Does 3D Work?

http://techland.time.com/2011/01/28/does-3d-work/#ixzz1CnUofQOT

By Michelle Castillo on January 28, 2011

The debate whether 3D technology is necessary has basically boiled down to one question: Does the technology even work? Leading the anti 3D group has been Roger Ebert. Vehemently against the technology, he's posted time and time again his reasons to why he doesn't believe it's worth our time and money. In his post "Why I Hate 3-D (And You Should Too)," he argues that the image is always darker than the 2D version, and it rarely provides an experience that's worth the extra money. In addition to making some of us nauseous and being a distraction, he said that our brain, which is already used to seeing things in the third dimension, automatically converts what we see on the screen. His most poignant argument, however, comes from the fact that he believes Hollywood is dumbing down entertainment and losing the importance of story, not visual tricks, in movies:

I'm not opposed to 3-D as an option. I'm opposed to it as a way of life for Hollywood, where it seems to be skewing major studio output away from the kinds of films we think of as Oscar-worthy. Scorsese and Herzog make films for grown-ups. Hollywood is racing headlong toward the kiddie market. Disney recently announced it will make no more traditional films at all, focusing entirely on animation, franchises, and superheroes. I have the sense that younger Hollywood is losing the instinctive feeling for story and quality that generations of executives possessed. It's all about the marketing. Hollywood needs a projection system that is suitable for all kinds of films—every film—and is hands-down better than anything audiences have ever seen. The marketing executives are right that audiences will come to see a premium viewing experience they can't get at home. But they're betting on the wrong experience.

He also posts a letter from famed film editor and sound designer Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, Cold Mountain), who explains why 3D technically doesn't work. It's a convergence and focus issue, he explains:

But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen -- say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.

But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point.

If we look at the salt shaker on the table, close to us, we focus at six feet and our eyeballs converge (tilt in) at six feet. Imagine the base of a triangle between your eyes and the apex of the triangle resting on the thing you are looking at. But then look out the window and you focus at sixty feet and converge also at sixty feet. That imaginary triangle has now "opened up" so that your lines of sight are almost -- almost -- parallel to each other.

We can do this. 3D films would not work if we couldn't. But it is like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, difficult. So the "CPU" of our perceptual brain has to work extra hard, which is why after 20 minutes or so many people get headaches. They are doing something that 600 million years of evolution never prepared them for. This is a deep problem, which no amount of technical tweaking can fix. Nothing will fix it short of producing true "holographic" images.

As a counterpoint, Slate's Daniel Engber argues that it's about time for Ebert to quit griping about 3D. If our eyes are already used to seeing in 3D, then what's the difference if we see a movie in 3D? He says it adds a different experience - the bonus of binocular disparity - which can bring us in to the movie and add to the suspense:

It's just as silly to presume that viewing a film in 3-D is any less natural—from an evolutionary perspective or otherwise—than watching it flat. For starters, the human eye did not evolve to see elephants stomping across the Serengeti at 24 frames per second. Nor are we biologically attuned to jump cuts, or focus pulls, or the world seen through a rectangular box the sides of which happen to form a ratio of 1.85 to 1. Nor indeed was man designed to gaze at any image while having no control over which objects are in focus and which are blurry. If all those distinctly unnatural aspects of standard, two-dimensional cinema seem unobtrusive, it's only because we've had 125 years to get used to them.

Personally some movies like Avatar I don't think I would would watch any other way because 3D makes the movie an experience and really helps you enter the world of Pandora. I do like to have my options though, and it does get annoying when I can't watch a regular movie in 2D because there are only 3D versions out there. I don't think adding another dimension to classics like The Godfather or A Clockwork Orange will make a difference because people are drawn to these movies because of the high level of storytelling skill it took to make them. What do you think?

Read more: http://techland.time.com/2011/01/28/does-3d-work/#ixzz1CnUm8APC

 

Two Thumbs, Two Dimensions

http://www.slate.com/id/2282376/pagenum/all/#p2

 

Roger Ebert is done talking about 3-D movies. Thank goodness.

 

By Daniel EngberPosted Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011, at 12:00 PM ET

 

Is 3-D as bad as Roger Ebert says?As far as Roger Ebert is concerned, the discussion about 3-D is over. "The notion that we are asked to pay a premium to witness an inferior and inherently brain-confusing image is outrageous," he wrote in his blog Sunday. "The case is closed."

 

If that means Ebert will stop complaining about the medium, so much the better. For years now, the venerable critic has been griping that 3-D cinema is dim, distracting, and useless. And I mean for years: Even at the age of 10, young Ebert turned up his nose at Arch Oboler's stereo jungle adventure, Bwana Devil. (Deeply unmoved, was he, by the hails of spears.) That was back in 1952; more than a half-century later, he's still shaking his fist at the silver screen—I hate 3-D and you should, too! Professional obligations notwithstanding, Ebert doesn't want to see another movie in three dimensions. Ever.

I've had enough of this persnickety crusade, marching, as it does, under the banner of pseudoscience. "Our ancestors on the prehistoric savannah developed an acute alertness to motion," Ebert writes, in an attempt to explain why movies like Clash of the Titans totally suck.

 

But what about rapid movement toward the viewer? Yes, we see a car aiming for us. But it advances by growing larger against its background, not by detaching from it. Nor did we evolve to stand still and regard its advance. To survive, we learned instinctively to turn around, leap aside, run away. We didn't just stand there evolving the ability to enjoy a 3-D movie.

 

OK, let's not quibble with the idea that human beings might have evolved to jump away from oncoming automobiles on the prehistoric savannah. I'm more interested in the two notions that follow from this dubious logic. First, that we ought not consume any form of entertainment that doesn't derive from a selected biological trait; and, second, that standard flat-screen cinema is somehow better suited to our genetic makeup—more natural, I guess—than 3-D.

 

I wonder if Ebert really believes that the arts should cater to our Darwinian design, or that we're incapable of enjoying anything for which our brain wasn't delicately prewired. But in the event that he does, I'd only point out that such gimmicky and distracting art forms as, say, music, may very well be fiddling with our cortex in ways that have nothing to do with the fight-or-flight demands of a saber-toothed tiger attack.

 

It's just as silly to presume that viewing a film in 3-D is any less natural—from an evolutionary perspective or otherwise—than watching it flat. For starters, the human eye did not evolve to see elephants stomping across the Serengeti at 24 frames per second. Nor are we biologically attuned to jump cuts, or focus pulls, or the world seen through a rectangular box the sides of which happen to form a ratio of 1.85 to 1. Nor indeed was man designed to gaze at any image while having no control over which objects are in focus and which are blurry. If all those distinctly unnatural aspects of standard, two-dimensional cinema seem unobtrusive, it's only because we've had 125 years to get used to them.

 

According to Ebert, the 3-D effect brings in an "artificial" third dimension, which doesn't serve to make a movie any more realistic. In fact, he says, it makes an image seem less real, since under normal circumstances "we do not perceive parts of our vision dislodging themselves from the rest and leaping at us." Here he appears to be confusing cheesy, pop-out effects (which are used judiciously in the better—and more recent—films) with the medium as a whole. Yes, some 3-D movies do contain these gimmicks, but others do not.

 

In any case, it's not clear to me why one depth cue might be deemed artificial and unnecessary, while others are just fine. After all, a regular old 2-D movie carries its own set of visual guidelines for understanding spatial relationships. Objects in the foreground block our vision of what's behind them. Shading and texture tell us about the three-dimensional shape of an object on the screen. Ebert would certainly agree that you don't need to watch the famous sequence from Dial M for Murder in its original 3-D to understand that Anthony Dawson is creeping up behind Grace Kelly, and that he's going to lift a stocking over her head to strangle her. Yet he's apoplectic over the thought of adding one more depth cue into the mix.

 

With 3-D cinema, we still have occlusion and shading and texture—and we're still missing motion parallax—but now we get the added benefit of binocular disparity. We don't need that extra information to see that Grace Kelly's killer is lurking behind her, but it adds, at the very least, clarity and precision to the scene. Exactly what part of that is "artificial"? As it happens, the 3-D version of Dial M also gives us something more: When Kelly falls across the desk, her hand reaches through the stereo window, as if imploring the audience for help. It doesn't make us jump out of the way like Ebert's Homo habilis. It draws us into the action.

 

Which brings me to Ebert's latest post, the one described as his final word on "why 3-D doesn't work and never will." To support this claim, he prints a letter from Walter Murch, a decorated film editor and sound designer most notable in this context for sharing Ebert's curmudgeonly disregard for stereo cinema. Like Ebert, Murch complains that 3-D is too dark, and then adds that it's too "small" on the screen. (I think he's referring to the medium's "puppet-theater effect," which tends to make everything and everyone appear shrunken down to the size of dolls.) These problems could be solved, he concedes, but "the biggest problem with 3-D … is the 'convergence/focus issue.' " A stereo film forces the viewers to hold their focus at one plane of depth, even while their eyeballs rotate inwards and outwards to follow the action. "It is like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time," he goes on. "And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before." (Again with the cavemen …)

This is a reasonable point, and it may represent a real challenge for 3-D filmmakers. I've given my own accounting in Slate: In "The Problem With 3-D," I wondered if the unnatural eye movements provoked by stereo cinema might be the source of the bleary eyes, headache, and nausea that sometimes affect 3-D viewers. This wasn't an original idea, of course—the same concern had been laid out in the Atlantic (to pick just one instance) in 1953, not long after Ebert's dad took him to see Bwana Devil. All these years later, we still don't know whether the "convergence/focus issue" causes 3-D headaches, or if they arise from some other aspect of the experience. Either way, I proposed, the problem of visual discomfort would doom the new batch of digital 3-D films to the same fate as their analog forebears: The bubble will pop.

 

Thing is, I've changed my mind since I wrote that piece nearly two years ago. Or maybe 3-D movies changed my brain: After watching 10 or 20 of these films since then, I've grown accustomed to the ocular aerobics, and the same format that gave me splitting headaches back in 2009 hardly bothers me now. Meanwhile, certain technical innovations, especially in animated 3-D, have begun to eliminate some of the medium's most egregious visual quirks. And while, like Murch, I'm still distracted by the puppet-theater effect in live-action 3-D, that "problem," too, may diminish as we all get used to it.

 

If I'm right that it takes multiple viewings to understand and appreciate three-dimensional cinema, you might think Roger Ebert would eventually come around. But even before he'd decided the case was closed, Ebert seems to have sworn off any real engagement with the medium. Armed with his evolutionary theory of film, he's content to sit back and hurl the occasional spear of his own. A recent review of The Green Hornet contained only this note at the very bottom: "Yes, it was in 3-D. The more I see of the process, the more I think of it as a way to charge extra for a dim picture." And while he does commend the effect from time to time—it's "useful" in Tron: Legacy and "quite acceptable" in Megamind—he's rarely willing to acknowledge that 3-D might have anything substantive to offer on its own terms, that maybe it's not only a marketing gimmick (it is that, to be sure), but a new kind of filmmaking that brings along both limitations and opportunities.

 

Take Toy Story 3: I've gone on record with my admiration for the scene at Daisy's window, where Lotso finds he's been replaced by another toy. There's no sight gag there, no objects hurtling off the screen; instead, the image contorts visual space into a crisscrossing, emotional depth. If the scene were flat, Lotso and Daisy would be right next to each other on the screen; in 3-D, they're spread across a lonely chasm, separated by rain-streaked glass. Is this a fluke, or a sign of what three-dimensional cinema could be? Ebert's not interested. He sums up Pixar's innovative use of stereo with a one-line postscript to his review: "Just don't get me started about the 3-D." Don't get him started; the case is closed. Maybe that's for the best.

 

James Cameron To Improve 3D For Avatar 2

http://www.today3d.com/2011/02/james-cameron-to-improve-3d-for-avatar.html

 

Feb 1, 2011

 

James Cameron has revealed that he wants to improve 3D for the Avatar sequel.

 

Avatar set the standard for 3D cinema when it was released in 2009 - going on to become the biggest grossing movie of all time.

 

And Cameron is planning to set the bar even higher when he begins to work on a much awaited sequel.

 

Talking to SpeakEasy the filmmaker said: "For Avatar 2, what I'm most interested in is getting theatres to up their light level," Cameron said.

 

"And we want to shoot the movie at 48 or maybe even 60 frames a second, and display it at that speed, which will eliminate a lot of the motion artifacts that I think are causing some people problems.

 

"People talk about feeling sick or something like that, and I think it's because the image is strobing," That's a function of the 24-frame frame rate, which has actually got nothing to do with 3D.

 

"It's just made more apparent because the 3D is otherwise such an enhanced, realistic image, that all of a sudden you're aware of this funky strobing which you weren't aware of."

 

Cameron is back on the big screen this week; in a producing capacity at least, with the release of new 3D adventure Sanctum.

 

As well as Avatar 2 and 3 in the pipeline Cameron is also set to direct Battle Angel, which is based on the Yukito Kishiro graphic novels.

 

3D market is going to explode: James Cameron

http://www.today3d.com/2011/02/3d-market-is-going-to-explode-james.html

 

Feb 1, 2011

 

He waited for about 15 years to develop the right technology to shoot Avatar, the highest grossing movie in cinema history, but James Cameron feels that the market for 3D is going to get bigger in the near future and transcend filmmaking.

 

The Oscar-winning director, who is bringing Sanctum in 3D after the mega success of Avatar, releasing in India on February 4, is known for his fetish for the underground world and new technology.

Cameron, who pioneered 3D, is averse to bad conversions but feels that a few bad films won't affect its market.

"When the consumer electronics manufacturers bring to market sets that don't require glasses, at that point, it's going to explode like crazy. The market is growing. The number of networks and terrestrial broadcast companies, cable companies and satellite companies that are investing, either tentatively or aggressively, in 3D is increasing all the time," Cameron said in an email interview.

The 56-year-old director feels that apart from feature films, 3D is going to expand to sports, TV programmes and live broadcast, which he says is right around the corner.

Cameron is not bothered about naysayers and is preparing for the increase by expanding the production of the Fusion cameras in his company but he is still concerned with bad 3D.

"We're having to expand much more rapidly than we thought we were going to. We'll be building hundreds of camera systems in the next year to service the demand. There have been a lot of naysayers but it never stopped growing.

"I'm excited about the possibilities of new technology but I'm also concerned about the possibilities of bad 3D. These fast conversions done during post-production are still a problem but most people have started to veer toward native 3D production," he adds.

Talking about his latest production Sanctum, which has been directed by Alister Grierson on a screenplay by John Garvin and Wight, Cameron says he wanted to make the audience a part of the anxiety that the characters go through.

"Five years ago, Andrew brought me the idea and I loved it. Andrew and I had previously been on some great adventures together. We dove deep into the ocean to uncharted depths to explore and discover never-before-seen parts of the ocean floor and marine life for Aliens of the Deep. We dove theTitanic (for Ghosts of the Abyss) and the Bismarck," he says.

The film follows a team of underwater cave divers on a treacherous expedition to the largest, most beautiful and least accessible cave system on Earth and how they get trapped inside after a tropical storm.

"We want audiences to be left with a certain experience where they feel involved with the perils faced by the characters. Action is a way of externalizing an emotional state. You might be in a situation where you're absolutely petrified and you might be seconds away from death, but not a lot might be happening," says Cameron.