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Has 3D Film-Making Had Its Day?
dryriver sends this hopeful note from the BBC:
"'It's three years since audiences around the world swarmed into cinemas to see James Cameron's Avatar. It rapidly became the biggest grossing film of all time, in part because of its ground-breaking digital 3D technology. But, in retrospect, Avatar now seems the high-point of 3D movie-making, with little since 2009 to challenge its achievement. Three years on, has the appeal of 3D gone flat? Nic Knowland has been a respected director of photography in Britain for 30 years. He's seen cinema trends and fads come and go, but never one for which he's had so little enthusiasm as 3D. 'From the cinematographer's perspective it may offer production value and scale to certain kinds of film. But for many movies it offers only distraction and some fairly uncomfortable viewing experiences for the audience. I haven't yet encountered a director of photography who's genuinely enthusiastic about it.'"
But the boat still sunk, right ?
Imagine if the Star Wars universe was "updated"* to reflect the latest recording technology. Not only would R2D2 have hi-def, but everyone would be walking around the Star Wars universe twittering and watching movies on their smartphones. If the population of Alderaan was a bunch of smartphone addicts then when the Death Star wipes them out a million souls would text in terror "OMG! WTF!" and rush to update their Facebook status before they were vaporized, but a billion more would cheer the Death Star on.
* Don't worry. George has sold it to the Mouse. He can destroy your child hood memories no more.
Indeed. Who cares if 99.9% of the 3D films are absolute rubbish? There's a small handful of educational documentaries that use it well, so we should STFU and appreciate the fact that Hollywood is converting movies shot in 2D into 3D regardless of how shitty that conversion is!