Bono's hand almost poked out my eye: My continuing education in 3-D

I spent most of today driving around town with Jim Miller, who's a partner in Stereo Pictures, a tech company specializing in 2-D to 3-D conversion of film and animation. Since I can't get Jeffrey Katzenberg to ever return my phone calls, Jim has volunteered his services as my own personal 3-D trainer and guru. He has a vested interest in converting people like me from skeptics to believers, since his company's whole business plan is based on mass 3-D consumption in both theaters and eventually at home on your flat-screen TV. But he also knows that I'm not an easy convert.

We spent today with two 3-D heavyweights: Michael Lewis, who's the chairman of RealD, the top company involved with installing 3-D theater screens, lenses and software, and Steve Schklair, founder and chief executive of 3Ality Digital, a leading developer of 3-D HD camera technology that was a driving force behind the filming of U2's "U2 3D," a concert film shot during the band's 2006 "Vertigo" tour designed to showcase 3Ality's new film technology. In addition to some of the U2 footage, I got to see 3-D test sequences from "Titanic," "Star Wars," "The Matrix" and "Beowolf,"  lengthy 3-D sequences from "Kung Fu Panda" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth," as well 3-D snippets of everything from a Gwen Stefani concert to the 2005 Super Bowl to NBA games and motocross races.

The verdict? 3-D is still very much a work in progress, a new format that is filled with potential but remains in its infancy. I felt like I'd been tossed into a time machine and turned up in an early reel of "You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story," the absorbing Richard Schickel documentary that's running this week on PBS. In the doc, you get to see young Warners directors fooling around with new sound technology. The films from the early days of sound were often imaginative and liberating, but just as often awkward and stilted. So it is with 3-D. It is a form still best suited for animation and action films, not comedy or drama, where 3-D really offers little added value.

3-D needs action, good lighting and depth of field to show its strength. A classic example is the U2 concert film, which felt underwhelming most of the time, not in terms of the music, mind you, but the utilization of the new technology. Simply watching the band's rhythm section on stage was a visual snooze--3-D had little to add. The concert only really came alive during its most theatrical--and most important, its visually expansive--moments, when Bono surfaced on a mini-platform in the middle of the giant crowd, surrounded by a sea of fans. The best shots were not close-ups of him singing but long shots, with fans in the foreground and background, Bono silhouetted in between.

Depth of field is clearly crucial. The footage of the Super Bowl was a visual kick, because football is a true depth-of-field sport--you love seeing the quarterback in the foreground, surrounded by charging linemen, but still able to look past him at his receivers invading the secondary far off down field. It's hard to imagine baseball working as well, since the traditional baseball camera angle--from center field, peering in past the pitcher at the batter at home plate--is essentially a zoom lens shot, with little depth to it. To shoot baseball in 3-D, you'd need an entirely new set of camera angles to do it right. Football works fine just the way it is.

Steve Schklair told me that 3Ality filmed the U2 concert using the exact same lighting as a normal show, except for more spotlights on the audience. "You don't really need to change any production values at all," he says. I disagree. The images often felt flat and washed out to me, with the backlighting and smoke effects that are so much a staple of concert extravaganzas diluting the impact of 3-D's depth of field. I'd like to hear from a lighting expert, but I suspect you need warmer, more potent lighting to really enhance the 3-D effect, not to mention a different kind of staging, where the band members are placed front and back instead of the typical side-by-side configuration.

So who really knows where they're doing? I'll have another post up soon.   

Photo of U2's the Edge (left) and Bono on the band's "Vertigo" tour by Sandra Mu / Getty Images 

Comments

[Ed Meyer]

Patrick - You need to spend a whole day with Chris Condon, the Grandfather of 3-D with 47 3-D films to his credit, including "The Stewardesses", the highest grossing 3-D film ever. Chris Condon will be the first to tell you that the people today calling themselves 3-D filmmakers are more smoke and mirrors, than people with real 3-D production knowledge. Most people have no idea that 3-D images are created by the brain, and not by the Digital Projector in the theater. Spend some time with Chris Condon, and his pal John Rupkelvis, and you'll really learn about 3-D.

[Ed Meyer]

....continuing, Patrick, we all have to be honest with each other at this point. There will eventually be "Scientific & Technical" Academy Awards for Digital 3-D, and all of us who have been working for decades on bringing back 3-D for possibly it's last chance, are all in the running. This may be why Jeffrey Katzenberg is lobbying so hard.

[Cory O'Connor]

So what did you do to piss off Jeffrey Katzenberg that he doesn't return your calls?

[Jim Dorey]

I am astonished, ASTONISHED, that you did not seem to enjoy U2 3D. I am really. It is an excellent example of live action 3D and the audience reactions have proven it - most thought that the movie experience was as good or better than actually being there in person!

You talk about: "The images often felt flat and washed out to me, with the backlighting and smoke effects that are so much a staple of concert extravaganzas diluting the impact of 3-D's depth of field." - this statement is ignorant of the fact that in 2D it would have been just as flat and washed out! Do you really expect to see anything at all in smoke? Seriously.

The point of true 3D is to bring you closer to total immersion, yet make you forget you are watching a 3D movie at all! Ten minutes into it, you should be focusing on the story (or the concert vistas) rather than not being able to see through smoke or whether that yo-yo will hit me or not). That is why ANY genre can and will be shot in 3D. James Cameron is out to prove it to you as well - after his ~$300 million AVATAR epic comes out next December, he will be working on THE DIVE - which is a full fledged DRAMA (ok, maybe some cool underwater action scenes).

Patrick - the world is no longer flat! Don't be left clinging on to your nostalgic view of things ala Roger Ebert. You are seriously running the risk of being labeled obsolete. That can't be good for anybody - especially journalists.

-jim

[Ed Meyer]

Patrick - Jim Dorey from Marketsaw.com is 100% correct, and right on the mark. The highlight of this next generation of 3-D films, is to make the "Proscenium" disappear, effectively immersing you into the movie.

[Timber]

Disclosure: I've worked extensively in the past and hopefully future with both Michael Lewis and Steve Schklair. They're both very knowledgeable.

Having shown less verbal restraint than advisable over the past few days, the only thing I'm going to add is that it probably doesn't matter whether you (I, or whoever) like 3D or not. For various reasons, cameras of the future will almost certainly capture depth information, along with high dynamic range, precise location (my iPhone camera does that now), and many other attributes. Whether the depth information is used to construct a stereo image will be up to the owner or perhaps viewer of the images, but the capability will be there in every photograph, still or moving, at no extra cost to the maker of the image.

By then we'll probably be talking about whether full photogrammetric scene scanning serves the story or is just a techie fad. Did you ever see the long-running LA stage show "Tamara"?

[cjflynn]

Background points:
1) At this time, the technology of 3D eats up a lot of light, which translates to several compromises - contrast, color depth, size of venue...all of which should be eliminated in a couple/few years.

2) Our eyes compose 3D info into the 2D pictures we see all the time. The way 2D shadows move, perspective, placement of sizes and light and color, and many other hints are things that we capture 'naturally' (and film makers manipulate) in order to allow the suspension of disbelief. If/When 3D becomes more prevalent, 2D will slip away as being acceptable, whether we like it or not...like having to wait until we get to home or for a phone booth before we make a telephone call.

Understandably, 1 above plays into the decision to buy digital systems this year. It is argued that alternative content allows a cinema theater owner a degree of independence from the studio system, and the pay-back on systems is eased with the higher percentage of retained income. They keep a higher percentage of a higher priced ticket, and sell more expensive refreshments (champagne at operas, beer at sporting events). Regardless, it takes a special breed to buy into an expensive technology that will need all or some part of it replaced in 30 months.

To get a feeling for point 2, next go to a post-production facility that is doing work on a 3D piece. No matter that the glasses are cumbersome (Dolby's new glasses are 'tres chouette') and light is a problem, being able to see things moving in depth and importance as a director chooses will give insight to your training in 3D's progression.