Slashdot Mirror
How James Cameron Pumped Volume Into Titanic
MrSeb writes with ExtremeTech's account of how director (and deep sea explorer) James Cameron spent a reported $18 million converting his blockbuster movie, Titantic, to 3D. The article "looks at the primary way of managing depth in 3D films (parallax), how you add depth to a movie that was originally filmed in 2D, and some of the software (both computer and human-brain) difficulties that Cameron had to overcome in the more-than-two-year process to convert Titanic into 3D."
...who really wanted to see Titanic in 3D?
Nothing else matters if they can't get naked Kate to look right.
And yet nothing of value was added.
I'm somewhat confused by the success of the 3D "remake" of Titanic, considering that 3D has been a massive failure so far. The market (not counting a tiny niche of enthusiasts) has rejected 3D at the movies, on game consoles, on TVs, etc. Sales started out decently, but took a major hit, and there just doesn't seem to be any interest in 3D.
So when 3D Titanic is such a success (at least for now), is that because people are just thrilled to see a "classic" again at the movies, or is the 3D genuinely sparking people's interest? Is it the 3D that is causing people to buy tickets? And if so, why did just about everything else 3D fail so far?
Is this the resurrection of Titanic the movie, or the 3D experience?
Clever signature text goes here.
When I said that movie lacked depth...
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
I'd like to see a Titanic themed ride at Universal or whatever. Throw in some 1910s decorations. Some classical music. And then have it like a roller coaster or tower of terror but in sub zero degrees at one of the drops to simulate the ship plunging into the ocean.
Does Leonardo DiCaprio embrace you at the end of the ride, because that would be DREAMY.
By the way, I watched Avatar in 3D. I hated it. It didn't add anything to the movie. If anything, it detracted from it. The article mentions Avatar as a learning experience for Titanic 3D, which makes me wonder even more. Did they fix Titanic 3D so that it actually adds something this time? Is that why it's such a hit?
Clever signature text goes here.
In the past three weeks I've seen dozens of stories about James Cameron, including one talking about how he's made three movies about the Titanic This person makes movies, for entertainment. This guy gets lots of money for doing this. This guy used some of his money to pay people to help him dive deeply, recently.
The next story should be this: JAMES CAMERON! (!) (!!!) will have an upcoming project. It involves the sea!!! You will pay money to watch it, if you're not already thanks to your $100/mo cable bill.
JAMES! CAMERON!!!!
The sooner we leave this old world media behind, the better. James Cameron: you're employing an old-school PR style, and the sooner your account managers' styles no longer make money, the better off our world will be.
I want to see Terminator 2 in 3D.
OK, it drew a huge audience because it managed to be both a chick film and (at the time) a guy film with all of the special effects and geeky historical research. But the script and acting were mediocre, and the song that won the Grammy was weak.
The Poseiden Adventure from the '70s was a much better film with a similar subject, on a much smaller budget.
I'd like to see a Titanic themed ride at Universal or whatever. Throw in some 1910s decorations. Some classical music. And then have it like a roller coaster or tower of terror but in sub zero degrees at one of the drops to simulate the ship plunging into the ocean.
Yes, yes. Let's take an incident that killed 1,500 people in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic and make it a ride. It's bad enough that Cameron turned the tragedy into some bogus "love story" - that scene in the water with Winslet and DiCaprio makes me want to puke - then the woman ditches the necklace into the open water with an "oops". Call me jaded, but I think the movie is a bigger tragedy than the actual event.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It is stellar in 2D. (Well, maybe Leo could have be casted better...) Making it 3D can only cheapen it.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I'm not a fan of sitting for 3+ hours for a theater movie ... yes I'll do it.
You just don't notice the time with this movie. That is the one thing i want to comment on.. the pacing holds up on a small tv or polished on the big screen, and
Yes the tits are 3D and they are magnificent.
+5 Insightful. And informative too!
I've never even heard of it...
*YAWN*
Another 3-D-ified movie. Another way to get eyeballs that want to fall out on the pavement and a stiff neck.
Remember Star-Trek the Movie? All sorts of special effects, because the film creators had no clue what an audience might want.
They just don't learn.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
I would've used Gamemaker and a bit of sloppy logic to convert the film to 3d. Or, at least, that's what we True Programmers would do.
I'm guessing you're not going to like the "Springtime For Hitler" Experience either. Sort of like "Pirates of the Carribean", only with Nazis.
The world we'd live in if rich people spent as much time and effort on worthwile things?
Check out the (parody) trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJxj1mou03M
My thought, then, is if Titanic 3D is going to turn people of to converted 3D movies. This may the first movie of this type many will see, and there is a huge if misguided following for Titanic. Expectations are high and I don't think the technology is up to the expectations. Of course, many will accept whatever they are given, so it may have no effect.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Thats like 1/40 the cost of making the movie again in 3D.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
My wife made me go see it with her. For the record, they were glorious.
There is always World Trade Center to treat in a similar manner a century later.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Great idea! A steel coffin and a one-way trip down through three miles of water.
I've got a list of people *I* would buy tickets for.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
My jaw dropped on the first scene (you flyover the jungle) and my mind made the effect so realistic I had persistent motion sickness from about 15mins in. Every tracking shot, I felt like I was moving. Every new camera angle I felt like I teleported.
Then again, I'm a somewhat hedonistic yogic. I convinced my brain to perceive it as real.
How do you think this project got started? Skunkworks require motivation.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
They spent 18 million reworking it to 3D. I haven't seen a lot of publicity so it's unlikely they spent more than 18 million for prints and advertizing. They made 17.4 million on the opening weekend just on domestic box office. It almost certainly will make 50 million domestic and could hit a 100 million although somewhere in the middle is more likely. Foreign is less for 3D but it sold strong overseas so it could match the US take. Break the numbers down and for a 36 million investment they get around 50 to 100 million back after you factor out the theater take. They either double or triple their money and that doesn't factor in a spike in DVD and Blu-rays since they are likely to also release a special addition. The studios are in it to make money not films. Why risk 18 million on a film that could bomb when they make 30 to 70 million in profit by recycling a hit? Disney survived through many bleak years after Walt died re-releasing old animated films.
... this is *still* four hours of boring romance followed by five minutes of ship sinking action. Technological wizardy can't save a crappy plot, just witness Voyager (Gilligan's Island in Space) and Avatar/Pocahontas.
Remember, the hands drawing the dirty pictures of her in that scene are James Cameron's.
The more I use slashdot the more I think it's turning into shit
I wish there was something anything better
Any recommendations out there? Anonymous responses are ok. Thanx much.
Have you tried Slashdot 3D?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I hope they hired Kate as an engineering consultant for that project. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.
I'd love to see THAT movie in 3D. I mean, who wouldn't want to see Jesus' flesh being ripped apart in glorious 3D?
I feel like such a Jew... :(
A pity he didn't fix any of the errors in his film rather than being glib and implying that apart from a few discrepancies in the set (and Murdoch's suicide, which he kept in), that there weren't any.
I'd like to see a Titanic themed ride at Universal or whatever. Throw in some 1910s decorations. Some classical music. And then have it like a roller coaster or tower of terror but in sub zero degrees at one of the drops to simulate the ship plunging into the ocean.
I'm thinking more along the lines of a naked Kate Winslet or two.
This is the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking. That's all about.
Badly, like every other film that's been filmed in 2D and then butchered.
I read through the article referenced, but it did not explain much about how the movie was converted to 3D. The most technical it mentions is depth maps, but almost nothing about how these were generated. Did he use any structure from motion techniques? Did they rebuild 3D models from the 2D movie? How did they deal with highly chaotic scenes? Was the original animation data used? By other words, the article was just a very generic story about 2D to 3D conversion, and not really specific for the Titanic movie, except for the fact that 18 milion was spend.
If it were real 3D, sure then everyone would be all about it. If you could get a real 3D display, they'd be the Next Big Thing(tm). However the "3D with glasses" shit we have now is nothing new. It has been tried at least twice before by my count and failed badly both times. There are multiple problems:
1) You have to wear glasses. If you don't it is an unwatchable mess. So you can't just have something in 3D playing on your TV and have people wander in and out. Also all the glasses have downsides. The polarized ones lose the 3D effect if you tilt your head too much, the shutter ones flicker a bit and require power, the analgyphic ones fuck with colour.
2) For the polarized and shutter glasses, they kill brightness and hurt contrast ratio. They are like wearing ND4 or worse filters on your eyes. So you take a nice bright digital projection screen, put those on and it is kinda dim. Only thing to be done is to just overpower it with even more brightness but that isn't always feasible.
3) There is no parallax. As you shift your view and position, everything stays static, because they only provide image separation. They don't provide parallax so shit looks wrong.
4) There is no focus. Everything is in the same plane of focus. This only works if everything is at or beyond your infinity focal point. If anything gets closer, your brain gets confused.
It is a half-assed 3D implementation, as I said tried before (Disneyland had a 3D Micheal Jackson flick years ago as an example). It isn't a real 3D display. You show me the display that can get all the aspects of 3D, separation, parallax, and focus, and can do so without wearing something, you've got the next big thing in displays. Until then, it isn't going anywhere.
I am a little disillusioned by the article to be honest. It was always clear to me that once you know the depth of every pixel in a movie frame, turning this depth information into a parallax projection is the trivial part (just like once you know the color of a texture in a B&W film, actually putting that color into each frame is easy).
The hard part is getting the depth or the color in the first place. So I always thought (or the nerd in me hoped) those studios had some kind of awesome general algorithm or technique with which they extract depth information from the 2D image (in case of 3D conversion) or color information from the pixel grey value (in case of b&w colorization).
The reality is, that there is no such technology. When filming a scene in 2D the depth information is lost in the projection process. There are some tricks you can use:
(a) using depth of focus (from gaussian beam theory you can relate the distance from the focus to the spot size),
(b) relative movement of objects (closer objects move faster over the frame than more distant objects)
(c) and the brightness (further away=darker).
But these don't work in general only in special situations, (a) requires a small scene with small depth of focus so that you can see the varying sharpness of objects, (b) only works in situations where movement is linear for example (in a rotating setting like in Matrix, more distant objects move faster) and (c) I guess depends on the illumination of the scene.
To summarize: the studios basically just hire an army of frame monkeys to painstakingly go through every frame using one of the technique (a),(b),(c) (or combinations thereof) or just use the intended distance from the original production (they know how far the camera was away from the object) and paint the depth map pixel by pixel over the frame until it looks realistic.
I should have known really, if there was an algorithm that works in general all you'd have to do is to load the movie into a supercomputer wait a few hours and get the 3D version back. It would be dirt cheap and everyone could do it at home:). Come to think of it even with such a general algorithm you'd still need some QA guy going through every frame to make sure it looks good (so instead you need an army of QA frame-checker monkeys and you're back at square one).
Have you tried Slashdot 3D?
Yes, I have. Right click anywhere on slashdot. Select inspect element. Click 3D button on bottom right corner. Welcome to the future!
Indeed. I also personally think that "Titanic" was the (down)-turning point of Cameron's career.
"A Night to Remember" was a much more dignified, respectful and authentic film in many ways. It also didn't rely on the audience to all be 15-year-old girls with a DiCaprio crush, and didn't drag on for 3 hours...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051994/
Worth a look for all the young cinephiles on here who don't already know it.
Be aware, though: no gratuitous 3D, no gratuitous colo(u)r and no gratuitous naked Kate Winslet, either. It does have a young, clothed Honor "Pussy Galore" Blackman in it, though.
.. The ship sinks.
...as if d2/ajax wasn't pointless enough.
He got some depth from the bottom of the ocean and then put it in the movie.
...so Cameron can reach the OTHER two udders.
-Styopa
Until I can:
then it is not a 3D film. At best it is a sad imitation of 3D.
As long as the filmmaker controls the focal plane in a movie, it cannot be considered any more 3D than a more traditional movie. In fact, if a so called "2D" movie contains enough information for a machine to convert it to this poorly simulated "3D" then the original was effectively 3D already. While I applaud the research into making 3D movies, TV, and computer interfaces a reality, so far I've seen one that even approaches 3D by meeting my #2 criteria above (Johnny Lee's Wii hack). However, the viewer still has zero control over the focal plane and therefore, it is STILL NOT 3D. The focal plane issue is, IMO, the primary cause of headaches by the current weak 3D imitation systems. I'm sure someone will solve it someday, but probably not in what remains of my lifetime.
While I suspect the reasons listed here are all reasons Cameron decided to take on this task -- the profit of re-releasing a film, the development of technology that can be used to provide similar services to other studios for a profit in the future, etc -- are valid, I think they're *not* the reason James Cameron took on this task. Two years of effort, looking at 300,000 frames one by one? For maybe $100-200m in ticket sales? He's not an idiot, and he's not a masochist. That's the kind of money one of his movies makes on an opening weekend.
I think he did it because he absolutely loves what he produced with the movie and wants people to see it with that same view. Case in point -- the movie was made in 70mm. That's a HUGE added expense, and less than two dozen prints were made in 70mm. Very few theaters around the world ever showed it in 70mm. But if you were lucky enough to see it, it really was spectacular. The same punch-in-the-eyes wow that seeing something like Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen in 70mm brought. The detail is incredible in what they made, and totally lost on a normal print, much less even a Blu-Ray.
A few years after Titanic, Cameron made an IMAX 3-D movie using ROVs on the ship, that blended CGI, shots from the movie and real 3D IMAX and was quite an experience. I have no doubt that he was wishing he could've done the original movie with that sort of immersive experience, and I suspect that is the real source of why he'd do this. As compared to all his other efforts, its a little silly to claim it was profit driven.
IMHO.
The more I use slashdot the more I think it's turning into shit
Maybe the latter is a consequence of the former?
I hear rumors that the latest 3D tech isn't even being adopted by the porn industry to any significant degree, either.
If that were true, that would surprise jalefkowit.
There is such a thing as proportion. Anything over a D cup starts to get sloppy and out of proportion.
I did, but I think something's a bit off with the technology - sometimes reading the comments triggered headaches and occasionally a bit of nausea. Oh, and I could swear I kept seeing the same story twice - possibly a focus issue causing double vision?
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
Blew my mind. Definitely an improvement given I couldn't read any of the comments.
Like some kind of reverse Lytro?
Yes. Also, thank you for making me aware of this not-yet-product. Wow. I can't tell you how much I want one. Two - one for work one for home.
I think that any true 3D display like the GP proposed would need a light field camera to capture the image. Playback would likely be challenging, and i suspect glasses would still be needed for stereo separation; on the other hand, with proper focusing cues and parallax issues resolved the stereo portion might be unnecessary. No stereo = no glasses + full brightness/contrast + accessibility to the monocular population; true light field display = full focal range available + (possibly) paralax. If the technical hurdles inherent in such a display could be overcome, it would truly be the next big thing in displays; I'd pay extra to see a movie in that format, where I won't for the stereo-only 3D.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
But after he released Avatar didn't Cameron go on and on and on complaining about all the movies that were out in 3D that were really flat films converted into 3D after the fact and that how most films didn't even have a reason to be in 3D and it was just being used as a marketing trick and a gimmick?
I'd just like to thank everybody who got paid $$$ to see this film for funding the MAFIAA's legal warchest that saw laws such as ACTA/SOPA/PIPA become a reality.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Having never seen the original movie, I was unaware of this little bit of perky footage.. crap, now I might have to go actually see the stupid thing.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
You fail to acknowledge the fact that she's had at least a birth since the making of Titanic. So, to make things *right*, one would have to *visit* the plastic surgeon, and in that case you just *consult* with a plastic surgeon or a sculptor avoiding the middle-woman (aka Kate).
(tzot, not remembering his password on another computer)
I enjoyed Titanic and I would like to see it in 3d. I think it was well filmed and I would like to see some of those great angles of people falling down the vertical deck in 3d. I dont care if it is cheesy to you... most love stories are just that. I liked the scene where they are dancing and spinning and the camera is pointed at their face while the world spins behind them. So what if it is cheese to all of you. I think Cameron made a great film and took chances by filming it in an unusual way... as he always does. I think that paid off. I would see it in 3d if I had the chance. Also, I like the fact that it was one of the first films I know of to do much of the digital rendering on banks of linux servers.