Are we ready for 3D? As CG supervisor and avid moviegoer, I’m sad to say that I’m not convinced we are. Yet. And the worse is yet to come, as studios try to milk us all for these half-baked goods.
The only time that I have felt it was worth it was Avatar and even then I wanted to yank the damn thick-rimmed glasses off my face every three minutes.
The good Avatar 3D experience happened because James Cameron is a technically savvy director, and thus the 3D aspect of Avatar was technically well executed. When done right it allows the viewer to more seamlessly enjoy a 3D film. Done poorly and all it does is get in the way. One of the reasons I’m not digging it is that many of the stereoscopic movies have been made 3D after they were shot, which can cause heaps of distractions in the final product. Even if the film was originally shot 3D it takes someone knowledgeable in the field to make it effective. Decisions on convergence between the left and right eyes are just as much a part of the visual storytelling as lens choices, lighting, rack focusing, etc. If you overlook that you get a sloppy 3D experience.
The problem with fake 3D
The process of making a movie 3D after it was shot is a complicated and time consuming process but can be somewhat convincing. The problem is it will never reflect the same results as if you were filming using two cameras, simultaneously, from slightly different perspectives. Endless rotoscoping provides layers that can be separated to fake a different perspective for the second eye, but that’s what it looks like, layers. So yes, you can push things away and pull things forward and enhance the depth, but the content within each layer has no depth. We use our eyes everyday and whether you know the geek stuff or not it’s just not what we are used to seeing. The stereo technicians involved in bringing the images to us in 3D in the best possible way have their hands tied in some ways, they’re not often working with two true perspectives.
The problem is it’s expensive and difficult to do it right. Double the camera gear means double the footage and often doubling the camera crew. It also doubles much of the visual effects work as you have to render everything twice. A lot of the old gags we once used to do our “movie magic” no longer work in stereo films.
But what you get is the real thing, a true stereo view of everything in the frame. Just like a director or cinematographer chooses to focus the camera to direct the viewers eye you must make the same decisions in 3D to direct the convergence of the two eyes. Not doing this right (or having to do it with a faked perspective in the second eye) is like overlooking composition or sound design, it’s crummy movie making.
Avatar hit this right. They shot it stereo and kept all the depth within screen like it was a window into another world and never tried to wow you with shoving stuff into the theatre at you. When you bring elements of the image into the room you run into the problem of the edge of frame cropping the content. During the end titles for Alice In Wonderland they created a false black edge to the screen so that when content did break frame and bring things into the theatre they weren’t cut off. But this isn’t an option for the duration of the movie unless you’re willing to give up valuable screen space. IMAX helps relieve this by filling your field of view but we are all far from having IMAX theatres at every cinema and you still have a limited view from within the frame of the glasses.
Milking the 3D cow
This problem will get even worse when you all get sucked into buying a 3D TV for your living room where the size of the screen fills even less of your view. And now there’s talk on the rumour mill of re-releasing Titanic in 3D? Watch out for a flood of classics being shoved down the fake stereoscopic pipeline and into your Blu-ray player for an extra $US10. Hopefully Cameron will continue to help set a higher standard.
And there’s the final nail in this absurd 3D show: The eyeglasses. Simply, watching a $US200+ million dollar movie with $.03 crappy plastic glasses is just silly. They are not only optically poor but they take almost a full stop of light out of the image. That’s almost half the amount of light! None of the prints or projectors I have seen 3D movies in properly compensate to counteract that loss of light. When I saw Alice In Wonderland the other night at a cast and crew screening – where you think it would be dialled in just right – the image was still painfully dark. The situation in a majority of cinemas out there is as bad or worse.
In the end, do it right or just don’t do it. Or more importantly, for all the studio execs out there, just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
Alexander Murphy is the pseudonym of a top CG Supervisor in a prominent visual effects studio in Los Angeles, CA.
glennc
March 17, 2010 at 8:59 AM
3D is the new CGI… another way to desguise the complete lack of any original story. avatar was rubbish, i don’t care what anybody says, hugely disappointing given the media reviews beforehand.
Report PermalinkJames Mac
December 24, 2010 at 11:03 AM
I agree, Avatar was just… bad.
Report PermalinkMolokov
March 17, 2010 at 9:03 AM
The 3D releases are now getting stupid. I’m of the opinion that if it was originally shot or composited in 3D (Avatar, Coraline, and CG movies like Up) then it might be worth the higher ticket price to see the prettiness up on screen.
But any movie (esp. live action) that was shot normally and converted to 3D after the fact is definitely not worth spending the extra money on… As Alexander mentions – it’s just faking the ‘layers’ and isn’t really giving you depth in each of those layers.
Report PermalinkSam
March 17, 2010 at 9:15 AM
One of my biggest issues with 3D movies is you’re giving up the ability to watch what is going on in the background. Unlike real life, you can’t focus on that due to the way 3D movies work.
That and the effect doesn’t really work very well for me (not sure why, but my brain doesn’t buy it properly) – I do get a slight sense of 3D, but not the full way it should be.
Report PermalinkReinar
March 17, 2010 at 12:22 PM
Enough with 3D already.
I don’t think I should be trying so hard to be entertained. I want to watch something, not try to watch something. A pair of special glasses, that’s trying to watch something.
See with enhnaced sound (Dolby digital, EX, etc), its an addition that doesn’t burden me as a viewer (except of course with the prices I have been paying for my speakers and amps). Aside from a hole on my pocket, a good sound setup disappears in the dark.
But 3D, I wear glasses PLUS my mind needs to try harder to process the information my eyes are recieving. It doesn’t disappear, it makes itself so obvious that it gets in te way of entertainment.
Enough with 3D.
Report PermalinkGlen Miller
March 17, 2010 at 8:50 PM
Well first off you certainty do not need a 3D TV; I saw a demonstration at CSIRO of 3D that worked amazingly well on anything, Iphone, computer monitor, TV, projection screen.
Report PermalinkThe demo that was shown to me had the usual effects to push the ability of 3D even more but I was amazed when I saw something as simple as basketball game.
It has its merits but it should be developed as an option not as a main event, and at least with the demonstration I saw the glasses looked pretty cool.
Mr Furball
March 18, 2010 at 2:14 PM
Ok I need to Rant!!!
3d Movies all well and good I’ve seen avatar, enjoyed it, now I’m over 3D!!
This weekend off to the cinemas to see Alice in Wonderland in 2D, well thats what I thought… until I checked our local cinemas! None!! I repeat None!! no 2D version of Alice
Ok next Cinema: None!! I repeat None!!
Ok next Cinema: 1 show at a crappy time all the rest 3D!!
Ok next Cinema: Yes but cinema quality crap
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
I don’t want to see it in 3d and pay the additional price to see 70% of the movie
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
breath breath breath
Thank you for my rant
Report PermalinkElephant Fresh
December 24, 2010 at 11:15 AM
If I had the money, I would invest in a chain of boutique cinema houses catering to the tech and cinemaphile. Theater seat levels kept to a minimum, but maintaining large screens. 4K Digital projection/35mm CRT (for classic prints), with full true-hd/dts-ma throughout. No children. No fucking loud food. A most of all, NO TALKING. Plus our ushers will not hesitate to throw you and your iphone straight the fuck out. Our motto will be “YOU PAID TO WATCH THIS, SO SHUT UP AND FOCUS”
It’s a crazy, impossible dream. But if I marry an heiress, you guys should get excited (or possibly scared).
Report PermalinkCannulator
December 29, 2010 at 10:07 PM
Boutique Cinema? Cinemaphiles?
come on, be serious. It is the tosspots who believe that going to the movies is supposed to be some esoteric experience reserved for the few.
Going the movies is about noisy food and big kick ass screens. It’s not about sitting around in corduroy and Steve Jobs turtlenecks deciding how a film will affect mankind.
Buy a big TV and watch it your closet and be happy.
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