I’m not sold on 3D in general. There are a number of reasons I find it hard to believe this really will become as dominate as we are being told. Nor the arguement that the current generation will come to know nothing else and "flaties" will go the way of black and white.

Firstly it’s distracting, the glasses are here to stay for a while and wearing them is still strange. The image still can have a card like or layered flat look even on “Avatar” in an IMAX theatre. If you say, well that going to end with 3D screens and TV’s etc fine i'll believe that when I see it as a mass item and not before.

Second, this also affects story. Already there a multitude of tools and techniques to get your audience to feel a specific emotion or to have the view forced i.e. direct the eye to information you need them to see. This was the second main difference between film and theatre at the beginning of last century. The first was that it could be copied and any one seeing it was seeing the performance that had been made perfect once, not as in a theatre on a good or bad night, a very different version. But second to that was the fact that you could change the view in that someone watching could clearly see that X was on the table, or see emotions directly inside the eyes of an actor. This is one of the reasons Depth of field has remained a dominate value of film, which is not really how we see which in some ways is closer to Citizen Kane’s deep focus photography. Now add the tools of music, colour, set design, costumes on and on.  It’s hard enough to get that to work in concert. Now add on top of that depth? So far I’ve seen it adds a visceral thrill to a movie but even in the hands of a master visual creator like James Cameron it’s little more than a gimmick.

I don’t fear “Avatar” , this was a simple story told with astonishing imagery, but every unskilled goon in Hollywood is seeing dollar signs next to 3D not realizing that their stampede of crap is what will do it in again.

 If anything it sort of pulls you out of the movie, weirdly a sort of fourth wall break down. I think watching a movie is like looking at a painting in the fact it's flat is part of the mental set up to prepare your mind. Remember when movies came out they were competing against theatre and the very 3d tricks of vaudeville. Yet they became the dominate art form of the 20th century. Cameras have shown us horrors and beauty both real and faked in a 2D form. Do you think any of the shots of Auschwitz would have more power if they were in 3D?

Or AnnieLeibovitz’s John Lennon pictures in 3D would reveal something deeper then what she captured?



So you want a dimensional revolution? well you can count me oooout!

I’ve seen some real nuclear blasts that were recorded in 3D full colour from the fifties and they seemed sort of silly, in that it loses some of the abstract power of the image when it looks like cotton balls in 3d. Scale seemed to diminish. You get caught up in the shape rather then what it means or the visual fury of the image.

Third, loss of depth allows the other tools to shine; music, set design and colour have more importance. Movies like drawings work best when the artist uses known ideas of colour and what not to show become as important as what to show.I could see someone doing a sort of dimensional “Pleasantville” that as the town’s people change they would slowly become 3D. But again that’s sort of a gimmick. And the problem with using a gimmick in film is there like magic bullets, you have a limited number before audiences become immune to its effect and rather than adding a new image become a thing to point out and lose your emersion in the story. For a great example of this think of “bullet time” in the “Matrix “movies. This effect showed up in the nineties in commercials such as a Gap ad with time frozen dancers and was astonishing. Then its first serious use  was in the “Matrix”. That first time warp and movement of Trinities frozen kick really said more to sell the fact you where in an artificial world than anything else.

But repeat this even with grander but similar versions that are not really moving the story in a culture where this imagery is everywhere from ads to comedies like scary movie it has little to no impact. If they had used it occasionally to remind us where we were, fine. If the movies had used something else to show that the virtual world was breaking down or that it was artificial and normal rules didn’t apply this could have been great. But to solely rely on an effect that had been done to the edge of death it becomes boring. Add a dull pointless endless religious babble on top and you have something truly awful in the second and third matrix movies.

And I think this is the event horizon we stand at now for 3D. We’ve seen one of  the best sci fi film maker in the world throw his weight at it with 200 plus million dollars to get a thin at best movie. “Titanic” caused a similar flood of crap after it, like “Pearl Harbor” etc yet it still stands a singular decent version of that epic scale romance. “Avatar” will have a similar life.

I think there will be some 3D to stay as it makes sense for rendering 3D animation, the cost of the second eye is minimal. But even in that did Pixar’s “UP” really gain a whole lot by being 3D? It was a great movie, in that it used story, framing, music, actors to create great depth of feeling before even adding depth of dimension. It was a great ice cream sundae with an added cherry on top. I couldn’t tell you one memory of something dimensional from it but I can recall the opening 20 minutes vividly and the emotional effect it had on me.

One of the few areas I found it added to was in stop motion movies which are in essence dolls and models which we already think of as dimensional objects. The 3D adds to giving life to these puppets and was used to incredible effect in “Coraline”. Another seems to be the upcoming "Tron Legacy" which like “Matrix” depicts a digital world where physics and energy break down in unnatural ways. Yet adding 3D to this i think will work very successfully in that because it’s artificial the weirdness of depth will add to this oddness and overall feel. I think “Tron” could be a solid story but it almost don’t matter in that like the first one it’s the strangeness of the world that’s more interesting to us. It’s a technological magical fairy realm. This movie also uses digital effects in a way that could be unleashed, lack of gravity, cameras moves beyond filmable constraint,light from any source etc. What in a normal movie would work against it works for this movie. For me the irony is that because it’s in essence an artificial world the sense of dimension will heighten that.

Fourth, third dimension as a “sense”. It’s not like sound or image which are directly a sense. It’s a side effect or added effect to our vision. We’ve seen this with sound in that for all the awesomeness of 5.1 or 7.1 in almost every test of an average person they could not tell the difference on 95 percent of the movie. Adding to this is the fact that how you perceive dimension alters with circumstance brings more problems. For example when you are in a knife fight your vision in a sense will narrow, the position of the knife to you will be important but we see a flatter version of reality with an emphasis on movement. So this means that if you shot an action scene and have standard dimension it works against what every other element is trying to do. We also need to be aware of what a story may require and what an image fashion is at the time. By this the fights in “Bourne Identity” were to immerse you into the confusion of a close fight. But now that style is everywhere, and again in a lot of context’s working against your story. Watch say “Full metal jacket” and in the battles you know where things are in relations to other things such as where the enemy is even if to the soldiers it’s a mystery. This is a subtle but very powerful effect on your story in that if an audience has the spatial information to feed that part of our brains that requires that info so we can concentrate on the rest of the elements without interruption. Now think of average “Transformers the movie” fight in the first movie. Without getting into the asinine quality of the story I want to use two scenes to illustrate this.

The fight at the end of the film vs. the fight between Optimus Prime and the rollerblading Decepticon. In the second example where they are is clear, the camera heightens this by using wide angle lens showing the villains entrance to give him mass, done in a slight up shot to give menace. As the two are posed to clash it switches to a long lens, slow motion and a few seconds of quieter sound to add tension to the coming clash. Once they hit its close up melee of smashing forms, crashing sounds etc. Compare this to the end of the movie fight. This sequence is a mess of problems related to the placement of one side to the other. While in a shot by shot viewing each is fine, placed together in order creates confusion. They do not add up to a clearer image or do what great scenes can do which is give you two shots but the way they go together creates a third shot in your mind. If the computer that is your brain starts to use thinking cycles to try and develop its sense of location, and this occurs basically subconsciously, so even if you think the robot flipping over in slow motion is the most awesome thing you have ever seen, your brain is trying to figure out where this event is in relation to other events. So its pulling you out and doesn’t have any real resonates.

What I’m trying to illustrate here is how hard it is with even well understood tools to achieve the desired effect on the audiences. Now adding an aspect of sight we use for very specific information if not done correct will have the diametrically opposite effect.

We have seen that when sound was introduced it created horrible problems for movies yet due to the fact this is another full sense it added to movies enough to survive its infancy. There had been attempts to add colour before it succeed but had failed due to poor quality and cost. Colour was delayed again from full implementation due to WWII so when it was fully introduced it was of a calibre and interesting effect that warranted its survival.  Plus it didn’t take away from a movie, if you converted a colour movie back in to black and white they would have been of similar effect in every other term.

3d on the other hand has been a lesson in failure. It’s been introduced since its original inception several times over the years yet never gained any traction due to the fact it was hard on the eyes and simply a one trick gimmick. Its post work flow will add layers of cost to already fragile budgets, destroy most camera tricks that use the lack of dimension to work, insane post correction problems that will add nothing to story but stop a movie dead if left unfixed. Should film makers be looking at pushing envelopes? Sure but that’s not the total of films expression and direction of exploration. And it’s not likely Cameron’s is prepared to push in other areas beside effects. Will he add anal sex into his next sci fi movie as that would be envelope pushing as well, but somehow I doubt we will see that any time soon.

The sales pitch has focused on the eye pain part claiming that this is over. But I hope I’ve illustrated that even if that’s the case it’s still not going to fly. I think of 3D similarly to video phones in a technology that capture our imagination but at some point doesn’t really fit.

And time will prove this one way or another, 3D‘s appeal to movies is in the ride movies, which are a subpar form of the action movie. An action movie to be a good movie should still have story and characters you care about.  A movie that has the full range needed to be a true movie will not need the add bonus of depth as in if it’s good it doesn’t need it. While a movie with little or none of these values will be desperate to add something to the marquee to add value or interest.They claim that 3D will become as common as sound yet in reality if that happens there current cash cow will die. So for now its thrill rides with out feeling for the near future of this medium. Thus most 3D fare will leave you feeling emotionally flat. 

Well this was my third year attending the spark festival which was once again really well put together. With a great array of topics and speaker covering everything from titling graphics to miniatures it offered a unique picture of our current effect industries past present and future. Some of the most famous people in FX have attended this event such as last year’s Dennis Muran

to this year john [Photoshop, ILM] knoll.

The topic of highest interest was of course the James Cameron hit avatar, over half the events had some sort of segway into this film.

Other speakers such as the awesome young artist Dyan Cole covered his work on this film, some of basic techniques and personal projects to one of my favourites, two of the heads of new deal studios miniatures, elements and now production studio.

Matthew Gratzner was great to hear talk about what worked and doesn’t work with models after years of experience on huge calibre films right up to the current dark knight. I’ve been a fan of their work since alien 4 which I still think has some of the most stylish space ship shots ever done, period. When I started a few years ago to try and use models for my own work I would research Cinefex’s which covered movies they had done specifically. And as recent as the movie “Shutter Island” I have seen their continued use of these methods done at a very high level of look, detail, realism etc.

 His business partner was a good kick in the nuts to hear someone on the business side who seemed to genuinely love the artistry of her companies work and yet had a firm grasp of good business practices. A real eye opener I was not expecting to be as engaging or informative.

This was also the case with the titles graphic artist from prologue films who did a superb presentation on his work, with some insight to what he looks for in some one applying for this kind of work to interesting methods of collecting ideas that can lead to a titling concept.

a online version of his lecture...

On a personal note it was kind of a depressing event for me as I think "Avatar" is going to move any sort of fx movie more and more into the digital realm. I still think that things like miniatures have a place, it’s not like in other art forms they were using water colour paints got to say bas relief sculpture or oils and said wow ok we can’t use those paints any more.

But that aside for now I loved seeing the “fifth element” for the last time on a 35 mm print. I’m guessing if I see it again it will be on some digital format. This year’s movie selection was weaker than last year’s but still enjoyable. I think they should show blade runner every year, but that just me. The one that got away was Sunday’s showing of “wizard of oz” which I had a ticket for but due to a work thing could not attend sadly.

My request for next year would be something on low budget film making, and HD DSLR. For guests I would still love to see Lorne Patterson or If was able Ralph Mcquarrie, to cover the HDDLSR, Shane Hurlbut or Jamin Winan and Kiowa Winan to cover low budget indie movies. A showing of their film INK could be part of that. For an interactive event one of my favourite hot button topics games as interactive stories or we could talk 3d. I love these ideas to bring out some strong opinions.
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I’m attempting to put this idea into practice so I’m going to lay out as much of its concept as I can. The idea over all to bring a different style in method and story ideas that I feel is missing in sci/fi films and the sub genre of space opera. While it’s called a space opera manifesto a lot of the concepts are for use with sci/fi of any style.  

Effects.

Every planning attempt is made to find an In-camera method. Effects should be planned in advance and unless there’s a story reason at a later date, committed to. Miniatures are also to be used whenever you can. Digital compositing is used to aid in this whenever that line is needed. CGI is a last resort. Use of image models or projection maps from miniatures, locations is also to be tried before resorting to CGI. Shot elements should be used as much as possible as well for smoke, fire etc. For example the water falls in “Phantom menace” used salt poured over black cloth comp’ed into the scene. Artists should research older methods and experiment with updating them with digital fixes to minimize the artifacts or tells of these methods. The idea is not throw away 100 years of movie making for quick fix of CGI. This is not a manifesto against CGI its simply for not using it. This is a cost motive as well due to the increasing budgets for complete digital effects as well as the important aesthetics of the above.

Story.

Stories are to emphasis concepts of plot and character over single story drives which fuel most b stories. Set up should be natural involving as little exposition and title carding as possible. Non linear stories and other structure methods are fine as long as the first part is maintained.

Other elements

In terms of style, theatrical elements are encouraged. Such as Francis Ford Coppola experiments in “Tucker” or Baz Luhrmannin’s “Romeo and Juliet”, “Molin Rouge” etc.

This is more of an outline and I’ll try to add any other elements as they come. Any suggestions will be considered.

This new sci fi film staring Sam rockwell looks very cool. Reason i mention it is the fact that its shot with models for the majority of the exteriors and vehicles. check it out smart hard sci fi.



Moon at IGN.com