Your statement that “the challenges of how to integrate this technology into more than a century of film grammar are real” could not be truer. What about depth of field, for instance ? There’s so much in 2D film grammar that relies on front or back focus, yet, in my opinion, it doesn’t work in 3D (also loved your shoulder shot example).

We need to get past the gimmick and really think about what the technology allows or prevents in terms of visual experience and storytelling. Movie makers must then choose accordingly, instead of jumping on the 3D bandwagon for fear of being left behind.

Among Avatar’s innumerable failures, its stubborn refusal to develop any kind of grammar (or even acknowledging that a new one was required) was the one that angered me the most. About Cameron, I thought: “OK, you had all the money in the world, the smartest and sharpest collaborators, you could have brought us immortal shots, used new perspectives, freed yourself from gravity while providing truly revolutionary visions, and this is what you attempt to make pass as coherent aesthetics?” I exited the theatre with the feeling of having played a videogame (one of those with a flying virtual cameras trailing the protagonist). Truly frustrating.

You really hit every nail square on the head.

In my opinion, this post should be “the” starting point for any 3D expert, journalist, or layman interesting in making and questioning todays 3D image making.

Here is a fun T-shirt link emphasizing my opinion on 3D filmmaking.

http://www.threadless.com/product/2386/Hollywood_Swindle

And thank you for such compelling article,

salam

If the studios really knew how to hedge their bets in a fast-changing media environment, they’d workshop their material for years the way Pixar does and they’d be really careful who they put in the director’s chair (oh, and the guy in charge of the studio would be a storyteller, first and foremost). But the current crop have neither the skill nor the work ethic to do that. In fact, it’s a miracle nowadays if the executive overseeing your film has even read the script!

Having said that, if a studio wants to take an existing film and pony up an extra $10 million for a 3D conversion, more power to them. Everyone wins: the studios get their higher ticket prices, the filmmakers aren’t saddled with all the constraints of 3D capture, a bunch of good people make a living doing the conversion and, in the end, I’ll still be able to go to a theater without getting a migraine.

But anyone who says the current rush to 3D is driven by anything other than pure economics is absolutely full of it. The studios want the higher ticket prices and the 3D crowd wants everyone to either buy or rent their new gadgets and services. Economics, plain and simple.

So you’ll understand when I say the most noteworthy thing I see in the article above is that, after roughly 40 years of dealing with all of the crap a filmmaker has to endure in order to simply practice his craft, John Bailey’s passion for cinema is undiminished. I only hope I can say the same thing 25 years from now (when 3D has come and gone at least one more time and made my chiropractor rich in the process).

One thing that may be of interest regarding the movies of the 1950′s (all polarized!) was the little-know reason for the demise of that era’s efforts. Most treatises blame it on technical problems, especially in projection. I am sure that, with the thousands of playdates, there must have been some glitches, sometime, somewhere.

But, of the over 30 3-D films that I saw at that time, in numerous different theaters in two different cities (Duluth, Minnesota, and Minneapolis, Minnesota), without exception all were exhibited flawlessly. 3-D was very popular, and the popularity was growing when it disappeared. So, what happened? Economics (no surcharges then).

The system at that time was double-strip (two film prints were required for every foot of film of every product released), and twice the shipping cost. Somewhere along the line, it occurred to the distributors that this was not cost-effective. They surmised something like this: “Let’s see, I have 2,000 3-D prints. No, I have 4,000 2-D prints”. So, what they did was to split up the 3-D prints and send them out to twice as many theaters as 2-D. Typically, in the United States, the “Left-eye” prints were sent to the Western half of the country, and the “Right-eye” prints were sent to the Eastern half. In fact, that is probably where the phrases “Left coast” and “Right coast” came from, as they originated at about that time.

It did not take long for the studios to realize that there was not much sense in going to the expense of shooting in 3-D if the result was only going to be exhibited in 2-D. So, they also stopped 3-D production. This was the real major reason for the decline of the 1950′s 3-D era.

This is an important lesson to pay heed to today. Not only the art form and technology must be considered, but the economic situation as well. Even though most playdates today are single projector (usually, but not always digital), other factors come in (availability of venues being primary) that could create economic problems. It would seem that utilizing the many more theaters that are equipped for film projection would make economic sense. Exhibitors should be looking at the Oculus 3-D film projection system, which provides much brighter, yet lower cost displays, without the digital artifacts.

I’ll take Ray’s prediction a step further and ask, if we were at a stage of development where all cameras pro or amateur, motion or still, recorded depth information along with color and tone, how many productions would discard that information? Remembering that, with any digital camera today, one can desaturate the image to B&W very easily. But how many do?

I absolutely agree with the author that current camera technology is reminiscent of multi-strip Technicolor, both in difficulty of operation, and also in quality of result. I don’t think our current understanding of 3D is any more sophisticated than our understanding of reproduced color was in 1939 when The Wizard of Oz, another film which like Avatar showed what was possible in the movies, premiered.

There were a lot of B&W movies in the years that followed, but then, when color negative reached an adequate level of maturity in the 1960′s, it suddenly became much more difficult thereafter to produce in B&W, now near-impossible.

It may be a while before all films are in 3D as they are in color, but at the same time, I’m quite sure that it won’t be 3D as we experience it today, either.

I like the frank and open way that you’ve noted down your views.

Although, I am one of those “stereophiles”,sometimes the tone of the articles I write about on the subject is a bit condescending but aimed at cinematograhers who have developed massive Egos, understandably, over the course of their careers.

They do not want to learn anything new, and quickly ridicule anyone who’s name is not on IMDB. These are the same cinematographers who proclaim that 3D is just another tool in their tool-chest to help in directing.

I define it as a medium of visual storytelling, and hence the new Grammar that will grow with it.

For example: “Spatial Resolution” This is something that is not fully studied as yet… after all, 2D movies do not capture spatial information in a scene.

However as you mention.. there are visionaries (Cameron) and lesser mortals who *are* willing to learn.

Stereoscopic 3D has been prominent before Hollywood re-discovered. Areas such as Data Visualization (medicine, Archeology, Oil&Gas) .. where everything is huge data-sets that render and are visualized and manipulated in realtime. If you though “Avatar” was state-of-the art..

Getting back to the subject of those “hernia rigs” as I call them… Here’s one recent article on the subject of cameras and why in today’s age of miniaturization, we should be carrying those monsters on set just to “capture” or “sensor” a scene (being politically correct, it isn’t “filming” any more?)

http://realvision.ae/blog/2010/07/creative-scene-blocking-for-3d-movies-and-choice-of-3d-rig/

Thanks for the great article.

I have been to several of the new films in 3-D and, other than some eye strain, I haven’t found them to be improved by the “new” technology. “Avatar” worked for me as an experience because it was supposed to be in another world, outside our everyday one, so it was a bit akin to visiting a zoo. Do I think that a picture which is about the old verities of the human heart will be improved by 3-D? Certainly not, and it would pobably be compromised by the ‘trick.’

Many years ago, I did a film in 65mmm 3-D for Disney that still plays as an interactive experience at the theme parks. The interaction with live performers on stage, mechanical gimmicks in the theatre, and the projected film worked well for the time one spent in the attraction. It seems to me that this is a more practical application of the technology than in my theatre going experience or my home!

As always, thanks for sharing.

off and on career in 3D film and video. I directed , wrote and line produced “The Stewardesses” in 1969, and revised it into an R rated film in 1971. That film is historically significant in that it made about 170 times it’s original cost back…probably some kind of a record! The $26 million domestic gross, would be over $145 million in our current inflated dollars! When I developed the technology with my life-long friend, Chris Condon, we wanted to debug the issues that you cite,relative to the “mini monkeys, in lipstick” size distortion and other dire problems in the 1950s crop of Hollywood 3D films. Chris and I chose to shoot with a single 35mm camera, changing the the small “side by side images” into anamorphic with a 1.37 to 1 aspect ratio, in polarized stereo.We were first with plastic glasses! Our chosen inter-axial base was only 1.7 inches. This allowed us to capture the traditional “bigger than life look” of Hollywood movies.A year later I blew the film up to side by side 70mm, and showed that version in theaters with up to 4000 seats. A couple of years later, Chris &I made a deal with Warner Bros. to convert “House of Wax” to 70mm, and opened it in theaters like Hollywood’s Grauman’s Chinese Theater, and the 4300 seat, Boston Music Hall.Chris and I bought most all of the available 65mm cameras in theUSA, hoping that Hollywood would give 3D a serious “reboot”, but it never really came to be on a big scale. But over the years, internationally, nearly 30 films and venues carried our Stereovision technology brand. Some of us, in cinema, remember an obscure English gentleman named Willy Frees-Greene, who even more than Thomas Edison, worked out the art and technology that became “the movies” Chris and I sometimes feel a good deal like poor old “Wille F.G” We put 3D into one roll of film, one projector, one camera with images that were easy on the eyes.Showed the advantage of 70mm 3D, as well! Allan Silliphant, still filing patents, and trying to advance the state of the 3D art.