Digital Dandelions

http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/node/1666   

 

Submitted by Nick Dager on Fri, 04/30/2010 - 12:26.

 

It was no surprise that stereoscopic 3D was the dominant topic of this year’s National Association of Broadcasters convention and, in particular, of the Digital Cinema Summit, which was held as always the weekend before the main convention gets underway. This is the year of Avatar and the Summit’s theme, after all, was 3D: Cinema & Home (as if all the S3D issues in both those markets are the same). What did surprise me was that seemingly every one of the thousands of exhibitors at the show had some 3D technology to offer and, in a troubling development, everywhere you looked you could find yet another person who claimed to be “a 3D expert.” To me those so-called experts are this spring’s production business equivalent of dandelions: often pretty to look at if you don’t know what they really are but in fact, at best, a nuisance and, at worst, something of a menace. And, as with dandelions, each new day seems to bring even more.

I left the Summit, frankly, discouraged by a lot of what I saw. In my mind the event did not measure up to previous years and, in part, this was because this year’s Summit had very little to do with digital cinema, which, last time I looked was the name of the event. I can understand why the organizers were eager to jump on the 3D bandwagon but the reality is 3D in the home has virtually nothing to do with 3D in movie theatres. Even worse, the absence of more digital cinema discussion at what has been one of the most important annual forums in this country lends credence to the growing belief that all the major issues facing the digital cinema roll out have been resolved. And they have not.

There were 3D demonstrations by several self-proclaimed experts that were among the most poorly done examples I’ve ever seen and many caused so much eyestrain that they were unwatchable. People need to appreciate that there is much to learn about shooting and editing stereoscopic 3D. As one example, most of the bad 3D demos were cut as fast as what you might see in a typical 2D music video. Quick cuts simply don’t work in 3D; the mind can’t process the information fast enough to register it as 3D.

While Steve Schklair, CEO of 3ality Digital – a company that can legitimately claim 3D expertise – expressed some concern at the number of people making a similar claim without, perhaps, enough experience to support it, he is the first to accept the fact that 3ality and Vince Pace are not the only companies capable of producing quality stereoscopic 3D. “There’s a lot of good work coming out all around the world,” Schklair said, adding that many of the newest companies are taking the time needed to create quality work.

He welcomes so many new faces on the 3D scene because, as he sees it, that helps to legitimize stereoscopic 3D and demonstrate that, this time, 3D is not simply a fad; it’s a whole new motion picture experience. “It’s good if everybody jumps in,” he said, adding that the critical issue now for the small but significant number of 3D veterans in the industry is to stress “quality, quality, quality.” A second issue, Schklair said, was for everyone involved in S3D to work together on a common 3D vocabulary. “There’s no language around the 3D world, he said, but he believes one is evolving.

The keynote address that highly regarded engineer, writer and multiple Emmy Award winner Mark Schubin gave on Saturday summed up many of the issues that stereoscopic 3D faces as it tries yet again to earn widespread mainstream public acceptance.  The title of his presentation was What is 3D and Why it Matters. “Some people say 3D is the closest thing to reality,” said Schubin. “I disagree.”

He then showed a black and white photograph of Marilyn Monroe entertaining the troops to make the point, in his words, “We don’t need 3D to give us depth information.” The visual cues in the image made it quite clear that Monroe was in front and the troops in her audience were far behind her.

Schubin used similar examples to make the case that, in visual terms a talented artist working 2D can create most of the same effects as 3D. But, with proper manipulation of the various tricks of the 3D trade that same artist working in 3D can make the viewer feel immersed in a scene and create a much greater feeling – Schubin used the word “sensation” – of actually being there.

Schubin also showed a variety of historical images and headlines to demonstrate quite clearly that stereoscopic 3D is a very old idea with roots in the early part of the last century – including working S3D broadcast systems – and has always been on the verge of widespread public awareness and acceptance.

Schubin was not going so far as to label the current 3D wave as a passing fad yet again but he did emphasize the fact that much work remains to be done before 3D is a mainstream experience in the home. He has hands on experience to support his positions. As an engineer Schubin has worked in broadcast and cinema for many years and is currently the supervising engineer for New York’s Metropolitan Opera and in that role helped pioneer the presentation of live opera in movie theatres around the world.

His point was that a movie theatre is a controlled environment where the lights can be dimmed, where the seats are placed just so and where the projector and screen can be maximized for a quality 3D presentation time after time. By comparison, many things in the home environment remain variable including lighting and distance from the screen. There are also simple considerations such as the fact that many people like to watch TV while lying on a sofa. How would 3D work in that situation?

And then there are the glasses. Currently the most affordable 3D TV screens available for the home use active shutter glasses that cost a hundred dollars and have a battery life of 40 hours. “Are consumers going to be willing to change batteries every week?” Schubin asked rhetorically.

I can’t speak for Schubin but I suspect he would agree with me that stereoscopic 3D in movie theatres is here to stay and, while we’re going to enter a phase where we’re likely to see a rash of poorly executed 3D – digital dandelions – in the end S3D will continue to be a staple of the cinema experience. I also firmly believe that it will be a decade – and possibly longer – before 3D in the home will be a mainstream experience. This is for the simple reason that, as Schubin clearly demonstrated in his keynote, “Things that work in cinema are not going to work at home.”