James Cameron 3D Backlash

http://www.today3d.com/2010/08/james-cameron-3d-backlash-avatar.html

 

There's been a bit of a backlash against 3D. I'm curious what you make of it.

 

There are two aspects of this. One is they're ignoring the fact that all the 3D movies are still making a lot of money. It's sort of leveling off‚ instead of making three times multiple, they're now making a two times multiple of 2D. But I do agree that there's a consumer backlash and I actually think it's a good thing, because what they're lashing back against is some pretty crappy stuff. The consumer position is that if I'm going to pay premium for this ticket, you better show me the money, you know? You better show me the goods. I think that's completely valid. I want the studios to get spanked for making bad decisions because I actually think they're compromising the overall 3D market if they continue this way. I don't think any long term damage has been done‚ as long as they take heed of these lessons, and don't do slap dash six week conversions that look like crappy pop-up cards.

But the thing that everybody has got to remember here is that all of the films that have come out after Avatar were made before Avatar came out. Or at least were mostly through their production cycle before Avatar came out. So any lessons learned about how to do it, in terms of how to use thecameras, how to use the stereo spaces and so on, that might be learned by other live action film makers from Avatar‚ we haven't seen those films yet. It takes a year to make a decent film.

 

That's an interesting point.

 

Well, I haven't seen that one in print yet. Nobody has really thought it through. They think that these movies just get whistled up out of nowhere. Avatar took four and half years to make and they're been working on Tron: Legacy for a couple of years. They used our cameras for that so I'm hopeful. It looks great so far from what I've seen.

The other thing that people need to keep in mind is that 3D doesn't make a good movie. Good movies are made by good scripts, great acting and a lot of other things besides just being in 3D. 3D can only make a great movie a little bit better. The funny thing about Avatar is that [people were saying] you had to see it in 3D, that you had to see it on the big screen and people were booking their IMAX tickets weeks in advance and all that. That was great and so everybody kind of concluded from that that the movie was going to be a complete bust in the home video market, and it wasn't. It was one of the highest home video sellers of all time because, frankly, the story, the characters, and the emotions all worked even on the small screen. You know what I mean? The 3D wasn't a requirement. It was only additive. That's the way 3D should be thought of.

It's just all a learning curve for the consumer and I think the media and the critics can help with this as well and just warn people, "This is a crap movie. The 3D's good, but it's a crap movie," or "It's a good movie, but the 3D's crap." I think that distinction needs to be made too and I think a good example of that is Clash of the Titans. Pretty good movie. I actually really enjoyed it, and, of course, I was there to root for it because of Sam, but the 3D sucked.

 

In some scenes it didn't even look like it was 3D.

 

Well, it was sort of like 2.5 D and sometimes it was like, you know, 1.8 D. It was actually going backwards! (Laughs) Well, you know, sometimes these conversions if they're not done right, they just look like pop-up cards. You know those Valentine's Day cards that you get, where you kind of stand them up and they've got all these different depth planes, but they're all cutouts? That's what it looks like. [You have to consider] every single depth plane and object within every single frame. It's a hideously complicated process. It's much simpler to just shoot it in 3D and hopefully that's the thing that Hollywood is going to wake up to, I'm praying.

You know, having said all that, we're doing Titanic as a 3D conversion, but instead of spending six weeks on it, we're spending a year on it and the right amount of money and the right amount of creative input to make sure that it's done properly.

 

Do you think you'll have a hand in tweaking the conversion technology?

 

I don't know about changing the technology so much as I'll be monitoring the shots as they're converted and making sure that the interocular‚ because, you know, you have control of the convergence and the interocular in conversion. And just making sure that the characters look rounded and the stereo space is managed properly and it all cuts beautifully. And the first thing we're doing is a complete upres remastering from the original negative. We're taking it up to a 4K master, so we're taking out all the grain and sharpening the whole thing up, so it should look quite spectacular. And then we're going to the stereo conversion. So it should look gorgeous