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Who-the-Hell Is Shooting All This 3D?

AnthonyFlores

AnthonyFlores

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Hey guys,

I'm not looking to debate whether 3D is good or bad (plenty of that here) ... I'm just curious: There seems to be an explosion of 3D filming happening, and I'm a bit perplexed ... who/where is all this 3D production for?

Let me explain ... only a very small % of feature films can even be shown on 3D (usually the blockbusters or big budget animation) -- and partly because many theaters only have a few 3D screens compared to all their 2D offerings. (I'm outside the US now, and there are two 3D screens out of about 12 at the theaters here.)

It's still not happening much (if at all) on the web ... 3D in the home is coming along, but still a very small % ...

So who else is using all this 3D besides big feature films? Also, curious to hear anyone's thoughts on where they see the future of 3D going in terms of TV, broadcast, web, etc ...

Thanks :)

Anthony
 
Well...where I am most of the actual theater rooms are capable of showing 3D. In fact, the closest cinema to me only has 2 of about 12 rooms that are 3D incapable. Which really makes sense, given the lineup of blockbusters for summer 2011. Lots of 3D there.

So who else?

I'm guessing specialist stereographers for uses in attractions/rides/simulations.

Professional enthusiasts to 1) get experience shooting in 3D and a better understanding of stereography and/or 2) display on their own 3D capable system and/or 3) have something about their work which sets it apart.

Consumer enthusiasts who just bought a new 3D TV and who just bought a 3D camcorder and want to make 3D home movies.

--

Where do I want to see it? I really have some pretty mixed emotions about 3D as a whole. It's definitely an interesting possibility, but I don't think it really adds to every production I have seen that used it. I think, to some extent, 3D is being used because it's new (again), it's easy to talk marketing about (Now in 3D!!!), and it adds a hefty markup to admission prices - not because it adds or supports some meaningful creative element of the film.

And I probably won't see many 3D films until the glasses are fixed, the brightness is fixed, and people stop doing conversions that don't look good. That is, if I have the choice...

which is really probably my biggest gripe right now. The theaters near me show pretty much everything in 3D and usually without a 2D option. So if I don't want to pay the extra money and I don't want the possibility of visual annoyance accompanied by a headache I must either drive a pretty decent distance or wait until the movie lands in the dollar theatres...which carry their own set of gripes.

I wouldn't care if everything was shot and displayed in 3D as long as a decent 2D alternative was offered reliably.
 
Not me. I personally don't care for it. It gives me a headache after a while.
 
Michael Olsen said:
Well...where I am most of the actual theater rooms are capable of showing 3D. In fact, the closest cinema to me only has 2 of about 12 rooms that are 3D incapable. Which really makes sense, given the lineup of blockbusters for summer 2011. Lots of 3D there.

So who else?

I'm guessing specialist stereographers for uses in attractions/rides/simulations.

Professional enthusiasts to 1) get experience shooting in 3D and a better understanding of stereography and/or 2) display on their own 3D capable system and/or 3) have something about their work which sets it apart.

Consumer enthusiasts who just bought a new 3D TV and who just bought a 3D camcorder and want to make 3D home movies.

--

Where do I want to see it? I really have some pretty mixed emotions about 3D as a whole. It's definitely an interesting possibility, but I don't think it really adds to every production I have seen that used it. I think, to some extent, 3D is being used because it's new (again), it's easy to talk marketing about (Now in 3D!!!), and it adds a hefty markup to admission prices - not because it adds or supports some meaningful creative element of the film.

And I probably won't see many 3D films until the glasses are fixed, the brightness is fixed, and people stop doing conversions that don't look good. That is, if I have the choice...

which is really probably my biggest gripe right now. The theaters near me show pretty much everything in 3D and usually without a 2D option. So if I don't want to pay the extra money and I don't want the possibility of visual annoyance accompanied by a headache I must either drive a pretty decent distance or wait until the movie lands in the dollar theatres...which carry their own set of gripes.

I wouldn't care if everything was shot and displayed in 3D as long as a decent 2D alternative was offered reliably.
Click to expand...

Thanks ... good point about the theaters -- I didn't think in terms of capability, only in terms of what they're actually showing now -- so I guess it's easy to convert them once there are enough 3D films for them to show.

I've been away from LA for a little while, but it seems to me that most theaters in Southern California only have a few screens showing a 3D film -- rarely more than 25% of the total number of theaters, but as you say that may change this summer when a lot more 3D blockbusters come out.

I also agree with you that it doesn't add to everything, that kinda goes into the whole good/bad debate -- but I could easily see a big market for 3D sports broadcasting to create a heightened sense of "being in the action" ... among other things.
 
Most cities in Europe, US/Can, Aus and parts of Asia should be past the 50% mark now with the digital roll-out. Smaller cities and towns will be slower. All the digital projectors being installed will be 3D capable, it just depends on the macro setting of the asset playing.

A lot of the time films are shown in digital and 35mm such as Black Swan and Kings Speech over in the UK are showing one or the other depending on how well they are doing and the shift to appropriate capacity screens. I hate watching 35mm films I will always choose to watch it in Digital if I can. Having worked with print for so long I am too in tune with shake, focus, aperture plate shadow, base/emulsion scratching, oil, dirt, racking error, light stability, printing errors, audio drop out...none of which you have with digital projectors. If its on, its on.
 
Tim Hole said:
Having worked with print for so long I am too in tune with shake, focus, aperture plate shadow, base/emulsion scratching, oil, dirt, racking error, light stability, printing errors, audio drop out...none of which you have with digital projectors. If its on, its on.
Click to expand...

but those things are benefits!
 
It's always been my theory that this rush of 3D movies is designed by the studios to force exhibitors to ramp up their digital capabilities. There are enormous advantages for distributors in digital projection and the cinemas were dragging their feet. But 3D is finally moving that forward.

Remember I said this (unless I'm wrong, in which case I deny everything), once exhibition is 100% digital, 3D production will tail off as the studios cut the cost of production back to pre-3D levels - with the added cost saving of sending DCPs around the globe instead of expensive, heavy film prints.

And, as Tim says, that's gotta be a good thing. Digital is spot on. IMHO, more advantageous that vinyl to CD.
 
It's going to be a balancing act.....3D is cool. But I love traditional filmmaking and just getting great shots. To be honest I like both...but it really depends on what I'm watching.

If I'm watching the Green Hornet sure, If I'm watching the next Nolan film....no. There is a time to use it and a time to not. Also....I won't be entirely sold until it's glasses free.
 
No glasses free in a large theatre

No glasses free in a large theatre

Albert Frates said:
Also....I won't be entirely sold until it's glasses free.
Click to expand...

There is not going to be any glasses free true stereo 3D in a large theatre because you cannot focus the exit pupil small enough to get good results, at the maximum the exit pupil needs a 95% edge no wider than about 3cm or the display will ghost.

There is no mystery about how to build glasses free displays, I published papers on that subject years ago, if anyone understood what I was saying, there would not be so much confusion on the issue.

Robert Collander (sp?) holds many patents on such theatre size glasses free displays, but the curved stainless steel screen would have too much spherical aberration to resolve the needed exit pupil with the needed lack of ghosting to be useful in a large theatre, and I don't know if he understood that or not, I tried to talk to him about it but it seems we was into NDAs or something and would not let me show him the problem at least that was how I read him. His small model worked because the exit pupils were smaller in ratio to the screen size, but it would not scale up the way I understood what he was going on about.

If you use a screen curved in a parabola you might get a small row of seats to work, but its not economic to have a theatre with maybe 25 seats.

You can make glasses free displays with accommodation depth clue that are about a meter wide if you view them from one to two meters, but that is just for one or at most three people viewing at one time.

To do small exit pupils for a large theatre, the optics would cost more than the film showings could ever recover, for the most part. I do not expect to see anything like that built in my lifetime. Maybe 200 years from now when robots do everything and everything is free no matter how complex, it will be done for small theatres that seat maybe 250 people?

For home use with lenticular screens they try to keep the images the same for the plane of attention so you don't notice the ghosting so much in the foreground and background since it looks like some kind of de-focus that way.

But that is not good 3D, then best 3D is ghost free, so rather than going glasses free, the theatre should have VR glasses and no large screen, that way you see real good ghost free 3D from every seat, without keystone distortion and convergence errors that cause headaches etc.
 
Shane Betts said:
It's always been my theory that this rush of 3D movies is designed by the studios to force exhibitors to ramp up their digital capabilities. There are enormous advantages for distributors in digital projection and the cinemas were dragging their feet. But 3D is finally moving that forward.
Click to expand...

Yes. I would say they mean to incentivize, but its the same result. Now to fix those damn glasses.
 
I did. With alexas. Wanted epic but couldn't get them. This was for a large corporation. With the help of a super talented stereographer and dp.
 
The only significant 3d I've shot was for a large energy firm, and we shot Sony for practical reasons... most of the final image was animation. I wound up setting up my stereoscopy on-set with goggles rather than a screen. This was a while ago though, just before the recent major 3d resurgence.
 
We're in the midst of closing a deal that has more than $1 Million in presales and it was predicated on specifically delivering 3D. So the market is out there and it's real.

A number of European countries are very hungry for 3D content, and it's expected more than 10 new BDUs in North America will be online with 3D content before the end of the year...and apparently there is the opportunity to see 3D in Canada on Bell -it's way up there on their channels, but it does broadcast some...

And Discovery 3D is launching this year in the US...people are already delivering.
 
It looks like I'll be shooting some 3D shows for a US network in May. Lifestyle shows set in England. It seems to be trickling down to the little guys like me, somehow :S

I would say that a lot of content is being built up for future proofing...
 
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