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The Movie Studios' Big 3D Scam
An anonymous reader writes "There's a lot of things wrong with 3D movies. Avatar's 3D was well executed, but Alice's 3D was really bad, like all 2D-to-3D conversions. And yet, studios are reconverting 2D movies—including classics—into 3D to milk this fad. On top of that, the theaters are not prepared for 3D, with bad eyeglass optics and dark projections. In this article, a top CG supervisor in a prominent visual effects studio in Los Angeles calls it as it is: it's all a big scam by the movie studios."
I've seen Avatar twice (both times were because someone else wanted me to accompany them when they went to see it). Once in a regular theatre, and the second time in an Imax theatre.
I got headaches only with the Imax version because of the linear polarization which meant if my head was tilted even slightly to the side, there would be ghosting. The cheapo cinema used circular polarization, which was more comfortable and caused me no eye strain at all. Perhaps something similar happened to you?
Why does my post history abruptly stop? I want to laugh at the stupid things I posted as a kid.
3D works for computer graphic animation, given twice the rendering capacity you would otherwise have. It's pretty simple to move the "camera" point and render again. There will be some tuning of textures, etc., to look right when viewed simultaneously from two camera points. So, given sufficient computer capacity you can get a 3D movie without significant additional labor, and it's the labor that is really expensive.
3D works for new live action, given proper cinematography.
Conversion of existing 2D film to 3D is garbage, and should rightly be called a scam. Remember colorization? It was mostly done because the tax write-offs on "new" film were more lucrative to the film company than on legacy film. It wasn't that the audience experience would be enhanced by fake color. When the tax law changed, colorization mostly went away.
It's not an experience you can't have in your home. Samsung has a "3D ready" 55 inch TV on the market now, for $2300. The price will fall quickly enough.
Bruce Perens.