Thursday, December 17, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (70) Released 3D Movies (165) Year Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2010 Alice in Wonderland Play 2009 Avatar Play 2010 How to Train Your Dragon Play 2009 The Dark Country Play

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (80) Released 3D Movies (163) Year Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 Planet 51 Play 2009 A Christmas Carol Play 2009 Avatar Play 2009 Night of the Living Dead Play

Friday, October 16, 2009

3-D Film formats beyond Real-D, Dolby3D and Xpand 3-D

Side by Side Film
Digital 3-D projection is fantastic and the way forward for a prosperous future of 3-D, but despite all the huffing and puffing of the Avatar PR machine, 3-D film consumption at home is still 99.9% an anaglyph business. In recent weeks, anaglyph family member ColorCode 3D has been the main format chosen for 3-D TV broadcast in the US and the UK. While we are all familiar with the pro's and con's of the amber-blue di-chromatic system, it can still not be called much more than a clever rehash of the original stereoscopic format: anaglyph. But then, when it comes to 3-D, there has historically so far always been a constant re-invention of the wheel with few meaningful exceptions.

What can strike many as odd is that patents are granted time and again for 3-D display systems that do nothing new compared to long time existing systems. Sure, it is good for business when technologies are protected, but to lock away existing formats that have been with us for 150 years behind lawsuits and license fees may prove to be a crippling blow to an already fickle, unstable industry. What we need to do now is open up the knowledge and share the technology, or a 3-D industry will yet again not be able to establish itself properly and return to the small club of elites in the 3-D know.

Throughout the years, in 3-D feature film production, the 5 stereo encoding systems of Twin Strip, Side-by-side, Over-under, Lenticular and Anaglyph have been used and patented under many different names. 102 to be precise. Hosting the 3-D Filmography at the3drevolution.com, I have been able to compile the following 3-D feature film format names list for your reading pleasure. I personally love the crazy, wild names and I would hate to see the tradition of the invention of a 'new' zany 3-D process with every film release disappear. But, like with the non-use of negative parallax by 3-D film makers these days, the trend is getting more and more disappointingly dull: the '3-D' is mentioned as much as possible in advertising but just as that: 3-D. Or maybe 'Digital 3-D' (and, of course, Real-D and IMAX 3D), but no longer 'SpaceTerrorScopeVision 3-D'. Does it really remind people of bad 3-D experiences of the 1950's? I seriously doubt it. It is not like throwing a pick-axe at the camera in Real-D 3-D is any different as a film-going experience than seeing it hit the negative parallax barrier in StereoVision. I think the trend has more to do with the 'if it's digital, it's got to be good' attitude, regardless of the fact that two digital cameras will still need to be strapped together on a real world slide bar. And if you ask me, the act of aligning the cameras can and should still be called 'StereoCineScope-a-Rama' whenever possible, even when it doesn't sound very digital.

On to the list then. Some of the names refer to the technique in which the film was shot shot, some to the format it was printed in. Because, to give just one example, you can shoot over-under as well as printing in the format.


Glorious 3-D in Twin strip (dual source) format has been known under the name of:

3-D Video, 3Vision, Ciné Stéréo Télévision, Clear-Vision, Columbia 3-D, Depth Dimension, Dimension 3, Disney 3-D, Dual-Techniscope, Dual-VistaVision, Dynoptic 3-D, Fairall Process, Freddy Vision, Friese-Greene Stereoscopic Process, Fusion 3-D (Reality Camera System), Future Dimension, Hi-Vision 3-D, IMAX 3-D, Iwerks 3-D, Kwong-Tzan 3-D, Lipton Three-Dimensional Filmmaking System, Loucks & Norling 3-Dimension, Maurer 3-D, Metroscopix, Metrovision Tri-Dee, Miller Stereoscopic Process, Monogram 3-D, Natural Vision, Natural Vision 3-Dimension, NFBC 3-D, Norling-Leventhal 3-Dimensions, nWave 3-D, Paravision, Parkes 3-D, Parrish 3-D, Pathé 3-D, Plasticon 3-D, Plastigram 3-D, Pola-Lux 3-D, Porter-Waddell Stereoscopic Process, PSC 3-D, Ramsdell 3-D, Richardson 3-D, Sensorama, Showscan 3-D, Spacemaster 3-D, Stereo Base and Stereo-Cine.


Side by Side straight, rotated, anamorphic or in any other combination can also be called:

3D30, Bolex Stereo, Dudley 3-D, Elgeet Stereo, LazerVision, Nord 3-D, Optovision, Pola-Lite, Powell 3-D, Quadravision 4-D, Raumfilm-System, Shochiku Natural Vision, Sistema Gaultiero Gaulterotti, Stereokino, Stéréoscopic Lumière, Stereo 70, Stereovision 70 (Hi Fi Stereo 70, Triarama, Super Cinema 3-D), Tri-Delta Stereo, Western 3-D, Wolff 3-D and Wondavision (Deep Throw 3-D).


Over Under (above/below) has been recording and projecting 3-D film under the name of:

3-Depix, 3-Dynavision, ArriVision, Cinedepth, Cubic 3-D, ESI-3D, Fuji Vision, Future Dimensions, Hi Stereo Vision, Impact 3-D, McNabb 3-D, Optimax III (Dimensionscope), Plasztikus Film, Spacevision, StereoVision (Future Dimensions), StereoVision TenPerf 70, Super Touch 3-D (Real-a-Rama, Super 3D, Ultra-Cubic 3-D) and Z3D.



Checkerboard, lenticular and raster encoding is more something of a post production format, but one 3-D system manages to already shoot in it:

Cyclostéréoscope.



Anaglyph (di-chromatic), the grand daddy of them all, is also known by the name of:

3-Dimensions, 3D Plus, ColorCode 3-D, Cosmovision, DeepVision, HorrorScope (MiracleVision), Natural Vision 3, Smart Anaglyphic Fatigue Eliminator, Triangle 3-D, Trioscope and Trioviz.


And that's it. If your very own invented (or favourite) stereo format is in this list, but put in the wrong category, or does not feature in the list yet, please do contact me so that the misplacement can be rectified. The list aims to be correct and precise as possible - a challenge in these hairy days of Wild West 3-D reinvention and land grabbing!

Contact Alexander Lentjes by e-mail.
The 3-D Filmography can be found at: www.the3drevolution.com/3dlist.html

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (79) Released 3D Movies (161) Year Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 Horrorween 3D Play 2009 Night of the Living Dead Play 2009 A Christmas Carol Play 2009 Toy Story 1&2 Play
Upcoming 3D Movies (79) Released 3D Movies (161) Year Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 Horrorween 3D Play 2009 Night of the Living Dead Play 2009 A Christmas Carol Play 2009 Toy Story 1&2 Play
Upcoming 3D Movies (79) Released 3D Movies (161) Year Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 Horrorween 3D Play 2009 Night of the Living Dead Play 2009 A Christmas Carol Play 2009 Toy Story 1&2 Play
Upcoming 3D Movies (79) Released 3D Movies (161) Year Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 Horrorween 3D Play 2009 Night of the Living Dead Play 2009 A Christmas Carol Play 2009 Toy Story 1&2
Upcoming 3D Movies (79) Released 3D Movies (161) Year Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 Horrorween 3D Play 2009 Night of the Living Dead Play 2009 A Christmas Carol Play 2009 Toy Story 1&2

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (77) Released 3D Movies (160) Year Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 Night of the Living Dead Play 2009 Toy Story 1&2 Play 2009 Horrorween 3D Play 2009 Cloudy With A Chance Of

Thursday, September 3, 2009

  Upcoming 3D Movies (76)   Released 3D Movies (158) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 18-Sep-09 Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs Play 2009 Final Destination 4 Play 2009 2-Oct-09 Toy Story

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

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.

Avatar 3-D posterAll 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 doesn't sound like a broad audience movie. By all accounts Avatar should have been 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? They have spoken in their billions and have said and unequivocal 'Yes'. Sci-fi is mainstream again in 2010, especially when it's in 3-D.

It would appear that the largest part of the cinema-going and movie-buying audience does not need to be convinced that wearing 3-D glasses is not stupid, annoying or even uncomfortable any more. At least not in the cinema. Dissing anaglyph glasses is still not the way forward though, 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 with the prospect wearing them over their TV dinner.


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.

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.


Blue Aliens are all the rage!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (75)   Released 3D Movies (158) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 18-Sep-09 Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs Play 2009 Final Destination 4 Play 2009 2-Oct-09 Toy Story Play

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (77)   Released 3D Movies (156) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 21-Aug-09 Final Destination 4 Play 2009 G-Force Play 2009 21-Aug-09 X Games 3D: The Movie Play 2009

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (75)   Released 3D Movies (156) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 21-Aug-09 Final Destination 4 Play 2009 G-Force Play 2009 21-Aug-09 X Games 3D: The Movie Play 2009

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (75)   Released 3D Movies (156) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 21-Aug-09 Final Destination 4 Play 2009 G-Force Play 2009 18-Sep-09 Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs Play

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (73)   Released 3D Movies (155) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 24-Jul-09 G-Force Play 2009 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Play 2009 21-Aug-09 Final Destination 4 Play

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (74)   Released 3D Movies (154) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 1-Jul-09 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Play 2009 UP Play 2009 24-Jul-09 G-Force Play 2009 Battle

Friday, May 29, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (73)   Released 3D Movies (154) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 1-Jul-09 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Play 2009 UP Play 2009 24-Jul-09 G-Force Play 2009 Battle

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (69)   Released 3D Movies (153) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer 2009 29-May-09 UP Play 2009 Battle for Terra 3D Play 2009 1-Jul-09 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Play 2009

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (69)   Released 3D Movies (152) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer DVD/BR Poster 2009 1-May-09 Battle for Terra 3D Play 2009 Monsters vs. Aliens Play     2009 29-May-09

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

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

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Saturday, April 4, 2009

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


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Sunday, March 22, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (68)   Released 3D Movies (151) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer DVD/BR Poster 2009 27-Mar-09 Monsters vs. Aliens Play 2009 The Jonas Brothers 3D Play     2009 29-May-

Monday, March 16, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (68)   Released 3D Movies (151) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer DVD/BR Poster 2009 27-Mar-09 Monsters vs. Aliens Play 2009 The Jonas Brothers 3D Play     2009 29-May-

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (67)   Released 3D Movies (151) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer DVD/BR Poster 2009 27-Mar-09 Monsters vs. Aliens Play 2009 The Jonas Brothers 3D Play     2009 29-May-09

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Upcoming 3D Movies (66)   Released 3D Movies (149) Year Date Title Trailer Year Title Trailer DVD/BR Poster 2009 27-Feb-09 The Jonas Brothers 3D Play 2009 Coraline Play     2009 27-Mar-09

Monday, February 2, 2009

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)

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