Settle down, Jay. Good lord. We get it. You don't like 3D.

If we're honest... much of this is due to our age. As mentioned, when each new technology comes along -- a TRUE technology and not the kind where they're trying to foist something on us -- the previous generation poo-poos it (I recall my computer technician brother-in-law saying DOS was here to stay and Windows would never catch on). I'm 44, so I'm somewhat torn. I'm struggling a bit with the 3D, but my youngest son (14) LOVES them. I must admit there have been three 3D movies I've seen that used 3D as an incredible asset: A Christmas Carol, Avatar, and Toy Story 3.

When the wheel was invented it got bad mouthed because you got dizzy watching it go round and round.
JJK

i get nauseous watching most modern movies in 2d, let alone 3d ;-)

I for one hope that Vegas 10 Pro and DVDA 6 have lots of 3D tools. I have been experimenting with my FujiFilm W1 and people love watching 3D stuff. As production/tools gets easier, i.e. from Camera to editing to Blu-ray, it will become more popular.

I do agree about having to use glasses. Don't think it will become totally mainstream in the home until that aspect is sorted out.

3D is just going through a popularity phase right now. It has been coming and going since the 50s.

Nowdays, I guess that just because it's possible to technically make it happen, the big electronics firms will try it and probably have limited financial risk. So if 3D dies back down, they will just quit making the equipment until it becomes popular again.

The bummer is that 3D rather than 4K cinema is being focused on. I had hoped that higher resolution would be a focus, not 3D. They both need; 1. more expensive camera, 2. lots higher compression and bandwidth to be delivered, so I would prefer 4K.

From Wikipedia:
In March 2009 AMC Theatres announced that it closed on a $315 million deal with Sony to replace all of its movie projectors with 4k digital projectors starting in the second quarter of 2009 and completing in 2012.

As of June, 2010, there are close to 16,000 digital cinema screens, with over 5000 of them being stereoscopic setups.

From DSL Reports:
What Kind Of Bandwidth Will 3D TV Consume?

"It has been coming and going since the 50s"

The difference being that today's 3D can be viewed in the home and not just the theater. Also, the 3D movies in the 50s weren't exactly cinematic masterpieces.

I also don't see what the big deal is about the glasses, I see people wearing really goofy looking sunglasses in public all the time.

LOL John, that is soooooo true!

I see a lot of people posting that 3D won't be good until the glasses are eliminated. However, the only way to accomplish this is to have an actual 3D image in front of the viewer. That means holograms, not flat screens. I don't see this happening in any practical way in the near future, so we're stuck with the glasses for quite a while.

No one's unsettled, Gates. You're the one who needs to calm down and climb down off your high horse.

I have to wear glasses to read, and to se ethe keyboard on this laptop... aint wearing them to watch tv.......but thats just me,, I don't text on my cell either, so what do i know..might be huge , not at my house though..till they through in a dozen or so sets of glasses :)

well like countless others, i wear glass all the time - and i'm not going to move over to contact lenses, nor laser surgery just so i can watch a 3d film comfortable with another pair of glass sitting over my prescription ones....

I will make my comments and then put on my flame retardant suit.

I have been involved with 3D production and technology for more than 20 years. I remember seeing the first active shutter glasses in an old apartment of a developer trying to sell the technology. We learned a number of lessons by the end of the eighties. Somewhere along the way someone must have lost them, because with the recent rebirth, those lessons are having to be learned again.

3D does not have to cause eye strain. It is not the technology, but the poor use of it or lack of craft that causes that. 3D content making is a different art form. Alice in Wonderland by Burton shows how by not knowing how to work in 3D you can really create a mess. I worked on an early film by James Cameron in 3D and he also refused to learn the lessons of 3D. Avatar shows he still doesn't quite get it.. Toy Story 3 shows many of the lessons well learned and therefore is much nicer to watch. Jim Henson spent a lot of time studying the art and really understood it. What a loss when he died.

Well crafted 3D can be wonderful. Artists are now getting the tools, so I hope they re-invent the wheel and learned what we did. If they do, we will have some wonderful experiences ahead.

I believe that 2D and 3D need to be looked at and considered as different products and art forms. While we are re-purposing 2D to 3D you will not see success.

3D has to be thought of in theatrical terms and staged as such, but with your audience being mobile like a theme park attraction. You create the story and experience differently. You stage it using the time tested methods of theatre, not film, and lighting and position become your focus tools.

3D content produced for a 40 foot screen can not be shown on a 10 foot screen without eye strain and confusion. Crunching it to TV is even worse. For different size images you have to make different allowances in shooting and clean up. There are tools now that are helping with the screen size changes now, but you still have to re-print everything for different sizes.

I make all of these comment to try to demonstrate that 3D is not dead on the most current arrival. The technology that was once only in the hands of a few is now going out to a whole new crop of many artists. I believe the content will evolve again and they will eventually learn the lessons that we learned. At that point, you will see talented artists provide worthy experiences. We are just in the early part of a new and DIFFERENT art form. I do not see 2D going away. I see new art coming in 3D in the future.

Your mileage may vary.

KK

KK, good comments.

does anyone else think that the audiences for these two movies would affect things as well, whole family goes with little kids and teenagers and adults to HTTYD ( I wouldn't take a little kid to 3D cuz the glasses/attention span may not last very long at all, off they'd come, and then it would either be a constant struggle or a kid not very engaged in the content, and distracting the rest of us, where as you wouldn't have so many little kids at Avatar, and so more teens and younger viewers may want to get that 3D experience.

It seems to me, there are a lot of problems with this comparison ( beyond even what Sony PCH pointed out ).

Dave

Two words -- Captain Eo

"I will make my comments and then put on my flame retardant suit."

I don't see why you need to duck for cover. As you say 3D is NOT 2D with something tacked on. It is (or should be) seen as a new art form. One that in many aspects will take us back to the old days of cinema where the narrative and the performance was key rather than how many angles the scene was covered from and how fast the editor could cut it. I'm a bit of a fan of the old school Italian cinema which pretty much was filming a stage performance.

To me some parts of Avatar showed what a wonderful new art form 3D can be. Other scenes were a bust, especially some of the fast paced action sequences. I think Cameron was trying to do too many cutting edge things in the one movie.

Bob.

I am far from a film expert, but (as I understand it) there are specialists who manage the sound, cameras and lighting in a film. Unless this is a *very* low budget film those folks are not the director.

Yet many directors (to me) seem to think they can "do" 3D themselves. As time goes on I think there will be 3D specialists who will manage the 3D aspects of a film much, much better than a director can. People who understand the "proper" use of 3D and when and where (and how much) to use it.

The number of available screens is relative and the graph does not appear to account for that. If Avatar had a larger number of screens showing in 3D, then more customers could see it that way. If another movie had a overall significant number lower available screens showing in 3D, then it could possibly not meet the demand. Perhaps many of those that went to see it wanted to - or would be willing to pay to - see it in 3D couldn't because the 3D showing was full.

i'm not sure about anybody else's location, but around me (buffalo, NY area), 2d wasn't always an option: it was most of the times 3d only. The exception would be the local theature, but all the "big" names (regal, AMC, etc) had 3d or 3d & 2d, but NOT just 2d. Which makes sense: if company A spends millions developing something better then the old stuff, why keep making & selling the old stuff? PS2 vs PS3 is an excellent example: because the PS2 is more popular then the PS3. 2D wasn't supposed to be more popular. :)

But that's a fallacious argument anyway: that would be like saying if you had a chart of popular NLE's, the reason FinalCut beat out Vegas is because it's on mac only & more film editors had mac's, so it's not a fair comparison. Any half-baked marketing person or company starch-shirt can explain away data... All they need to do is not prove it wrong, just say how it could be wrong.

>>>>As time goes on I think there will be 3D specialists who will manage the 3D aspects of a film<<<<

There are already such specialists : stereographer.
Quoting advice from another site: "I would simply get a decent stereographer or experienced S3D camera operator for the job. Get the stereography wrong and the finished video will be unwatchable. You would learn a lot about S3D during the shoot so for your next job you'll know what works and what does not. Theory and books are great but it often doesn't translate to the real world. The shoot will also take less time with a Cameraman/DoP concentrating on the lighting and camera operation while the stereographer looks after the S3D."

The stereographer helps handle making the rig do what the director wants, but it does not solve the creative issues that are the major part of the problem. Still the more folks who work with it and gain experience with it, the sooner the evolution will bring us the content that we will enjoy.

KK

It's gotta be easier than that. Two cameras picking up the left & right images properly is pretty easy to do. There are live humans on the set who have two functional eyes, seeing the live seen in actual really-and-for-true live 3D while they're standing there. If it looks good in 3D to them, it looks good in 3D to the camera. That's no different from the scene looking good to a 2D camera, and in fact should be easier because the camera comes closer to reproducing what the live humans see. The directory & camera people don't have to take into account what flattening of the scene will look like.

Sounds like a lot of folks are trying to put a lot more effort than that into it.

""I would simply get a decent stereographer or experienced S3D camera operator for the job. Get the stereography wrong and the finished video will be unwatchable.""

Obviously sound advice however I think it goes well beyond that. Just as the transition from B&W to color had to involve more than loading color stock and hiring the 'right' DP, the decision to shoot in 3D should / could affect the entire process, possibly right back to the screenplay.

To me moviemaking is no different to any other good engineering. You start with a functional specification (the script). The various departments bring their skills and constraints to the table and agree on the design parameters that each will have to meet.
Where it can all go wrong with the moviemaking process is when for some reason one department changes or ignores their part in the agreed plan. In moviemaking it could be the decision to shoot in 3D. In the auto industry it could be "it was too expensive to use an alloy engine block". At the end of the process you can have a movie that has the audience heading quickly for the bathroom or a car that will not go around a corner.

Bob.