Star Trek v. Avatar: Give me anamorphic

[Joe G.]

So I finally saw Avatar. Review is cooking. Of course it was great, but I had some issues.

As for the Real 3D experience, I'm not sold. The weak link seems to be the cheap, uncomfortable, poor optical quality glasses one must endure for the entire experience. In addition to cutting about a stop of light, they have a softening effect that bugged me right off the bat. Also, the size of the glasses rims was a bit small and remained in the field of view, actually cropping the screen most of the time, and probably not the director's intended view of the thing.

I did clean my apparently recycled glasses with a glasses cleaner, and they still remained a bit smeary and grungy at the edges. As this was present in the view for the entire 2:40 plus, it degraded the experience. I imagine there will be high end optical 3D glasses for rich boys and girls coming down the pike.

Don't care. I found the 3D often gimmicky, still, even in such a story driven piece. Every few shots had something intentionally placed in the foreground just to pop out -- deliberately distracting from what the characters were doing! There was apparently a Foreground Distraction Supervisor and Team on the thing expressly putting fakey fake 3D Maya objects in your face. Sometimes good, sometimes not.

Which brings me to Star Trek -- absolutely gorgeous cinematography in a space ballet. Anamorphic worlds pull me into the story better than the artificiality of 3D, which had the opposite effect of distancing when factoring in the glasses, the light loss, the cropped edges and the very deliberate series of popping out images. Star Trek may have had two or three too many lens flares, but God damn that movie looked like a movie. Far too often, Avatar came up short and looked like a video game that was bashing me on the eyeballs with its 3D gimmicks.

I had considered the possibility of shooting 3D, but I'm now leaning toward anamorphic as a hands down preference.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

Joe, you hit upon the central difference of 3D stereography vs. 2D Cinematography. Gimmicky as it seems, 3D stereography limits the DP to mimicking human vision. The artistic palette is a limited one here. I doubt the ASC will have many award winners walk across their stage for shooting 3D movies. Maybe they'll invent a new category. I'm not saying its not professional or even rich territory artistically, but the bottomline in a 3D movie is capturing the technical vision requirements for the audience experience. You can't play with the full feature set of tools historically available to the DP to artfully capture images and express a film's visual language.

2D Cinematography has its own rules and poetics, if you will. In the 2D cinema visual language you're free to shoot the film using the broadest set of techniques and lens options. The DP has virtually unlimited options to serve the story. I think the opportunities to reach new limits of emotional and aesthetic expression are probably greater in the 2D cinematography realm, versus the 3D stereographic one.

Time will certainly tell if there are new frontiers to explore artistically for the 3D DP, but with such physiological limits in force, I doubt there's much room to stretch aesthetically. While I like 3D movies, I'm growing more acutely aware of how limited the visual language really is compared to a 2D film. There's no doubt that 3D is powerful, and its widespread adoption is likely at the cinema, but its increasingly clear that simply taking one POV away does not necessarily give you the best that 2D cinematography has to offer. Shooting 2D and 3D really should be approached in fundamentally different ways, because what works well in one world can be utterly banal in the other.

 

[Samuel Martin]

The great thing is that we have both mediums now on meanstream release and we are given the choice to watch 2D and 3D films. Some people will love 3D and other will loath it. At least we have the choice. 10 years from now the way we watch films on both 2D and 3D will have nothing to do with the way we do it today anyway...

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

"2D or 3D"?

I wish they'd give us a choice between "great script and lame script". You know, something like "enter your IQ for compatible storyline and script." I would think of it this way:

"2D(igit) or 3D(igit)"

Sadly, no one is offering us that choice just yet.

:-(

Stephen

 

[James T Mather]

I agree I thought the 3d was gimmicky and a bit low-rent actually. Making Avatar seem more like a theme park ride than a narrative because I was constantly being reminded of a technique rather than the dramatic situation.

That said the hellish overuse of anamorphic flares in Star Trek pretty much did the same job of pulling me out of the movie so in those terms it's pretty much a level playing field. Not so with everything though.

Commercial concerns aside, it seems that the current vogue with 3d is the adoption of a video game aesthetic (whose immersive function is to place you in that world as the first person in a gee-whiz kind of way) into the medium of narrative film (whose immersive function is to make you relate to the dramatic circumstances of other people) which lends the latter, I thought, a somewhat "disposable / playstation" feel - I didn't get really lost in Avatar once (although pretty much all Camerons other films had me in a tight hypnotic grip) - although did constantly marvel at the depth effect.

Jim Cameron won't care I suppose so long as you've paid your ten dollars to see it. Perhaps I just need time to adapt to the new way of seeing.

Right now though, I can't imagine films like Schindler's List, Come and See, Funny Games, Ordinary People, Irreversible or Kramer vs. Kramer being anything but cheapened by 3d technology - any more than a print by Sebastian Salgado or Robert Capa will have more narrative power because you can see "slightly around things".

This is, of course, all script dependent and IMVHO.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I keep reading all these comments about the 3D aspect of Avatar. And whether people are for it or against it, I can't help but wonder just how many other 3D films most have seen. Having kids, I have seen every 3D movie released in the past 3 or 4 years. By the time I got to see Avatar, there was nothing new to see, as far as the 3D experience itself goes. People keep going on and on about how 3D is not used as a gimmick in Avatar. Yeah, that's true, unless you consider 3D itself to be a gimmick... Or how incredible the 3D experience was, but honestly for me, the 3D wasn't any better than any other recent 3D film I've seen. Still the same technology. Still the same shitty glasses. Still the same "layered" appearance between in-focus and out-of-focus elements in each shot... None of the recent Hollywood 3D releases I have attended in the past couple years, with the exception of the total steaming pile of poop called "G-Force", have used 3D as a gimmick. Have you people not seen UP, Monsters vs. Aliens, Coraline, Hanna Montana, etc.. in 3D???

3D has been coming for a long time and suddenly Avatar is getting all the credit. CES is full of 3D technology this year. Actually there was quite a bit on the floor last year, but no one seemed to care that much. But now it's suddenly of interest because of Avatar. ....Makes me wonder if the 3D buzz would be as big if Avatar had bombed at the box office? But even if it had, all the 3D tech would still be coming, still be on display at CES, etc.. 3D is not happening because of Avatar. Only the sudden surge of popularity in the past month is due to the film. I guess that's all understandable, considering Avatar is reaching an audience that is nearly as large as the combination of all those other films I just mentioned. And the 3D releases of those films account for far less than that. I liked going to the 3D showings because the theaters were typically close to empty, even on opening weekends. Always made me question why the studios bothered with the 3D production.

Forgive my rant... I'm excited over 3D, even though I still feel it's a gimmick no matter how well its used. And always will be until a technology can present a truly immersive experience without the need for shitty glasses, and all the other current shortcomings. I have clients asking about shooting 3D and how best to deliver it. Thanks to Avatar. Many of them have seen the other films I mentioned when I ask them about it in our 3D discussions. But most never were interested in the 3D of those other films and typically did not pay the extra to see it that way. After all, they were probably just taking the kids, so why spend the extra $4/ticket when the kid probably doesn't care, right? So it seems, for many, Avatar is really their first 3D movie experience in the past 10 years or more.

 

[Sarah C.]

Perhaps I just need time to adapt to the new way of seeing.

@JTM .. not saying you should change.. Read an interesting article about the human body and mind's ability to adapt to physical stimuli years ago written ..I think.. through studies at the UCSD Cognitive Studies dept.

Very quick synopsis:
They hung (some of them blindfolded) volunteers upside-down for a week. After a week of experiencing their world upside down, the volunteers could not stand up on their own. In fact had a hard time relating to a "right-side up" world. All of their balance and perception had changed.

Point of me writing this is that the human race may be more adaptable than we want to believe... but is the change necessary?

~s

 

[Chip G]

Enjoy it while it lasts because the next Star Trek will more than likely be 3D.

 

[J. Eric Camp]

Anamorphic versus 3d is like saying you prefer color to 16x9. They are in no way mutually exclusive.

Now I understand your point. It's why I went and saw Avatar in 2d first then went back and saw it in 3d. I got to enjoy the story, then go back and look at the effect.

Jeff, I believe the difference in Avatar versus, Coraline, Monsters Vs Aliens, UP, Toy story, My Bloddy Valentine, Final Destination and so on and so on is....

A matrix of the realism, story immersion , age demographic and the gimmick / subject of effect.

UP, Coraline, MvA etc all are cartoon's. Not saying that there wasn't great story telling but we tend to have a stronger emotional response to things we can convince our selves to perceive even for 5 seconds as "real."

Final Destinaion, My Bloddy etc are aimed at adults and take place with real people but the 3d is used solely and unabashedly as a gimmick. That and the story lacks a sense realism or good story telling. Watch them in 2d as they are worse than they were in 3d, which is a feat.

Avatar is the first modern movie to try to take it's self and it's 3d seriously while aimed solely at the adult demographic, with at least a few real people to hook the audience into "reality," utilizing scope and story telling in a way that allowed for quality 2d viewing let alone the 3d.

I will also point out that the "camera" work in Avatar was much more cinematic than many of the others listed. Even though so much was digital, Cameron took a very cinematic approach. Even going so far as to have the CGI lighting crew discuss with him and real crew people how they would light each scene if it was real. It wasn't just about recreating "reality" but the hyper reality of the film look with what equates to 12x12 silks with 10k's punching through.

 

[Joe G.]

"3D is not happening because of Avatar."

No one is saying it is, ...except you apparently. Did you want to discuss Jaws 3 3-D?

"Avatar is the first modern movie to try to take it's self and it's 3d seriously while aimed solely at the adult demographic, "

My daughter says it's the most amazing movie she's ever seen.

"Anamorphic versus 3d is like saying you prefer color to 16x9."

No, it's not. Try again.

"They are in no way mutually exclusive."

As a release print today a 2D anamorphic is a different animal than a RealD 3D. As there have been no merging of anamorphic AND 3D processes to date (damn, my big brainstorm is being revealed) you are looking at a spherical 3D vs. anamorphic 2D in all likelihood.

Your false analogy "color vs. 16x9" doesn't fit at all though. I also prefer 35mm film to any digital system out there to date, but that's another firecracker.

I believe we need to take into account what we are asking the audience to do. In my experience, the 3D is not worth the hassle.

Perhaps "the audience" disagrees seeing Avatar is now the top box office grossing "film" of all time. However, attributing this to the 3D or even to the visuals, disregarding the story, is a major mistake. Nearly a billion dollars has come from outside the USA, where the story seems to take aim at the US empire and its hubristic mindset. And not so subtly, either.

My original point, however, was given the choice of anamorphic or 3D (or other formats), I'd go with anamorphic in a heartbeat.

 

[J. Eric Camp]

Someone woke up on the combative side of the bed.

I'm glad your daughter enjoyed avatar. Past that, wether or not you took your daughter and she enjoyed the movie has no bearing on who the "target audience" is.

I don't feel that my analogy is "false" at all. Digital vs 35mm is a flat out medium choice and is a definitive line in the sand. Wether or not you agree with me about these semantics of language as it pertains to our analogies is inconsequential. That being said I am not here as an advocate of 3D, just that I don't believe that anamorphic and 3D are separated by an immovable wall as you seem to.

Aside from that wether or not you agree with my assessment of 3d and it's reception is again inconsequential. You are a discerning film man. You will be making an anamorphic, shot on film project regardless of wether or not I think Avatar had the right mix of PR, human connection, drama story and scale to be the 3D film that "launched a thousand meetings about 3D."

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Jeff, I believe the difference in Avatar versus, Coraline, Monsters Vs Aliens, UP, Toy story, My Bloddy Valentine, Final Destination and so on and so on is....

A matrix of the realism, story immersion , age demographic and the gimmick / subject of effect.

I agree with all that... I'm just saying that after seeing all those other films (with the exception of Final Destination), the 3D in Avatar was not this groundbreaking experience that it was hyped up to be. The film as a whole was incredible and looked just how I imagined half a billion $$$ would look. I'm just saying that for those of us who have seen tons of 3D over the past few years, we've been desensitized to that aspect of it.

"3D is not happening because of Avatar."

No one is saying it is, ...except you apparently. Did you want to discuss Jaws 3 3-D?

Wow Joe... Get out much? The whole 3D world, CES show floor, these very forums, and more are all using Avatar as cause to justify the grand 3D crusade. Suddenly now the casual talk of 3D has exploded to "look at Avatar, I'm shooting my next feature in 3D!!!" I have clients calling me up asking about how to "do their next big video project in 3D because they just saw Avatar and, well, uh, damn"... I've seen tons of video clips from CES where Sony, Samsung and Panasonic reps can't speak for more than 30 seconds without dropping the Avatar bomb when discussing any of their 3D display or camera products. Go re-read the "I just saw Avatar" thread here and look at all the 3D naysayers who are now waffling and talking about shooting in 3D, because of Avatar.

No, I'm not saying it. Not sure what you meant by that.... I'm just perplexed by the sudden industry-wide enthusiasm over 3D because of one film.

But whatever...

 

[Darren Orange]

We have been developing 3D projects sense we heard Thomas Jane talk about The Dark Country. Listen to RAW studios pod cast and hear what he has to say. He really sells it in the right way.
http://www.rawstudios.com/podcast/TB_09_Tom_Jane_FINAL.m4a

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

"gimmicky"..."less artistic"...

These impressions are not impressions of the medium itself but of how it was used. Todays 3D movies are basically 2D movies shot in 3D. There will be a lot of divided opinions about immersive storytelling until 3D movie makers start to think in 3D, from the ground up.

"Less artistic" impression is additionally enhanced by infancy of the medium and the lack of experience and knowledge to express creativity through it, because currently it is treated like 2D - from both shooting side and viewing side. Availability of 3D tools will steepen the learning curve and getting used to the medium will reduce the technical fiddling and exploration.

 

[James T Mather]

until 3D movie makers start to think in 3D, from the ground up

Ok - interested to hear some elaboration on this idea....

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

UP, Coraline, MvA etc all are cartoon's. Not saying that there wasn't great story telling but we tend to have a stronger emotional response to things we can convince our selves to perceive even for 5 seconds as "real."

That's total crap (A false assumption), the ability to draw an emotional response has little to do with being "Real" and everything to do with performance and story.
"Cartoons" like Up are powerful films which don't deserve to be simply brushed off as mere "Cartoons" as if you are somehow above them or something.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

These impressions are not impressions of the medium itself but of how it was used. Todays 3D movies are basically 2D movies shot in 3D. There will be a lot of divided opinions about immersive storytelling until 3D movie makers start to think in 3D, from the ground up.

I agree... Kinda. The problem is that even 3D as we can create it today is not really 3D. It's stereoscopic imaging of a 2D surface and still binds us into two dimensions in many ways. However, I think we will see more efforts to create a greater sense of 3D immersion as options for mass consumer 3D delivery (home video) emerge onto the market. It makes no sense right now to invest into a film that must be shown in 3D as there really is no outlet for it once the theatrical run is complete.

That's total crap (A false assumption), the ability to draw an emotional response has little to do with being "Real" and everything to do with performance and story.
"Cartoons" like Up are powerful films which don't deserve to be simply brushed off as mere "Cartoons" as if you are somehow above them or something.

Avatar was a cartoon, yeah I kinda got blasted for saying that in the I saw it thread, but I still maintain. I love cartoons. UP was awesome too.

 

[J. Eric Camp]

Craig, I am glad you feel that way. It is unfortunate that you inferred any form of disparaging remark towards cartoons and their creators from my post. I in fact own quite a few animated movies and am a fan. The first four minutes of UP are quite masterful and Ellie's death was wrenching.

That being said, and this can be different for you, but I will put the mass deaths in "Hotel Rwanda" and "Schindler's List" or William Wallace in "Braveheart" (for example) up against any death from any animated movie for wide scale (mass audience) emotional impact. It hurts (from my observations) more people deeper when they believe even for 5 seconds that the person dying in front of them is real. This effect is amplified if they are told it is "based on a true story." (see Hotel Rwanda, Schindler's List, Braveheart, The Blind Side etc)

I am not attacking animated movies as an art form. I have seen many beautiful animated movies. However performance and story are not everything. Perception is a powerful tool.


All of this being said... we are, as Jeff points out, talking about a "version of an animated movie."

Anyway.. it's all opinion and off topic.

 

[Stuart Hooper]

I'm not sure what it was (obviously can't have been the blu-ray) but there was some kind of Avatar loop on the 1080p screens at Costco today. I had originally though the projected version looked more 'real' than the stuff I saw on my computer screen, but the 2D HD version on a 50 inch screen was the most 'real' looking thing I've ever seen from CG.

Just an observation. I wasn't sold on the Real-D experience either, by any means.

 

[Ryan S]

The last 3D movie I saw before Avatar was Beowulf, and I really didn't like how the 3D aspect was used mainly to make things jump out of the screen rather than push things back. So with that experience in mind, I really liked the fact that Avatar used the 3D aspect for depth. It still seemed a little gimmicky at times with oddly conveniently placed foreground objects, but it was a marked improvement over Beowulf. Overall, I really enjoyed the film. I really didn't like the Imax version, though.

I'm curious to see how the next couple of years go with 3D, especially in the indie film world. With stereoscopic rigs for $1000, I think we're going to see a lot of 3D indie shorts and features. But I have to wonder- would something like The GIrlfriend Experience be improved by shooting 3D? I'm still not sure that Avatar was really "improved" by it- I've yet to see it in 2D, but I'm betting I'll be just as immersed in it.