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Do You Have a Secret Immunity To 3D Movies?
An anonymous reader writes "Not everyone who fails to be wowed by the latest Hollywood wave of 3D movies is necessarily criticizing the movie or the 'gimmick.' The author states: 'At least 12% of people have some type of problem with their binocular vision but less than five percent have severe visual disabilities, making appreciation of 3D tricky or impossible... For the 12%, two-eyed vision can be improved with supervised vision therapy. If anyone else out there, like I did, suspects 3D is a giant con, then perhaps a trip to the optometrist is due.'"
Hmmm-- it wouldn't be hard to get pairs of special "2-D" glasses that let you watch 3-D films in 2-D... just make glasses with the polarization on both eyes the same.
Then you could calmly watch your 2-D movie with your friends who watch the 3-D movie.
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I can *see* the 3-D but it does not "immerse" me any more than 2-D. It doesn't *wow* me either, and it seems 3-D is just a whiz-bang gizmo to sell pricier tickets. IMHO, of course.
I was having problems with my eyes... so I went to an optimist. He said everything was going to be okay.
Is it an eye problem? Perhaps. I have a slight astigmatism and wear glasses when I'm reading a book or looking at a computer monitor, but otherwise don't need them.
The article reads like someone who doesn't "get" 3D is brain damaged. Maybe that's true, but for me, I've enjoyed it since movies, TV, and games all look like "real life" to me. That is, my 3D vision is poor, so 2D looks just as good as 3D to me.
I consider it an enhancement - I can watch a 2D movie, which to me looks as good as the 3D version, but I don't have to pay an extra $2 and I don't have to wear the stupid glasses.
Also, Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans were shot in 2D and then post processed to give them the illusion of being in 3d...and the effect is shit.
-Xoltri
I believe the push for 3d movies is primarily because the major studios have realized how little really original good new product they have to offer.
For TV manufacturers it's because whereas the jump from standard def to high def was a distinct quality improvement to the point that people did it, they now realize these people have no reason to do the "every few years upgrade" cycle that their bottom lines desperately want. So they have to come up with a new "innovation" to get people to buy new TV sets.
Of course.. I could be crazy.
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The main reason they are pushing 3D so hard is it makes it harder pirating the movies. The fact that we have to pay an extra 25% to see them just adds insult to injury.
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Well, there's some talk to Alice in Wonderland in the article. Alice in Wonderland is NOT in 3d. It's in semi-3d. So it leaves the experience somewhat lacking. How to Tame your Dragon. That's actually in 3d. Avatar, that's actually in 3d. Alice is the 'colorized' move of 3d.
Here's an example: I went to see Avatar in 3D. There was a trailer for Alice in Wonderland just before the movie started. My eyes went buggo (real medical term) and I had a hard time focusing and concentrating on the trailer. IMHO, the 3D was hyper-exaggerated for 3D sake rather than being unobtrusive. Avatar by contrast was flawless. The 3D was just under the surface if you will. IMHO doing 3D just because its trendy is the wrong reason to do it and the execution usually sucks. The only other "event" in 3D that I found unobtrusive was the Jetsons show at Universal Studios Orlando. Everything else gives me a headache.
Here is a simple test to dertermine which group you fall into:
1. Hold both your arms in front of you with your hands about a foot (0.3 meters) apart.
2. Make fists with your hands.
3. Extend the index fingers of both hands towards each other.
4. Bring your index fingers close together and attempt to touch their tips precisely together.
If you can do it, you can enjoy 3D movies.
If you cannot, go to a vision therapist.
You can also try the above test with one eye closed. You will almost always fail at step 4.
I'm one of those people with difficulties with binocular vision. I normal vision is entirely 2D...no depth perception at all. Apparently I"ve never had it, and until I watched a 3D movie (at the age of 39) I never knew I was missing anything. Needless to say when I first experienced depth perception I just about fell out of my chair. While I haven't investigated trying to correct the vision problem, I certainly am a huge fan of 3D movies. On the plus side, from my perspective normal movies are just as good as real life.
If anyone else out there, like I did, suspects 3D is a giant con then perhaps a trip to the optometrist is due'"
Or perhaps it really is a giant con. 3D *is* a gimmick promoted by an industry which has run out of ideas, and will die a death like 'stereovision' before it. I can see the 3D effects, and have no interest in it.
Just as Jaws had a 3D version almost 30 years ago, there will be the occasional film which uses 3D now and then, but to imply that all films must use 3D from now or that people need 'vision therapy' to watch crappy 3D movies is preposterous, particularly since the best recent example of its use are films like Avatar and Clash of Titans which are not worth watching the first place. It's not like colour or sound which make film more engaging and bring it closer to real life, it's a silly add-on which distracts rather than helps to immerse. Let me know when they actually have holographic projection and I'll be interested in a real advancement in the technology.
Go watch something like Memento, Le notti di Cabiria, Psycho, Les Enfants du Paradis, Hotel Rwanda, The Lives Of Others, Read my lips, Downfall, Ghandi, Oliver or Mississippi Burning and compare it to one of these blockbusters in 3D. There really is no comparison to the trite crap like Avatar which gets churned out by mainstream studios.
Back in the 90s (probably before most /. readers were born), there were these Magic Eye pictures which you had to stare at just right to see the 3d picture out of the seemingly random dots. Quite a few people couldn't see those either.
Back in the 80s I found out that I can't see stereograms. I though that there was something wrong with my stero vision. I can, however, see the new 3D movies just fine, so now I don't know.
Some people can see 3D just fine with contacts but with eyeglasses only their central vision gets good 3D.
I have good depth perception when I look at something straight-on but I find 3D distracting when wearing glasses especially when I'm not looking straight at it.
The cheesy red-and-blue 3D is even worse with my particular pair of glasses. Chromatic abberation is NOT your friend.
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I'm short sighted, and have a dominant left eye on account of it being substantially less short sighted than the right. Red/green 3d glasses work fine for me (afaik), but magic eye is a complete failure.
Watching Avatar was an interesting experience. When substantial 3d depth into the screen was used (such as the scene on the spaceship at the start with them all coming out of the stasis pods or whatever), the effect was very impressive.
Out-of-the-screen effects, however required headache-inducing concentration to see any depth at all, and even then they largely looked quite poor. When everyone else was busy ducking out of the way, I was wondering why things were only projecting ever-so-slightly from the screen.
Overall, I was disappointed at how infrequently the into-screen effects were used compared to out-of-screen ones (or maybe I was only able to see the depth when it was at its most extreme).
Ocular upgrade, plz!
Yes, these exist.
I'm sure they have been in the US for years, but as I live in a small town in the US the only place I've ever seen these is in China. They are 3D (usually "in your face" type of 3D) with additional effects such as air jets, water sprays, and one even had a little rubber hose activated by air to simulate a snake under your chair. The most creative one also had several devices in the seats themselves to simulate being hit or touched by various things. It was rather strange, and it really freaked out my colleagues. My kids (two of whom were with me in Guangzhou on the trip) really enjoyed it.
For those of you who are saying 3D is a gimmick, you should try these so-called 4D movies.
Do they have special glasses that improve overall story and character development? I tried beer goggles, but I end up forgetting most of the movie.
I would love to be able to watch 3D movies, but the parts I want to look at (background action) are always blurred and I walk out of the theater with a head-banger of a migraine. My wife is the same way, except she claims that she does not watch the background like I do. An example of interesting background action would be "Natural Born Killers", not anywhere near a great movie, but the background scenes tell the rest of the story as the foreground limps along.
When 3D is as focused as 2D, then maybe I'll try again.
Avatar in 3D was much better for me than 2D.
I think the reason was they artificially made parts of many scenes in Avatar 2D (and 3D) out of focus. Even some mostly static scenes.
It's not pleasant trying to focus on something that just stays out of focus - ever tried reading those "out-of-focus" texts? That's how Avatar 2D felt like in some scenes. I kept getting the "can't focus properly" feeling in my eyes.
At least with Avatar 3D, I had better idea of what areas in the scene the director wanted me to focus on.
Didn't help for the motion blurred scenes though. I don't like motion blurring. It sucks. In real life if I'm looking at a moving object, it's sharp, the rest of the scenery might go blurry, but it doesn't matter - I'm looking at the moving object. Then if I look at the rest of the scenery it's sharp, the moving objects go blurry.
Make the moving objects blurry, and they'll remain blurry when I try to track them and so I get that "can't focus" feeling which I dislike. Yes I know movies are 24fps. No I don't care that real world recordings of moving objects in 24 fps get "naturally blurred".
Fact is 24 fps sucks. It's way too low a frame rate. Back in the old days 24fps was excusable (it was a technological feat even - keep the film moving so it doesn't burn up, and have each frame pause momentarily before the next frame is moved in, etc).
Nowadays 24 fps is disappointing.
I like going to regular 2D movies and whipping out my 3D glasses and ooohing and aaaahing at the "effect".
This guy's the limit!
> 3D movies take great conscious effort...
Watching them might be useful exercise for you.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I can do this most of the time with both eyes closed. I guess I have x-ray vision?
What's been made so far, as far as I know, is wholly depended on parallax (beyond what's already being captured normally in many films). Parallax is a weaker indicator of 3D for most people that other cues. Just because POV means they can get away with only showing 24 frames or so of distinct information per second doesn't mean that we can't use much more. Come on, people, double or quadruple the frame rate. Vary the depth of field more often. And remember, the only real way to make 3D images without the objects is to recreate the images in 3 dimensions using holography.
Come on, people, double or quadruple the frame rate.
There's a small problem with that. While yes, you could (and I think they should) use a technique like frame doubling (via an X:X pulldown, for example) to increase the actual frame rate output by a projector, when the actual content is being displayed at a frame rate of 24, 30, 60, etc., fps, your eyes can tell the difference.
If a movie were to be filmed and then subsequently projected at 30 or 60 fps, for example, when you watched it, you'd come back with the feeling that it's "fake" or "poorly done." This isn't actually because that's the case, but rather because, as you've become accustomed to watching certain things at 24 fps such as movies and TV shows, and other things at 30 fps such as sports or the news, your brain makes the association that 24 fps content is "film" and 30 fps content is "live." The mystique behind film itself as an art relies on combining so many different factors together to create what you eventually see at the theater or on your home television, and even something as subtle as raising the frame rate by 25% can literally be enough to ruin your ability to enjoy a film.
I wish I had a comparison video to show you, but I've never seen one and am too lazy to look one up for the purpose of this post, but the effect that frame rate has on perception of content really is amazing and definitely not worth dismissing.
The best example I can think of might be the first Spidey/Goblin fight scene from Spider Man 3. While the movie was horrible, that fight and its camera movement were so fast that the frame rate of the recording couldn't keep a fluid image on the screen when I saw it. To increase the frame rate of the entire movie would have ruined it almost as much as Raimi's writing, and doing so for one scene simply isn't feasible.
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Now that you have a group of "friends" to study, perhaps you should check the correlation of those who experienced more depth with those who play more sports. Basketball, Football, Golf, and others heavily rely on binocular vision for success, whereas sitting behind a 2-D computer screen at work all day requires none. Perhaps your binocular vision is atrophic from years and years of 2-D stimulation and theirs is hypersensitive because they've been trying to throw a ball into a hoop at varying distances an hour before the movie started. Or perhaps they prefer sports more than you do because they have greater binocular vision than you do... or maybe there is no correlation at all!
Then, to test for a potential cause/effect, grab a class of students. Have half of them shoot hoops, and half play a computer game or draw, and then have them all watch a 3D movie, and rate the experience (based on scenes), and see if even a small exercise before the movie can prime the binocular controller in your brain.
The possibilities, the possibilities!
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Squirt Guns, Tossing of Rice, Actors on Stage...
this was done back in the 70s... It didn't require Disney or China to "invent" this so called viewer participation.
Or perhaps it really is a giant con. 3D *is* a gimmick
It's a gimmick, but it's not a con. I went to Avatar knowing full well that I was in for 3 hours of visual spectacle. I could not have cared less about how good the plot was, or if there was a plot at all. It was a 3 hour light show and it was great.
Go watch something like Memento, Le notti di Cabiria, Psycho, Les Enfants du Paradis, Hotel Rwanda, The Lives Of Others, Read my lips, Downfall, Ghandi, Oliver or Mississippi Burning and compare it to one of these blockbusters in 3D.
You can rent (or download) any of these for a couple bucks, and you miss out on nothing. If I paid full price for any of these, I'd feel ripped off. (I'd probably fall asleep in the theater too) Avatar on the other hand, if I spent $2 to see it on my TV at home I'd feel ripped off. $15 to see it in IMAX 3d, it's worth every penny. Fancy screens and kilowatt audio systems are the only draw theaters have anymore. They are wise to capitalize on that.
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Watch that next action thriller with a critical eye. The good guy never takes cover, standing in plain sight of everyone with a weapon, and no one can hit him. The bad guys actually make good use of cover, but the bad guy picks them off by the dozen, using two machine guns ambidextrously. Ass hat stupid, I say.
Perseus was born inside a bronze prison, cast into the sea (inside a wooden chest) and subsequently raised by a fisherman. To answer a challenge from his mother's suitor, he vowed to return with the head of the only mortal Gorgon. He outsmarted three oracles and received magical gifts to use on his quest. He somehow managed to sneak up on the lair of the Gorgons and chop off Medusa's head without looking at it while he did it, and without challenge from the other (non-mortal) Gorgons living there. Where did he get the training necessary to resist looking at Medusa? How did he know how to sever her head? Did the fisherman teach him those skills?
Samson once defeated an entire army with nothing but a jawbone from a donkey. It boggles the mind how one person would even be able to do this with modern weaponry, let alone an improvised piece of bone.
Bilbo went from being a hobbit with zero adventuring skill to a renown hero, with absolutely no reason for his survival, let alone success. By all logical accounts, Gandalf sent him to his doom, but he winds up saving the day several times over.
Ass hat stupid, I say.
Are you beginning to see the problem here? It isn't exactly the movies, but suspension of disbelief in general, that seems to be eluding you.
The deaf didn't have that attitude when movies progressed beyond silent films, did they?
Possibly no one told them ?
Avatar was designed to be 3D from the start whereas Alice wasn't.
For some, this may be incredibly important.
Current technology is not true 3D - the actual distance of where your eyes are looking hasn't changed. All the current technology does is present a different 2D perspective to each eye.
So actually, it is your mind that is creating the 3D effect by extrapolating from those cues and ignoring others (focal distance, lack of physical movement, lack of tactile & smell cues).
Now some people's brains create a more immersive 3D effect than others'. Early cinema goers ducked to avoid oncoming trains. Remote tribes first encountering TV often have similar experiences.
All of us learn to distinguish between TV & reality (probably before our memory works around age 4) and use different brain modes for interpreting each. Books too.
Now, I'm the kind of person who likes to sit in the front row in the cinema and pretend I'm at an IMAX. So when it came to Avatar, knowing that it was my mind making the 3D effect, I hypnotised myself to make it as immersive as possible (yes, I'm a hypnotherapist)
So in the opening scene where you fly over the forest, my jaw dropped and I remember exclaiming “holy shit” out loud. Because I actually felt like I was there.
The concept of having an alternative Avatar reality is the perfect metaphor for coping with this. I felt it was more that my 'Avatar' that was a bit faulty rather than any flaws with my sensory interpretation.
However, I ran into problems about 20 mins in.
For 50 years or more, 2D filmmakers have been panning and cutting shots because they knew that their audience wasn't treating the camera as their own physical perspective. But if you're fully immersed with a 3D experience, it makes you feel like you're moving & teleporting every few seconds.
Avatar was designed to be 3D from scratch and does this much less. Still, after 20 mins I had major motion sickness. Alice in Wonderland was designed to be 2D, does a ton of cutting and panning, and would have been unwatchable for me in 3D.
In the future, I think many scenes will have to be shot twice, or perhaps with multiple, moving 2D cameras and a static 3D camera for the same shot.