you will understand what "new speak" means.

Each media has it limits and features, shooting for 3D does impose some changes to the shooting style, just as "talkies" and "Technicolor" did to their productions.

Filmmaking will end in a few years probably, the costs of making Color Negative film and prints will go up, and the places to process the film and show the films will go down until the point is reached where there is no reason for it to continue. You cannot get Plus-X or 4-X to make black and white movies with, and when Double-X goes the medium will be lost forever.

Will 2D continue at all in the Digital "movie" theatres of the future, well how many black and white movies did you see last year, how many silent movies?

In spite of what going on at Cannes now, black and white movies for all their beauty and impact are a thing of the past, like Agfa 561 and 362 print stocks.

==

How much slower the DP needs to work for a 3D shoot depends in part on the Director understanding the limitations that making a good 3D stereoscopic film imposes. If the Director asks for shots that violate the "safe" area of convergence for the viewers eyes, and does not allow the DP to use the right focal length and distance to the subject, then not only will it take more time to setup the shot to try to counter invalid choices, but the end result will be inferior if not unusable.

To make a good 3D presentation, everyone from the DP to the end theatre needs to understand the needs and limits of the 3D medium and to work within those limits to make sure the audance gets what they are paying for, and that is not a headache and sore eyes.


Unfortunately the "inconvenient truth" is that some aspects of the Language of Cinema that have worked in 2D films would work less well in 3D films, but a creative team effort could get what is needed to tell the story if in somewhat confined form.

The two biggest current weaknesses other than miss convergence of the cameras for INF on all screen sizes and viewing distances (a problem that does not have a full solution for two camera capture) is the poor quality of the glasses and filters over the projectors and the dividing of the light plus the light loss from the filters. You would want better filters to get less ghosting and so you need to deal with the light loss to do that.

To correct the light loss issue would mean using two projectors with brighter Xenon light houses and using more power. All that adds cost so its not going to happen, and that alone may kill the future of 3D for another 50 years.

Production time also costs money, but in the hands of people who know what the are doing it should not take much longer to shoot 3D well, just as it takes about the same time to make bad meal as a good one, its the knowledge of the cheif that makes the difference.

As I mentioned you cannot judge the 3D alignment off a monitor on the set just by looking with glasses because of the non-constant-ratio issue with the spacing on the screen, the screen size, and your eye spacing. Using special VR gogles could give you a better example on the set of what the 3D would be like in the theatre since the diaopters can set your eyes focus at any distance and the two screens can be adjusted for your eyes spacing.

Otherwise, you can put a clear plastic sheet over an anaglyph display on a monitor that has grid lines on it, and use that as an aid to measure the absolute stereo seperation of points in ratio to the monitor screen size. That would be a faster way of working since there would be no subjective component that would vary depending on who was setting up the cameras and actor blocking. You use a 2D view to adjust the stereo, just as you use a 'scope to adjust image brightness, because its more objective, faster, and repeatable.