3D Heart Attack

[admin]

We've been hearing more and more about 3D for the last few years. The real driving force behind 3D has always been to rake in more money. Will people pay a premium for a movie in 3 dimensions? Apparently yes. But for how long? 3D movies have inundated the public consciousness over the summer. Releases such as "Coraline" and "Up" have met with rave reviews while movies like "My Bloody Valentine" made money arguably only because of the format. The public is definitely aware of the format and is willing to pay extra for it. For now.

Discuss "3D Heart Attack" here. Read the article.

 

[RavnosCC]

3D Movies

Blame the director!

3D is the next best thing in Films... you spoke of immersion of "plot" and "story"... well, personally I felt the theatre 3d effect, using polarized glasses, watching Coraline was completely worth the extra $$ (early on) to subsidize the theatre's switch to digital 3D projectors and compatible screens. About 30 minutes into the film, I completely forgot I was wearing the glasses and the 3d effects became normalized, when I watched another movie in 2D the next week, it left me feeling a little empty. For those that have not seen Coraline in RealD , you really missed something special. Gimmicks were kept to a minimum and the immersion was increased 10 fold, you really felt as if you were part of the world around you. Just as "3D" sound is in all good movie theatres these days, so will digital 3D make it's way. I will use Coraline again as an excellent example of a good 3D film, it was made using almost 100% stop motion capture, NOT computer graphics, (ie. Up, and M vs. A) It really does make a difference when you see real things with real lighting, in real 3d. It's nothing less than breathtaking, subtle, but amazing, and totally worth it. I've seen the Blu-Ray version of Coraline at home on a 92" projection screen in 2D, while the movie was fine and beautifully filmed on it's own, I missed the inherent lack of depth that RealD filming techniques gave the theatre version.

 

[jostenmeat]

I saw Up in 3D, and I thought* the price was the same.

I didn't need to see it in 3D. I needed to see it in the superior DLP theater, and the only version they offered with the better projectors was the 3d version.

As for Coraline, I just couldn't help but nitpick/notice when it was CG vs stop animation, vs both. I guess a hybrid type of animation just takes getting used to. I don't know how far or close to 100% stop animation it was, or how one measures that, but of course often the faces were CG. They're the hardest thing to do with stop motion, particularly speech. That's why it takes Nick Park two years to make a half hour episode of Wallace and Grommit. I am not saying Coraline is not technologically advanced, but just wanted to make a point/opinion.

 

[RavnosCC]

Watch the Blu-Ray extra features for Coraline, the faces were 100% not CG, except for 2 minor characters, the old ladies, if I recall correctly. They actually go into the specifics of all the stop motion used in the facial dolls, and heads, and how the eyes/mouths were moved hundreds of times individually.

But my main point in talking about Coraline vs. UP, is when the correct 3D cameras are used to make an actual live action movie, it will be interesting to see people's reactions to the depth of a 3rd dimension, actually being able to see inside (and outside) the scene, vs. the traditional depth/focus-blur/2D. In Coraline you can kind of see the difference. I have not seen G-force 3D (because it looked like a waste of money/time 3d or 2d), so I don't know how they did the live action scenes, if they were 3D at all, etc. I just wish people would stop dismissing 3D technology as a "gimmick".

 

[jostenmeat]

Watch the Blu-Ray extra features for Coraline, the faces were 100% not CG, except for 2 minor characters, the old ladies, if I recall correctly. They actually go into the specifics of all the stop motion used in the facial dolls, and heads, and how the eyes/mouths were moved hundreds of times individually.

Wow. There was ZERO CG treating of the faces outside of the old ladies? hah. I could have SWORN otherwise. Amazing.

My friend saw Beowulf in 3d (IMAX I think it was), and he told me that he instinctively ducked sometimes during action sequences.

 

[krzywica]

I saw this thread and thought it said "Third Heart attack"....I was like oh no the admin is dying....then I started to think...wait a minute the "admin" is a digital identity......

 

[MatthewB.]

I saw Monsters Vs. Aliens in 3D at the theater, it was a shame that the movie kept putting me to sleep, because everytime I would wake during the movie the 3D looked amazing.

Caroline also looked great in the theater, but the 3D version on Bluray was horrible, the colors were all either red or greenish and looked very washede out and I found myself switching to 2D about 15 minutes into because it was giving me a headache.

"Up" was by far the best 3D movie I have ever seen in the theaters and I wish, wish wish that they would release 3D Blurays with those polarized lenses instead of the 50's red and blue lenses. The polarized lenses don't wash out the colors at your home and using 3D with them is far superior than the old style glasses.

I have a pair of polarized at home and can attest to the fact that it doesn't wash out the colors at home.

 

[RavnosCC]

As far as I know, you need to have a special projector in order to use the RealD Digital 3D tech that was used to film coraline and create Up!, that's why they simply cannot release the blu-ray in that format :-/ Last time I checked, a 720p projector that was capable ran about 6 grand....

 

[paul_houle]

My 7 and I enjoy 3-d movies

After we saw "Up" early last summer, my son and I decided to go to the movies on Saturday whenever there's something good for kids playing, and we go for the 3-d features when we can. In my mind, Rodriguez's "Shorts" (not 3D) was the best kid's movie of the summer, followed by Miyazaki's "Ponyo".

Probably the best 3D feature, for me, was the "Toy Story Double Feature;" you don't see double features much these days, they're both good movies, and the 3-D conversion of "Toy Story" was really great. (Precisely because it was understated. The 3-D work in "G-Force" was also very strong, and did a great job of combining CG and live action footage.

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and "Toy Story 2" didn't play off as well in 3-d (in my opinion) because the lighting was different: both of those had rich imagery based on transmitted light. One problem, I think, is that RealD has only about 95% separation between the left and right eye: there's a scene in TS2 where I noticed a double image of the moon because it was shining through both lenses. That really extreme dynamic range doesn't happen so much in scenes that are basically lit in reflective light, so the double images get lost in the other scenery. I think also that we're used to applying depth perception to reflective lit situations, so that transmitted light visuals are a little unnatural in 3D. I appreciate what the director of "Cloudy" was trying to do with transmitted light, but it came across as just a little strange.

The future? My son and I are going to keep going to movies until we decide to do something else on Saturdays, then maybe we'll fall back into the "go to the movies when something special is playing" mode. 3-d certainly adds some fun to kids movies, and it can be really well done: some people might think "G-Force 3D" is beneath contempt, but technologically it was a tour de force.

The "home theater" in our house is really more of a "home computer" that gets used as an entertainment center. We're certainly thinking about upgrading the computer monitor to maybe a 32'' or 36'' HDTV. I'd certainly consider a 3-D HDTV, particularly if it worked well with games and 3-d modelling applications. Hollywood is making good enough 3-D content that I can imagine buying some 3-D titles on Blu Ray.