Has Christopher Nolan Turned the 3D Argument?

brumgrunt writes "Not only has Christopher Nolan resisted pressure to make his third Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, in 3D, but his explanation is very much centered on it being the right decision to suit the film. With Harry Potter (temporarily) abandoning 3D too, has Hollywood's latest bandwagon hit the skids already?"

Comments

Let's face it

[elrous0]

The reason the studios are pushing so hard on 3D is because there is a lot of money in it. They can charge a lot more for a 3D ticket. And once the overhead on the equipment is paid (the projector for the theater, the cameras for the production, the trivial costs of some cheap plastic glasses), all that extra money is almost pure profit. The reason that Nolan is able to resist their push is because he's already established himself with the franchise. If they were appointing a newbie to do it, you can bet they would be TELLING him to do Batman in 3D.

3D has always a been dubious contribution to the art. For every James Cameron who likes to see what he can do with it, there are dozens of filmmakers who have it foisted on them by the studio (many of them after-the-fact). And while the big boys can resist, I doubt the pressure will let up anytime soon. As long as there is money to be made, the studios will ride this train. The only thing that will stop it would be if audiences starting to forgo the overpriced 3D versions for the 2D versions in droves, or if some kind of studio/theater price war started on 3D tickets (making it difficult for the studios to rape us so easily).

Is this a fad that probably SHOULD pass? Maybe. Is it being overused now? Definitely. Is it going anywhere, as long as the studios can reap big money off of it? Almost certainly not.

Re:Let's face it

[poetmatt]

there isn't a lot of money in it. They think there might be a lot of money in it. There's an enormous difference between those statements.

The difference between speculation and reality is in the execution, something which 3D doesn't do well because it's gimmick.

There's infinite money to be made in selling air! Our profit margins are infinite! etc. This is what people tell themselves. And then comes the reality.

Re:Let's face it

[onionman]

Is this a fad that probably SHOULD pass? Maybe. Is it being overused now? Definitely. Is it going anywhere, as long as the studios can reap big money off of it? Almost certainly not.

I hope that BAD 3D passes quickly. I find that imperfect 3D gives me a headache. Avatar was fine for me, but other 3D films that I've seen have me constantly squinting as my eyes try to resolve the slight blurs and imperfections in the image, so I often leave with a headache.

And, yes, I am aware that 3D viewing requires that one pay attention only to the main element of the scene (trying to look at the background when only the foreground is in focus will always result in blurring even with the best 3D).

Re:Let's face it

[elrous0]

Like I said, if people realize it's a gimmick and start abandoning the 3D versions in favor of the 2D versions in droves, that could end it. But I don't see that happening so far.

Re:Let's face it

[khallow]

There's infinite money to be made in selling air! Our profit margins are infinite! etc. This is what people tell themselves. And then comes the reality.

Well, we can still make it up on volume!

Re:Let's face it

[Defenestrar]

And the fact that some have to do it after the fact just goes to show (once again) the misnomer of calling these films3D. Unless you can walk around the display and see the back of Batman's head - it ain't 3D. The bandwagon is called stereoscopic projection.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll notice there are 2D versions of 3D movies, simply because in order to have 3D you need 2D first (ala dual camera lenses, etc)
Let's not get all stupid and think "omg lolz fight da p0wAr!@!". I sure am glad people like you didn't exist back in the days of movies getting sound, color being added, new IMAX, technicolor, new computer generated scenery. We'd be stuck with sock puppets, still.

Re:Let's face it

[Electricity Likes Me]

And, yes, I am aware that 3D viewing requires that one pay attention only to the main element of the scene (trying to look at the background when only the foreground is in focus will always result in blurring even with the best 3D).

This to me is actually the biggest flaw of 3D. I love looking at the backgrounds of films - I like seeing all the effort and little details that have gone into them, even if the focus isn't on them. Which is why, despite seeing Avatar in 3D (because of the 3D and the "must see" that was going around) I was thoroughly disappointed in the technology: in a movie supposed to be all about the detail of the world, you spend a whole lot of time in scenes struggling to track the focus point because you WANT to look at the backgrounds when they're around.

Re:Let's face it

[alen]

it's not the studios, it's the theaters that love it. a new revenue source other than popcorn and soda pop at 1000% mark up because they have to turn all the ticket revenue to the studios. you have to pay the $2.50 or whatever it is to rent the glasses

Re:Let's face it

[pla]

And, yes, I am aware that 3d viewing requires that one pay attention only to the main element of the scene (trying to look at the background when only the foreground is in focus will always result in blurring even with the best 3d).

Except, you've just described my biggest peeve about 3d movies - I don't consider that a minor nuissance, but an outright show-stopper.

In an action scene (main elements moving around rapidly) or a landscape (panfocal background shot), it doesn't so much matter; Put two people talking in a room for more than five seconds, though, and I start looking at the scenery rather than the talking heads. A little bit of blur in that, I can accept; Making my eyes hurt when I dare to focus on something other than what the director wants me to, total BS.


3d will always remain a cute gimmick until we have a truly immersive environment like a holodeck. Some films can use it well, but the other 99.5% of movies should stick with 2d.

Re:Let's face it

[poetmatt]

uh, what? People are totally up for moving forward in technology. It's just nobody gives a shit about 3d. It's neither significant nor a huge change.

Re:Let's face it

[jtdennis]

I'm one of the people that get headaches trying to watch this current run of 3D tech. Until we get actual 3D holographic projections, you can count me out.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

Until you can lie on the floor and look up Emma Watson's skirt you mean.

Re:Let's face it

[oh_my_080980980]

RTFA

3-D is waning. It's not they money maker they thought it was. People are not paying for the 3-D movie, they are opting for the 2-D movie instead.

Again RTFA, because Warner Bros. got their ass handed to them for Clash Of The Titans and The Last Airbender, they were not eager to push 3-D.

So yes 3-D is a fad. When DIRECTORS WANT 3-D, 3-D will take over, NOT when STUDIOS WANT 3-D.

Re:Let's face it

[netsavior]

I think 3D is more about providing an experience that can't (yet) be pirated successfully. I have seen damn good CAMs where they have used the Hard of hearing accessibilty device to rip the sound straight from the equipment, recorded in a dark empty theater on a tripod on an HD camera (this is done by theater employees).

with a telesync that good, or a screener dvd rip, lots of people have projectors or nice big TVs in their house and there really is no reason to go to some crappy theater where people will be hollering and the floor is sticky.
3D and IMAX movies are the only movie theater experiences that are significantly better than pirating (or waiting for DVD) for me nowadays.

I still go to other movies sometimes, but I really make time for decent 3d releases that I (or my kids) want to see.

I think the pirating problem is not as big as the film industry thinks it is, but I think anti-pirating is no small part of their push for 3D.

Re:Let's face it

[Mongoose Disciple]

My assumption has been that there's been a push to 3D in movies because it's an experience that's harder, effectively, to bootleg/pirate.

We're at a point where anyone with a little bit of knowledge who really wants to can download any new movie the weekend it's released and often even before. How do you fight that if you're a smart movie studio? You need to offer something as part of the theatre viewing experience that isn't easily replicated at home -- so you push big effects movies that more people will want to see on a giant screen, and you push things like 3D. Most people don't yet have 3D TVs, so (assuming you buy into the value of 3D), by offering a movie in 3D you're offering something that for most people can't be pirated.

Re:Let's face it

[TiberiusMonkey]

To be fair, if it was REAL 3D, with crap leaping out of the screen at me and I didn't have to sit with a pair of glasses that slowly start to annoy me (and after a while the 3D effect starts to fade on me), then I'd maybe give a shit.

Re:Let's face it

[jandrese]

Theaters had their most profitable year ever last year, mostly on being able to jack up prices on 3D movie tickets.

Re:Let's face it

[Bolkar]

My point exactly! Can you imagine not getting a chance to see the amazing background which is the Coruscant in Starwars, or those amazing environments at The Lord of The Rings? I don't think so. Blurring everything other than whatever is the focus is a great idea for fascist film making, I suppose this was discovered in 1940s?

Re:Let's face it

[Lumpy]

Not 100% true. he reason they are pushing it hard is that they convinced the theaters that it's the best thing to make money so please buy this overpriced 3d equipment....

If they drop it because it's not really that impressive, they will have a HUGE number of theaters screaming at them for talking them into buying overpriced crap for 3d that got used for 2-3 films only.

Re:Let's face it

[lennier1]

There's infinite money to be made in selling air! Our profit margins are infinite! etc. This is what people tell themselves. And then comes the reality.

Perri-Air?

Re:Let's face it

[dkleinsc]

The other significant factor here is that 3D movies really have to be watched in a theater, as opposed to Netflix or illegal download.

Re:Let's face it

[Eivind Eklund]

A bunch of us happen to like it. I preferentially select watching a movie in the theater when it's in 3D; otherwise, I'll more often wait until it is available on DVD.

Eivind.

Re:Let's face it

[TheLink]

The problem does exist in 2D too.

I've watched many 2D movies where certain parts of the picture are out of focus, or stuff is blurred due to motion, and my eyes hurt trying to focus on stuff. Heck I even think something is wrong with my eyes - since normally if I look at a moving object, it stops getting blurry, whereas the background gets blurred, but in many movies when I look at a moving object it stays blurry (hey video, movie and game makers, artificial motion blur sucks OK?).

At least with Avatar 3D, my eyes got more cues on where the director intends people to focus on. So it was less annoying than watching Avatar 2D (yes I watched BOTH versions and 3D was easier on my eyes), or other recent 2D movies where the studio thinks motion blurring is cool, or just having one small bit of the picture in focus all the time is cool (I'll bear it if you're doing it a few times for good reasons, but use it a lot and it gets annoying).

Nowadays the tech _is_ better, and we're still stuck with 24fps blurry crap.

Re:Let's face it

[TheRaven64]

My understanding is that it's the cinemas that want the 3D, because it lets them sell an experience that's different to the home version. When I watch a DVD at home, I have it projected onto a wall and I have surround sound. When I go to my local cinema, they have a digital projector with pixels more obvious than my home screen and poorly set up sound so there's often clipping or distortion - and it's only stereo in some of the smaller screens. The experience at home is better in pretty much every way. Friends can drink some beers, sit on comfy chairs, pause the movie when we want, and so on.

With 3D, however, the cinema experience is different from my home experience. If I wanted to reproduce it at home, I couldn't use a projector, so I'd need a very large (i.e. expensive) flat panel TV and so on. It's cheaper to just go to the cinema. This also helps with piracy. If you grab a copy of Avatar from a torrent, you get the 2D version. If you go to the cinema, you get the 3D version. There will probably be 3D BluRay rips soon (if there aren't already), but playing them back is nontrivial.

It's also popular with the hardware makers. HD managed to sell a load more TVs. 3D might, if it catches on, and also sells a lot of cameras and so on to the studios.

Re:Let's face it

[DrgnDancer]

The big problem is all the movies that the 3D is tacked onto as an afterthought. Avatar's 3D was awesome. It was an organic integrated part of the film. I understand that a lot of people didn't like the movie all that much (the plot was a bit heavy handed to say the least), but the 3D was seamless and perfectly integrated. That's mostly because Cameron made a 3D movie from the ground up and avoided gimmicky shots. Avatar's 3D was integrated to the point of being almost unnoticeable in conscious way, while at the same time contributing to the experience. On the other hand, most of the 3D movies I've seen have been crap. The 3D varied from "contributes nothing" to "actively detracts from the experience".

In a perfect world, I'd like to see 3D used as a tool. When a director feels that it will contribute, and is willing to put in the effort to do it right, it should be there for him. When the director doesn't want to use it, that's fine too.

Re:Let's face it

[hedwards]

Indeed. Movies already have a lot of depth to them, the human brain is able to do an amazing job of making images on the screen look like their really 3D. Unless the 3D effects are being abused to throw things at the audience or are really garish there just isn't that much of a difference at present.

On top of which nobody has really figured out how to work with the medium yet, and until that happens it's just not worth the expense of watching. Kind of a chicken and egg problem.

Re:Let's face it

[TheLink]

That's actually the movie maker's fault not a fault of the technology. You can get this problem with 2D movies too. Whether intentionally or because they just couldn't film the whole scene in focus.

For something like Avatar 3D, _everything_ in the rendered scenes can be in _perfect_ focus. They actually have to intentionally make those bits out of focus.

I suspect many movie makers (for 2D and 3D) think it's a good idea to restrict what viewers should look at. And they think motion blurring is cool[1].

They miss the point that I paid $$ to watch their movie on BIG SCREEN for a reason - I want to see "everything" and not have to deal with out of focus crap for a significant part of the show.

Otherwise maybe I should just stay home and play a computer game where the picture is HD, 60fps, perfectly in focus. The ending might be a bit more unpredictable too (esp if you play PvP and are just "average" like me :) ).

[1] Unless it is crucial to the plot/scene, motion blurring is a FLAW. In real life, if I focus on a moving object it starts becoming sharp (and the background becomes blurrier), if you use motion blurring, when I focus on the moving blurry object, it stays blurry and my eyes start hurting. Whereas if instead render/film the whole scene in focus at a high FPS, and you have a fast moving object, if I'm not looking at the moving object, it might seem blurry to me, whereas if I look at the moving object it's sharp.

Re:Let's face it

[MightyMartian]

For some of us, it's beyond even that. I have a pretty severe strabismus (wandering eye), and the few times since I was a kid up until recently that I've tried to watch 3D all I've got is split vision and a headache. I'll be royally fucked if theaters to purely to 3D.

Re:Let's face it

[the_humeister]

Well, if you really want to be pedantic, it is 3D with stereoscopic projection. All movies have been in 3D. A 2D movie is not really a movie. We call those still images. Your description of walking around the movie display and able to see the back of Batman's head, that's 4D.

Re:Let's face it

[Moryath]

No, the big problem is that the "3D" technology isn't solid yet. I was out at Tron Night recently: they have point light-sources all over in every scene that are way too bright. This causes ghosting when the polarized lenses can't completely block out the "wrong eye" image. You also have to hold your head perfectly damn still in the proper position for the whole movie - tilt a couple degrees left or right, and the image starts ghosting like crazy because the polarization isn't properly matched. 3D, done right, can be awesome. The problem with it today is that it IS treated like a gimmick. Nowhere is this more obvious than the ridiculous scenes every damn "3D movie" has to put in where some object breaks the plane of the screen; the 3D tech works best when the z-values of all objects stay behind the screen. The final problem is the insistence on "glasses on, glasses off" for specific scenes. In this one regard, the Tron Night guys got it right - for the one "2D" scene in evidence, they simply mastered it so that it was viewable without problem through the 3D glasses (essentially, both projected images set so that their Z-value matched the screen). Every time they make you put on or take off the glasses, they're breaking suspension of disbelief - Superman Returns and Batman: The Dark Knight were really ridiculous in that regard!

Re:Let's face it

[Moryath]

re-cut with paragraph breaks. Goddamnit slashdot, cut that crap out and give me the old text editing method back! ============= No, the big problem is that the "3D" technology isn't solid yet. I was out at Tron Night recently: they have point light-sources all over in every scene that are way too bright. This causes ghosting when the polarized lenses can't completely block out the "wrong eye" image.

You also have to hold your head perfectly damn still in the proper position for the whole movie - tilt a couple degrees left or right, and the image starts ghosting like crazy because the polarization isn't properly matched.

3D, done right, can be awesome. The problem with it today is that it IS treated like a gimmick. Nowhere is this more obvious than the ridiculous scenes every damn "3D movie" has to put in where some object breaks the plane of the screen; the 3D tech works best when the z-values of all objects stay behind the screen.

The final problem is the insistence on "glasses on, glasses off" for specific scenes. In this one regard, the Tron Night guys got it right - for the one "2D" scene in evidence, they simply mastered it so that it was viewable without problem through the 3D glasses (essentially, both projected images set so that their Z-value matched the screen). Every time they make you put on or take off the glasses, they're breaking suspension of disbelief - Superman Returns and Batman: The Dark Knight were really ridiculous in that regard!

Re:Let's face it

[Hoi Polloi]

The problem with 3D as it currently stands is that I never forget that I'm watching a 3D movie. I never feel immersed in the effect, I always am aware of it and think "Ohhh, they did a 3D thing here." It feels more like a gimmick than a natural part of the experience.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no reason depth would prevent you from looking at backgrounds. the issue people had was traditional film techniques like depth of field in a 3d scene

Re:Let's face it

[expressovi]

You are right about the profit. The theater employees claim that the extra $2 is for the cheap plastic glasses. When I brought my glasses with me and asked for regular price I was laughed at!? I came back from NAB in 2008 with a bag full of those shitty realD 3D glasses...scoff

Re:Let's face it

[anyGould]

3-D is waning. It's not they money maker they thought it was. People are not paying for the 3-D movie, they are opting for the 2-D movie instead.

Or, once the theaters finish refitting all the screens to 3-D, they just won't offer the 2-D version at peak times, moving the choice from "2-D or 3-D" to "3-D or nothing" (Our local screens did this on "Up" - very few showing were in 2-D. Movie was great, but we missed most of it trying to keep the stupid glasses on over our own glasses. Our daughter's ended up with popcorn fingerprints after about 5 minutes...)

Re:Let's face it

[tlhIngan]

Not to mention, 3D stereoscopic movies have been around for how long? Maybe half a century?

It's something that keeps coming into and out of fashion every decade or so.

No, there are many reasons why 3D stereoscopic vision doesn't work. First, filming is hard. Your camera suddenly has 2 more variables if you want to do it right - inter-ocular distance (distance between lenses), and convergence point (the angle between the two cameras). Contrary to popular belief, a fixed inter-ocular distance and infinite convergence (what you get when you stick two cameras side-by-side) isn't the most enjoyable to watch for more than a few minutes.

So now directors have a new set of variables to worry about - get the filming wrong and the scene has to be re-taken (though there's limited ways to post-process it later). And why those 3D camcorders on the market will always produce "home video" looking 3D (fixed lenses, fixed convergence).

Next, lots of people don't like to wear glasses.

Finally, 3D stereoscopic vision fails if you want to lie down infront of the TV. There's a reason all those 3D displays are set up so you're looking at the screen straight on. Lean to one side or another and the effect's a mess. No more sprawling across the couch - you must sit straight up.

Re:Let's face it

[vell0cet]

Don't forget that stereoscopic 3D has been around since the 50s.

The thing that really bugs me is not that it's new amazing technology. It's OLD crap that's never caught on that they're marketing differently/forcing down our throats.

Re:Let's face it

[openfrog]

Indeed. Movies already have a lot of depth to them... On top of which nobody has really figured out how to work with the medium yet, and until that happens...

Your first statement is right on: it is now being recognized that a 2D film is more realistic than a 3D one, which adds an artificial theatrical effect that pulls you right out of the storytelling. This is why so many directors hate it.

Your second statement contradicts your first one. Whether you know how to work with it does not change a thing: this is a gimmick and we should not expect it to get better, we should shed it. Otherwise, our cinema is going to get more circus like than it is already.

Re:Let's face it

[Shakrai]

Theaters had their most profitable year ever last year

<RIAA TALKING POINT>Imagine how much more profitable they'd be if everybody wasn't stealing movies. You realize that people work for the studios right? Those people have CHILDREN. THINK OF THE CHILDREN the next time you are going to steal one of our movies.</RIAA TALKING POINT/>

Re:Let's face it

[Nadaka]

And this is why Jackass 3 is perhaps going to be the best application of 3d for a long time. Its all about making you squirm as shit gets thrown at you (literally). It fits 3d naturally and perfectly.

Re:Let's face it

[B1oodAnge1]

I think that's MPIAA ;-)

Re:Let's face it

[geekoid]

3d is no more of a gimmick then sound or color. 3d does make them a lot of extra money. Book money not speculation money.
3d is atoll that is now here to stay. It won't be used for all movies, but there will probably always be at least one or two movies using it.

Re:Let's face it

[damien_kane]

I prefer the method, as is used in games (and which video card manufacturers are pushing better and better cards to be able to do in hardware), in which the background is beautifully rendered, sure, but it's then blurred out slightly (moreso the further back you go) if it's not your primary focus.
It helps with the immersion a lot that the images in my periphery (outside the base 20% frontal-viewing cone) pretend to be blurred as if I were looking at it IRL.
Even in good "3D" (Avatar), the rest of the shot was not what the director had the lenses focused on. Everything not within the vertex of the two lenses actually did appear correctly, in that they weren't perfect.

When an image is too perfect to be real, our brains can tell. If it has those imperfections that our brains expect as we've seen the world that way all of our lives, then our brain is more apt to allow suspension of disbelief.

Re:Let's face it

[geekoid]

Except that you are wrong.
Lot's of people like it. Espcially younger people; which is where most of the movie going money comes from.

Re:Let's face it

[geekoid]

So you are saying blurring background are beter then clear backgrounds? Avatar had tremendous detail in the backgrounds.

Re:Let's face it

[damien_kane]

Just make sure you're not on the bottom of the pile of other theater-goers attempting the same

Re:Let's face it

[twidarkling]

You mean MPAA, right? Your point loses some efficacy when you're throwing shit in the wrong direction. No, I believe what you meant was "YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR!"

Re:Let's face it

[B1oodAnge1]

That's actually the movie maker's fault not a fault of the technology. You can get this problem with 2D movies too.

The parent mentioned that, the problem is that it's not the same at all. In a 2d movie, the out of focus parts are just a bit blurry, in a 3d movie your eyes get all fucked up trying to focus on a spot that won't focus.

Re:Let's face it

[WarlockD]

One of the places 3D movies shine is on all those nature and "around the world" videos they do with it. It was meh when HDTV's came out, but man, you can see dolphins swimming, water splashing. Even spectators seem like they are right there.

In short, and somewhat funny, currently 3D tech works amazedly well in just doing normal video shots. It does poorly when some editor wants to make it a bit "better" or they mess with the perspective to focus only one the main character.

Hell, It wasn't till they got to the part where they did that pan of all the mercnarys in Avatar that got me hooked. Before that wtih all the cgi, it didn't even feel like it was in 3D.

Re:Let's face it

[geekoid]

are you people just making shit up now? I saw Avatar 2 times in 3d. The second time I was pretty much absorbed by looking at the background and foreground. I didn't even pay attention to any of the non action scenes. I was amazed at the amount of detail.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

might help to RTFA before you make such a statement.

Re:Let's face it

[poetmatt]

hahaha you're the only one defending it here and there.

The reality is, sound and color and not like 3d. Sound and color are huge jumps in technology, and they're also big changes to how it works.

3d is both old, and not a substantial change. Also, the versions we have of it, mean pretty much nothing. Current 3d as it exists isn't much more advanced than the 3d of the 50s, the 3d of the 80s, and has the same issues: doesn't work for everyone, eyestrain, it affects the image, requires special hardware in some form or another, all of these cause their own problems.

Real 3D, in the way people think of 3D, would be substantially different and would garner more interest. Why do we not do that? Because it's a lot harder to do that.

I don't know why you magically think 3d is here to stay, but it's already on the way out. enjoy your supposed 3d (when it's really 2d with stereoscopic dithering).

Re:Let's face it

[twidarkling]

All the theatres I've been to use disposable glasses that you get to keep, or they get thrown out after. Also, the price is tacked on to the ticket price, which still goes to the studios. I'm not really seeing where theatres are getting the better end of this deal, especially since they need to then bother with handing out the glasses and ensuring they have enough of them.

Re:Let's face it

[geekoid]

CofT and TLA wherer BAD films. This had nothing to do with 3d.

Discalimer - I loved Clash of th Titans, but I do recognize that for most people it's just a 'gladiator movie with monsters'. For me it was "OMG! it's a gladiator movie with MONSTERS. "

As a personal; note, I walk out of the movie wishing that would remake the whole Jason and the Argonauts series as well as the Sinbad the sailor series.

I see a whole hell of a lot 8-15 year olds raving about 3d.

Re:Let's face it

[Shakrai]

Yeah I fucked that up. Whoops.

Re:Let's face it

[poetmatt]

Actually, I kinda feel for the second statement, since all we have is fake 3d. It's not true holographic 3d aka the stuff portrayed in the star wars movies and other films (random example but I think you know what I mean). When we have that, reliably, then I feel people will accept 3d because it will be 3d (holographic). We're probably 10+ years off from that, though.

Re:Let's face it

[RobDude]

I'm not a big fan of 3d (I've heard some people are more/less sensitive to the effect - it still looks pretty flat to me/not very impressive). But, I will agree in that I don't bother going to the movies anymore.

Back in the day, we had a 27" TV. Standard Def. It wasn't even a flat screen. When a movie came out, it came out on VHS. The speakers were whatever cheap crappy speakers they stuck in the TV at the factory.

The movie theater was *WAY* better than that. WAY BETTER. Even with the handful of annoying people you have to deal with to watch a movie.

But now....I've got a 52" HDTV complete with a fairly nice surround sound system. Instead of a VHS - I've got a blue-ray player.

The only reason I'd go to see a movie at the theater is if I couldn't stand to wait a few months for it to come out on DVD/Blu-ray. I might go for a huge blockbuster 1-2 times a year; but that's it.

If the movie theaters all went 3D - it would, at least, be a technology most people can't get right now, in their living room.

Re:Let's face it

[wisty]

Avatar was OK, but I didn't think 3D was much better than 2D.

I loved OceanWorld 3D though.

I think 3D is good for noisy, breathtaking panoramas. I can imagine it working really well in war films (thousands of soldiers), westerns, nature shows, city-scapes, and crowd scenes. It will be noisy, and it should be noisy. But that's the antithesis of Batman.

Heavily stylized action movies? No way. If the batmobile is sitting smack-bang in the center of the screen, it *doesn't* need any help grabbing your attention. Making it jump out is only going to look cheap. In a few years time, the technology will be good enough that they can do a film like Batman without making the 3D intrusive, and it might look a little cooler, but it won't really benefit from it.

Re:Let's face it

[iluvcapra]

Note that the mix you get from an assistive listening device is awful. It's in mono and its a different balance than the main mix, with louder dialogue and music and effects mixed down. It's the same mix they use on the airlines. But if you have access to the booth it'd be easy enough to get a 5.1 discrete mix or even the AC3 if you have the proper equipment.

Re:Let's face it

[camperdave]

The problem with 3D as it currently stands is that I never forget that I'm watching a 3D movie. I never feel immersed in the effect, I always am aware of it and think "Ohhh, they did a 3D thing here." It feels more like a gimmick than a natural part of the experience.

When they start showing romantic comedies and chick flicks in 3D, then you'll know it has stopped being a gimmick and has become a natural part of the experience.

Re:Let's face it

[Omestes]

I sure am glad people like you didn't exist back in the days of movies getting sound, color being added, new IMAX, technicolor, new computer generated scenery. We'd be stuck with sock puppets, still.

Except none of the things you state require me to wear silly glasses that barely fit (thanks to wearing glasses) a large portion of the population, and that gives another large portion a splitting head ache when worn for any period of time. Also the technologies you list qualitatively improved film, 3D is a gimick, pure and simple.

I have yet to see a 3D movie that is better than its 2D counterpart. If 3D is all you have to offer, you probably have a really bad movie.

Now if they had 3D that didn't require the glasses, I might be sold.

Re:Let's face it

[bennomatic]

I remember when I saw Toy Story, thinking, "Wouldn't it be cool if, in addition to a normal DVD release, they released a version with all of the model, action, sound and lighting information, but where you could grab the "camera" and move it anywhere in the story's defined universe?" With live action films, stereoscopic projection is as good as it will realistically get, but there's no reason that 100% CG movies couldn't allow for some more immersive features.

Even DVDs, when they first came out, were supposed to be revolutionary because they allowed directors to include multiple angles for the same scene. How many movies have that? I haven't seen any. But imagine if you could re-shoot the whole thing. Even if you couldn't change the audio, sets and the action, imagine being able to muck with the lighting and camera angles and make a noir version of your favorite episode of Dinosaur Train...

Re:Let's face it

[shugah]

That's because in Avatar, 3D was done very well, and, for the most part, the scenery wasn't filmed, it was rendered (in focus).

Re:Let's face it

[yodleboy]

"The problem with 3D as it currently stands is that I never forget that I'm watching a 3D movie. I never feel immersed in the effect, I always am aware of it and think "Ohhh, they did a 3D thing here." It feels more like a gimmick than a natural part of the experience."

well, be honest now, when sound and color came to movies, i'd be willing to bet plenty of people had the same experience. It's new, it's different, of course you will notice it. The more movies you see in 3d, the less you will be distracted by it. Unless they throw something at you.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

There's infinite money to be made in selling air!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anMadm6UG-E

Re:Let's face it

[shugah]

And Avatar was "Pocahontas in Space" - but the truly amazing world that Cameron created, the special effects, the acting and directing made it a good film in spite of a derivative plot and a bit preachy messaging.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have a pretty cruddy local cinema. The theater near me has REALLY high-def video and surround sound that beats anything I could ever afford to buy. For me, seeing a movie in theaters is completely worth it.

3D, however, has been mostly a disappointment. The only 3D movie I really liked was Avatar, and that's because they did it right. No gimmicks or anything shooting out of the screen to shock you. It just added to the overall experience of the movie. It made it seem like I was looking out a window on Pandora, rather than watching a screen, and that was pretty neat.

Re:Let's face it

[Mister Whirly]

I heard the exact same argument in the 1980s when 3D was coming back then. It did go away fro a while, but I can't help notice that it is back strong now... Pointing out that is isn't "true 3D" isn't going to make it go away any faster this time either. There is no magic involved - as long as a percentage of the population is willing to pay more for 3D movies, they will be here to stay. As soon as not enough people are willing to pay extra anymore is when 3D will truly go away. Say what you want about the technical side of it - the reality is if it makes the studios more money, it isn't going anywhere.

Re:Let's face it

[altstadt]

Avatar's 3D was far from awesome. There were dozens of frames in the movie where post-production, or CGI, or something, left objects out of either the left eye or right eye frame. The object was usually replaced with a white blob the same shape as the missing object. Every time this happened it was as if someone stuck their thumb into my eye.

I'm one of those people who had to crank old style monitor refresh speed up to around 90 Hz to avoid flicker induced headaches. Apparently I have low persistence eyeballs. Oddly the 24 Hz of film has never been a problem for me (until 3D). I don't know why the two technologies affect me so differently.

After watching two 3D movies, Up (which irritated me because most scenes had infinite depth of focus) and then Avatar, I am not prepared to repeat the experience. If a movie is only available in 3D, I won't be buying a ticket.

Re:Let's face it

[IndustrialComplex]

Actually what you are noticing is quite the opposite.

The oddness that a lot of people have after leaving a 3D film is because the director FORCES your focus.

That videogame effect you are talking about? You don't get that in real life. If you are watching something in the foreground and then decide to look at a tree 100' off, the tree is not magically out of focus. However in a film, that really isn't desireable as you will look at other parts of the screen if everythign is in focus and end up missing what the director wants you to see.

In a 3D film, your brain is tricked, but it gets confused as it starts to behave as if it is an actual three dimensional image, but when it runs into limitations (like forced focus) you end up with a really weird feeling and potential eyestrain as you try to focus on something which you can't focus on but your brain thinks it should be able to.

Re:Let's face it

[nine-times]

Yeah, it's worth noting that our brains use a lot of different cues to decode a 3D scene, and stereoscopic vision is just one of those cues. We also use light and shadow, motion, perspective, and parallax, for example. Shadow and perspective are available in traditional "2D" films, and we do in fact decode "2D" pictures into 3D scenes without stereoscopic vision. However, eve the stereoscopic "3D" movies lack the ability to move your head and "look around" an object the way you could if you had real parallax.

So in general I'd say the distinction between "2D" and "3D" films is not as meaningful as most people believe. It's not as though the "2D" films are actually presenting you with a 2 dimensional scene without any depth, and it's not as though the "3D" films are actually giving you a full 3D representation of the scene.

Re:Let's face it

[thesandtiger]

When it is done well and adds something, it's worth it. When it's a gimmick it's dumb.

I saw Beowulf in 3D because I was taken to it on a date. I didn't see the point of it being in 3D - it didn't seem to add much, and when it was used it was in a really, no pun intended, "in your face!" fashion so it felt forced and obvious.

I saw Avatar in 3D and it was great - I actually stopped noticing the 3D effect quickly and just sat in and enjoyed the visuals of the rest of the movie. I've also seen Avatar in 2D, and in my opinion, the 3D added something - it was still visually stunning (and I noticed way more detail than the first run through) - but it felt pretty flat, the world was more like a video game than a "living" world.

Like any tool in the artist's toolbox, 3D should be used when it will enhance the work.

I agree that it isn't terribly significant (wake me when I can actually change the POV of a film by moving around, that will be pretty big) but I am glad that it exists in a format that doesn't give me a screaming migraine for the few films that can benefit from it.

Re:Let's face it

[ultranova]

Most people don't yet have 3D TVs, so (assuming you buy into the value of 3D), by offering a movie in 3D you're offering something that for most people can't be pirated.

Unfortunately for this scheme, the reason most people don't have 3D TVs yet is that 3D has little to no value for them. And for some, such as myself, the value is negative: I watched Avatar in 3D out of curiosity, and the only time 3D was noticeable was when it got in the way.

Let's try 3D again when we have visible light phased arrays, but until then, it's 2D for me.

Re:Let's face it

[camperdave]

You also have to hold your head perfectly damn still in the proper position for the whole movie - tilt a couple degrees left or right, and the image starts ghosting like crazy because the polarization isn't properly matched.

You went to a bad theare, then. It was using an old style system which uses linear polarization. Modern systems like RealD use circular polarization (one eye clockwise, the other counter-clockwise) so that it doesn't matter which way you tilt your head.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, I loving looking at different details in the background. In scenes where not much action is happening, some times the stuff in the background, whether intentionally placed or accidental, is better than the main part of the scene.

Re:Let's face it

[camperdave]

The D in 3D refers to spatial dimensions, not temporal ones. The word "movie" or "still" indicates the presence or absence of a temporal dimension.

Re:Let's face it

[peragrin]

Except I always know when I am watching 3D movies. The throbbing headache and nausea are abig clue. With-some 15-20% of the population feeling some effects from watching 3D movies they will fail in their current form.

To top it off I have yet to see one "3D" effect. The movies just look grainy, dull(polarized lenses limit light dulling colors), and in many cases boring.
Remember those 3D puzzles 10 years ago that if you stared at them you could see another image? 3D will die like that because a hundred million people in the USA alone can't see it.

Re:Let's face it

[fermat1313]

I remember when I saw Toy Story, thinking, "Wouldn't it be cool if, in addition to a normal DVD release, they released a version with all of the model, action, sound and lighting information, but where you could grab the "camera" and move it anywhere in the story's defined universe?" With live action films, stereoscopic projection is as good as it will realistically get, but there's no reason that 100% CG movies couldn't allow for some more immersive features.

I like that idea. I wonder if the multi-million dollar render farm that each person would have to install in their home to make this would might be a slight limitation?

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this a troll??? I feel exactly the same way. It *is* a gimmick, and it gives my a HORRIBLE headache!

Re:Let's face it

[Peeteriz]

Are they harder to pirate in general or just for now wile 3d is still launching?
None of the movie-downloaders that I know are watching camera-recorded stuff due to it's poor quality, they all wait for a dvd-rip or bluray-rip.

So when 3d gets popular, as the consumer electronics industry (with 10x the size, money and power of the content industry) wants, then the content will be distributed on shiny round platters for the home 3d tv's that are being pushed right now with a huge advertising poster right next to my house, and anyone who wants a pirated copy will get it.

The big money in 3d is for the consumer hardware. Noone cares about the imaginary profits of filmmakers if they see a way how to put together a fancy box in china for 30 $ and sell it to you for 495 $; and the electronics arm of the huge multinational companies can put a lot of weight on their content producing branches if they need to.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact it does. The two separate images are still aligned for your eyes to be in a level orientation.

If you tilt your head on its side, you will sill see the two images but the "points of view" of your two eyes will be off from the parallax perceived in the image. Still causes problems.

Also, crosstalk is significantly worse in circular systems.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that the same problem people with autism have everyday? Not focusing on what many would consider to be the main point (i.e. a person talking?)

Re:Let's face it

[Asmodae]

I feel compelled to point out that the film Surf's Up was largely created that way. The scene's were created, the 'actors' animated, and then using a special camera rig they 'filmed' the movie. This allowed rapid retakes, trying funky angles, filming through windows, etc. The DVD commentary talked about it, and mentioned a number of shots in the film that were only done the way they were because they were using this style of filming. For the documentary style used in Surf's Up this worked very well. It did require them to create more fully realized sets than they otherwise would because they didn't know what would finally get captured on film which resulted in stuff that was created and animated that never made it into the film.

Re:Let's face it

[Bigjeff5]

Somebody hasn't been to the theater lately (you know, the ones that are packed night after night selling $12-$19 per seat for the latest 3D movie). There is definitely a lot of money in it.

Honestly, the current crop of 3D is vastly superior to the old methods. It can definitely make a good movie seem more "real" and immersive. What it won't do, though, is make a bad movie better. And really, some movies benefit more than others (particularly fast-paced action movies), and for some movies it's a complete waste of money.

I also think it's lame to have just one 3D movie in a franchise - Harry Potter for example. Six flat movies and one 3D? Lame. Batman too, especially if the third movie is going to be the last movie in this particular set of Batman movies.

That's just my personal opinion, but you can't deny that this particular "3D fad" is far more wide-spread and robust than any that came before, and people are not being constantly let down by the 3D effect. Perhaps it's just a case of finally having the technology to do it right. I'm sure when color came out a lot of people said it was just a fad, too.

Re:Let's face it

[DinDaddy]

I am like you as far as vision persistence, and you have explained what bugged me in certain scenes of Avatar.

BTW, regular 2D 24Hz films are all flashed twice or even 3 times per frame in the gate so you are seeing 48 or even 72Hz with repeated images. Additionally, SMPTE brightness specs of 25 ftL are partly designed to keep brightness down to where the strobing caused by the 48Hz is less perceptible, even to sensitive people like us.

And unless you saw Avatar in a "real" IMAX theater in 3D, you weren't watching film. All the other 3D venues are digital, and typically doing 60Hz per eye.

Re:Let's face it

[Shompol]

The next logical step should be adding smell, not 3D.

Re:Let's face it

[TheLink]

Maybe you eyes don't feel strained when you look at blurry 2d stuff, but mine do.

Examples:
http://www.photoshopessentials.com/images/type/effects/light-burst/blurred-text.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__e75oHvC5rk/SQB11qe8d_I/AAAAAAAAAIM/DRtUohJMzrA/s400/First+Try+Ss.jpg

And the rest of my points are still valid even if you don't read or understand them.

The "blur"/out-of-focus effect is not specific or even required in a 3D movie. You can have everything perfectly in focus in a 3D movie.

Re:Let's face it

[Mongoose Disciple]

Are they harder to pirate in general or just for now wile 3d is still launching?

My take was, just for now -- but I think to some small degree, the movie industry has seen what digital / filesharing / etc. have done to the music industry ahead of them and they're running a smarter race with inevitability, such as it is.

They're playing for time, hoping that by the time this and other current strategies have run their course there'll be something else to throw in its place. I don't know what that something would be, but I'm not convinced they're wrong -- unlike the music industry, they also do have the advantage of porn helping to push somewhat related technologies forward.

Re:Let's face it

[Bigjeff5]

I don't often watch movies more than once (there are a few exceptions, of course), so watching movies on a 50' screen in high-def and superior surround sound at $3-$12 a pop (depending on which theater I go to - $3 theaters rock!) is a better experience for my money than dropping $1.5k+ and spending $3-$30 per movie. Do you realize I could watch 150+ movies in the theater at $9 each for the price of a decent 52" TV? 450 if I stick to the cheap theaters (one of which is actually probably the best movie experience in town - beer + pizza+ $3 movies = awesome).

With my movie viewing habits (average about 2 per month) that's 6 years worth of movies. You'll probably be upgrading your equipment before then, but who knows, maybe not eh? If we add in the cost of movies (assuming $3 per movie 2 movies a month, you're probably spending 2-5 times that though) and a mid-range blu-ray player and it's another 3 years before you break even with me just going to the theater.

Of course, that's just for me. If you watch every movie that comes out, for example, you'll burn through $2k worth of movies in a year or so. If you stick to the cheap, $3 theaters (which still have better picture and sound than your home theater, btw) it would take three decades to break even with me. If you got the premium online rental plan at $30 per month, you'll never break even. But then, if you like to watch every movie under the sun, you would break even pretty quickly.

It's all relative to your viewing habits. I personally find the theater a lot cheaper and more rewarding, but you may not. If I do have a movie I want to watch more than once, my 8 year old 42" HDTV that I got for $400 used is more than good enough for me.

But like I said, that's just me. :)

Re:Let's face it

[J-1000]

Some GREAT 3D experiences I've seen that wouldn't have been nearly as fun without the 3D:

Polar Express
A Christmas Carol
U2 3D

All of these were viewed in a true IMAX theater. (Note: I also saw Avatar here, and while the 3D was nice, it didn't add as much to Avatar as it did to these other films.) Just stop making crappy choices for which movies to see in 3D, and suddenly 3D won't seem so crappy.

Re:Let's face it

[Peeteriz]

I feel that they will unintentionally push the 3d-thang over the edge where most new PC's would be sold as 3d-capable, and then it's back to business/piracy as usual forever.
Porn industry would only accelerate that, they would definitely be able to use the new tech, sell the new content, etc.

Re:Let's face it

[Bigjeff5]

I could not disagree more.

Every movie I watch that is not 3d gives me a disappointing feeling of flatness. Not enough to ruin the movie by any means, but it's definitely noticeable. Inception, for example, I caught myself thinking "This movie is great, it would be awesome in 3D!". Did it ruin a good movie? Of course not, not by a long shot. Would I have enjoyed it more if it were 3D? You bet your ass I would have.

The problem with 3D comes when people try to use it as a gimmick, instead of as a tool to increase immersion. It's just like the old color movies - you had people doing all kinds of flashy things, and of course they were stupid. Same thing with stereo sound - gimmicks like alternating noises between speakers and shit, making absolutely sure that everyone knew you were using stereo.

3D is no different. 80's 3D was almost pure gimmick, because it was so crappy that was all it was good for. The current iteration of 3D is much higher quality, and yeah it still has issues, but it is at the point where directors are able to use it to enhance a good movie, and they are doing it. Look at Avatar and How To Train Your Dragon - neither of those used 3D as a gimmick, with stupid shit flying in your face. They used it to make the movie feel more real, to immerse you deeper in the story, and it worked extremely well. In fact it was after Avatar that I watched a normal movie and realized how disappointed I was that it wasn't 3D for the first time. It was a good movie too.

Re:Let's face it

[jbengt]

Don't forget that stereoscopic 3D has been around since the 50s

More like since the 1850s/1860s "stereoopticon" for still pictures and the late 1800s/early 1900s for similar moving pictures.

Re:Let's face it

[RobDude]

I won't disagree with any of that; whether or not it's a good financial decision really depends heavily on your habits and what you value.

I ignore at the TV/speaker/blu-ray (my PS3 is my blu-ray player) cost because I'd have them even if I didn't use them to watch movies. I play video games and watch non-movie TV a lot.

But yeah, I could see how if you look at the total cost of ownership - going to the movies might be cheaper.

I also don't buy movies, ever. Just as a rule. I've got Netflix right now ($10 a month, I think - whatever the 1-disc at a time is); but RedBox is an option out there too - $1 movies, and rarely, I'll still go to BlockBuster if I want a movie.

Re:Let's face it

[Bigjeff5]

I don't see how this is a problem for 3D but not 2D, the optical focus has absolutely nothing to do with the overlay of images that gives the sense of 3D in 3D films. The background isn't blurry because it's 3D, the background is blurry because the director chose a shallow focus to force you to look at what he wants you to look at.

Avatar in fact used deep focus on pretty much all of the big scenery shots (and there were a lot of them), and that's the movie the GP is complaining about! You know the shots where the ship in the foreground was in focus, and so was all the cool shit in the background? Yeah, that was deep focus. It's done with optics and optics only.

When the director wants you to focus on what's going on, he's going to make you focus on what's going on. That's his job as the director. It has absolutely nothing to do with 3D.

Re:Let's face it

[Bigjeff5]

You know they've done that in 2d films since movies were invented right? It's called depth of field, and is determined by optics, not the overlapping of two shots to get the 3D effect.

I don't know why you're just noticing it now. Maybe you're looking for 3D gimmicks and don't want to admit it?

Re:Let's face it

[Triv]

"I remember when I saw Toy Story, thinking, "Wouldn't it be cool if, in addition to a normal DVD release, they released a version with all of the model, action, sound and lighting information, but where you could grab the "camera" and move it anywhere in the story's defined universe?""

The rendering process occurs after the movie's shot script is finalized, the reason for this being there's no reason to texture / shade / colorize / animate objects that aren't in-frame for any given shot. It would be a monstrous waste of time and resources.

A perfect example of this is, at Blizzcon this year the WoW dev team spotlighted the new login screen, then rotated the camera 180 degrees through the Z-axis to show you how it was all put together; you realized that all of that beautiful animation, from the back, was held together with placeholder images, JPGs and, essentially, toothpicks and gum.

Believe me. You don't WANT to see all the other stuff. Be hapy with being shown the stuff they wanted you to see.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you just have feeble faculties.

Re:Let's face it

[Zoxed]

> 3d is no more of a gimmick then sound or color.

I am not sure: sound came and stayed, colour came and stayed (after a long overlap), 3D came and went in the 50s, popping up again occasionally as a gimmick. But maybe on this iteration it will stay (with the better technology).

Re:Let's face it

[gmb61]

Obviously you don't have a wife and kids, because that would shoot your entire "the theater is cheaper" argument to hell.

Re:Let's face it

[Bigjeff5]

How many movies have that?

A few pornos do it.

Re:Let's face it

[tirefire]

Movies like Toy Story are rendered with raytracing; this is a very visually accurate but very demanding form of rendering. Even Pixar cannot render Toy Story 3 in real-time, which you would need for your idea.

While real-time raytracing is asking for the moon, I kind of wonder - one can get a beastly PCIe graphics card, a fast multicore CPU and gigs of memory for less than $200 these days - barely more than a bluray player. What if set-top boxes had the ability to play cinematic movies, a sort of feature-length cutscene in an Xbox 360 game? If you designed all the virtual sets to provide consistent fps in all the scenes, you could give the viewer arbitrary control over the scene.

Think of all the dorm-room dwellers with beanie hats who'd love to chuckle and zoom in on Scarlett Johansson's bosom.

Re:Let's face it

[TavisJohn]

I think that 3D is being done all wrong. It has been done all wrong for decades. (Yes 3D has been around for decades). If you have stuff popping out of the screen it is a gimmick. It distracts you from the story, it does not draw you in.

What I would like to see 3D do is depth. Instead of coming out of the screen AT me, have everything start at the screen and go in.

With normal 3D where stuff comes out at you, if you move your head to see the "side" of things, all the 3D elements slide like paper tiles in a pop-up book. That totally ruins the 3D experience right there.

However that same effect when the movie goes back from the screen is less noticeable and is less likely to ruin the effect. It will also work better at wider viewing angles.

Re:Let's face it

[Bigjeff5]

When I go to my local cinema, they have a digital projector with pixels more obvious than my home screen and poorly set up sound so there's often clipping or distortion - and it's only stereo in some of the smaller screens.

Damn that's a shitty theater! I wouldn't go there either. There is a good deal of competition where I live, so even the cheap theaters are well maintained and well run.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

I despise 3D because or triggers migraines for me so I cannot go to a 3D flick forcing me to wait until it comes out on DVD or sit in the scangey dollar movie house

Re:Let's face it

[chrismcb]

3d is no more of a gimmick then sound or color. 3d does make them a lot of extra money.

"3D" is definitely more of a gimmick than sound or color. Because "3D" isn't real, while sound and color is. If you had a BW movie, and handed out glasses that let people see the BW in "color" that would be a gimmick. Actually it is sort of like handing out the glasses to let people see a BW movie in 256 color (you remember that?) At that point, I'd rather just watch it in BW. This is the same, until it is TRUE 3D, just let me watch it in 2D.

Re:Let's face it

[mark-t]

And, yes, I am aware that 3D viewing requires that one pay attention only to the main element of the scene (trying to look at the background when only the foreground is in focus will always result in blurring even with the best 3D).

Wrong. Everything you see on the screen is in focus as it was when the scene was shot. Focusing your concentration on nearby elements does not result in making the background any more blurry than the camera lens that shot the scene picked it up. When you are focused on any object on the screen, regardless of how far it might appear to be, the lenses in your eyes focus on the distance the screen is from you, not how far away the object appears to be. This is because each eye is seeing a single (and different) 2d image, and the optical processing capabilities of your brain are merging them to create a 3d image, it is not an actual 3d image where different parts of it are different distances from you.

You no more lose focus of far items in today's 3d film (which is actually steroscopic viewing, not real 3d) when you concentrate on the foreground than you would looking at a painting or photograph. How in-focus the objects appear to be is solely a function of how the picture was taken.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

>... made it a good film in spite of...

No, it did not. Crap is crap, no matter how you dress it up. It was a bad film that looked nice. A film shouldn't get to be considered "good" just because it's pretty, and the best actors can't salvage a terrible plot and poor writing. I can't really judge a lot of acting because it was mostly made up of large, blue, CG cat people, but the voice-acting for them was alright for what they were given.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, a popular theory is that any format will only be successful if it is adopted by the pr0n industry. So, 3D pr0n? Anyone?

Re:Let's face it

[Asmodae]

Right! Think of how interactive this could become! We could give the user controls to move the camera around, zoom in and out. Maybe even make decisions at key points to change the plot outcome! I think you're onto something here. I bet if we think real hard we might even be able to give the viewer complete control of a character in this interactive environment. And then they can be the hero!

In all seriousness though the line between video games and movies blurred a long time ago, there just isn't a big market for that in-between point of "movie with a little bit of control". Video games as a story telling platform have come a long way and get better every year.

Re:Let's face it

[B1oodAnge1]

Interesting, I don't feel strained by 2d blur.

I 'm not attempting to negate your entire argument, I was just addressing that part since I'm pretty sure from what the parent said that he's with me in not being bothered nearly as much by 2d blur.

I do agree with you that artificial motion blur has to stop.

Re:Let's face it

[Dogtanian]

Your first statement is right on: it is now being recognized that a 2D film is more realistic than a 3D one, which adds an artificial theatrical effect that pulls you right out of the storytelling. This is why so many directors hate it.

Interesting point here; people seem to prefer the more "juddery" 24/25 frames-per-second look of film to the theoretically more realistic 50/60 fields-per-second of traditional video.

I've heard people complaining about TVs that interpolate extra frames, saying that they make film-based material look like a cheap soap opera. That's (I assume) because the extra frames make it look more like video.

Now, it's possible that people just associate the reduced motion-fluidity with film and therefore prefer it. But I remember when I was a kid watching some programme and thinking it looked... different. It was hard to explain, but it felt undefinably "distant". For some reason I remembered that- and later on I realised that it was probably because, despite being a studio-based show (that would normally be shot on video), it had been done on film.

In short, I suspect that people prefer film because it *does* have a less realistic, "distancing" effect, and while I haven't seen any 3D films in the cinema, I suspect that its increased "realism" *might* counter-intuitively work against it for similar reasons.

Re:Let's face it

[cbhacking]

You make a great point, but... damn, my attention almost never gets grabbed so much by a typo.

First I thought you were referencing the C function, ASCII-to-long-long. That didn't make sense though.
Then I thought you were referring to a ring-shaped island, such as the Tuamotus of French Polynesia.
Only after several seconds of considering did it occur to me that you meant "a toll."

For a moment I really hoped you were referring to somebody making a 3D movie of diving in the South Pacific. I'd totally watch that, so long as it was actually filmed in stereo...

Re:Let's face it

[cbhacking]

The problem is the render time. Pixar uses massive parellel arrays of powerful computers, and still can't render in anything approaching real-time. Even with as much optimization as possible, there's no way that theatrical-quality CGI movies will be available as anything other than pre-rendered video for a long time.

I agree that it would be awesome, though. GPUs are getting better all the time, so there may come a point where this is actually possible. Until then, be glad that at least some CGI movies are "filmed" in stereo, rather than trying to extrapolate the stereoscopic viewpoint after the fect.

Re:Let's face it

[toddestan]

I like that idea. I wonder if the multi-million dollar render farm that each person would have to install in their home to make this would might be a slight limitation?

Have you completely failed to notice the incredibly powerful computers you can get nowadays for under $1000?

Re:Let's face it

[TheLink]

Interesting, I don't feel strained by 2d blur.

Not all blurs feel a strain. Out of focus blurs do it a bit. I think "slight double vision" blurs are worse for me.

Anyway, that's why artificially blurring a scene or 3D in a big screen movie can be counterproductive.

I can understand its use in when the movie maker wants to emphasize a certain object/person/point in the scene. But I find nowadays many movies use it excessively.

Re:Let's face it

[jonwil]

I go to the movies quite regularly and I cant remember the last time I was at a movie when there was any really loud hollering in the film (enough to annoy me anyway)

Re:Let's face it

[poetmatt]

what, you've never heard of trends before?

This isn't magic. If you think 3d is going to stay, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell ya.

It's the same as the 80s because so is the technology. All we've done instead of red/blue is done split frames. We haven't truly achieved 3D anymore than we've achieved 4g phones, and people defend 3d as illogically as they do iphones as well (note: iphone isn't 4g).

Re:Let's face it

[dlanod]

Replying to undo an unfortunate misclick resulting in a "Flamebait" moderation instead of "Funny".

Re:Let's face it

[Quiet_Desperation]

My point exactly! Can you imagine not getting a chance to see the amazing background which is the Coruscant in Starwars, or those amazing environments at The Lord of The Rings? I don't think so. Blurring everything other than whatever is the focus is a great idea for fascist film making, I suppose this was discovered in 1940s?

Holy shit! (hits breaks) SCREEEEEEEECH! BAM! AAAAAAAH! SMASH!

Damn! That Godwin just leapt into the road out of nowhere!

Re:Let's face it

[Quiet_Desperation]

Not to mention that they probably don't model things out of camera shot. I've done a lot of 3D art. Scene looks great. Turn the camera 10 degrees and suddenly you see the empty void of null space where unlucky rays trace off to infinity...

Re:Let's face it

[ppanon]

You'll know 3D is being overused when you see the advertising for the first 3D chick flick.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, with low-persistance eyeballs, if you had a brain to match and did a lot of martial arts, you might just get to reach that "everything slowing down" state.

Re:Let's face it

[uninformedLuddite]

What I understand after having just spoken to a near bankrupt Hollywood accountant is that there hasn't been a single movie since 1923 that hasn't lost toilet-loads of money. Apparently the only reason we still have a motion picture industry at all is due to the generosity of the filmmakers who have sometimes had to rely on food stamps and charity just to survive as they pump absolutely all of their money into the medium.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a cool idea, and home computing technology is almost up to the point where you could render something like Toy-Story on the fly. Games do this already.

In fact, in a world where one could render a movie from any point, and get a completely unique experience: the line between movies and games would blur even more.

The problem of course is that even fully CG movies are only designed to be viewed from the 'camera'. Move this around and you'd start to see blank areas that were never designed to be seen. Not to mention of course that final movies do have post-production compositing to make the finished picture.

Re:Let's face it

[drinkypoo]

I'll be royally fucked if theaters to purely to 3D.

Did you accidentally the whole theater?

Seriously though, the theaters will be fucked, because you and the people who will only go to movies with you won't be going to the theater any more.

Theaters are not going to be with us forever, at least not in such quantity. It gets cheaper and cheaper to get more and more of the experience at home.

Re:Let's face it

[drinkypoo]

In short, I suspect that people prefer film because it *does* have a less realistic, "distancing" effect, and while I haven't seen any 3D films in the cinema, I suspect that its increased "realism" *might* counter-intuitively work against it for similar reasons.

Film at 24 fps makes motion blur, and everything looks soft. It's a look people have come to expect to be associated with epic masterworks. A film like The Matrix or really anything with a lot of action could look better in 30 fps, especially if action sequences are shot even faster (e.g. in Bullet Time or simply with a higher speed) so that they can be slowed down to show detail.

On the flip side, 24 fps film makes me want to lose my lunch on sideways pans...

Re:Let's face it

[drinkypoo]

Even DVDs, when they first came out, were supposed to be revolutionary because they allowed directors to include multiple angles for the same scene. How many movies have that?

It's pretty much just a handful of porn movies. Unfortunately, when you switch angles you find out why they don't show you those other cameras; you can't see shit. Mostly, multiple angles has been a technology permitting the public to learn why they don't want multiple angles. RPG games don't usually let you move the camera during cut scenes for a reason; if you do, it's all just a bunch of boring triangles.

Re:Let's face it

[FlameWise]

3D may need a new visual vocabulary. Fortunately, this vocabulary is currently being developed.

Coughing up the 3D ticket tax for Avatar means Cameron has made a step in the right direction, but he's just at the lead, not yet at the finish line.

There are already people who can do more with 3D than fancy show effects, but most of them are still doing CGI. For instance, did you see the feathers on the pigeons in "Bolt", or Soren's flight through the forest fire in "Ga'Hoole"?

I love watching this development. I also watched how the South African Soccer WM in 3D mostly failed, and how the "Fantastic Four" Live 3D concert transmission succeeded. I bet MTV has something to say about "Krieger".

I just wish there was more proper CONTENT right now that didn't make me want to pirate it because it's exclusive to some silly hardware.

Re:Let's face it

[iainl]

There are 2D versions of 3D movies, yes. But, as we've recently seen with the likes of Piranha 3D (a film that wasn't even shot stereoscopic, but converted in post-production), that doesn't necessarily mean the studio is going to release 2D prints.

Re:Let's face it

[iainl]

It's all about money, yes. But not just in the way that you suggest. Every 3D projection system on the market currently is a digital projection system. The studios have been wanting to go all-digital for years, because a couple of hard drives cost a fraction of a 35mm print to courier to the cinema, let alone make in the first place (prices I've seen quoted were $35000 for the initial master print, and then $1000 per copy on a mass-distributed title). But for the cinema, they're looking at shelling out serious money for a digital setup, versus just using a film-based one they've already paid for and was cheaper in the first place.

The 3D fad could easily die off in a year or two without too much concern, because by then it will have done its job - persuading the cinema chains there is a financial incentive to invest in digital projection. That's the big prize at stake, not the $2 per ticket surcharge, most of which is funding the hardware upgrade rather than turning a profit.

Re:Let's face it

[IndustrialComplex]

I don't see how this is a problem for 3D but not 2D, the optical focus has absolutely nothing to do with the overlay of images that gives the sense of 3D in 3D films. The background isn't blurry because it's 3D, the background is blurry because the director chose a shallow focus to force you to look at what he wants you to look at.

It isn't a problem in 2D because you brain is aware it is looking at a 2D image. In 3D projection, your mind starts to react as if it is looking at real, and not projected objects.

The result is that your mind thinks it should be able to focus on an object, but can't. It's more of a problem that what we get on the screens is more like 2.5D than 3D.

Consider the difference between a stereoscopic image and a reflection in a mirror. They both appear to be '3 dimensional' but the physics are different. In these movies, your brain expects the light information it receives to be more like the mirror reflection, but when it's not, it causes issues.

Re:Let's face it

[zdickinson]

"3d will always remain a cute gimmick..." You should never speak in absolutes.

Re:Let's face it

[Dogtanian]

30 frames-per-second isn't that much different to 24, in fact as far as I know many US shows shot on film did so at 30fps. Perhaps you're thinking of traditional interlaced video which has 50 or 60 *fields*- i.e. half-frames- per second (which isn't the same as 25/30 frames, due to the fact that objects can have moved between one field and the next, so you really get 50/60 hz temporal resolution, albeit not at "full" spatial resolution).

Of course, if you shot film at 50 or 60 full frames per second, you'd also get increased motion fluidity and a more "video" look.

Re:Let's face it

[AK Marc]

I don't see how this is a problem for 3D but not 2D,

In Avatar, the narrow field of focus would be on the action. However, the 3D would kick some things into the foreground, drawing attention. This would mean that a shrub was pushed into your face. An out of focus shrub. So your brain has to determine whether this item being pushed at you should be paid attention to or ignored. If it's done automatically, it can cause strain. If it's done consciously, then it distracts from the movie.

That same scene in 2D you see the fuzzy shrub block some of the action, but your brain ignores it without problem because it's out of focus and there's absolutely nothing else to attract attention to it.

Re:Let's face it

[AK Marc]

When you are focused on any object on the screen, regardless of how far it might appear to be, the lenses in your eyes focus on the distance the screen is from you, not how far away the object appears to be. This is because each eye is seeing a single (and different) 2d image, and the optical processing capabilities of your brain are merging them to create a 3d image, it is not an actual 3d image where different parts of it are different distances from you.

I don't believe you. I don't believe the eye has the capability to focus the lens and the perceived focus at different distances. There's no laser range finder in the eye, it doesn't know how far away the screen is. It focuses best it can, and that's at the distance it thinks the object is based on the stereoscopic clues.

Re:Let's face it

[Kuad]

Even DVDs, when they first came out, were supposed to be revolutionary because they allowed directors to include multiple angles for the same scene. How many movies have that? I haven't seen any.

Multiple angle DVDs were created for the porn industry. And I'm pretty sure they're the only ones that ever used it. Even in that niche, it's not used very often any more.

Re:Let's face it

[CSMoran]

Try pausing the movie in a theater to go for a piss or to re-fill and hit the bong.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they could, you know, make the theater experience better. Check out an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and see what the future of movie going should look like: http://www.drafthouse.com/ Ticket prices are no more than a regular movie, so even if you don't want to go for the food, you still get a nice, comfortable, clean theater, modern projection and sound, an anonymous method to request warnings for other viewers if they're being too loud (they get kicked out if there are multiple complaints), great pre-show entertainment (no blatant ads, you still get the regular movie previews of course), and awesome special events (e.g. topical movie/film pairings like a Halloween showing of Dead/Alive, aka Braindead, with all-you-can-eat sloppy joes and custard). Seems to be if more theaters were like this, people would be out in droves. That's not something I can get in my house, no matter how much I pirate.

Re:Let's face it

[bill_mcgonigle]

one of which is actually probably the best movie experience in town - beer + pizza+ $3 movies = awesome

yeah? Do you have a link? Something like that could go over well here, but the logistics seems difficult.

Re:Let's face it

[Anonymous Coward]

420th post!

Let me say:

[RulerOf]

has Hollywood's latest bandwagon hit the skids already?

I sure as hell hope so.

hit the skids already?

[schnikies79]

We can only hope.

After seeing Avatar and Alice in Wonderland in 3D I can honestly say I don't think it gets much more hokey than that.

Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[Enderandrew]

In most cases they won't. They will still push 3D. And as more consumers buy 3D enabled BluRay players and TVs, they will demand content to justify the purchase.

3D isn't right for every movie, and it certainly doesn't turn out well as a forced post-production conversion. But isn't exactly the devil either, so I don't understand this massive backlash either.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[O('_')O_Bush]

I put "3d movies are" into the google searchbar, and it autofilled:

"3d movies are a gimmick
3d movies are overrated
3d movies are bullshit
3d movies are crap
3d movies are annoying"

as the first 5 options.

I think the massive backlash is because many people view 3d as the first result, a gimmick to pass off lower quality films while trying to keep the same revenue. After all, the hollywood revenue stream has two factors. One being ticket prices, which can be boosted for the gimmick, and the other being production costs which can be reduced if the film expectations are lowered.

My $0.02

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[Pinky's Brain]

The backlash in the industry is mostly inertia, people are either afraid of change and rationalize their fear with bullshit arguments or they don't want the skill they have build up making the best of the old medium become useless ... the same reason we still have 24 juddery frames per second (tripple flashed so it doesn't flicker any more, but judders all the same). Another thing Cameron wants to get rid of.

Cameron is simply adventurous, where Nolan is conservative ... when making what will be a sure fire hit any way being conservative is economically optimal. Cowardly, but optimal.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[nschubach]

I think the best thing 3D could have done was not "advertise" and push it in your face. You get a stupid feeling when something comes flying off the screen. I would have liked to see movies push less of the "in your face" 3D and use it to help see depth in the movie. I think too many movies are trying to break that screen barrier and they are doing it in cheesy ways.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[sed quid in infernos]

My backlash stems from two facts: 1.) 3D as currently executed gives me a major headache, even when it's done well. 2.) The theaters near me show only the 3d version - usually for the entire first run. Sometimes they will move to the 2D version if the film is still making money when a new 3D blockbuster comes out. But they're converting more individual theaters to 3D, so even that respite is fading. Several features I wanted to see ran for two months in 3D only.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[Enderandrew]

I wouldn't say Nolan is conservative. He did push to film large sequences with IMAX cameras. I also think he has tried to reinvent the summer blockbuster as something with mass appeal, but also features an impressive cast of actors and has an intelligent script.

For far too long the assumption was that you could make a popcorn flick like Michael Bay, or you could make a film for the critics, but you couldn't do both.

3D did make sense for Avatar in that Cameron wanted the audience to sympathize with the Na'vi by selling them on Pandora. Immersion in the environment was key to the success of the film.

3D doesn't work well with fast-moving action, and can be a gimmick that detracts from other elements of the film. I think Nolan is correct in that it wouldn't benefit his Batman films. He doesn't want people staring off into the scenery when he wants his audience grounded in the familiar.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[Anonymous Coward]

I put "3d movies are" into the google searchbar, and it autofilled:

"3d movies are a gimmick
3d movies are overrated
3d movies are bullshit
3d movies are crap
3d movies are annoying"

as the first 5 options.

Google bomb?

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[Yvan256]

I remember using one of the first 3D shutter-glasses system with an old 3Dfx graphic card. One of the demo had that "out of the screen" effect and not only did it look like crap, trying to focus on objects in front of my screen just gave me a headache pretty fast.

The demos that tried to add depth to my screen, however, were really amazing. I seem to recall playing Quake 1 in 3D with only in-screen depth and it completely changed the game (in a good way).

When you go see a movie, the action takes places on the damn screen. If things start coming out of it, it's just stupid. You can't have the movie happening inside the theater. But if you use 3D to make the screen have depth, there is still that needed disconnection with the movie vs the theater yet you gain a perceived dimension for the movie itself.

As soon as they stop doing "out-of-screen 3D", we'll be better off.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[SuricouRaven]

More than two. The ticket sales arn't even the most significent income now - that honor goes to selling discs, DVD and blu-ray.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[minogully]

3D isn't right for every movie

To me this is similar to how great color photos are, and yet there are some amazing things that can still only be done with a black and white shot.

Both the industry and the consumers need to figure out which medium is best for each type of film. I'd say that in general, if viewing it in HD makes a difference, than stereoscopic will add that much more. On the other hand if, say, you're renting a romantic comedy, you'll probably skip the HD and thus probably wouldn't need 3D either.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[Pinky's Brain]

Action works just fine in stereoscopic view. Quick cuts and shaky cam not so much ... which is the greatest reason I like it, even more than the effect itself. Nothing lazier than turning the screen into one gigantic 24 Hz clusterfuck of juddering unrecognisable crap to imply action. Anything that reduces shaky cam is okay in my book.

PS. Nolan's love of shaky cam is probably part of the reason for remaining 2D ...

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[NJRoadfan]

Action works just fine in stereoscopic view. Quick cuts and shaky cam not so much ... which is the greatest reason I like it, even more than the effect itself. Nothing lazier than turning the screen into one gigantic 24 Hz clusterfuck of juddering unrecognisable crap to imply action. Anything that reduces shaky cam is okay in my book.

PS. Nolan's love of shaky cam is probably part of the reason for remaining 2D ...

On a somewhat related note. How is the DVD format holding up to this wave of shaky cam cinema? MPEG-2 can only handle so much motion at DVD bitrates until it turns the picture into juddering unrecognizable crap.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[jank1887]

The only 3D movie I've seen since the fad has taken off was Toy Story 3. I specifically remember complaints about that 3D movie revolving around the fact that the 3D was forgettable. 20 minutes into the film, you forgot you were watching a 3D movie. The Night & Day short was a bit more 3D gimmicky, but that was by design, it was good, and it was a short, so gimmicks are ok. I consider Toy Story 3 to have been a great use of 3D. There are certain scenes where the depth stood out, and a couple times during the movie that I 'noticed and remembered' that I was watching a 3D movie, even though the effect was there the whole time.

It was good because I didn't notice it. It didn't take away from the story. I don't recall any 'out of screen' parts, mainly just in-screen depth. Of course, since it was computer generated, the depth should have been a non-issue, since the computer had all the depth info there. (As someone said above, the camera could have looked at the back of woody's head if it had wanted.)

I liked that 3D. But all said and done, would I pay more for that type of 3D on a regular basis? probably not.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[GrumblyStuff]

Who the fuck made the shaky cam 'cool'? Was it that douchebag who made Lost and Shakycampolooza- I mean, Cloverfield?

I don't know what's worse: That Stargate Universe is written like a soap opera or that the whole fucking thing is filmed in shaky cam.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[Freedom Bug]

You've just turned me from a 3d hater into a 3d lover. I'm not a big fan of 3d, but shaky cam is even worse. Thanks!

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[iluvcapra]

The constantly-reframing (though tripod mounted) camera has been accepted as conventional ever since NYPD Blue used it in the late 90s, and they borrowed the effect from UK police procedurals. Straight-up shaky handheld has always been an accepted technique, and was used in a lot of films from the 60s on in order to emulate the feel of a documentary or news footage. The current style, highly dynamic and more shaky than documentaries, is generally attributed to the work of Paul Greengrass and Barry Akroyd, from films like Sunday Bloody Sunday to The Bourne Supremacy and The Hurt Locker.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget about Hollywood accounting. The 'Lord Of The Rings' series lost money in the long run according to Hollywood after all.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[pjt33]

I associate it the the Blair Witch Project, which predates Lost by a bit.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[Philomage]

Apparently Sam Raimi in Evil Dead. It was used "forever" but he made it cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaky_camera#History

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[cbhacking]

Part of the problem is the need to show off the 3D, the other part is the after-the-fact extrapolation. Avatar is the only movie I've seen where I felt the 3D really added to the experience, and a lot of that is because it was actually filmed in 3D, so it doesn't feel so gimmicky. The only part that always really bugs me is the grenade pins flying toward the camera in the final fight - I felt that was an uneeded effect. That's not the only time I noticed, just the only time it seemed forced. The otehr parts - walking in the trees, the holographic displays, and all the rest... I loved it. I feel that watching it in 2D afterward was really "movie-like" compared to the much "deeper" visual experience.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[Anonymous Coward]

I put "3D Movies are" into the Google search bar and got the same results. Then I realized the search phrase was too specific. People know what a 3D movie is, so naturally they wouldn't search for "3D Movies are" unless they were searching for a specific opinion.

So I put "3D Movies" into the Google search bar, and it auto-filled:

3D Movies in [my city]
3D Movies 2010
3D Movies on DVD
3D Movies Online
3D Movies

Then I put "3D" into the Google search bar, and it auto-filled:

3DS
3D Games
3D Ultrasound [my city]
3D TV
3D

Let's be honest, there are a lot of people who are interested in 3D. The technology is abused sometimes but the market exists because many people want to see movies or play games in 3D. Anyone who does not want 3D entertainment is free to embrace 2D.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words: Michael Bay.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[drinkypoo]

Shakycam in CG has been attributed to Firefly. Before them pretty much every CG shot you saw was very stable for a variety of technical and financial reasons; if you spent a lot on the graphics you want people to be able to see them. But being in 30 fps and at broadcast resolution meant that Firefly could both display the effect better (it doesn't come across as well in 24 fps where the jaggy motions just become more blur) and where they didn't have to spend as much money rendering. Babylon 5 had some documentary-like camera motions, but they always came off pretty corny.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[iluvcapra]

I think the real driver of shakycam in CGI was in 2004 when After Effects added 4-point matchmove. Before that everything had to be tracked in by hand, or you had to spend A LOT more money on gear and contractors, and it was just too expensive to shoot VFX plates for TV with anything other than a lockdown.

Re:Is Hollywood leaving money on the table?

[Kuad]

Bourne Supremacy was the first film where I really noticed it. It annoyed me at the time, but as everyone has been moving towards using it, Supremacy looks like a fairly tame implementation.

But yeah, late 90s cop shows on TV are where I first saw the modern use of it for action sequences. I found it really, really irritating back then.

Here's to hoping

[Pojut]

3D is great, so long as a movie is made from the very beginning with it in mind, isn't used in a gimmicky sort of way, and isn't thrown in "just because".

I've only seen three movies that meet those requirements: Avatar, UP, and Coraline.

Re:Here's to hoping

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I believe the only way for 3D to become the standard is for it to be used on film that don't call for it and not be exploited. In other words, it needs to be used largely nonexploitively. When it's used for run-of-the-mill comedies and melodramas, it will truly have arrived. I personally hope that doesn't happen.

Re:Here's to hoping

[Pojut]

That's precisely my point...it's hard for a movie to truly NEED 3D, and as I said in my OP, I've only come across three such movies. I'd put Coraline at the top of the list, though...basically, it made it look like you were observing what was happening, right where it was happening, rather than looking at a flat screen. The visual depth it added was nothing short of amazing.

If more films utilized 3D the way Coraline did, then I'd want to see EVERYTHING in 3D, even run-of-the-mill comedies (and thus violating one of my own rules.) Still, I hope it stays big enough for movies that can use it right, yet retreats enough that it doesn't show up everywhere.

Re:Here's to hoping

[elrous0]

I would add Jaws 3D to that fine list.

Re:Here's to hoping

[Ender_Stonebender]

So basically, you've seen ONE movie where it wasn't thrown in "just because". UP and Coraline were entirely computer-generated video, and re-rendering with the "camera" in a different position is a matter of tweaking a couple of settings. They could re-make ANY all-CGI film (Ice Age, Wall-E, etc) as 3D if they still had the original files and rendering programs. And probably make money on them.

(Note: Avatar used lots of computer-generated imagery...but not exclusively, and did a lot more with motion capture than is normal.)

Re:Here's to hoping

[Pojut]

Having seen both Up and Coraline in 3D and 2D in the theaters, I can say that 3D definitely added to the experience.

It made Up better because of the immense size of some of the set pieces. It helped Coraline because it made it feel like you were looking through a window, rather than looking at a flat surface.

As I said in another post in this thread, if all movies used 3D the way Coraline did, I'd want to see everything in 3D.

Re:Here's to hoping

[gstoddart]

3D is great, so long as a movie is made from the very beginning with it in mind, isn't used in a gimmicky sort of way, and isn't thrown in "just because".

I've only seen three movies that meet those requirements: Avatar, UP, and Coraline.

To me, 3D isn't worth the resulting headache. Just not a fan of it for what it's supposed to bring to the table.

Saw Avatar twice in 3D, both times I had eye strain and a headache for a couple of hours after. My copy of Coraline came with 3D glasses -- 20 minutes into the movie, I took off the glasses, flipped the disk back to the 2D side, and never thought of it again.

I'm sure people will continue to spend the money to see 3D. Me, I'll studiously avoid it -- it's a gimmick, and it detracts from my viewing experience rather than adding to it.

On a slightly related note, I watched a Vincent Price movie last night from 1953 -- it was filmed for 3D, but broadcast on TV so not in 3D. You could see the parts of the movie that were quite obviously intended to milk the 3D effect. Quite cheesy -- and just as much of a gimmick then as now.

Re:Here's to hoping

[RivenAleem]

I caught this (http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/29/2369649/sneak-peek-tron-sequels-legacy.html) in the news the other day. I can only hope they are not over hyping it for clicks. I'd love for Tron to join that list.

Re:Here's to hoping

[Anonymous Coward]

You are incorrect. Coraline was stop-motion, shot on a dual-camera 3D stop motion rig. It was planned and designed from the very beginning to be in 3D. Had it been shot in 2D originally, to "re-render" it in 3D would have taken hundreds of skilled animators years to re-do.

Your other point, that any CGI film can just be quickly re-rendered in 3D is only half correct. Yes, you have the files and can just sub in a 3D camera. However, it's still common to render certain parts separately, then add them together in compositing in post. There are also rules that have to followed for 3D about how shots look so you don't make the audience sick. Visual tricks that work in 2D have to be redseigned to work in 3D (things like forced perspective, some flat background mats, etc.). Remaking a 2D CGI movie in 3D is a bit more work than it seems. Which is why we haven't seen Ice Age or Shrek re-released in 3D. Considering how they've run Shrek into the ground since, and if all it took was changing one asset in the files, hitting the render button, and waiting a couple months, we should have already seen Shrek 1-3 re-released in 3D. It'd be free money for dreamworks, basically. But we haven't. Because it's a lot harder to do than it seems at first glance.

Re:Here's to hoping

[Tony]

So basically, you've seen ONE movie where it wasn't thrown in "just because". UP and Coraline were entirely computer-generated video, and re-rendering with the "camera" in a different position is a matter of tweaking a couple of settings. They could re-make ANY all-CGI film (Ice Age, Wall-E, etc) as 3D if they still had the original files and rendering programs. And probably make money on them.

(Note: Avatar used lots of computer-generated imagery...but not exclusively, and did a lot more with motion capture than is normal.)

Have you even seen Coraline? It was produced via stop-motion, using 3D cameras. There were some digital effects, but not many. So, no. For Coraline, it wasn't thrown in "just because."

Re:Here's to hoping

[Savage-Rabbit]

So basically, you've seen ONE movie where it wasn't thrown in "just because". UP and Coraline were entirely computer-generated video, and re-rendering with the "camera" in a different position is a matter of tweaking a couple of settings. They could re-make ANY all-CGI film (Ice Age, Wall-E, etc) as 3D if they still had the original files and rendering programs. And probably make money on them.

(Note: Avatar used lots of computer-generated imagery...but not exclusively, and did a lot more with motion capture than is normal.)

When a new technology of this kind hits the market you always get what we used to call ""shovelware" back in the day. IMHO the 3D did actually add to the experience in Avatar, I know that because I went and saw Avatar in 2D just because I wanted to compare the experiences. James Cameron and his crew really did succeed in giving one a taste of the feeling that one was looking through a window into another world which is IMHO what 3D should do. I have seen a number of other 3D movies that simply did not succed in creating this impression... in other words shovelware. Eventually, the wave of shovel ware will dissipate, and what the makers of Avatar did in terms of image capture etc. will become the norm as directors and film industry professionals become used to the technology and learn how it is most effectively used. I'm not going to judge 3D by what the movies I have seen so far which are mostly shovelware with a few notable exceptions and I am not going to judge it solely on the basis of what a few naysayer are preaching. Give it 5-10 years and then condemn 3D movies, in the long run I think 3D will dominate just like talkies exterminated silent movies.

Re:Here's to hoping

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd add "How to Train Your Dragon". The flight scenes were awesome in 3D. Even so, there were noticeable "shutter" effects when motion was quick or close to the viewer (framerate limitations?), and when I watched it at home in plain-old 2D it was more detailed. Would I see a 3D movie again? Probably not if 2D were available. Not for the extra price.

Re:Here's to hoping

[xtracto]

It helped Coraline because it made it feel like you were looking through a window, rather than looking at a flat surface.

THIS, a thousand times this. IMHO Coraline has been the *only* good film in 3D. Having seen several films in 3D*, only Coraline had an effect that pleased my eyes. In Coraline, the 3D effect is used to simulate a "theater-like" scenario. As such, watching the movie is like watching a play (e.g. like in a puppet theater).

For me, Avatar was just OK (a *meh* movie with typical -in-your-face- 3D effects), and the other were very average.

The problem with *filming* in 3D is that the in-focus/out-focus images destroys the advantage of 3D because you still can *only* always focus on one image (which seems closer or further away from the screen).

* (Final Destination 4, Avatar, Coraline, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Monsters vs Aliens and Alice in Wonderland)

Re:Here's to hoping

[DrgnDancer]

Two points (neither of which help you much sadly):

1) Some people just have problems with polarity based stereo. It's unfortunate, but true. Hopefully for the sake of you and people like you 2D versions won't ever go completely away. On the other hand I love stereo when it's done well (I agree with OP pretty much completely), and would hate to have it go away before people really learn how to use it. If done well it's great (IMO), we just need to get to the point where it's done well most of the time.

2) The attempt to bring Coraline's big screen stereo to the DVD was an utter failure. It had beautiful 3D in the theater. I never watch the 3D side of my DVD though.

Re:Here's to hoping

[gstoddart]

Two points (neither of which help you much sadly):

*laugh* Watching it in 2D helps me just fine. ;-)

Re:Here's to hoping

[gad_zuki!]

I'll consider 3D great when it doesn't dim the movie by 50%. Its really incredible how this technology has gone mainstream when it has so many issues. I absolutely can't stand watching a dim movie. All the vibrant colors are suddenly gone, everything looks muddled, and for what? For some hokey 3D effect? I feel sorry for the guys doing the color work. Their contributions are more or less tossed out the window for the sake of 3D.

I also don't like that if I'm seeing an imax showing then i must sit in the middle or else suffer through multiple ghosting issues.

I think the tech is appropriate for children's movies or nature documentaries, but not for general releases.

Re:Here's to hoping

[gad_zuki!]

I saw it and about halfway through I took off my glasses for a moment and was blown away at how bright and vibrant the colors were without the 3D glasses. The rest of the movie felt like I was watching through this dark lens that completely hurt the aesthetic quality of the movie. Since then I've been avoiding 3D movies. They're just too dark and that tradeoff isn't worth it.

Re:Here's to hoping

[geekoid]

Yes, they throwing things at the audience in an obvious manor id a gimmick. However that's poor use of the tool, not the tool itself.

Re:Here's to hoping

[gstoddart]

Yes, they throwing things at the audience in an obvious manor id a gimmick. However that's poor use of the tool, not the tool itself.

But, even well-used (like in Avatar), the technology still hurts my eyes and gives me a headache.

For my experience, no matter how well you use the tool, the tool still sucks. The cheesy thrust something at the camera is pretty weak, but overall, I just don't find even good attempts to 3D to be of value to me.

Re:Here's to hoping

[sjames]

On a slightly related note, I watched a Vincent Price movie last night from 1953 -- it was filmed for 3D, but broadcast on TV so not in 3D.

Actually, they COULD have presented it in 3D, it would work just as well as it ever did on a regular TV as long as you wear the colored glasses. They chose not to because not enough people have the glasses and it's just not worth it. And yes, it was quite clear what parts were there primarily to milk the 3D.

Re:Here's to hoping

[shidarin'ou]

IMAX 3d is significantly different from other 3d technologies. Put simply, IMAX technology was done first, and is linear. Left eye is horizontal polarized, right eye is vertical. That means no tilting of your head!

RealD technology (normal movie screens, not IMAX), use circular polorization. One eye is clockwise one eye is counterclockwise. Do not ask me how that works. The result is that you can sit off center and tilt your head. If you're seeing a 3d movie, don't buy the IMAX hype.

(Note: I might have mixed up which eye is horz and which is vert. Forgive me)

Re:Here's to hoping

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically, you've seen ONE movie where it wasn't thrown in "just because". UP and Coraline were entirely computer-generated video, and re-rendering with the "camera" in a different position is a matter of tweaking a couple of settings. They could re-make ANY all-CGI film (Ice Age, Wall-E, etc) as 3D if they still had the original files and rendering programs. And probably make money on them.

(Note: Avatar used lots of computer-generated imagery...but not exclusively, and did a lot more with motion capture than is normal.)

Have you even seen Coraline? It was produced via stop-motion, using 3D cameras. There were some digital effects, but not many. So, no. For Coraline, it wasn't thrown in "just because."

Coraline was not produced using 3D cameras. It was produced with Nikon N80s, and Redlake cameras. The stereoscopic image pairs were taken by using motion control rigs (some multi-axis, some simple A/B position only) to move the cameras between right-eye/left-eye. It would have been much simpler, and far less time-consuming, to have done it as a 2D stop-mo flick, as it would have eliminated half of the necessary exposures (and believe me, that does add up). Coraline was done in 3D "just because," though the "because" was (IIRC; I wasn't party to the decision making process) a desire to show off the artistry of the sets and puppets, in addition to doing something never done before (i.e. a 3D stop-mo film).

Yes, I have a screen credit for Coraline.

Re:Here's to hoping

[CCarrot]

Absolutely.

That's one movie I was actually glad that I caught in the theater, because the 3D was subtle enough not to intrude, yet enhanced the overall film.

That being said, would it make me buy a 3D home theater set? No. From the demo models I have checked out, the 'home version' is neither convincing nor convenient enough for me. I don't want to have to set my furniture up in a specific pattern, or hunt down the (probably completely discharged) glasses every time I want to watch a movie with friends or family...and if I'm skipping that hassle by switching to the 2D version anyways, then what's the point of getting the 3D at all?

Re:Here's to hoping

[Bigjeff5]

I think you may have problems with your eyes if clear 3D glasses make everything dark for you. They don't do anything like that for me.

Re:Here's to hoping

[snookums]

I think you may have problems with your eyes if clear 3D glasses make everything dark for you. They don't do anything like that for me.

Except, of course, that 3D glasses work using polarization, making them effectively 50% neutral-density filters.

You might not notice in some circumstances, because your eyes (brain) are pretty good at compensating for different over-all light levels. However, a bad projection setup could easily make the difference noticeable. For instance if you're sitting at the end of a row and the aisle lighting is shining into the corner of your eye without passing through the glasses, or if the projection brightness is just too low, resulting in a lack of dynamic range when cut by 50%.

We only see the 2D version

[roc97007]

We've skipped movies because the theater was only showing 3D. After the novelty wore off (took about two films) the greater expense and poor user experience killed it for us. If producers try to force 3D on us in theaters, I'll wait for the video release.

Re:We only see the 2D version

[Speare]

If the movie looks like it'll be enhanced by 3D... that is, it's clear that it was designed with 3D in mind and will tell the story in a "3D way," I'll pay for the 3D experience. Coraline? Sure. Avatar? Sure. Johnny Depp Does Another Freaky Makeup Job? Not really. I'm sure other people decided Coraline wasn't worth it, or Alice would have been good if they didn't use crappy 3D post-conversion. I really don't care about seeing things on the first day, so I can usually hear from other people whether it overwhelmingly stank or totally rocked. I have no problem paying the ticket and supporting a theater or a director who makes a good movie. It's entertainment, not an investment.

Re:We only see the 2D version

[roc97007]

They did interesting things with the 3D effects for Coraline, but I'm not sure how much that added to the story. It was interesting from the novelty aspect, which is not (I believe) sustainable in the industry.

The process or the equipment or the glasses (not sure what) induces quite a bit of distortion especially near the edge of the screen, and the 3D effect is not always realistic looking. Again, I can overlook that due to the novelty effect, the first couple of times. Add to this that 3D movies makes my wife nauseous (just what you wanted in entertainment) and we usually give 3D films a pass.

This goes double for craptastic 3D conversions of 2D films.

Re:We only see the 2D version

[ebuck]

I'm glad you'll pay for it, as I won't.

I could do the research to find out if the 3D enhances the film; buy, part of my enjoyment of film is not knowing 100% what the film presents. It's very hard to do that if you're researching whether the 3D enhances or detracts from the film. In the end, I just skip the 3D titles, as they have managed to mostly disappoint. Perhaps they would have disappointed in 2D, but there was no tightened sense of expectation (or cost) with 2D.

Re:We only see the 2D version

[labradore]

Some of the movies that would seem to benefit most from 3D, don't work out in practice. Kids movies would be obvious winners here, but last time I took my 4-year-old nephew to see a 3D movie we had to leave early because the glasses didn't fit his head. When they keep falling off, you can't watch the movie and when you don't have them on, it's mostly just a blur. We got our money back. Avatar was pretty good in 3D/IMAX, though I'm not sure it wouldn't be just as good in just IMAX.

Re:We only see the 2D version

[shidarin'ou]

This is actually a big problem. The standard left right offset of the film cameras themselves is larger than a child's eyes- resulting in a poor or headache inducing 3d effect. Certain children's movies have adjusted the distance between the lenses to reflect a child's eyes better (such as Spy Kids 3d) others have ignored it.

I'm glad

[Lord Byron II]

As someone who doesn't really see in 3D anyway, the 3D effect has zero appeal to me. Even Avatar, which I thought was a great movie, didn't have any additional "depth" as far as I could tell.

Re:I'm glad

[JaredOfEuropa]

As someone who can see 3D, I'd say that 3D added immensely to the immersion in "Avatar". It doesn't really improve the movie, but it certainly enhances the way we experience it.

Re:I'm glad

[geekoid]

Great, the Cyclops club won't go see movies in 3d. big whoop dee doo.

Re:I'm glad

[Bigjeff5]

I went and saw a normal movie immediately after watching Avatar in 3D, and was surprised at how disappointed I was. I never got the sense of "flatness" before 3D movies (actually I probably did, just didn't notice), it was kinda shocking.

Well used 3D can definitely immerse you more completely into a film than non-3D can. However, if used incorrectly it can just as easily toss you out of the immersion, like when they use stupid gimmicks to throw shit at your face. Very rarely is that going to be an immersive effect.

Don't ask the monkey, ask the organ grinder

[Rogerborg]

Just because WB won't pay to shoot in stereo doesn't mean they won't then get some Korean sweatshop to post-processed the movies. Why invest more than they need to, when they already know that audiences paid a premium to watch Alice and Titans in "3D"?

So, no, I don't think we're seeing the end of "3D", I just think we're seeing the end of pretending to care about the quality of it.

Re:Don't ask the monkey, ask the organ grinder

[Timmmm]

It's much much cheaper to shoot in 3D than to do it in post-processing. I honestly don't know why he cares - you can always shoot the film in 3D and show it in 2D if you like.

Re:Don't ask the monkey, ask the organ grinder

[L4t3r4lu5]

I watched Alice in 3D with the g/f.

I won't be needing the glasses again.

Re:Don't ask the monkey, ask the organ grinder

[Anonymous Coward]

I honestly don't know why he cares - you can always shoot the film in 3D and show it in 2D if you like.

Yeah, I can't possibly imagine why a director cares what his movie looks like...

Re:Don't ask the monkey, ask the organ grinder

[Graymalkin]

There's a lot more to it than that. Shooting in 3D limits the number of in-camera effects that are available and requires the director to make hard choices about focus and focal points. Once principal production is complete (with those limitations) all of the post-production needs to take the 3D projection into account. Having to project in 3D is going to affect every edit, effect, and color grading. It's a lot of extra work to shoot in 3D and then actually project in 2D.

Re:Don't ask the monkey, ask the organ grinder

[noidentity]

Actually, I think that adding it after it's been shot will result in a better experience, because it will be added so that it looks good to the viewer. That means they can do it technically wrong, but visually pleasing. Not that I'm interested; I'm perfectly happy borrowing DVDs from the library and watching on my 29 inch CRT TV with component video connection.

Re:Don't ask the monkey, ask the organ grinder

[Rogerborg]

It's much much cheaper to shoot in 3D than to do it in post-processing

Says you. A CGI professioanl says shooting stereoscopic is more expensive. Who am I going to believe?

Re:Don't ask the monkey, ask the organ grinder

[shidarin'ou]

It's more expensive to shoot in 3d. It's a lot harder to shoot in 3d. It's fairly cheap to get low end VFX companies to underbid each other to do a crummy 6 week stereoscopic conversion.

Either in camera or post done cheaply looks like shit. Post done well looks okay, but in camera done well will always blow it out of the water.

The real problem is a lack of Film crews experienced and able to shoot 3d in camera well. Combined with an INCREDIBLE variety of camera rigs and technology, shooting in 3d is no picnic.

Re:Don't ask the monkey, ask the organ grinder

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say he cares because IMAX cameras are huge and the 3d cameras are in a league of their own. You can't just screw them on a steadycam rig, a forklift would be more appropriate.

Re:Don't ask the monkey, ask the organ grinder

[iluvcapra]

It's a lot of extra work to shoot in 3D and then actually project in 2D.

That's not true, they just throw away one side of the stereo image.

Re:Don't ask the monkey, ask the organ grinder

[Bigjeff5]

...and requires the director to make hard choices about focus and focal points.

Ummm... isn't that why the director gets paid millions of dollars to shoot a movie? 3D doesn't change the fact that the director has to make hard choices about focus and focal points - those choices existed before 3D. It's also pretty easy to do deep focus in 3D - Avatar did a ton of it. That's a totally bullshit excuse.

The only difference between 3D and 2D is you're shooting with a stereoscopic camera when you shoot in 3D. The optics don't change one bit, and neither do the in-camera effects.

Re:Don't ask the monkey, ask the organ grinder

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's pretend your chest hurts. You go to see an oncologist, and he says you might have lung cancer. You consult a surgeon, and he suggests cutting you open to see what's going on. A cardiologist will see it as a heart problem. A urologist will... well, he'll put on a glove and find a way to link your pain to your colon.

The point is, people in specific fields want work, so their opinion is rather biased.

We'd have to reinvent drama for 3-D

[Gopal.V]

Most of the action/epic movie genre shot in real life, rather than on a green screen heavily uses perspective effects to achieve drama.

Something like the famous contra-zoom would be a complete failure in 3-D. The entire sequence in LoTR where Gandalf and Frodo are in the same shot would just not work in 3-D unless you went in and fixed the perspective for every frame.

Half of the hollywood real-life special effects would need to be re-invented for 3-D to work right. Or the CGI versions need to catch up to the old-school effects.

And then there are people like me who accidentally distracted by the background. I take a look at it and then my eyes sort of complain about not being able to bring a backdrop object into focus. Totally kills the immersion for me. I want 3-D movies, but not this polarized lenses in each eye monstrosity (I wonder if I could get contacts with those).

Re:We'd have to reinvent drama for 3-D

[Pinky's Brain]

I'm actually not so sure the contra zoom wouldn't work in stereoscopic video ... have you tried it?

Re:We'd have to reinvent drama for 3-D

[Colonel Korn]

And then there are people like me who accidentally distracted by the background. I take a look at it and then my eyes sort of complain about not being able to bring a backdrop object into focus. Totally kills the immersion for me.

That's a bigger problem than you make it out to be, and it affects everyone, from the directors to the viewers. Use of selective focus for dramatic purposes is an incredibly widespread and effective tool in film. However, it just doesn't work at all in 3-d. The 3-d director must make a choice between two bad options: 1) use normal selective focus, eliminating the point of a 3-d scene and going 3/4 of the way toward collapsing the illusion, or 2) allow the eye to focus anywhere, giving up the most successful technique in the artform for drawing the eye to a particular point. Even Avatar had this problem, and it's the main reason it was better in 2-d.

Re:We'd have to reinvent drama for 3-D

[GiveBenADollar]

The biggest failure with both high def and 3D is that movies still have the backgrounds out of focus. I know they want us to focus on the foreground, but it really cuts the realism when something is shot in high def. It's doubly frustrating to me when it's done in 3D because my eyes try their darnedest to focus on the background but can't. When the picture is crystal clear in 3D though it is amazing.

Re:We'd have to reinvent drama for 3-D

[mewsenews]

Something like the famous contra-zoom would be a complete failure in 3-D.

They did a contra-zoom in Piranha 3D as a homage to Jaws, it seemed to work ok.

Re:We'd have to reinvent drama for 3-D

[Have Blue]

It could easily be done but I got a headache just from trying to imagine this.

Re:We'd have to reinvent drama for 3-D

[WarlockD]

Holly crap! If 3D gets rid of the greenscreen then I will be ever in its debt. I would LOVE to see Godzilla in 3D. Guy in a rubber suit crushing tokyo would sell!.

Re:We'd have to reinvent drama for 3-D

[Bigjeff5]

...unless you went in and fixed the perspective for every frame.

You realize we've got cool things now called computers that can do that pretty easily, right?

I don't see how this is a problem at all. In fact you could even do it without post processing with the proper equipment - a camera that spreads the distance between the lenses as the field of view is adjusted should maintain the effect in 3D perfectly. In fact, it would probably look pretty damn cool.

If you think about it, you get quite a few more options with stereoscopic in-camera effects. For example, the point of the dolly zoom is to give you an unsettling feeling by confusing your perspective. What happens if you've got another reference point for perspective that can further be confused? The 3D version could be even more unsettling than the original dolly zoom is. What about adjusting the distance between lenses but maintaining the field of view? I'll bet that would give you some interesting effects.

Really, you get more options with 3D once the directors and camera wizards get comfortable with it. The problems it causes with the old tricks can be solved, and there are whole new horizons to explore.

I hope not, 3d is saving me money

[Tridus]

I refuse to see any movie in 3d, because it's hard on my eyes and most of the conversions are terrible. As a result with some movies being hard to find in 2d, I spend $0 on them. Hollywood is doing a good job of saving me money, and I hope they convert everything in sight so I have no reason to ever visit a movie theatre again.

Re:I hope not, 3d is saving me money

[Anonymous Coward]

By *IAA calculations they lose money on every movie they sell. So if you refuse to buy the movie, you also save money for *them*.

That's a win-win situation if I ever saw one!

I don't know anything about Harry Potter, but...

[penguinchris]

I did see a couple of the films (not sure which ones - there are a lot!) and there's some stuff that's obvious for 3D - such as the Quidditch (sp?) games. That's the problem, though - Quidditch seems made for 3D, but that makes it into a pure gimmick once it's in 3D!

Reminds me of the Muppets 3D (Disneyland) joke - Kermit says they aren't going to pull any cheap 3D tricks, and then something pops out right in your face. That's what the whole 3D thing has felt like so far - they say it's not a gimmick, but then it turns out it is.

To be fair I haven't seen Avatar (3D in movies usually doesn't work for me so why waste the price of an overpriced ticket for a movie I know I'll dislike), where apparently the 3D was used effectively and not as a gimmick.

3D

[ledow]

3D has come and gone in just about every decade for the last 5-6 decades.

It's pretty but there are a number of things that have never been solved:

- it doesn't work AT ALL for a percentage of people. If they don't go, your audience is lessened by their numbers plus a bit more (to account for those groups who say "Yeah, but John can't see it - let's go watch something 2D instead").
- it can induce headaches, motion sickness and all sorts of problems in others.
- it's not "true" 3D, I can't get out of my seat and look at the film from the side. I also can't "stick my head inside" an object that's coming out the screen towards me. It's usually only ever "2D plus depth tricks" which isn't the same.
- it's more expensive than 2D
- it requires more specialist hardware than 2D (and often requires people to don some sort of equipment THEMSELVES to do that)
- it's used as nothing more than a gimmick rather than an actual way to put the viewer "on-stage".

Even a simple theatre is more "3D" than "3D TV" and they can do all sorts of tricks that makes you think an elephant has disappeared, that actors are smaller than they actually are, and that there's a ghost hovering mid-stage. I can't name a single work of art that uses "3D technology" to its advantage and yet an awful lot of art is designed to be 3D (e.g. every statue).

I have at least three games on my hard drive that use "3D" technology if my display supports it - some of them go back decades. Trackmania can do the red/blue glasses thing and, way back when, you could do it in Fractint too. I have "3D" pictures collected from comics when I was young. I played on a "3D" holographic game in the arcades before I was young enough to even work out what buttons I was supposed to be pressing (which, incidentally, was infinitely more impressive than anything you can get on a 3DTV). Nintendo have a console that FLOPPED despite being years ahead of its time because it relied on the "3D" gimmick. I have regularly dug out a pair of red/blue glasses from my childhood days to amuse myself with things that come in boxes of cereal. Even in my parent's day you could go watch a 3D movie at a cinema without having to track one down.

But still, the above problems are always there with any type of "3D". When you *solve* them, come back and we'll take a look. Otherwise, it's a faddy gimmick that'll disappear and be revived next decade too.

Re:3D

[JaredOfEuropa]

- it's used as nothing more than a gimmick rather than an actual way to put the viewer "on-stage

In the case of Avatar, I beg to differ. But that is the only movie I know of that has done 3d well, as a way to add immersion instead of adding gimmicks (like that stupid in-your-face spinning spear in Titans, come on...)

A few things are different in this round of the 3d fad. The hardware to deliver 3d in cinemas has gotten a lot cheaper and better. Extensive use of CGI (especially in movies where doing 3d also makes sense) makes adding 3d throughout relatively cheap. And perhaps more importantly, for the 1st time, 3d technology good enough to watch entire movies in is now coming to the home theater, at affordable prices. Other 3d applications such as sports coverage are on the rise, and from what I hear 3d does add something to that experience as well.

I have a feeling that if enough people buy into the fad and invest in 3d home cinema setups, there might be enough demand for content... the fad may not blow over this time round.

Re:3D

[Anonymous Coward]

- it can induce headaches, motion sickness and all sorts of problems in others.

Yeah I can attest to this, I can play any sort of video game I like and do a fair amount of aerobatics up to 5G but I just can't sit through a 3D film for more than 10 minutes without my eyes aching and a dull headache with a vague sense of upcoming nausea. Many other people I know usually just get eye ache too. Watching a movie shouldn't be painful.

Re:3D

[Anonymous Coward]

Problems aside, it really depends on the film.

For example, I plan on seeing the new Tron Legacy in IMAX 3D. Despite some of the storyline being thin and and a little laughable, as well as some of the acting, visually I expect it will be stunning and fantastic for 3D. Of what else that has been released this year, or is going to be released, this is the only movie that honestly rings as fit for 3D.

In general, it must be visually stunning, and adding to the film experience, otherwise it's a detractor, and thus you won't actually being paying attention to the content of the film.

Re:3D

[sac13]

It's pretty but there are a number of things that have never been solved:

- it doesn't work AT ALL for a percentage of people. If they don't go, your audience is lessened by their numbers plus a bit more (to account for those groups who say "Yeah, but John can't see it - let's go watch something 2D instead").

- it can induce headaches, motion sickness and all sorts of problems in others.

- it's not "true" 3D, I can't get out of my seat and look at the film from the side. I also can't "stick my head inside" an object that's coming out the screen towards me. It's usually only ever "2D plus depth tricks" which isn't the same.

- it's more expensive than 2D

- it requires more specialist hardware than 2D (and often requires people to don some sort of equipment THEMSELVES to do that)

- it's used as nothing more than a gimmick rather than an actual way to put the viewer "on-stage".

There was a time when most of that could be said about color.

- Some people can't see color

- Remember the Japanese cartoons causing seizures?

- It's not "true" color (first technicolor and only recently have displays gotten to a level of quality that color reproduction can be consistently close to accurate)

- It was more expensive than black and white (although I don't know if they charged more for color movies at the theatre back then)

- It requires special hardware (but, at least we don't need glasses on top of it)

- I don't know if you can say that color was only used as a gimmick early on, though... It was certainly used for artistic effect, such as in The Wizard of Oz.

I'm not arguing against your points. I think they're valid. I'd just argue that time will improve the technology and the creative people will learn to use the medium in an appropriate way that actually adds to the work. That scenario has been repeating itself since the days of cave drawings.

Re:3D

[Bigjeff5]

Several 3D animated films have done it well also, and you'd expect them to be the ones most likely to abuse it. UP and How To Train Your Dragon come to mind as non-gimmicky 3D films. I hear Coraline was very good in 3D also, but I've only seen it in 2D (and it was good there too).

The gimmicky usage is the key. All the problems he mentioned are either non issues (you can't get up and look up the skirt of an actress in a 2D movie, why would you think you could in a 3D? That's just a stupid complaint) or they are nowhere near as big a deal as they used to. There are some people who just have no depth perception. They usually have this problem with actual, real 3D shit, so you can't expect them to see depth in a 3D movie. The current crop of 3D in theaters produces headaches only in a very small number of people. TV's are another story altogether (shutter glasses can produce an effect similar to sleep deprivation, that won't change until we get rid of shutter glasses).

All that's left really is the gimmicky usage, and that will go away with time. 3D is just something to make it seem more natural (like surround sound and color), and if studios/directors would treat it as such we would be much better off. Some of them get it. Others, like Warner Brothers, obviously don't.

For what it's worth, Batman isn't the type of movie that would greatly benefit from 3D. It would be nice because it would look a little more realistic, but having it is not going to significantly enhance the movie, and not having it isn't going to hurt it any. Avatar was just the opposite - it is absolutely spectacular in 3D, and watching it in 2D later is a big disappointment. The 3D does a lot for the movie, because Cameron really worked to maximize the quality of the 3D experience.

HP

[Spad]

The only reason that Harry Potter has "abandoned" 3D is because they couldn't retro-fit it into the latest instalment in time for the planned release date. They're still fully intending to go back and 3D all the old films plus this latest one and re-release them to cash in.

Re:HP

[Anonymous Coward]

From this press release back in April from IMAX: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=118725&p=irol-newsArticle_print&ID=1419230&highlight=

it looks like IMAX failed to deliver with their proprietary 2D to 3D conversion technology...

4D, the next big thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I recommend the marketing guys start promoting 4D and patent time.

Too much is too much

[Goboxer]

They picked the wrong time to make their 3D push. The economy just tanked and movie ticket prices are already ridiculous. So why the hell would we want to pay an additional $5 to see a movie that may or may not look better. I understand slapping down $5 when it can get you something extra, but with the way 3D has been that is not always the case.

Re:Too much is too much

[cynyr]

i know, that $5 buys me 1/2 a small soda. or maybe 6 M&Ms...

Re:Too much is too much

[vakuona]

Actually, movies are just about unaffected by the recession. People can't buy their big luxuries n a recession, but they will still treat themselves to small luxuries, like sweets and a movie ticket. This is actually a very good time to make a 3D push.

Ahhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's going to let the only guy to buy a 3D TV that its probably not going to work out for him?

2D ought to be enough for anybody

[digitaldc]

Why mess with a good thing? Until they have full 4D movies, I remain somewhat unimpressed. :/

Re:2D ought to be enough for anybody

[iluvcapra]

"Fuck it," says Gillette executive, "We're going to five blades."

"The right decision to suit the film"

[davidwr]

This *should* be the reason you use any technology.

Unfortunately, it usually becomes "the right decision to maximize profit."

Good, I-don't-realize-its-there-because-it-seems-so-natural 3D would enhance almost any film by making them more realistic, just as realistic color and life-like sound did in years past.

Jarring, "it's obviously an effect" 3D also works well for some films, just like not-quite-realistic colors and unrealistic use of sound is the right decision for some films.

We don't have "I-don't-realize-its-there-because-it-seems-so-natural 3D" yet. Until we do, directors must make a conscious decision "does the current technology add or detract from my artistic intentions." When realistic 3D does arrive, then directors will be able to ask "is there any artistic benefit to NOT using this technology?"

Re:"The right decision to suit the film"

[Hognoxious]

Unfortunately, it usually becomes "the right decision to maximize profit."

If people weren't such sheep, the two things would coincide.

Re:"The right decision to suit the film"

[drinkypoo]

If people weren't such sheep, the two things would coincide.

single mom with two kids can't afford not to shop at wally world. she doesn't have time to work her job and go to school and still cook for her rugrats. It's sad when someone comes to this pass but it's the simple truth that the whole system is designed to put people there and milk them for profit.

Re:"The right decision to suit the film"

[Hognoxious]

Fascinating. Now please explain the relevance to the subject in hand, namely the fact that most people like films full of gee-whizz-bang-OMG-shiny special effects rather than plot, dialog and stuff?

Re:"The right decision to suit the film"

[drinkypoo]

You're buying what they're selling.

3D Movies will work.

[CFBMoo1]

When I can walk in to the scene, look at objects, pick them up, manipulate them, and put them back while having the characters react to that manipulation.

Re:3D Movies will work.

[daid303]

We have that already, it's called "life". Pretty interesting concept, but it contains no pause and rewind buttons.

Re:3D Movies will work.

[RivenAleem]

I challenge you to try that at a theatre production of a Shakespeare play. It would be interesting to hear back the reaction the characters have to your manipulation of the props.

Re:3D Movies will work.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking about breasts, aren't you? ...

Ok, now I want real 3D too. Damn you.

Re:3D Movies will work.

[Anonymous Coward]

We have that already, it's called "life". Pretty interesting concept, but it contains no pause and rewind buttons.

It is called Theater

Re:3D Movies will work.

[CohibaVancouver]

It is called Theater

So when you go to a broadway show the people on stage don't mind when you walk into the scene on stage, look at objects, pick them up, manipulate them, and put them back while having the characters react to that manipulation? Neato...

Re:3D Movies will work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats a simulation, not a movie

Re:3D Movies will work.

[Bigjeff5]

You're an idiot.

3D is lame

[brxndxn]

I think this 3D fad is one of the most poorly-executed technologies that will end up with an impact like the original laser disc or divx players. First, Avatar has been the only real 3D movie.. and it was awesome. Then, Alice in Wonderland came around and claimed 3D and it looked like a hackjob.

Every part of this '3D' technology is executed badly.
1. The content.. There is a lot of talk about content yet very little available. Where is my ESPN 3D sports channel? Where are all the 3D movies?

2. The home theater.. '3D capable' does not seem to mean shit since even techno-geeks like me don't know what exactly you need to watch 3D. I know the technology requires 120hz+ refresh rates and a 3d-capable player and glasses.. but are all brands interchangeable? If I have a 240hz TV, is that good enough or do I need to blow money a '3D' tv?

3. The glasses.. lol.. Charge me $99/pair? WTF.. Why can't we just use the cheap ones you get in the theatres at home? But seriously.. $99/pair? They're the cheapest plasticky things you can get at the electronics shop and they're $99/each? Freaking joke.. They can't cost more than $3 to make.

The technology looks impressive when watching Avatar at a good theater.. or watching the demos at the Sony store.. But getting that into the home looks like an exercise in frustration even to the most geeky of consumers.

Re:3D is lame

[PieSquared]

There are three ways to do 3D. In each case you give up something in order to add a second picture on top of the first. The most basic is the red-blue version, where you give up color and wear glasses with red and blue lenses. The version currently popular in theaters is polarization, where you give up the polarization of light (which you don't notice in any case) and wear glasses with lenses polarized in two different directions. The third version is one in which you flip back and forth between two different pictures, giving up half your refresh rate and wearing glasses with shutters that block light to one eye at a time, at your refresh rate.

You seem to be conflating options two and three. Theaters can use cheap polarized glasses that indeed cost a couple of dollars at most. But the type of 3D where refresh rate matters requires glasses that can switch between black and clear perfectly in sync with your television, which as you say must be 120hz or more. THAT hardware isn't going to be cheap. (And to use the polarization-type 3D at home you'd need a special screen that I don't think you can buy at this point.)

Re:3D is lame

[Voyager529]

with regards to point #3...

Movies at the theater - even 3D ones - are shown on film. Essentially, two images are displayed, and the polarization of the glasses are designed to isolate one image from the other. The film is designed to use the same polarity as the glasses, and all is well.

3D televisions still rely on refresh rates. They may not use interlacing as the old NTSC/PAL systems did, but it still requires refreshing at a rate and starting point that isn't necessarily a given. If you fast forward five seconds and three frames, you may end up on a "left frame" or a "right frame". the active shutter glasses are designed to essentially "genlock" the picture with the polarity of the glasses. As such, the movie theater glasses are plastic lenses, while the ones you get with a 3D TV have additional circuitry for timing and polarization.

That's my understanding of it, anyway.

Re:3D is lame

[Anonymous Coward]

...or divx players

Wait... DivX players? They're fairly popular down where I am in Australia.

The content.. There is a lot of talk about content yet very little available. Where is my ESPN 3D sports channel? Where are all the 3D movies?

http://www.google.com/search?q=3D+Channels

Don't get me wrong, I think 3D is a gimmick too but it's not for a lack of trying.

Re:3D is lame

[Anonymous Coward]

The glasses you have in the cinema are a pair of polarising filters - just two bits of plastic. The 3D displays you get at home work by displaying each eye's image one after the other and flickering between the two rapidly (hence the need for >=100 Hz displays). Their associated glasses are a pair of LCD panels which black out each eye in sync with the display.

That said, I still don't understand why they cost $99 (or £99!). Back in the earlier days (2002) of computer game 3D, you could get a pair of shutterglasses (for use with CRT monitors only, since LCDs lacked the refresh rate) and the controller dongle for about £35-£50 (depending on whether you went wired or wireless). I don't understand why the newer ones are so expensive.

Re:3D is lame

[Anonymous Coward]

http://espn.go.com/3d/

Re:3D is lame

[Uberbah]

DIVX, not DivX.

Re:3D is lame

[iluvcapra]

All the films you see in the current trend of 3D, the "Real3D" shows, are digital projection off of digital media. No film involved in any part of the process. That's a major reason why Nolan hasn't done a 3D show -- he's really attached to shooting in film and particularly IMAX, and nothing digital really can supplement an IMAX image.

Re:3D is lame

[Anonymous Coward]

The glasses in the theater won't work in your home because the theaters use a passive system, while the T.V.s use an active system. The theater displays two images at once, each in a different polarity. The glasses just filter the two images. The home system, however, is showing only one image at a time, alternating between the left and right eye. The glasses actually synchronize with the T.V. and block one eye or the other depending on which is being shown on the screen. For some people, such as myself, this results in the movie having a stop-motion effect, which is very annoying. I have noticed that Samsung does a better job than Sony.

Re:3D is lame

[Anonymous Coward]

3. The glasses.. lol.. Charge me $99/pair? WTF.. Why can't we just use the cheap ones you get in the theatres at home? But seriously.. $99/pair? They're the cheapest plasticky things you can get at the electronics shop and they're $99/each? Freaking joke.. They can't cost more than $3 to make.

The technology looks impressive when watching Avatar at a good theater.. or watching the demos at the Sony store.. But getting that into the home looks like an exercise in frustration even to the most geeky of consumers.

The theater uses projection through polarized filters to give you 3d@(whatever frame rate they provide). Those cheap-ass glasses are just polarized lenses that direct the "correct" image to each eye by filtering out the other one. This is high school physics, if your physics teacher was worth a damn.

The "3d at home" crap uses activating/deactivating LCDs synchronized with the "correct eye" image being displayed on the screen. This is why you need a TV capable at least 120hz to get a 60hz image. It needs the ability to display 2*(frame rate) images to get each eye the correct picture. It's also why Sony wants 240Hz for its "patent-worthy" (my ass) "two player 3d on the same screen" technology. 120Hz per player for each 60hz 3d image. 60*2*2=240.

Re:3D is lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Avatar was the only real 3D movie? Umm, no. It used a new type of filming for 3D but it's hardly the only true 3D movie and wasn't the first.

Monsters vs Aliens was crafted *in* 3D and didn't get a home 3D release because the process of changing to the crappy home 3D would have ruined the look of the film. (and before you say it was CGI and Avatar was filmed, remember that over 85% of Avatar was pure CG.)

Alice in Wonderland looked like shit because the CGI was *terrible*. It wasn't the 3d, that was just a shitty movie all together, from the writing to the acting to the look of it to the CG, to the 3D. Good 3D can make a turd look real , but it's still a turd.

And if you paid attention, you'd know that your ESPN 3d channel is coming out, as are several other 3D HD channels.

Fact is that yes, right now getting them into a home is a chore - but so was getting VCRs out there for a while, and HDTV adoption has come across over years, it's not like this shit just came out yesterday. On top of that, if you're looking at getting a 3D HDTV, bitching about $100/pair for glasses just makes you look like an asshole.

Re:3D is lame

[PraiseBob]

Sorry, but you are very wrong about this. ALL 3D movies at the theaters are shot on digital recorders, stored on hard drives, shipped digitally to theaters, and displayed using a digital projector. Current 3D movies use no film whatsoever, for any part of the process. There is a polarization filter directly in front of the projector, that requires power to sync with the image from the projector. I know this because I've installed them. The other piece of the puzzle for theaters is a special reflecting screen. Any old white wall won't work, and traditional movie theater screens won't work either.

Re:3D is lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... learn to research a bit before going off on a rant.

1. Sports I can see you being annoyed about. 3D movies? Isn't like... virtually movie made now in 3D? And they're constantly converting old ones, if you're into that.

2. You need to blow money on a 3D tv. Which takes me to number 3:

3. There are several 3d technologies available. One uses the high refresh rate, and has the expensive glasses. The glasses click between the two eyes at 60hz each, synchronized with the TV. Thus why they're expensive. The other technology uses the cheap glasses. You can get TV's that use either. There are pros and cons to both... look them up.

Re:3D is lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Avatar has been the only read 3D movie

Er, Coraline, and the CGI movies (Up, Toy Story)?

Re:3D is lame

[Bigjeff5]

...and nothing digital really can supplement an IMAX image yet.

Fixed that for you.

Re:3D is lame

[Voyager529]

I appreciate the additional information. Despite the film aspect of it being wrong, I'm pretty sure that the polarizer being in front of the projector enables plastic glasses instead of genlocked active shutter glasses required for 3D TV.

Re:3D is lame

[Wyzard]

Is that true of IMAX as well? I was under the impression that IMAX is still mostly film-based, though it's been a few years since I've actually seen an IMAX projection system. (The Tuttleman IMAX Theater at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia has a big glass wall that lets the public see the projection room with the big reels in the center; I'd be sad if they're no longer present.)

Speaking of IMAX, you mentioned the polarizing filter needing power to sync with the projector. That's true of RealD 3D, which uses a single digital projector alternating between the left and right pictures (three times each) for every frame. Do you know if it's also true of IMAX 3D, or does that use dual projectors to show both pictures at the same time? I've been wondering whether IMAX might be better than RealD for some people who get headaches watching 3D movies, if it avoids the temporal dithering needed when using a single projector.

I assume the "special reflecting screen" is one that doesn't alter the polarization of the light it reflects.

Re:3D is lame

[blind biker]

Theaters can use cheap polarized glasses that indeed cost a couple of dollars at most. But the type of 3D where refresh rate matters requires glasses that can switch between black and clear perfectly in sync with your television, which as you say must be 120hz or more. THAT hardware isn't going to be cheap.

No, those glasses with switching are very cheap indeed - I got them for free with an old ATI All-in-wonder graphics card. I still have them in a cupboard in the corridor.

Save money

[ciderbrew]

Go to any 2D screen and put your shades on. You get almost the same 3D effect without the nose pain from wearing the cinema's diseased glasses.

I have seen some great 3D films in the Imax about 13 years ago. The current tech implementation is awful - active shutter glasses are needed to keep the picture vibrant.


Can't make it good, make it 3D.

Re:Save money

[ciderbrew]

To add to my own post, many of you will enjoy this bit of 3d advice from Mark Kermode's Blog over at the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/2010/01/how_to_enjoy_a_3d_movie.html

Let it die

[Anonymous Coward]

Let it die, let it die, let it die. When you can do 3D that doesn't require special glasses (often $100 plus) and that doesn't induce headaches in a fair part of the population than revisit the technology.

At a minimum 3D requires specialized filming from the start, it simply cannot be done post filming and look at all decent. Seriously, can any person here name a single film that was converted to 3D in post processing that didn't look like crap?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Feel Around

[kdogg73]

3D: old and busted. Feel Around: new and hotness.

Re:Feel Around

[kdogg73]

Oh come on! Why was I modded troll here? This is from a cult classic film "Kentucky Fried Movie!" I thought it was funny, anyways.

3D is a fad

[beaverdownunder]

3D is a fad that will always come and go, but it is a fad. Fact is, a large part of the public has _zero_ depth perception. A larger part of the public has a very rudimentary depth perception. The total customer base for long-term 3D movies isn't any better than the 50's. People will go and see if it makes any difference, and the vast majority will quickly realise that to them it doesn't. This recent revisiting of 3D will soon be passe.

Christopher Nolan...

[_0rm_]

You are automatically my favorite person in Hollywood.

Why do it anyway?

[qoncept]

The whole 3d push doesn't make much sense to me. Here, tickets cost $2.50 more. They're giving away a pair of glasses with each movie. Half of the cost of those glasses HAS to be paying their workers to deal with them. The projectors are expensive. The cameras are expensive. Editing MUST be more expensive. And no one really feels 3d adds much value. The movie industry is 100% saturated and not going to grow. The extra profit margin in 3d has to be minimal at best, and the increased risk isn't negligible.

Why, again, are they pushing 3d?

Re:Why do it anyway?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Why, again, are they pushing 3d?

No more "telesyncs" ? It's got to be harder to record bootleg copies of these 3D flicks in theaters, right ?

Re:Why do it anyway?

[Voyager529]

1.) My guess is that your cocktail napkin math and the number crunchers' copies of Excel yield two different sets of numbers.
2.) Because $12.50/ticket for a family of four grosses $50, while a first-run DVD release of a movie will gross $20, tops - and the studios net more from the theaters than the disc release. The trick is getting people to opt for the theatrical release rather than a Netflix rental.

Re:Why do it anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

You put one of the polarized lenses over the camera and make a 2d TS.

Re:Why do it anyway?

[iluvcapra]

Because $12.50/ticket for a family of four grosses $50, while a first-run DVD release of a movie will gross $20, tops - and the studios net more from the theaters than the disc release. The trick is getting people to opt for the theatrical release rather than a Netflix rental.

Note that of that $50 gross the distributing studio will only be able to collect about half of it at most, the rest is split contractually with the producers, director, stars, and as the show runs for weeks the share of the house that it splits with the theater goes in the theater's direction. The theaters like the higher ticket price because the distributors are sort of screwing them by pulling the shows out of theaters so quickly and putting them on BR, so better to get the most money as quickly as possible.

The split a distributor gets from DVD/BR/Netflix is actually much more favorable, and they clear much more money from the DVD, Bluray, and television rights: there's no exhibitor to pay and the creatives in production almost never get a cut, so the distro gets to keep almost all of the profit -- ideally they'd release a movie for two weeks, maximize their cut with the theater, and sell/rent the Blu-Ray, and keep the show out of Netflix Instant Queue until they beaten every last dime out of the long tail, at which point it becomes part of the commodity library that Netflix and Hulu and everyone else can run on a subscribing basis, which gets them a much more favorable deal than the old practice of renting old films to UHF stations. The pennies per eyeball is much better and easier to measure.

The appeal of 3D from the distributor's point-of-view is that it gets you more cash up front for a minimal investment -- they don't pay for the movie nominally, that's the producer's job and that's why they're getting half the gross. The theater has to pay for the projector, which is why they make the ticket prices higher -- theater's set ticket prices, not studios or distributors. All the distributor has to do is make enough copies to fill the theaters and ship 'em out, and this can actually be cheaper than a normal 2D film. And then, the studio has a movie to sell on DVD, ann they already have a ready made second run of the movie to sell as soon as there are enough customers with 3D home systems to justify a 3D Bluray run. And for all home exhibition, the distributor keeps all the munny.

Re:Why do it anyway?

[Bigjeff5]

If you can get your camera synced to the movie all you have to do is toss out half the frames. You could also use a somewhat hokey but effective mirror setup to combine the images before they get to the camera (doing this without the polarizing glasses in front of the mirrors is a way to shoot stereoscopic film with a normal camcorder).

Re:It Went Away Before, It Will Do So Again

[SuricouRaven]

The cinemas too are demanding 3d (Not that they have a huge amount of pull any more), as they see it as the only thing they can offer right now that can't be had by just waiting for the blu-ray.

No, it hasn't

[omnibit]

Nolan is one of many directors working for one of many studios. His decision, while interesting, does not mean the industry will be so stunned, so shaken, that they would suddenly stop charging an extra $3-5 because the movie is 3D, no matter how good or bad it was executed.

There is money in offering 3D movies hence 3D movies will be made.

To think otherwise is naive.

Why do I have pay $15 a movie and rent 3d glasses?

[Joe The Dragon]

Why do I have pay $15 a movie? and rent 3d glasses? Why can't I buy then and save the $3+ rent fee? What happens if I just keep them and not put them in that box when they just get reused and maybe not even cleaned.

The Last Harry Potter's "3D"

[Culture20]

Okay, everyone, here's the symbol on the screen, put on your 3D glasses! Now take them off! Put them on again! Now that the opening sequence is over, take them off and forget about them for the rest of the movie, which is 2D.

Really? I paid extra for that? Not again.

Unfortunately the answer is "No"

[orthancstone]

Nolan is able to pass on 3D because he ultimately drives the Batman saga at the moment. The studio knows the potential backlash of Nolan not directing the third film could kill it before it even starts production.

99% of directors don't have that kind of clout, though; if the studio says jump on 3D, those guys/gals will be forced to say "How high?" with no room for challenging the judgment of the studio.

Re:Unfortunately the answer is "No"

[CharlyFoxtrot]

99% of directors don't have that kind of clout, though; if the studio says jump on 3D, those guys/gals will be forced to say "How high?" with no room for challenging the judgment of the studio.

I look forward to all the bullshit justifications they are going to give for making their films 3D, like they do now for having to include Bombshell DuJour in them. "I had my reservations at first but them miss DuJour came in and did a screentest and I just couldn't see anybody else in the role." Uh, sure guy.

good riddance.

[Triv]

Good. Get rid of them. I'm sick to death of trying to find a theater playing movies in 2D - the annoyances associated with the fight between my glasses and the stereoscopic ones and the nausea induced by the movie essentially forcing me to look at it cross-eyed to figure it out completely destroy any immersion I may have experienced. I want my suspension of disbelief back.

Re:good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the rest of us want whiny assholes like you to stay home and not ruin the experience for the rest of us. I call bullshit on 'trying to find a movie playing in 2d'. I live in a podunk state with a small population and there's NEVER a shortage of 2D versions of movies that are also in 3d. Unless you live in buttscrew montana and have one movie theatre that just happens to ONLY play 3d movies, you're full of shit.

Re:good riddance.

[Triv]

The movie theaters in my area screen 3D movies at a 3:1 ratio to their 2D versions, and the 2D versions are most often shown at less convenient times. Scheduling my entire day around a movie is asinine and more often than not means waiting for it to come out on DVD. ...and I live in a city with a population of 100,000 or so. So suck it.

Re:good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

The nausea may be a sign that your normal glasses aren't right for your eyes anymore. My wife is light-sensitive to the point that in the theater she still has to wear sunglasses, on top of normal glasses (about 200/20 correction) and with 3D she is wearing 3 pairs of glasses. She had no problem with Avatar, and when she had a problem with toy story 3 it turned out that one of her eyes had degraded a bit and she needed new glasses.

Re:good riddance.

[Bigjeff5]

I want my suspension of disbelief back.

Buy contacts.

Re:good riddance.

[Triv]

Why does everybody immediately jump to that answer? I can't wear them. But thanks for playing.

Went to the movies last night

[OzPeter]

we chose to go to the movies rather than watch something on Netflix not because of wanting to see a film in 3D, but because there is a new theatre in town - Cinebistro You have to be over 21 to buy a ticket, they serve food and alcohol at your seat in the theatre and they treat you like adults. *That* is an experience that will bring me back to going to theatres, not some 3D gimmick.

Re:Went to the movies last night

[netsavior]

we have had this kind of thing for a little over a decade where I live, which is nice, except we don't have the over 21 rule, so there is still the matter of the kids on my lawn. Really though on 25 cent beer night, you may as well be at a rock concert for how little you can watch the actual movie.

Re:Went to the movies last night

[syphyre]

The Alamo Drafthouse http://www.drafthouse.com/ (San Antonio/Austin areas) has been doing his for years. They don't have the over 21 thing, but they have the eating, dining, beer, and even when me and my wife went to watch Toy Story 3, the kids were well behaved because the parents wanted this atmosphere too!

Re:Went to the movies last night

[Bigjeff5]

We've got something similar where I live (not a chain, it's a home-grown theater) - great beer, great pizza (among other things), and $3 movies. There is only one screen, so you get whatever they're playing, and they tend to only show the super popular mainstream movies or cult/art flicks. It's almost always good no matter what is playing though. There is just nothing like drinking beer and eating pizza while watching a movie on the big screen.

The absolutely jam packed parking lot every night of the week is evidence that they are doing very well with that setup.

Do not want

[Clomer]

I rarely watch movies in the theater. The last one was Toy Story 3, which I saw with my wife. We were rather annoyed with the fact that we had to go out of our way to find a screen showing it in 2D, as it seemed everyone just wanted to show it in 3D.

Even if it was cheaper, I wouldn't want to watch it in 3D. It's a gimmick, and one that gives me headaches at that. If there were no screens showing it in 2D, we would have skipped it and waited for it to come out on video. This will forever be true for me - if moviemakers decide that every movie should be 3D, then my days of going to the theater are done. Now that I have a nice HDTV at home, the desire to go to the theater is lessened, anyway.

I hope more producers take the stance against it that Christopher Nolan has - then maybe we'll see some sanity in the industry about it. Maybe that's a tall order, but I hope not.

One Word...

[Anonymous Coward]

SMELL-O-VISON!!

Active vs. Passive 3D glasses

[SkimTony]

In clarification of points 2&3 (which I agree are major hurdles):

The problem with home 3D is that it doesn't use the same equipment as theater 3D technology. In a theater, there's a shutter in front of the lens that polarizes the alternating frames, to fool your eyes, and all you need are the cheap plastic glasses to see the effect. For home use, they build the shutter into the glasses, which have to then synchronize with the player so that your shutter switches at the same time your player does; that's what costs $99/pair (a year or so ago, it was about $200/pair). I'm not sure why these glasses are still so expensive; SGI has been using them for 3D imaging with a CRT monitor since at least 1990. They do kind of make it impossible to have 3D movie night at home with more than two or three people.

Re:Active vs. Passive 3D glasses

[xtracto]

For home use, they build the shutter into the glasses, which have to then synchronize with the player so that your shutter switches at the same time your player does; that's what costs $99/pair (a year or so ago, it was about $200/pair).

I think you are about 10 years late. Shure, the Shutter glasses have been used for home 3D for quite some time. But nowadays, the new screens being sold use Polarized 3D technology.

Re:Active vs. Passive 3D glasses

[Bigjeff5]

Polarized 3D is what the movie theaters use. Shutter glasses are what home theaters use.

Seriously, if home theaters could use passive glasses as described in the wikipedia article it wouldn't be an issue.

Go to a store some time and look at the 3D TVs and tell me what those glasses are doing if they aren't shutter glasses.

There is a technique that works with LCD, and is cheap. The problem is you need a screen that is twice as wide as your intended video, because it must show two full images side by side.

I could envision an LCD technology that has twinned pixels and double the pixel density of the final film, and each pixel is polarized in the opposite direction and controlled by a different controller. Passive glasses could then be used, and it would operate as a normal TV without the glasses.

I hope so...

[drc003]

...because in my opinion it's lame. The price to go see a film is already ridiculous and now they want to make everything more expensive to see for a few moments that may or may not enhance the experience based on your viewpoint. Not only that but it still requires you to wear glasses for the entirety of the film. No thank you.

Two uses for a 3D TV

[mlush]

two people could watch different programs at the same time

The reason 3D is not used well

[wonkavader]

Movies cannot use 3D in any way that makes it required for the movie, because rentals and DVD sales are still a big part of the revenue for a movie. People don't have 3D TVs yet, so the films in 3D can't really need to be seen in 3D.

All 3D stuff will be bland until film makers assume that the entire revenue chain can see it in 3D.

Give it time.

Lots of time.

Re:The reason 3D is not used well

[TheSync]

Movies cannot use 3D in any way that makes it required for the movie, because rentals and DVD sales are still a big part of the revenue for a movie.

The 3D and 2D cut of a movie is typically different.

Moreover, Avatar (the quintessential 3D movie) has had plenty of success with 2D DVD and 2D Blu-Ray sales.

I can fix it!

[whizbang77045]

Just have the government put out one of everybody's eyes. No one will be able to tell if the film is 3D or not, so it can be advertised as being in 3D. Theaters can change extra without doing anything, and production costs will drop. This eliminates those glasses everyone is complaining about, as well.

I can't wait

[slshwtw]

I can't wait until 3D jumps the shark... in 3D!!!

Cinebarre for the WIN

[tivoKlr]

The Cinebarre in Thornton, CO is absolutely fantastic, the food is good, the beer is great, and the prices are not astronomical. It's the way a movie should be watched. They have locations in Asheville, Charleston, Denver, Salem and Seattle. Well worth your time if you live in one of these cities.

Plus the waitstaff is fast as can be. They have a heck of a system there (big theater companies I'm looking squarely at your SQUARE asses...popcorn and a 5 dollar coke.)

Now that I don't live in Denver anymore, I don't get to use the Cinebarre, but if you live near one, it should BE your movie viewing destination.

Re:Cinebarre for the WIN

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so jealous. I stopped going to the theater years ago because of the damn teenage brats. I wish one these would come near me. The last time I went to the movies, the cellphone of the teenage girl next to us rang and she answered it! She proceeded to talk on it very loudly, with her friends joining in, for the next half hour.

Producing vs. Showing

[Alkonaut]

If the extra production cost (stereo cameras etc.) is not enormous, why not PRODUCE every movie in 3D, regardless of whether its shown as 2D or 3D?

This argument could be applied to e.g. an indie film that the producer/director wants to do in black and white, but the people paying for the movie are not conviced. In that case, why not shoot it in color film, and make it b/w in post production? Of course, there are some creative technical details that will differ in some scenes with the use of color (or 3D). The argument is the same as when shooting RAW instead of JPG with a digital still camera. You can turn 3D into 2D, RAW into JPG and color film into black and white, but not the other way around!

If I was a movie studio that had to pay for all this, I'd insist on shooting the film in color and 3D. If the result was crap, I'd up the explosions and try to sell the movie as a 3D theme park ride kind of movie. If the movie turns out great, then let it be a good 2D movie rather then a theme park ride. That could mean 2D, silent film, black and white etc. The studio will always have the original color, 3D material with sound in case they want to release it on BlueRay3D or whatever format is cool in 10 years.

This debate is not about 2D vs. 3D, or which has a future. The argument is "if you are to spend a zillion dollars on a big action movie, do you want to cover all your bases?".

Re:Producing vs. Showing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really that simple.

You could take all your photos in colour then post-process them down to monochrome. And you'd end up with just a load of really bad monochrome photos.

Monochrome is a different form. Lighting and texture are more important without the distraction of colour. What really "works" in monochrome doesn't work so well in colour.

I blame Jackass...

[geekmux]

...seriously, like anyone really needed to see feces spattered in 3D?

Talk about shitty technology..

Re:Why do I have pay $15 a movie and rent 3d glass

[geekmux]

Why do I have pay $15 a movie? and rent 3d glasses? Why can't I buy then and save the $3+ rent fee? What happens if I just keep them and not put them in that box when they just get reused and maybe not even cleaned.

Well, chances are you're going to be just as pissed as I was showing up to the theater with my "recycled" 3D glasses in my hand, and they informed me the ticket price would be the same regardless if I had my glasses already or not, calling it a "surcharge" that is apparently nothing "they" control.

Yet another reason I no longer feel the need to support this technology.

They got stuffed with those two not for 3D

[Anonymous Coward]

They got stuffed with those two not for 3D but because they were, frankly, crap.

I mean, not actually crap, just not a go-to blockbuster and that's all that the movie studios want to produce.

Re:It Went Away Before, It Will Do So Again

[Mongoose Disciple]

And really, to that point, how many movies are released a year where you're even likely to care about whether it's in HD or not?

Blockbuster effects/action-heavy movie, absolutely. Anything else? Not so much. My wife can spam-watch "27 Dresses" every time it's on cable in low-def just fine, thank you very much.

Just one thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bat Nipples. In 3D.

That would be killer.

i'm waiting for 4D

[circletimessquare]

with the fourth dimension being TIME

get this: the 3D image CHANGES over time such that the illusion of...

um, nevermind

Re:i'm waiting for 4D

[sharkey]

Hell with 4D, I'm waiting for The Phantom Menace in 5D. Tessering out to the Skywalker ranch and smacking George Lucas for bringing us Jar-Jar will be eminently satisfying and well worth the ticket price.

Re:i'm waiting for 4D

[Late Adopter]

get this: the 3D image CHANGES over time such that the illusion of...

Is that you, Christopher Nolan?

good 3D and bad

[scharkalvin]

Early 3D using color separation was crap and gave you a headache because the view was into an unreal world. Some 3D films took advantage of the unreal colors required by the color separation though, such as 'spy kids 3'. Later films using polarized separation glasses got around the unreal color problems, but with poor plots they were still 'B' movies. Remember 'space hunter' and 'jaws 3'? The 3D films made for the theme parks really showcased what the technology could do well, such as the 'terminator' at Universal, or 'I shrunk the kids' at Disney. Active shutter glasses provide the best separation effect, the film that really showcased this was the iMax production of 'The polar express'. CGI animation films can provide very good 3D as the effects are all generated by computer ray tracing and the results can't be spoiled by bad camera angles. 'Toy story 3' and 'polar express' would be good examples here.

Re:Why do I have pay $15 a movie and rent 3d glass

[tttonyyy]

Why do I have pay $15 a movie? and rent 3d glasses? Why can't I buy then and save the $3+ rent fee? What happens if I just keep them and not put them in that box when they just get reused and maybe not even cleaned.

That's how it rolls for some UK 3D cinemas. You pay an initial fee for the glasses but if you hang onto 'em and bring 'em back for the next movie, you don't pay the fee again.

has Hollywood's latest bandwagon hit the skids...?

[jitterman]

I sure do hope so.

Re:Why do I have pay $15 a movie and rent 3d glass

[Eivind Eklund]

'cause you're in the US.

In Ireland, where I live, it costs about $2.50 extra for a ticket for a 3D movie (assuming you've not bought the "all movies you can watch for a year" ticket), and you have to buy 3D glasses once at a cost of about $3, but can bring them later.

Eivind.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

[westlake]

I put "3d movies are" into the google searchbar, and it autofilled: 3d movies are bullshit

Use autofill is this way and you'll summon up a rant: "Apple is overrated. Apple is the devil. Apple is the new Microsoft."

Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out

[shugah]

And your point is?

Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out

[Bigjeff5]

Yeah, that was totally a bad analogy, since Apple is definitely overrated, is certainly the devil, and just might be the new Microsoft.

There is also some negativity bias there. People who are dissatisfied with a product/service/whatever tend to complain a lot, but people who are satisfied rarely go ranting and raving about how content they are.

What you want to do is estimate how many people are complaining vs how many people are going to see it. There may be thousands of people complaining about it, but if millions are going to see it then a few thousand people complaining is not significant.

Honestly, the number people who enjoy the 3D enough to pay 30% more for the ticket should tell you something.

Suckers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see...
standard def...objects/persons in foreground are clear enough; backgrounds are unfocused.
high def...all objects/persons whether foreground or background appear focused when you look at them...CHA-CHING!
3d...objects/persons in foreground are clear; backgrounds are unfocused...CHA-CHING CHA-CHING!!

3D haters make mountain out of bat droppings

[Anti Cheat]

I have just a simple couple of points.

Who cares if Nolan doesn't shoot the film in 3D. That is his choice and that of his financial backers. So to me it is a non starter. We can assume that not every film is necessarily better for it, nor do all film makers necessarily have the talent to use it properly. Perhaps Nolan at his talent level, feels he isn't up to the task of making this one a good 3D movie. That then became a simple decision between what his vision of the film could be under his direction and his backers to make. So if they think they can make a suitable profit doing it in 2D, so be it. A great 2D film maker doesn't automatically mean a great 3D one. We saw that when movies switched over from BW to colour. Some directors and cinematographers couldn't cut it. Some actors could handle talkies either because they couldn't remember their line or deliver them well. Cameron said as much anyway.

Now I really liked Avatar 3D in the theater and the only movie I've ever gone back to see a second time, in fact three in total. It is also the only 3D movie I've seen in the theater because from the reviews it wasn't worth it to see the following offerings, that fit my interest at least. Next up I watched Avatar in 2D at home and did not enjoy it as much. The only thing that made it tolerable was the enhanced dynamic range. I don't think Avatar was anything near deserving of a high rating in 2D. Sorry to those that liked it in 2D but that's how I feel.

I side with Cameron and take it a bit farther. I do not think that there is enough of a talent pool out there in Hollywood to even envision how to make a good 3D movie, let alone those talented enough to carry it off. To make even a decent 3D movie, would require a very large, very talented team skilled in how to do it properly. This is not just about the director. It is about all the other trades from director, cinematographers, down to lighting and stunts co-coordinators. Then lets hope they pick the correct subject matter.

So to carry this to TV. Just recently I purchased my first large home theater TV set. A 54 inch Panasonic plasma 3D to be exact. I suggest you stay clear of LCD for now as they all suck in 3D and some are unwatchable in 3D due to the poor tech used, not the content. The new Panasonic and Samsung plasma's certainly are the best of the lot right now by far and the Samsung 50 inch is really being priced slotted perfectly when being priced on sale (on purpose by Samsung). Costs about the same as a 2D of similar quality and size. But I am quite happy I decided to include 3D in my purchase range and yes plasma would not be my choice if I was only choosing 2D. I decided to do a little future proofing and it seems likely to have been a the right choice. So now to my point regarding 3D on TV and theater.

The TV 3D method is not the same experience as in the theater and that should be obvious to anyone. It is acceptable, but not as immersive obviously. I guess you could say that for anything on TV vs theater to a large degree with very few exceptions. However, this choice has given me a better chance to see what all the 3D TV hate is about, beyond just the need for the glasses. What I'm finding with the limited content available and mostly cgi stuff, is the quality of presentation. I just don't think people know how to make 3D movies yet. Yes I'm basing my observations against what Cameron did both in 2D and 3D. Yes I realize I am unable to watch Avatar at home in 3D yet, so I'm limited to my determination, but I strongly think it's in the ability and not the technology that is making 3D look bad right now. From what content I have watched I can see mistakes being made even in the really good 3D. The bad ones are of course just bad period. The cable company also now has an experimental 3D channel and it is quite interesting. Some is really good and some not so much.

So for TV I will however stick with my opinion, that it is much more a people problem than it is the idea of 3D itself. I find 3D far more immersive than the 2D

Vision problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I have amblyopia (aka lazy eye) and hardly notice the 3d effect, but notice the blur in all its glory. Therefore, 3d movies are something that I actively avoid, and I hope to see the whole 3d fad fade away into oblivion soon.

Has Hollywood's latest bandwagon hit the skids

[itsdapead]

has Hollywood's latest bandwagon hit the skids already?"

Yes, and its flipped over and exploded for no readily apparent reason, and one of the burning wheels has flown off and IS COMING RIGHT OUT OF THE SCREEN AT YOU!!!

...which is the real problem with 3D: even if you pass it up and go for the 2D version you have to put up with all of the contrived "eye poke" effects.

Suck me in...

[Anonymous Coward]

Suck me into a movie by actually making a good movie. Don't suck me in by shoving it into my eye sockets via 3D.

Cost and returns

[CAIMLAS]

Hollywood is under the axe right now: studios are having to cut costs. There are many films which have finished principle (at MGM) which simply won't even be finished, it looks like - despite the primary production cost having already been spent. (Sadly, this includes a movie I've been waiting for with baited anticipation - the Red Dawn remake).

3D films require significantly more principle filming budget due to the complexity of filming such scenes. You need to coordinate multiple cameras for the exact same shot, and then editing is likewise more complex. Moving away from 3D saves them money: the returns from 3D films has not been that substantially higher to justify the expenditures.

Re:Cost and returns

[iluvcapra]

"Red Dawn" finished up mixing at Todd-AO a few months ago, it's in the can of they can find someone to pick up distribution (which would seem like a slam dunk).

If they've shot principal they generally HAVE to release something eventually -- the bond company will permit nothing less.

Re:Cost and returns

[MightyMartian]

I thought the merger with Spyglass had been approved. I have a hard time believing that any film where principal photography has been completed would just sit in the can forever because MGM is going tits up. Even if MGM ultimately does go bankrupt, someone will buy the pieces, and films at that stage would represent fairly important assets. The problem at the moment has been lack of funds, which has stopped some projects dead in their tracks. The films that might be in trouble would be the ones still in pre-production, and maybe those that were only part way through principal photography, where whoever is running the show might perceive them as being poor risks. Certainly something like Red Dawn or the next James Bond film (which, I believe, was shut down during filming) would not be in that category.

Re:Cost and returns

[iluvcapra]

Even if MGM ultimately does go bankrupt, someone will buy the pieces, and films at that stage would represent fairly important assets.

It'll probably end up like when Orion went bankrupt in the 90s, and all of the shows she had in the hopper stalled for a few years and found their way out a few years later through (then Ted Turner's) MGM and Sony, shows like Article 99, RoboCop 3, etc.

They get out eventually, and that's probably why Spyglass was cut in, since they're experts on making movies and can help tell the bondholders what's up and down with the production pipeline. The thing the bondholders really care about though is the MGM library, that hodgepodge of 80s cinema, which has a LOT of material to be mined, either for re-release, like the Orion and PolyGram library, or remake, like the Cannon Films properties.

38%

[westlake]

however, TV manufacturers are having a hard time convincing households that they need a second flatscreen television. Large CRTs are being moved into master bedrooms as big flatscreens take their place in living rooms, but while market penetration of HDTV is finally significant (at least in the U.S.) people aren't buying two

It may be happening more than you think:

A telephone survey conducted by the Leichtman Research Group found that nearly half of all U.S. households (46 percent) will have at least one high-definition television in the house by the end of the 2009--a figure that's roughly double the number who had HDTVs two years ago. Furthermore, approximately 38 percent of HDTV owners say they have more than one high definition television. Half of U.S. Households Embracing HDTV?

Re:38%

[Jason Levine]

Apparently, that "46% at the end o 2009" estimate is now a 60% have a HDTV set reality.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/457915-Nielsen_Tech_Survey_Finds_More_HDTVs_DVRs.php

Of course, I'm one of the 40% who are holding off on HDTV. My old SDTV's still work fine and I see no immediate reason to go out and spend a ton of money on new televisions to replace them. When they do go, I will replace them with HDTV's (if only because that's all that's out there now), but until at least one of those TVs die, we'll be a HDTV-less household.

I just can't be bothered...

[eepok]

1) I have a big head
2) I wear eye glasses

To watch a 3-D movie in the theaters, I would have to either:

1) Allow thin cardboard to slowly cut into my ears as they're placed over my eye-glasses and fit too tightly
2) Invest in custom over-glasses 3-D goggles ... so it's not gonna happen any time soon.

I need to clean my mind up

[Anonymous Coward]

I need to clean my mind up. When you said:

"I also can't "stick my head inside" an object that's coming out the screen towards me."

I was thinking "that'd be a porn movie"....

Re:Let's face it (Post production)

[Anonymous Coward]

If we can agree that POST PRODUCTION is an abomination. and that they do not count as movies, but rather a college students weekend project on theirs schools render farm, then the % of quality 3d effects in movies improve. The problem with most of these movies is that they forget they are making a movie, not a gimmick.

Stop with the silliness of 3d effects for the sake of 3d effects, and let them be, and we might see some worthwhile movies.

The only place blatant 3d effects belong are in cartoons.

Animation vs Real Life

[Scowler]

When are we going to separate out the 3D-vs-2D argument for animated films versus the non-animated counterparts? Isn't it clear that the 3D argument is far, far more compelling for animation? While for non-animated films, it remains a contentious and dubious "benefit"?

won't go to see it if there is not a 2D version

[Dan667]

Most people I know will just skip the movie entirely and not go to the theater if they do not show it in 2D.

You've never been able to see the background

[sirwired]

3D does not reduce the Depth of Field of the final image. Movies are commonly shot at a wide aperture in order to throw the background out of focus; if it were otherwise, your eye would not be able to comfortably process the scene; it would be too "busy". Where 3D throws you for a loop is because your eye sees the depth in the image and expects to be able to focus in on the out-of-focus elements. If you weren't able to see the background in 3D, you aren't going to see it in 2D either.

It took me about an hour to get used to this when watching Avatar; I wanted to see all that cool stuff in the background too.

SirWired

Re:You've never been able to see the background

[Peeteriz]

Well, maybe the problem is that they are still shooting 3d movies in the same way as they used to shoot 2d movies - with the wide aperture to get the out of focus effect, but they should NOT do it anymore - my eyes will get the depth perception and tips where to focus from the 3d-effect, thank you very much, and you can leave the backgrounds sharp enough so that they are actually nice to catch a glimpse as well.

Re:You've never been able to see the background

[Bigjeff5]

but they should NOT do it anymore

Except the whole reason they do it is to force you to focus on what is important to focus on. That's the whole point of a story. Yeah, there are some directors who like to do everything in deep focus a-la Orson Wells, but most directing styles aren't well suited by the practice, and most movies would be worse off for it (including Avatar, IMO).

The way they would have to do what you want is to have all those scenes shot with a very boring background, so that you wouldn't want to look at anything but what your attention should be focused on.

If you didn't go gaga over 3D and instead let it do what it's supposed to do - immerse you further in the film - you wouldn't have this problem. It's still a film, and it has something it is trying to show you. Why don't you just let it show you?

Re:You've never been able to see the background

[Peeteriz]

My eyes wander, and it's even a bit physically painful when they try to focus where they can't. That's a very serious negative factor for what's supposed to be a fun experience.

I don't see a particular reason to look *only* where the director wants me to look - I'm a visual memory person, I can switch my 'target' very quickly and do it multiple times per second, i'd look at one guy talking, at the other, then at their hand movement/body language, then at the facial expressions of the third guy who's listening but at the moment is in the background a bit, then back at the lip movement of the talking guy. I generally don't focus on only one thing excluding others, except maybe the emotional peak or turning point of the movie; I focus on the main target and also on the secondary characters, the environment, the details, the background - why can't I do that? I'm used to do that in real life and 2d movies. 3d technology also allows it, but some control-freak has decided that he'll just show *one* point that can be looked at on a frigging 50-foot screen?

Re:You've never been able to see the background

[Carewolf]

No actually you _do_ loose depth in the final image. Only two cameras are used, which means they can only have one point where the perspective lines meet and form a focused 3D image. The rest of the scene would be doubled if naively composed, but to avoid having the audience seeing double, everything out of 3D focus is often postprocessed to a blur - or in the bad 3D movies: still double... :(

While tight focus is common in soap operas and romantic comidies, big epic movies like LoTR usually has a everything in focus except in zoomed in melee battles. Big epic style movies, is where 3D fails big. Unfortunately it is where they tried to start.

Re:You've never been able to see the background

[Y-Crate]

You gotta keep the DVD market in mind when you're shooting something. Nobody wants to make a movie that looks like crap unless it's watched in a tricked-out theatre.

Re:You've never been able to see the background

[Anonymous Coward]

Focus is nothing to do with convergence or stereo disparity.

It's perfectly possible to make everything in focus in binocular films.

4k is a better investment

[__aatirs3925]

It's common to see 4k res in a production environment, so pushing 4k Blurays players (or something?) and TV's would have been better than this 3D thing because technology isn't at an affordable level to make holographic projections worthwhile in your home theater. In the corporate setting it can cost anywhere between 100k-500k for a single boardroom equipped with these projectors. Games do have their advantages in 3D, even with silly glasses. Oh well, we'll see what happens from here.

those who forget history...

[Thud457]

Last time Hollywood dragged out the 3D gimmick (& cinemascope & cinerama & vistavision & etc), they were afraid of losing audience to the new media television.
Then it gradually faded away as they adjusted to new market realities.

Do you really think this time is any different? Well, they are resisting tooth & nail making any adjustment to the new market realities ...

I like 3D movies

[codepigeon]

Apparently I am the only person on Slashdot that likes the 3D movies, gimmik or not.

Done Badly

[Roger W Moore]

A bunch of us happen to like it.

Really? I find it is done so badly that it gives me a headache. Instead of actually projecting two images with different polarizations and having glasses with two differently aligned polaroid filters they instead project one image at twice the brightness and have a simple tinted filter for one eye. While this might save money on the glasses it means that one image has a ghostly shadow which I find extremely distracting and irritating.

Done right - with two separately polarized images - the technique works very well. I've seen demos of educational systems using computer projectors which do it properly and it looks very good (it would be great for visualizing 3D physics systems in a lecture). However like most things when they hit the commercial world nowadays they have managed to devalue it by cutting corners.

Re:Done Badly

[vadim_t]

Then you're watching at the wrong theater. At the good ones they use the polarized system.

Re:Done Badly

[Eivind Eklund]

The ones I've watched have all been done using polarization technology.

Re:Done Badly

[Sally Forth]

They use the polarized system at my local theater, and I can't watch it because I get seriously motion-sick. Nausea detracts from the experience, to put it mildly, and now I will downright refuse to watch movies that are only released in 3D.

unwinnable

[shelterpaw]

2d/3d, no one will win an argument on a people's preference. For me, I don't mind 3D as long as I don't have to wear glasses. Having something stuck on my face through a move is not my idea of fun. I saw Avatar in 3d in an IMAX theater and it was neat, but the glasses bothered me and I wanted to take them off several times. I don't like any glasses wether they're sunglasses, prescription or 3d. So if you're going to force people to watch these movies, you're going to alienate some viewers. Just make them in 2d and 3d.

Rosebud Cinema Drafthouse in Milwaukee

[hiryuu]

The Rosebud in Wauwatosa, WI (suburb of Milwaukee) is a similar venue, in that it's got easychair-style seating, serves food/drinks/beer at your seat, etc. It's not a 21-and-over place, but the clientele do seem to be mostly adults. Quite fond of it, myself - it's nice to cuddle properly with one's SO while watching the big screen and being served burgers, pizza, and such. :)

Re:It Went Away Before, It Will Do So Again

[quacking duck]

The market idea is that purchase of a large new 3D TV will drive the old HDTV into bedrooms, ideally creating a keep-up-with-the-Joneses mentality regarding bigscreen flat HDTVs in bedrooms

Ironically, from an end-user perspective a new 3DTV is far better suited to the bedroom than the old HDTV

• there will only be one or two people watching it at any time (barring your toddler kids who want to snuggle, I suppose)--no need to buy extra glasses for all your guests
• it will be watched from the exact same spot all the time, instead of anywhere around a room
• use your imagination ;-)

I suppose one downside is falling asleep, and breaking the glasses when you roll over, but I have yet to hear of a single friend or family member who has bought a 3DTV, period.

Not ready for prime time

[Caerdwyn]

There are still so many problems with 3D movies that for me it's not worth paying for.

• I have never found a 3D tech that is headache-free. I've never made it past about 5 minutes without serious pain. I wear glasses and have an astigmatism. Sucks to be me.
• I have never seen a 3D movie in which the 3D was anything other than a "LOOKIE! LOOKIE WE'VE GOT THREE DEES ALL AT THE SAME TIME!" gimmick. Just like the first few years of stereo, engineers had no clue how to use it well, so they did wild over-the-top sweeps and pans. "Twist the dials back and forth, otherwise how will anyone know it's in stereo?" Someday editors and directors will have the self-discipline to tone it down, but that day is not today. Until then, we get explosions with busses and zombies flying toward the audience.
• 3D still only has the prepackaged depth-of-field, meaning the focal plane is what the cameras were focused upon. If I want to glance at a background object for a moment, in the real world the objects that had been the subject of focus go blurry while the object of interest comes into focus. You can't do that in 3D with the current technologies.. You either can only focus upon what the director decided, for the duration of the scene, or everything is in the same focal plane, which is unnatural and calls attention to itself.

Not ready yet... neither the technology nor the people using it.

Schindler's List...in 3D!

[bonch]

3D will always be a gimmick. It has come and gone since the 1950s. It doesn't work very well on the smaller television screens of the home viewing audience, it's annoying for people who already wear glasses, and it will would feel inappropriate for serious dramas. Schindler's List in 3D?

I'm not convinced I even see the world in 3D

[Pretzalzz]

I'm not convinced I even see the real world in 3D so why should I watch a movie in 3D? Sure I have depth perception, but I also have mild nearsightedness and generally only have 1 contact in at a time[switching eyes every couple of weeks]. I can't tell which contact is in without covering 1 eye. If I hold my hand in front of my face without focusing on it I will see the hand as a transparent double image. I'd be hard pressed to tell you what difference closing 1 eye makes in what I see[as long as I'm closing the uncorrected eye]. Every once and a while I will wear both contacts at once and it doesn't seem to make much of a difference. I can't imagine though that trying to watch a 3D movie with only 1 contact wouldn't give me a raging headache and seem to blur the whole thing. Though I'd admit that I haven't actually been to a 3D movie.

Good riddance to 3D AND Fake IMAX

[Anonymous Coward]

I say good riddance to both 3D and fake IMAX. I never got 3D in the first place because I didn't have good stereoscopic vision, and when I lost vision in my left eye in a bike accident, it became just another way to try and bilk me of more cash. I don't need more movies with people pointing a stick or throwing something out at the audience. I need a fascinating story, spellbinding action, heartrending drama, and pulse pounding scares. Would 3D have made Howard The Duck or The Postman better? Nope, they'd just been more expensive turds to watch.

And enough with these fake IMAX screens, or at least calling them IMAX. IMAX is 70mm film projected on a screen so big you get dizzy just looking at it, not just a conversion of a regular theater screen. Kinda like if BMW tried to suggest that a 3-series was in the same class as a 7-series.

Hey Hollywood, how about thinking about the story first, and then think about how your gonna display it? I guess that'd just make too much damn sense.

Framerates

[Anonymous Coward]

Even polarization requires higher frame rates. For instance, most theaters show each frame for 1/24th of a second, but they operate the shutter 3x per frame, for 72 frames or flashes of light, per second. For 3D they run 144 shutter operations per second on 48 frames per second, 3 flashes on a left frame with left polarization, followed by 3 flashes on a right frame with right polarization. Repeat.

Re:Why do I have pay $15 a movie and rent 3d glass

[Bigjeff5]

All the theaters I've seen in the US give you the glasses for "free" (it's really just included in the $2-$3 surcharge). They then encourage you to recycle them to keep their profits up. I mean costs down.

Really, forcing me to buy the 3d glasses is just begging me to sneak in to 3d movies without paying.

there is no argument

[Anonymous Coward]

jees, just watch it in 2d or 3d for all anyone cares, as long as the option is there what's the big deal? NOTHING!! there is no argument for or against 3d - its there, use it or don't.

I work in the film VFX industry, and most of these directors don't know what goes into the stereo pipeline anyway - its not like Nolan has to do that much to make it 3d ..oh and post processed 3D is generally crappier than planned 3D - however i can promise you it is still the pipeline, artistry and money/time that make the difference.

just watch whatever you want...

Easy

[RichiH]

The recent computer-animated movies were nice in 3D. For everything else, it sucked.

The only thing worse than hating 3D...

[sootman]

... is hating 3D and having a spouse who loves it.

2D-3D is a big part of the problem

[jonwil]

A big part of the problem is when films shot in 2D (regardless of when they were shot) are "converted" into 3D just to make a buck.

If its a 3D film it should be shot in proper 2-camera 3D (like Avatar was) and should have a director that knows how to use 3D.

Please let it be so...

[Anonymous Coward]

"... has Hollywood's latest bandwagon hit the skids already?"...

God, how I hope so!

Re:It Went Away Before, It Will Do So Again

[drinkypoo]

That's a very good point. Anyway, my TV is TOO big for my bedroom. Anything more than about a 46" and I'll have problems seeing the whole thing. So there is no fucking way I'm moving my HDTV into my bedroom and buying a 3DTV. Also, the technology is lame, and I don't even own a Blu-Ray player yet (just waiting for the right deal on something with Netflix support.)

Barring getting a bigger bedroom, there is no way in hell I could justify buying a 3DTV basically until this TV dies. Which I hope will be a long time from now.

It could be even worse...

[rts008]

My prediction: If 3D goes mainstream, the adverts will be horrendous!

I imagine all of the head bobbing, ducking and covering in the theater when an ad plays could be hilarious to watch. ;-)

I'd watch 2D if I could

[danaris]

You'll notice there are 2D versions of 3D movies

Well, yeah, they exist. But where I am, it's almost impossible to find a movie available in both versions. Either you get only the 3D version, and there's no option to watch it in 2D, or they've only gotten the 2D version at the theatre (I'd be surprised if my local theatre has more than 2-3 out of its 10 or so screens that support 3D).

That makes it really hard to vote with my dollars, even when I'd much rather watch the 2D version of a movie that wasn't originally shot in 3D.

Dan Aris

No, I've turned the argument..

[namco]

..with one film. Jaws 3D