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Filmmakers Resisting Hollywood's 3-D Push
gollum123 passes along a piece from the NY Times on the building resistance to Hollywood's 3-D plans — from filmmakers. "A joke making the rounds online involves a pair of red and green glasses and some blurry letters that say, 'If you can’t make it good, make it 3-D.' While Hollywood rushes dozens of 3-D movies to the screen — nearly 60 are planned in the next two years, including 'Saw VII' and 'Mars Needs Moms!' — a rebellion among some filmmakers and viewers has been complicating the industry’s jump into the third dimension. Several influential directors took surprisingly public potshots at the 3-D boom during the recent Comic-Con... Behind the scenes..., filmmakers have begun to resist production executives eager for 3-D sales. For reasons both aesthetic and practical, some directors often do not want to convert a film to 3-D or go to the trouble and expense of shooting with 3-D cameras, which are still relatively untested on big movies with complex stunts and locations. Tickets for 3-D films carry a $3 to $5 premium, and industry executives roughly estimate that 3-D pictures average an extra 20 percent at the box office. Filmmakers like Mr. Whedon and Mr. Abrams argue that 3-D technology does little to enhance a cinematic story, while adding a lot of bother."
Just ask Jar-Jar Binks.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Well, at least someone is making a stand. I really don't understand the push to 3-D. Yes, it's "new" and "exciting" for 7-year olds, but, in my opinion it doesn't add any real value for the rest of us movie-goers. It's just a way to increase ticket prices.
over a granny filmed in HD 3D.
Tomorrow is another day...
That some directors retain artistic integrity and don't kowtow to the whims of movie executives.
I would like to cry out to would-be 3D obsessed directors: don't ever ever ever post-render another film in 3D when it was initially conceived in 2D.
My eyes - the goggles - zey do nuhsing!
Upcoming biopic of Justin Bieber also in 3D.
I really haven't seen anything compelling with 3D. Most tend to only have certain parts that really "show off" the effect but mostly it just distracts from the film. The push to 3D is an attempt to rekindle interest in cinema but people are still going to the theaters. I had a couple of friends who saw a 3D film only because they wanted to see the movie at that time when only it was showing. By and large, it doesn't seem like anyone really wants 3D.
Old people resist change, news at 11.
There is no reason why 3-D can't be a good thing. Arguing it's bad because some people have made bad movies with it is stupid. I loom forward to a young generation of filmmakers to be tinker with this technology.
And no, not every movie should be made 3-d. In fact I would argue if it wasn't shot in 3-d with the idea of it being shot in 3-D , then it should not be added later. All the will do is make people dislike it and kill it.
The current technique for 3-d are awesome.
The Matrix filmed with current 3-d technologies would have had people wetting in their seats.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Whedon is my master, any who wish to force 3d on him shall perish. Or something.
Besides, it doesn't add anything to the story or my enjoyment of the film, so why should I bother with it? And if people dont want it forcing it on them will piss people off, or worse. And even if I want to watch the movie, do not want to watch it in *3d*.
If the story doesn't need 3D to be effective, why force people to pay the extra money?
Glad someone is still sane in Hollywood. 3D is nothing more than a weak attempt to squeeze more money out of a market that has no where to go past 1080p, unless they can figure out a way to make a 2160p display for cheaper than Red is making them.
"Tickets for 3-D films carry a $3 to $5 premium, and industry executives roughly estimate that 3-D pictures average an extra 20 percent at the box office."
So adding an extra 30-50% to the unit price results in a 20% increase in revenues, or an 8-20% drop in unit sales.
Why would a director complain about that?
I loved Avatar in IMAX 3D, and the 3D definitely looked cool, at least in the exterior CG shots.
But I don't know that I believe 3D is really capable of adding emotion to a film presentation, and if you can't heighten the emotion somehow, then how are you going to say the experience is $3 better?
I think maybe it's something like this: If you don't provide explicit 3D information to the brain, it seems to be quite happy to generate that information itself based on the visual cues it gets from analyzing the scene. The end result is that a short time later you'll have the same memory of the scene whether it was presented in 3D or not.
Anyhow, I'm almost certain there are some basic biological limits like this on how much you can get out of 3D in the theater, since we just haven't evolved to care about stereo-derived depth as important information. We care a lot about spatial positioning and relationships, but we have lots of ways of computing that information and stereo isn't that important for the sorts of scenes presented in a movie.
I saw Toy Story 3 the other day in RealD 3D and honestly for most of the movie I really didn't notice the 3D effect unless I actually looked for it. My mind seemed to prefer its own analysis of the images over that provided by the 3D.
So unless Jim Cameron can keep cranking out 3D epics fast enough, I think the rest of the industry is going to have a hard time keeping 3D afloat.
I think 3D capability (with glasses) will be with us forever on TV and computer displays (since it costs virtually nothing to add to a modern TV) and you'll see it used for sports and some special programming, and definitely it adds a lot to video games potentially (or any kind of interactive environment).
But for your average movie, not so much.
G.
...it adds quite a bit. The scene in 'How to Train Your Dragon' where the soot is blowing in the air and the viking appears was amazing. I also thought the massive fight against the Kraken in 'Clash of the Titans' was absolutely incredible.
And I have to wear glasses normally.
It was still worth it!
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
My favorite movie was shot in black and white. It has great acting from a great script with great directing and great cinematography. All of those trump special effects, even that last new thing, color. Good movies don't need gimmicks.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Just imagine if way back when, people were saying
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I'm going to start off with the full disclosure. I am currently editor of a 3D film, and have previously worked on both motion capture and stereoscopic live-action 3D films. Also, I firmly believe post-conversion is terrible and is the number one thing the industry is doing to harm the advancement of 3D. Both live action 3D films I've been involved with have been shot completely stereoscopically in true 3D.
I don't believe that directors are particularly wise to resist the move to 3D. There are a lot of benefits to shooting in 3D and to embrace the technology will allow filmmakers to be at the forefront and to dictate the advancements in the technologies - rather than having the producers dictate the advancement of the technology.
It's just like the move from black & white to colour, from mono to stereo to surround, etc. 3D is going to consume a large portion of the market share in the coming years. Also, working with 3D isn't really that much trouble. You have to be smarter with your metadata and think a bit more about what you're doing ahead of time, but that holds true with any profession as technology becomes more complicated and more capable.
People will expect more out of your product. Most people now expect cars to have airbags, ABS, air conditioning, and power locks and windows. As technology advances, people will expect new filmmaking technologies like 3D to come "standard". Will it increase the cost of films? Sure. Will ticket prices rise? Definitely. Do cars cost more now than they did 15 years ago? Absolutely. Has the experience of driving improved? I would argue that it has.
Please, no 3D p0rn, the mere thought of a guy in an an aroused state pointing his thing at the 3D camera.... shudder.
3D or not, I bet Mars Needs MILFs would do a lot better.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
A lot of stars never made the transition from silent to talkies either.
Face it: a new era is here and the kids love it. -I- love it. My kids, all under ten, all expect to see 3D when they go to the cinema now. I'm rather older than that, and I like seeing 3D too. It's just the new given, not a novelty any more.
I don't turn my nose up at 2D, abut then I don't turn my nose up at black and White or silent either. There are. thkse that would, and as time goes on I expect there will be those that feel the same about 2D bs 3D, at least at the cinema. Cheers, Ian
Take your color cinematography with you.
Seriously, 3d is closer to reality. Every step closer to reality has been found to be an improvement in the capabilities of storytellers.
Where would Schindler's list have been without the pink jacket?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Free 3D glasses in cereal cartons it was going to be the "next big thing" back in the '80s. Stereoscopic "3D" is about as compelling now as it was back then. The truth is that if 3D were anything but a gimmick and a distraction it would have taken off years ago.
It all reminds me of the surround sound effects added to the Star Wars special editions. The sound of rice bouncing against taught tracing paper somewhere behind my head does not immerse me in the film, it causes me to turn around.
The modern Hollywood business plan involves distracting paying customers from the low quality of the product. So we'll have the star wars prequels rerendered and processed to 3D. Adding 3D or CGI will not improve a shit film and audiences are increasingly wise to this.
I'm sure there were many filmmakers who resisted to push to color, a small minority with good reason.
Not every movie should be in 3D just like every movie should not necessarily be in color. But I think a lot of the pushback is from people who can't see (or handle) 3D. As others have pointed out, new directors will come up with new ways of using this, just like they did with color.
You will see new tools in the next couple of years that will make 3D movies more 'directable' as well as post-processing tools that will make it hurt your eyes less. I hope the technology catches on this time. I imagine it's easier to shoot a movie in 3D than to convert it to 3D later (this _may_ change with technology, but I kind of hope it doesn't -- watching a movie converted to 3D is as painful as watching a "colorized" classic movie). 3D to 2D conversion is trivial.
I've seen a few 3d movies now, and in my experience, you notice it for a few minutes and think "that's interesting", but if you are absorbed in the story you quickly forget that you are watching it in 3d. The point of watching a movie is to immerse yourself in the story. If you are noticing the 3d effects, you are not immersed, you are looking at the medium itself, not the story. Saying a movie was better in 3-d is kind of like saying "That novel was really good. The leather binding really made it better."
Because of that, and because it is extra bother to wear uncomfortable glasses, and extra expense for admission, I think 3d will prove to be a fad that settles down to a minimal sustainable level. It probably will never go away, but it will never take over either.
It's short sighted to say that 3D adds little to the movie-going experience. A director who thinks that simply lacks the imagination to realize the full potential of the medium. Using 3D, you can bring the viewer into an intimate setting, or a wide-open expanse. Characters, objects and settings can appear life-size, giving the audience a sense of scale without the need for objects of known size for comparison. The result can be a much more immerse viewing experience than was previously possible.
Of course, the 3D has to be done correctly. And directors will have to resist the urge to make objects jump out of the screen for "wow" factor. But in the end, you will have a better movie.
Do they have like a tip jar or something? Cuz raging against 3D sounds like great news to me.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
Some Like It Hot. La Dolce Vida. To Kill a Mockingbird. Young Frankenstein. Sunset Boulevard. The Last Picture Show.
Do they really think having 3D CGI fairies fluttering around the screen would really make these movies better than they already are?
Who do they think they're kidding?
Have you seen Avatar? 3D added a lot to that movie.
Don't listen to the naysayers.
3D, in its current form, is just another way to get the viewer involved in the space of a film. Its just a technique... and like any technique can be badly misused or carefully applied. Just like the transition from black an white to color photography, it takes time for people to learn how to use it to tell stories effectively.
What I abhor as a film maker is the desire by studios to convert films shot in 2D, with no regard to "into the plane" or "out of the plane" effects into 3D films. Its true that 3D is just a gimmick when implemented this way- and it can lead to a very unpleasant viewing experience.
One of the key elements to be reconsidered when shooting 3D is the amount of camera movement to use as well as the level of backlighting. Both of these techniques are used to enhance the sense of space in the film... by separating subjects from the background and by taking viewers on a tour of the environment. I believe that directors and cinematographers need to focus on showing the environment more simply with wider shots. Its almost required to turn back the clock in terms of cinematic motion. We need to use less movement and make that movement more subtle. This flies in the face of the MTV inspired cinema trends of wild dutch angles and whipsaw motion, as seen in Abrams Star Trek film. The use of backlighting is still a question up in the air for me. I think we still need it, but we can turn down the levels a bit.
Also to be reconsidered is the use of selective focus. (Typically done by using shallow depth of field.) We do this in order to help viewers know what we want them to pay attention to in the frame, for example racking back and forth between two speakers in a two shot. The problem is that in the real world the viewer always chooses when to look at whom, whereas in film the director, cinematographer, 1st camera assistant (or focus puller) and editor make these choices. We've learned to just follow along in 2D film as we percieve 2D to be an abstraction. 3D comes closer to a real world experience, and we expect more of the freedoms we are used to in the real world. We want to look where we want to look. So, if we look at the "wrong" persons face we are subtly frustrated as viewers.
Furthermore, how our eyes and brain react to out of focus areas is different in 2D and 3D. In 2D we accept that what we are looking at is blurry, and our eyes just slide over to the more interesting in focus areas. In 3D we tend to believe that the out of focus areas have sharp detail, and we start to attempt to bring them into focus rather than simply looking away. This is a subtle but important fact, and it can be a major source of eyestrain in current 3D film viewing.
Finally, I am not a huge fan of "out of the plane" effects, like an axe being thrown into the audience. (From the trailer to the upcoming Resident Evil movie). They are only appropriate very occasionally- and usually in the same places where you would have an object move directly towards the camera lens in 2D film making. More often, the 3D space should be treated as a window into another world we are looking into- and most of the 3D effect should be "into the plane," showing depth and perspective. We should use wider angle lenses to emphasize that perspective, and give viewers more time to absorb the scene before moving into it.
If you compare Avatar to other films you'll see that Cameron and Mauro Fiore (the cinematographer) followed my advice... they moved the camera more circumspectly and they used cameras and lighting to allow much deeper focus than normal. The story was paced so as to allow you to "go sightseeing" on Pandora (the fictional setting of the film, if you have not seen it) and even the fast action scenes used a more distant camera with a broader view than has become typical in order to let the viewer follow the action they chose to show us, rather than just wrenching your attention around like the Bourne films might.
3D can be done well, and it allows film makers to tell good stories. I can not wait to d
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
... from somebody that works in a theatre that 3d films apparently make it harder for people to record them in the theatre, so maybe the push is partly driven to fight piracy. I don't know how accurate that assessment actually is, but it's an interesting take on the situation.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If directors that were used to working in black and white said the same things when color filming technology was new.
Look. It's obvious that everyone thinks 3D is a joke. I mean, seriuosly, it's so stupid I can't believe that people don't barf. I refuse to see movies in 3D, period, unless I'm drunk and wanting to watch a 70s B flick type movie.
Eventually, this fad will go, as audiences realize that the extra $3 isn't close to worth it.
That some directors stand up and push back is actually sad. Why are they not ALL refusing to be whores to the studio execs. F, people, get some backbone.
My guess is that they like fucking 19 year old girls too much to give up the money that the execs shovel in their direction.
It seems every few decades people get the idea that 3D films are a brilliant idea - and then they're popular for a few years, and fade. This is how the comparison to sound or color differs. 3D isn't new - it's from the early 1950s, and it was popular for a few years and then faded. Then it came back in the 1980s, with wonderful masterpieces such as Jaws 3D, and faded out yet again. It was here in early 2000s with equally brilliant films such as Spy-Kids 3D, until it faded out yet again!
And now, a bit early but still in a cyclical pattern, they're back. I wonder how many years before people yet again regard them as obnoxious and gimmicky yet again, as they should be?
To me the current 3D is lackluster - though I would be interested in technology that would allow you to actually view and rotate a movie action scene in three dimensions. Imagine watching a movie in three dimensions projected from a turntable on your lap - that would actually add value. Want to watch a specific person during a dialog scene - rotate to watch them rather than being stuck watching the camera jump between two people conversing.
Yes it would remove some of the art from directing - but it would actually give you a new movie-viewing experience. The current 3D is the equivalent of DVD vs 1080p - it adds some eye candy, but doesn't change the intrinsic value of a film, a bad one is still bad. B/W to color was a much bigger change than 2D to "3D" and even that doesn't change the value of a film - there are plenty of classic B/W films that are better than 95% of the color films. Story and acting ability are where the value resides, and that will never change.
I saw Avatar at the cinema in RealD 3D and I found it distracting at best and it gave me a dreadful headache after an hour or so. Watching it again recently just off DVD on my 100" projection screen and enjoyed it a lot more. It wasn't as high res as the cinema and it wasn't 3D but despite that the experience was better.
The other issue I have with 3D is on TVs. Films shot fro 3D are shown on a really large screen and it works fine but if you shrink the screen down to domestic sizes, everything on the screen similarly gets scaled and the effect is really odd. I watched a demo on a 50" 3D set recently and it looked pretty good if you stood 1m away from the screen but any further away and the people on screen seemed to shrink down to the size of puppets. Very odd experience.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
gimmick. It always will be until we don't have to wear glasses anymore.
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
... is the distance that the film is usually viewed at... it's often from 80 feet away or more. To focus cleanly on objects at that distance, the left and right eye views are going to be virtually identical. If you move the images for the left and right eyes for near objects further away from eachother, you may create a greater sense of depth in the resulting image, but as the eyes are almost parallel already (unless you are sitting in almost the front row), this forces your eyes to go outwards from the natural position for focussing on objects at that distance, creating a sort of anti-cross-eyed effect. This is the key problem with 3d, and to the best of my knowledge there is no current-technology solution that can get around it in the public theatre setting.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"Tickets for 3-D films carry a $3 to $5 premium, and industry executives roughly estimate that 3-D pictures average an extra 20 percent at the box office." Let's see how much money they bring in once the novelty fades...
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
everything HAS to be super bright, during filming, and during showing. it's lame because some movies work great with effective use of the dark negative space, which you can't do with 3D, because everything has to filmed/ shown all washed out
of course 3D is better, what's awful is current 3D technology. i'd rather watch 2D done well then 3D done badly, and all current 3D tech sucks
fix the current technology, and then 3D will be fully embraced
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I have rarely seen the common consensus of the slashdot crowd so OFF BASE as they are when it comes to 3d.
Our drive is to produce higher and higher fidelity artefacts. The truth is 3d is closer to VR than 2d. FULL STOP.
Are current 3D techniques a little rough around the edges? Sure.
Wait until autosteroscopic 3D with head tracking and support for limitless number of eyes is STANDARD and cheap. A decade off at most.
I can't agree more: "OLD people resist change, news at 11"
Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply grumpy & shortsighted.
I cannot see 3D (along with ?? percent of the population) so the 3D versions
are simply something to be avoided.
The film makers don't want 3D. The moviegoers don't want 3D. The MPAA members do want 3D, because it allows them to charge more per ticket, plus it makes it near impossible to bootleg a film by smuggling a camera into a theater. Now do you understand why 3D is being pushed so hard, and who is doing the pushing?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Turanga Leela.
"OLD people resist change, news at 11"
Yeah, yeah. Screw you. Harsh letter to follow.
Now, come closer so I can whack you with my cane, you rotten kid!
Investments are something which should bring you a return. If everybody invests in 3D movies, the novelty effect will wear off so fast that nobody earns something from that investment. And its fucking complicated (and expensive) to change something as fundamental as that in the film making process. It is no coincidence that the first 3D movies are produced fully in 3D computer graphics (because many 2D techniques in movies dont play well or at all with 3D).
That's where this is 'not just a fad' is. It's making amazing amounts of money because a lot of people love it.
If I could afford a 120hz monitor and if my video card supported it, I'd probably play my MMO in full 3D. They are looking at doing it.
It's not just a fad.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
Every so often, Hollywood et al come up with some new technology that "improves" the experience.
Sometimes, these are quite good. THX, for example. More often, they're just "ok".
The good:
I can see 3D being used to very good effect when the story has the right kind of overwhelming scenery that (and this is the key) is integral to or at least relates closely to the plot.
Avatar did that part of it pretty well. We had a colorful world with surprising depth relationships (floating mountains, lots of flight scenes, etc) that played well in 3D. The acrobatic abilities of the Na'vi were a core part of their lifestyle, rather than just something tacked on, and that worked well in 3D
Personally, I think the script could have been done better, but then again, no one is going to give me a fair fraction of a billion dollars to make a movie. They will give it to James Cameron.
The bad:
It's the current gimmick. Like Sensurround with its vibrations was in the 70s.
Movies are being made in 3D whether it makes a major addition to an existing set of scenery/plot or not. And, in many of the current crop of 3D films, they insert scenes just for the 3D effect.
Regardless of the technical prowess, you can't substitute for the old maxim "Good Story, told well."
The correct term is "stereoscopic."
A truly "3D" film would allow you to view the 3D objects from any reasonable angle (Say at least a 90 degree arc). You would not need to wear glasses, unless you are missing a lot of depth perception like me. The lack of glasses would mean you don't get disoriented or see blurring if your head is tilted slightly to the side.
Mars Needs Moms to bad it's disney or it could of been a bad 3D horror movie. But it's a crap Disney 3D movie that costs $15.
So why didn't it catch on last time? Come up with a reason for that, and see if it's been fixed before speculating about this time 'round
(The reason history repeats itself - because we didn't listen the first time)
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
not every physical screen is 3D, however. Some are 2D. I saw avatar this way. So even though SOME tickets are 50% more expensive, the GROSS increase in box office revenue is only 20%. This is like 7th grade math.
and fwiw, 3D seats initially had something like 7x the ROI over 2D. I don't know today's numbers because I am not involved in that part of the equation anymore (thank god).
-a filmmaker (who doesn't personally care for 3D, but is under NDA with vince pace's shop ;)
Reading through quite a few response, it's pretty clear that there are those of us who prefer a good plot, well acted and directed and those who prefer special effects. I've watched some really good movies in black and white and also some foreign films with only English subtitles (almost like watching a silent film but you can still hear the emotion in the actors' voices and whether they are whispering, etc.). I didn't need anything more than the movie as I saw it to really enjoy it. I've also seen some just god awful crap that was supposed to be wonderful because of special effects, 3D or whatever.
A movie with a good story line and good acting doesn't need special effects to be good. For some movies, special effects, 3D surround sound, color and whatever else aren't enough to turn it into anything worth wasting your time watching. As an example, "Avatar" had a two bit, recycled plot (big bad corporations is willing to kill off indigenous people for profit) that wouldn't have gotten beyond the late night re-runs if it hadn't been in 3D with lots of CGI effects. I'll take a movie like "Black Book" that had a great plot and acting but no 3D any time over "Avatar".
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Old people resist change, news at 11.
Old people resisted this particular change when they were young. 3D has been showing up every 10 or 15 years for decades, realizes that no one wants it, and wanders off. Only difference this time is that Cameron used it on a film that would have been an equally huge hit without it and now we have the creative masterminds in Hollywood pushing to film all of their comic book adaptations in 3D.
This is a beautiful writeup. As a note, even in 2d some of us don't appreciate having a movie try to yank our view around -- I despised the close-up shaky cam combat of the Bourne movies, leading me to not bother watching the third even though I enjoyed the story of the first two well enough that I normally would have gone for the sequel.
I appreciate the film makers revolt on this but I seem to remember that something similar happened when "talkies" came out and when "technicolor" came out. Purist felt the new technology did more harm than good to film making. And that is probably true in many cases though there is schlock enough with 2D color films anyway.
that it gives me a headache starting about 60 minutes in, and the glasses bother me the entire time. So I save the money, irritation and the headache by only going to 2D movies now. Also, I won't be buying any 3D TVs.
Things that seriously need to go away:
Forget not that Hollywood tried 3D in the 50s. For the same reasons cited today, the fad came and went.
Yeah JJ Abrams has a problem with lack of story. You know, the guy who violently raped the Star Trek franchise....
It's not really that difficult. You just put one of the polarized lenses in front of the camera and shoot though that.You won't get 3D, but you will record the one perspective.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
Cameron made a good 3D film, in which he used depth effects with restraint. This was then followed by a slew of films in crap post-processed from 2D to stereoscopic 3D. Not a good thing.
Cameron has been quoted as saying that what he really wants is a higher frame rate, at least 48FPS. It's obvious why. Cameron orders up good high=-detail backgrounds, and panning shots across high-detail backgrounds produce seriously annoying edge effects at 24FPS. So you don't do medium speed pans over a high-detail background today. He'd like to get past that.
Remember, depth in 3D movies is horribly fake, because it's scaled. In the real world, there are no visible stereoscopic effects beyond 3 meters or so. This really bothers some small kids. Kids also have to face the headache-inducing effect of films scaled for adult inter-ocular distance. Seen with kid-sized eye spacing, it forces the eyes into a cross-eyed situation, which usually induces a headache.
Also, watching 3D TV while lying sideways on the couch is not going to be fun.
Rubbish.
from Wiki:
"The first film colorization methods were employed before effective color film processes was developed: each projected copy was individually colorized. The process was done by hand, sometimes using a stencil cut from a second print of the film. As late as the 1920s, hand coloring processes were used for individual shots in Greed (1924) andThe Phantom of the Opera (1925) (both utilizing the Handschiegl Color Process); and rarely, an entire feature-length movie such as The Last Days of Pompeii (1926) and Cyrano de Bergerac (1925).
During the late 1960s and the early 1970s, black and white Betty Boop and Looney Tunes cartoons were redistributed in color—the colorization process was done by tracing the original black and white frames onto new animation cells, and then adding color to the new cells."
Yes, it became more popular by the 80s, but to suggest it wasn't possible is complete claptrap. It was not particularly uncommon even in the 1920s, and the first examples of colorization date back as far as the 1890s.
Wake me up when better technology is getting out. As of now, 3D is more annoying than it should. After the first 10 seconds the novelty wears off but the suckiness stays.
HTTP/1.1 400
Most movies are going to be watched on 2D screens. Most homes have 2D only setups, and that's where a lot of movies get seen. It is going to stay that way too. Never mind the cost, there's the simple inconvenience factor of needing glasses or having an unwatchable image. When a movie is in 3D and you don't have glasses on, it is a blurry mess. That means that for someone who walks through the room they can't watch it for a bit unless they go get some glasses themselves.
Ok well this also implies that the 2D version of the movie has to look good, it cannot suffer for the 3D version, at least not if you want to have good sales.
Plus there's the fact that the new fake 3D only goes so far. It does not produce a real 3D experience. While it presents separate images to the eyes, focus is not dealt with, nor is head tracking. So sure it looks "more" 3D than a single flat image but it doesn't look real. A neat effect, but not necessarily any more "realistic" than a transformation to a flat screen.
Also you run in to problem with regards to colour and contrast. Those flicking shutters? They aren't just filtered out to nothingness by the brain. They are perceived and what it does is has the effect of messing with the perceived contrast as well as colours.
It is kinda cool and all, but when you get down to it there are plenty of downsides and you still have to deal with the fact that most people aren't going to see it in 3D. This even includes people with better gear. I just bought a TV this year, nice 46" LCD to go with my large 5.1 setup. No 3D support though, way too expensive. So I've got a real "home theater" setup, and I don't have 3D support, and I'm not replacing that TV any time soon. Then of course there's plenty of people who just have a TV (sometimes even a CRT still) and aren't interested in "home theater" at all. You have to deal with this market, like it or not.
Alot harder to pirate a 3d movie.
Push the 3d out fast and first. Follow up slowly with the standard format movie.
Delays piracy out a week or two. Which they THINK makes it worth it.
For one, going to colour in no way harms black and white, at least not the way things were designed. That was a primary requirements for NTSC when colour came about. The signal had to be 100% compatible with black and white TVs. Given that it is done through colour difference (a luma channel and colour difference channels) it works out great. The luma information is just captured as a part of the process. You don't have to do any additional work to create the B&W version. You transmit both in the same signal, and the set deals with whatever it can get. You could mix B&W and colour in any combination you liked and it works. If a piece of the chain was B&W that was what the final image was, but there wasn't any problems.
Also, on the hardware end, what you had to do was get a new colour set. That's all. You didn't have to wear glasses or anything. You already had all the equipment internally for colour, you just needed a new peice of hardware. You could very well have a colour set by a B&W set and there was not only no problems, but it was readily apparent what a colour set got you that a B&W one didn't.
Finally the colour experience was complete, in that the kind of colour you got on screen or film was the same kind you got in the real world. It wasn't like things had colours that looked strange, or gave you headaches. The method of conveying colour was the same as anything else. This is not the case with 3D, you are still missing critical components (focus and movement tracking being the main ones).
It really is not at all the same. You'll notice that we've been transitioning to higher resolutions without this extreme questioning. Why? Because they are the same as colour in that they give a more realistic picture without downside. You get what you got before, just more, better. It also is perfectly compatible with older technology. You can display a high rez movie on a low rez display, the extra info is just thrown out.
None of that is true with the shutter 3D system. Neat idea and all, but riddled with problems. As real proof, look at the almost non-existent uptake in the gaming world. Here, everything should be perfect. 3D games already have all the Z data and can easily do a 3D display, it takes no recoding on their part they just work. Also, games are often a one person activity, just you in front of your computer, so things like glasses are less of a problem. All gamers need to do is get the new screen to support it.
Instead, you find that most don't care, and stick with what they have, others have decided that 3 screen surround is way better and do that. Then of those that actually buy the new 120Hz monitors, a good bit use them in 2D mode simply to get more fluid motion, they don't do the 3D thing even though they can.
I do not see it as similar to colour or anything like that. I see it as a gimmick that has been tried and tried, and failed all the time. You could do 3D movies back in the day with dual projectors and polarized glasses. I saw it in an IMAX and at Disney World. Been around forever, but never took off.
3D is just Hollywood's way of trying to make extra income. The picture is darker, it takes you away from a great storyline and it's too much like reality. We finally get the film look with video and now we're going 3D? 3D has never worked in the past why should it work now. Video games, sure, sports why not, but films? Seriously, once a year is enough.
I am part of the minority that cannot see full 3D in cinema.
so why should i pay $3 more for 3D ?
But i m forced to because i have no other choice if i want to see Avatar or Toy Story 3 !!
Its like if i was color blind and i had to pay $3 more to see the movies in full color .
Plus , we cannot compare the current move to 3D with the move from black and white to color, because in order to see color, i dont need some special heavy glasses that feels like wearing a damn helmet !
'If you can't make it good, make it 3-D.'
Doesn't the same go for many games today? Mindless stuff that only survives on Gfx and Sound effects ... ...
Probably 90% of today's games can't keep up with many old C64 games' gameplay and fun
The 3Dglasses are the reason I don't watch 3D movies. I wear glasses to see, and I haven't tried a pair of 3D glasses yet that doesn't rub up against my lenses. Frankly an 11 dollar movie is not worth having an annoying scratch that I have to deal with every waking minute.
There is a segment of the population (myself included) who have vision problems preventing proper viewing of 3D in all its forms.
Directors can (and do) shut the sound for a scene in a movie with sound, if they think that scene is better with no sound. They can put black & white shots in the middle of a color movie. Even for individual shots it's not binary: you can have slightly softer sound/music for this scene, slightly less saturated colors for that one, etc.
Not so with 3D. The movie is entirely 3D, or it's entirely 2D. No 2.63D here and 2.12D there either.
Plus, for the shots where 3D doesn't add anything, it usually is a nuisance (eg. if you try to focus on blurry background) and I don't think many stories worth telling can make good use of 3D in every single shot.
Ok, maybe I'm alone on this one, but when I watch a black & white movie, say, Dr. Strangelove, after about the first 10 minutes I don't consciously notice the "black & white" - I'm absorbed in the story. If I get distracted from the tv for a minute, I'll come back aware that the movie is in black & white, but I don't notice it much during the experience. The characters aren't "less real" because of the presentation.
Now before you call me a geezer I'm under 35, so I promise I'm not doing the "back in my day" thing.
It's just that I've seen many movies in different formats over the years, and like most people this includes everything from grainy cable channels to VHS tapes whose tracking won't settle down. And in every case where the movie is interesting at all, when I get engrossed in the story I don't generally notice the imperfections of the delivery.
This being the case, I feel like 3d is pointless in movies. Since you can't actually change your viewing angle relative to the characters, (which would be cool and actually 3d), it's instead only a depth-perception trick.(!) And worse, as above, if it's not there you don't miss it, and when it is there, if you're involved in the story you stop noticing it until it's rammed down your throat.
I'm not against movies being done in 3d, but I'm certainly not that impressed. The signal to noise, or "hype to reward" ratio is really really low IMHO.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117983864.html?categoryid=1009&cs=1
I'm hearing that there are already calls to increase the frame rate to at least 30 fps for digital 3-D because certain camera moves, especially pans, look jumpy in 3-D. I saw that in the Imax 3-D "Beowulf." You've been an advocate for both 3-D and higher frame rates. Have you seen the problem and do you have any thoughts on it?
For three-fourths of a century of 2-D cinema, we have grown accustomed to the strobing effect produced by the 24 frame per second display rate. When we see the same thing in 3-D, it stands out more, not because it is intrinsically worse, but because all other things have gotten better. Suddenly the image looks so real it's like you're standing there in the room with the characters, but when the camera pans, there is this strange motion artifact. It's like you never saw it before, when in fact it's been hiding in plain sight the whole time. Some people call it judder, others strobing. I call it annoying. It's also easily fixed, because the stereo renaissance is enabled by digital cinema, and digital cinema supplies the answer to the strobing problem.
The DLP chip in our current generation of digital projectors can currently run up to 144 frames per second, and they are still being improved. The maximum data rate currently supports stereo at 24 frames per second or 2-D at 48 frames per second. So right now, today, we could be shooting 2-D movies at 48 frames and running them at that speed. This alone would make 2-D movies look astonishingly clear and sharp, at very little extra cost, with equipment that's already installed or being installed.
Increasing the data-handling capacity of the projectors and servers is not a big deal, if there is demand. I've run tests on 48 frame per second stereo and it is stunning. The cameras can do it, the projectors can (with a small modification) do it. So why aren't we doing it, as an industry?
Because people have been asking the wrong question for years. They have been so focused on resolution, and counting pixels and lines, that they have forgotten about frame rate. Perceived resolution = pixels x replacement rate. A 2K image at 48 frames per second looks as sharp as a 4K image at 24 frames per second ... with one fundamental difference: the 4K/24 image will judder miserably during a panning shot, and the 2K/48 won't. Higher pixel counts only preserve motion artifacts like strobing with greater fidelity. They don't solve them at all.
If every single digital theater was perceived by the audience as being equivalent to Imax or Showscan in image quality, which is readily achievable with off-the-shelf technology now, running at higher frame rates, then isn't that the same kind of marketing hook as 3-D itself? Something you can't get at home. An aspect of the film that you can't pirate.
Other than that, for digital 3-D, would you rather see energy going into moving from 2K to 4K, or into moving from 24 fps to 48 or 72 fps, and why?
4K is a concept born in fear. When the studios were looking at converting to digital cinemas, they were afraid of change, and searched for reasons not to do it. One reason they hit upon was that if people were buying HD monitors for the home, with 1080x1920 resolution, and that was virtually the same as the 2K standard being proposed, then why would people go to the cinema? Which ignores the fact that the social situation is entirely different, and that the cinema screen is 100 times larger in area. So they somehow hit on 4K, which people should remember is not twice the amount of picture data, it is four times the data. Meaning servers need to be four times the capacity, as does the delivery pipe to the theater, etc.
But 4K doesn't solve the curse of 24 frames per second. In fact it tends to stand in the way of the solutions to that more fundamental problem. The NBA e
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
A bit off topic, but I am really looking forward to see sports like soccer/football in 3D on my TV. Finally, it will be possible to see if that shot is going towards the goal, or is going way above/to the side/off the field etc
There's a lot wrong with 3D, but that argument's specious. I could argue against widescreen by pointing out the travesty of matted 16:9 versions of Academy Ratio movies: Does chopping off the top and bottom of Citizen Kane make it any better?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
...all of those people out there that get headaches from the movies. I have giving the latest 3D movies a few tries in the past few years, and every time i leave the theater disappointed i went. I get headaches from something along the process. There has to be more of me out there. Also, most movies that i see in theaters are not worth the $5-10 a ticket, let alone the $8-15 for 3d ticket prices.
We will know that 3D movies have made it, when they can make one in which nothing ever jumps out at you. When it is just there to tell the story and not a gimmick. That has not happened yet.
Ok, maybe I'm alone on this one, but when I watch a black & white movie, say, Dr. Strangelove, after about the first 10 minutes I don't consciously notice the "black & white" - I'm absorbed in the story. If I get distracted from the tv for a minute, I'll come back aware that the movie is in black & white, but I don't notice it much during the experience. The characters aren't "less real" because of the presentation.
B&W vs Color is an extreme example; in that the old movies deliberately worked to make the lack of color seamless to the viewer.
I'll say the same for 3D and HDTV rather easily - the old resolution was chosen as 'good enough'. Now, you CAN do more with 720 vs 640, and you can do more with 1080 than 720, but you're pushing the limits of human perception even with 720. A good movie will entertain you even if you can't read the headstamp on the cases flying out of the machine gun.
I don't read AC A human right
They want their work to be appreciated by a wide audience and that means the home audience. Besides, the people at home pay good money just like anyone else. There are plenty of directors for who DVD is the big thing. Kevin Smith has talked about this. He says DVD is where he makes the most, and that is the reason studios keep making his movies. The box office take might be somewhat paltry, but they know that the DVD sales will be great.
3D movies are the 2011 version of the dot.com bust. Fortunately the bubble will burst much quicker and with much less fanfare.
>Your favorite movie would have been even better in color, and even better in '3D,' and given the choice, you would watch the improved version every time.
They did. It sucked. I doubt you can even find a DVD copy of the colorized version anymore. It sucked not because the colorization process was badly done, it wasn't. It sucked, because the colorized version bled all of the dramatic impact out of the scenes.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
As I recall, every time a new technology for movie-making came out, there were some great directors that fought against it. Talking films?? That will never work! *Color* movies?? That's just a fad. Seriously, do you really need more than 300 lines of horizontal resolution?? I mean, come on, what do you really need with DVDs? Tapes work just fine.
It's no different here. Every time a new technology comes out in the entertainment world there are going to be protractors and detractors. Some will hail it as a great advance, others will stick up their noses at it. It's nothing new.
Talking films, color films, blue-red 3D, laser discs, Dolby, VHS, DVDs, Blu-ray/HD-DVD, progressive scan, 720i, 1080i/1080p, DTS, THX, flat screen, wide screen, LCD, LED, plasma.
Every single one of these have had both producers and consumers who found some reasons they were fantastic, and some who had reasons why they would never see any benefit from them and/or weren't worth the time/money to implement or use them. Anyone else know someone who was positive that DVDs were a fad and that laser discs would make a big comeback? Many years ago I worked at a Suncoast video and while stocking a shelf near the register a lady came in and bought 3 videos, all in full screen. My manager was the one who rung her up and pointed out that the wide screen version was better, and in at least one of the movies, some useful bits of the movie were cut off the sides. She insisted she never saw any difference and that the black bars along the top/bottom bothered her. She had even upgraded to a wide-screen TV, which took away the black bars, but now the movie looked too... wide for her.
640K isn't necessarily enough for everyone, but for some it works just fine.
That doesn't mean we should form our cultural evolution around the lowest common denominator.
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I haven't seen any current 3D stuff, but I remember in prehistoric times, I tried to fit 3D glasses over my prescription glasses, and it didn't work well.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
...but was essentially a screensaver of 3D set pieces wrapped around a very thin plot.
As a bit of a sci-fi buff, District 9 and Moon, both also released in 2009, were far more entertaining movies overall.
And Cameron himself has never bettered "Aliens".
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
"Filmmakers like Mr. Whedon and Mr. Abrams argue that 3-D technology does little to enhance a cinematic story, while adding a lot of bother."
Color doesn't enhance story either. Eventually the costs will come down and 3D will just be the norm. No more difficult to shoot than pointing a camera at the scene and yelling "action".
There seems to be a lot of debate as to whether 3D is actually "good" and something that adds to the movie-going experience. Regardless of your opinion of the current 3D technology, directors should absolutely resist when a producer breathes down their neck saying, "Your movie must have X", where X is 3D, cutting edge special effects, an unnecessary romance, a "hip" young character that can appeal to Y demographic.
This is a classic example of business versus art. There are good uses of 3D and there are bad. Let the director decide when 3D will actually improve the quality of a film, not the profitable, marketability, etc. Give that power to the producers, and you will merely have 3D as a gimmick. Let the artists (directors) discover new and creative uses of 3D technology on their own terms in ways that are meaningful. Don't force it down their throats as a marketing tool.
I'm happy to hear of anyone standing up to those Hollywood executive asshats.
Chopin wrote only for piano, mostly short pieces.
Wagner best works are hours long.
Who was the best composer?
Two of the best Latin American books every, "Pedro Paramo" and "El Llano en llamas" by Juan Rulfo ( from which pretty much every major magic realism writer takes his clues) are often sold in one volume because they are quite short.
Perhaps those geniuses in HBO (really?.....) are unable to communicate an idea succinctly and eloquently.
You see? They could actually be dressing a shortcoming as a virtue.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"Feature films aren't really doing much that's exciting or interesting with the time they are allotted"
I am sorry, but your lack of curiosity or education is not a parameter of the state of health of cinema.
European cinema is ebullient with great movies, Latin American cinema is exploring social issues others don't touch, and the far east, specially South Korea, are providing the weirdest most imaginative movies of recent years.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And it takes just a couple of classes of cinema theory to understand that what makes or brakes a film is a good plot.
The "visuals" as you call them are the tool to move the plot forward, but the plot remains at the centre of any good film.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You talk like a marketing person, not en editor.
No wonder directors don't share your "vision": they have something to say and 3D is just a massive distraction which aims to achieve all the objectives you mention, which have nothing to do with making a better film.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Or "Slumdog Millionaire" for that matter....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Films first were an entirely adult affair.
Now movies for teenagers are what sustains the industry.
And now you are saying is that kids will decide how this art progresses?
Why is our society so eager to be more infantile?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.