They say most movie theater hardware support it with a simple software upgrade.
Doesn’t say the upgrade is free, ofc.
My main problem with 3d glasses and 3d cinema in general - apart from the general pain in the arse since I never had eyesight problem and don’t wear glasses - is dimming and desaturation due to polarisation. In fact, it’s enough for me to opt out of 3D screening at the first opportunity. Especially a plague if the movie is post-converted since no amount of fiddling with the brightness in post can compensate.
I think it was reported that even Avatar was plague by this.
The dimming for me is a small sacrifice to make for the genuine depth that you gain. Although movies that try to add 3d in post-production can fuck off.
I’ve yet to see ‘genuine depth’ adding to the movie going experience in any significant way. So far, it detracts more from it than adds to it.
And don’t quote Avatar - I’ve seen that shit both in 2D and in 3D and the extra quid + annoying plastic shit rubbing against your nose wasn’t worth it.
Leave alone Avatar itself being a shit movie with a huge budget.
I liked Prometheus’s 3D. Granted I don’t expect it to “add” to it much at all. Its just one more component of film making to take away the barriers which make the fact that you are watching a film less apparent. Like color, resolution or any of the other things we have done to make looking at a film less like looking at film and more like looking through a window to whatever it is the director has in store for you.
I look forward to the point where 3D is an established film norm and film makers play with the effect for artistic reasons. The way they play with color.
As an aspiring cinematographer, I hope to be too old to care if and when this finally happens.
Yeah, it will have its bad points too. Same way color correction does :meh: Some people are just dumb and don’t understand the tools they have at their disposal and misuse them. But that’s no reason to hope that talented people don’t get access to them.
I simply don’t understand why 3D is a bad thing.
It’s not a bad thing. It’s just ridiculously easy to use/implement it wrong, either hurting your eyes or turning it into a stupid gimmick.
If a filmmaker can do it right then that’s wonderful. But it’s not absolutely necessary.
It’s not a bad thing.
It’s simply insignificant, unnecessary and as it is - it draws away the focus from more important things in production.
What hypothetic artistic reasons do you have in mind? Name at least one.
Unlike the color correction, which is used to set the mood and tone, 3D does nothing except prettying the picture up and adding gag factor for the viewer.
‘Artistic freedom’ in this case boils down to whether your shit is 3D or 2D. That’s it.
Sure, you may like it, think it’s cool, it may be your ‘thing’ - but as a storytelling medium, cinema neither benefits from nor is hindered by 3D - you’re still capturing light and then projecting on a screen - that is, if you don’t count the extra expenses, which may as well hinder the overall production.
Immersiveness and believable characters/environments do not come from 3D. If you rely on 3D to make your stuff believable or to make something stand out - or if you are building the movie around 3D to make it worthwhile for a viewer - then you are a shit director and your place is in the 19th century amusement fair business rather than cinema.
Neither does 3D makes the movies any more interactive, but this is another story altogether.
Thing is, cinema as a medium has long evolved from the times when 3D would be a big deal. Nowadays that shit is regressive rather than progressive.
EDIT: See, from a technical standpoint, this is quite exciting to shoot in 3D - you can see from P.Jackson’s 3D behind the scenes 3D featurette that everyone is having fun. I’m not alien to this - seeing and playing around with all those cutting age rigs is both exciting and fascinating. That said, I would have much more fun making a 3D movie than watching it. You can also clearly see that they mostly talk about the tech stuff in that Hobbit video - it says more about the RED camera company than about the film or crew.
Seems hypocritical for me to say that at first, but in the end of it, I realise that I can do as good in 2D as I would in 3D
For example, lets say Marry Poppins was filmed today. They could use 3D in the real world and 2D in the fiction sets. This would further the appearance of it being a painting and what not. Beyond this, the 3DS allows for 3D to be scaled in stronger or weaker effects. Meaning no it isn’t on or off. And while it isn’t an instantly noticeable change (in the same way slight changes in color correction aren’t) it could have subconscious effects on the way you interpret the film. Lets say a movie follows a character who becomes depressed. In the world of color you could desaturated things, in the world of effects you could use weather, in the world of sound you can have sad music or lower tones and now in the world of 3D you can perhaps lower the intensity of the 3D so that the world becomes more “flat” to cinematically convey the characters emotions.
I am not a creative and talented movie maker, so I couldn’t tell you precisely what could be an amazing use of 3D but I am sure someone will be and do shit you didn’t see coming that shows it can be used to convey things similar to color.
Also of course, 3d won’t instantly make a shit film immersive. But take an already good film and add 3d to it and you have more to it. In the same way there are fucking amazing black and white movies. But these movies were not black and white as a stylistic choice they were black and white due to limitations. They would gain from color.
In terms of addition to the cost, it is becoming cheaper and easier to film in 3D as we develop the technology. If you went back into the 30s/40s you could make the same argument about color. I defy you to say that color isn’t a great augmentation to film today and well worth the cost of developing the technology.
Unfortunately there aren’t mediums that do have the advantage of 3d were its effects on art can be cited as an example on why cinema would benefit from it. Like they could cite paintings use of color. But I am not so naive as to say that a crucial part of human vision has no impact on the way people feel and the way they perceive their world. This impact can and will be applied to cinema.
I edited my post before you posted your reply.
Regarding:
Let’s see how many would appreciate such an ingenious director’s idea in a movie such as Mary Poppins. Most likely, none.
Subconscious as in some ‘25th frame’ voodoo shaman shit?
I get where you coming from, but ambiguity/subtlety =/= subconscious.
Yes, a movie can delve into exploring human subconscious as a main theme, but cinema is rather a conscious medium than subconscious unless your intention is to film some sort of a public opinion shaping propaganda flick. In a good movie, ambiguity is brought in specifically to evoke conscious thinking.
This won’t work very well for the very same reasons people forgot they are watching a 3D movie after the first 20 minutes.
You idea might be brilliant, but it counts for nothing if nobody can appreciate it.
Actually, every B&W movie coloring job proves otherwise.
Hardly a surprise, no?
Now that’s just preaching.
I’ll admit the last part was a statement of opinion. The fact is this argument is going no where because most of what I am arguing is that 3D has potential, and it does I’ve illustrated how and these are ideas from someone who isn’t experienced in cinematography and neither of us can prove if it will or won’t actually live up to it but what you seem to demand is solid proof of how it will work. And as much as you can theorize on future technology and use of it will go you cannot ever prove exactly how it will go.
I’ve given enough support for how as a bare minimum it helps by making it more realistic presentation of the work, and I’ve given some thoughts on how it could have potential for more. What more can be said?
Hell even the preaching is true because you and I both know consumers are fuckwits and it doesn’t matter what it is as long as companies push it hard enough they’ll buy it and they are pushing the shit out of 3D. And once 3D is well established you know people are going to play with it same as anything else even if it doesn’t live up to its potential.
Okay, you appeal to ‘cementing’ certain aspects of the scenes. However, as been discussed before - does it add to it in any significant way on top of the other layers that are already in place? Does the movie really needs it?
Compared to the already established movie making techniques, I don’t see any really substantial effects of 3D that do not distract the viewer from the experience, hence why I am arguing that it insignificant and unnecessary. As it is, cinema is already a self-contained medium, to which 3D is little more than just a small patch which is also a huge wildcard that can ruin established conventions such as the use of depth of field and restrict the workflow of production.
Yet it may as well be argued that the difference between B&W/color or sound/no sound is far more significant than between 2D and 3D within the movie theatre environment.
On a side note, another thing about immersion - if you think about it, 3D actually has more chance of reminding you that you are watching a movie rather then fully immerse in it’s world, since it adds only one piece of equation - you are still sitting in the chair and looking at the flat screen. This is primarily the reason why 3D TV sets don’t work as well. Apart from the above mentioned limitations - it also loses the big screen.
It seems to me that those who argue about 3D helping immersion forget that in cinema, most often we tend to be immersed in the movie for entirely different reasons.
So far, for me 3D have been a distraction that obscures whatever merits it was intended to bring. I’d say it belongs in virtual reality rather than in cinema.
We will see if Hobbit will be worth the 3D hustle and if it would have something that makes the 2D version seem lacking in any way. However, I don’t hold my breath for it, because so far, every big ‘non-gimmicky’ 3D movie like Avatar or Tron didn’t really bring anything significant to that table while annoying people with ridiculous dimming and stupid plastic rubbing against the nose.
P.S. I apologize for leaving the ‘subsconscious’ bit in - I realised I got sidetracked there and you weren’t really supposed to see that bit as I was about to edit it out, but forgot to do so.
Well I seriously intended to edit it out because of what I followed it up with.
Interesting discussion. I tend to think it will just become something we will accept with time, and maybe once in a while we’ll say, “Oh, that’s cool” about the use of 3D in a scene. But I think ODB is more or less correct. I think there’s a certain level of technology and technique needed to make a movie immersive, but we reached that almost 100 years ago. All we need is a level of realism that allows us to clearly see and hear the actors at a fairly normal speed (unlike those early newsreels), and it clicks in our brains what we’re seeing, so our brains can stop thinking about what it’s looking at and concentrate on what’s happening in the movie. Anything else is icing on the cake. Although it’s called a visual media, what we see is often not as interesting as what we understand. And for that, ironically sound is often just as or more important in conveying emotions and ideas than the visuals.
I honestly don’t think I’ve gone once to see a movie in 3D.
Holy shit, I got ODB to apologize :3
Since you stopped making any statements about the likelyhood of 3D having artistic merit, and we pretty much both agree that in the scheme of things 3D is fairly insignificant I’d say we have pretty much come to a parallel, been an enjoyable debate. Unlike everyone else I’ve conversed with on 3D you actually understood what the hell you were talking about.
One last thing: size does really matter, man.
Cheers, guess my pending bachelor degree pays off in the end.