"The Problem With 3D"
 

Interesting article.
3-D movies like Monsters vs. Aliens hurt your eyes. They always have, and they always will. - By Daniel Engber - Slate Magazine

It seems to me that the problems he listed are more of a production design issue than a technical one. I've not seen M vs A but I found Coraline quite easy to watch. And I think that is because the 3D was mostly flat--very little came flying toward the viewer. But it definately did enhance the feeling of space in the scenes.

Keep the 3D in the same focal plane and just make a regular movie rather than using gimmicky arrow at the audience manuevers and I think it would work just fine.

I saw Monsters vs Aliens in RealD on the weekend and I think most of the fault with some of the bad 3D can be blamed on the filmmakers. I wish I had sat further back instead of dead centre.

I think with hundreds of animators suddenly thrown into the world of stereoscopic filmmaking they haven't stopped to learn all the rules and think for S3D. I've been shooting it for a few years now and I'm still learning the concepts and what techniques to use for various shots and how to line up the convergence for different sized screens and theatres.

There were many instances of hyper-stereo without proper scale references (an 80 foot woman standing next to monsters didn't help resolve scale) and there was way too much use of the negative space and those objects on the viewer side of the stereo window touching the edge of the frame.

There was also a lot of tearing on fast horizontal movement that even 144Hz RealD couldn't resolve properly. I found myself having to close my eyes every once in a while to "reset" during the action scenes.

I wonder if the separation was optimized for adults or children? Maybe they split the difference at 2 1/4" ? It's too bad the theatre doesn't just block off all the seats that really won't work well for S3D. Too many bad experiences and S3D will die again.

Hello?
The stereoscopic supervisor on this production is Phil McNally, who does know a thing or two about stereo, and worked really hard to make MvA work, which I thought it did. Optimized for kids or adults? That's ridiculous! Any set of eyes can accommodate SOME divergence, and (as you say) where you sit in the theater has an impact, the size of the screen, etc. There is NO perfect 3D formula... some people are going to have issues with ANY 3D and some will become accustomed to it after multiple screenings... some may not.

If the movie was optimized for kids wouldn't there be very little diveregence in adults? or did I get that backwards in my head?

I think the problem is not technological anymore but about filmmaking methodology. One HUGE mistake all of the stereoscopic films I've seen does is trying to achieve maximum 3D effect in every and each shot. That means calculating where the dead angles in the parallax are and adjust stereoscopic separation to adjust the "errors". The result is a world in front of the audience eyes that doesn't have any consistency in scale. And thet's going to make you go sick after a while since the human eye is always looking for a solid reference of scale. That's what regular filmmaking is - always making sure the audience got a sense of scale and position on the set stage. That's why we use establishing shots.

The current stereoscopic filmmaking process messes with the subjective experience of the viewer. As an audience we cut from being giants to dwarfs whit no reason and in rapid sequence.

I'm sure smart people are going to realize how to not use 3D as a gimmick but as an emotional tool in the coming years. The first step is to decide who's watching the story unfold. Giant or dwarf or in between. We have to decide as early as in the script what kind of stereoscopic separation where working with and then weld those cameras to the set distance through out the entire shoot and if we want to emphasize the 3D effect we have to move the camera into a position and framing where we get what we are looking for emotionally. Just like we would with traditional filmmaking. Creating the 3D effect by increasing or decreasing the distance between the cameras is a bit like shooting a regular movie standing at one spot through the whole film and composing different shots using a zoom lens.

Meanwhile display technology will get better and even remove the need for glasses.

Enjoyed Monsters vs Aliens on RealD today, it was definitely an "experience!" 2D seems completely dull and boring to me at this point, wish Lord of the Rings had a 3D version. My eyes hurt a little and I have a slight headache, however a movie won't be a movie without a 3D version, I can't go back to 2D after this.

Me too but on an IMAX screen (no RealD Theaters yet in my country) and didn't seem to have noticed any poor 3D filmmaking in the background or jumping out at me as Tim said. Could this be because of the difference in the display systems between the IMAX or RealD? I really can't say as I've never seen anything on RealD.

Also, I left the theater a little dizzy but the main thing was both I and my 6-year-old daughter were very impressed by the overall experience. Even with the possible shortcomings, either on the technical or filmmaking part, it's just hard going back to watching 2D. And I agree this particular Ms vs As Movie would not be a movie were it not for the 3D.

Wacharapong

I watched UnderTheSea in 3D at an IMAX theater and I found the whole effect to be a gimmic. I kept fiddlign with the glasses and held them an inch away from my face to try to get it to view better.

Then they added water rushing sound effects every time a fish ate another fish, which underwater is pretty much silent in reality, so every single little kid in unison shouted out "whoa!!!" which was really annoying...but at least they were getting a good introduction to underwater life...

I think Engber's article was well written. I'm not big on blanket statements, and I think what caused more damage were the off-shoot articles that associated completely different problems to what Engber was trying to express.

See what you think of this summary response:

MTBS3D.com

Regards,
Neil

it's funny how you don't hear kids complaining about headaches or gimmickry, etc...only adults.

like most innovations in technology, there are generational differences in receiving what is delivered.

i remember those days when my parents used to discuss how rude and frustrating it was to have to talk to an answering machine. now, if you don't get an answering machine on the other end, you think something is wrong with those people. that was back when my parents broke down and bought a loop to loop recording machine, the old Phone Mate, har har.

3D, in this incarnation, is not going to be any different because you will soon have mass access to the tools of production, and you will have a generation of kids who grow up consuming it.

Well said Neil.

And welcome to DV Info Net. I wasn't aware of MTBS until you just posted your link. It seems you have a well-informed S3D site there.

I just saw an article that mentioned the Kodak Stereo camera. I still use mine all the time (as Chris Hurd can vouch for) and had it in Vegas during NAB. Mine came with an amazing historical archive of the last half of the 20th century (about a thousand slides) and I'm endeavoring to locate and reshoot those locations from the exact same spot with the exact same camera. It should make an interesting 3D documentary one day.

Ya know, that would have been great. I would trust Peter Jackson to use 3D like Coraline--just an element of production not a gimmick to be exploited. The huge open vistas, Moria--particularly the Balrog/Gandalf falling scene, all that would have been great with a subtle 3D effect.

I bet PJ would start crying if you suggested it. "Noooooo!"


Hmm. When is that panny camera coming out?