3D Stereoscopics

There is a lot of controversy over 3D and stereoscopics. I've seen professionals or those who claim to be professionals decrying it as a harbinger of doom that they wish would go away. What else am I to take away from a comment such as ‘3D does not work and never will’ or ‘3D just needs to die’?
The old “stuff flying out of the screen to hit the audience” mentality is so 1950’s. You don’t see that in a modern well done 3D film. 3D is subtle or should be done in such a way that it is subtle. If you are going to a movie to be blown away by the fact that it is 3D you’ve missed the point.
The truth is also that 3D is not going away. 3D will become a standard just like color. Slowly at first, but you already see that 3D is rock solid when Lucas has committed to converting Star Wars into 3D so that it remains timeless. This one factor alone will cause some to go out and be consumers of new 3D TVs.
Here are some tips for doing 3D work:
1) If you are not comfortable with it, don’t do it. It’s not a requirement right now and a lot of the ‘rules’ for doing good 3D are still being written.
2) If you are doing 3D, don’t get all ‘in your face’ with it. You’ll want the action to happen at the silver screen. Remember, the screen will always be where convergence is no matter where your audience sits in the theatre.
3) Be mindful of convergence. It can be your friend, but it can SO be your enemy. Your main subject for any given scene should be at or near convergence playing in and out of the screen like kids on monkey bars. There are so many reasons for this, but the main reason has to do with the human ability to process stereoscopic images in conjunction with the focusing mechanism of the eyes. When your eyes converge in, the focusing mechanism/algorithm in your brain is linked and wants to focus in. If you focus in and the image becomes blurry, you might feel OK, but a good percentage of your audience might want to hurl. Please do not make them hurl. Don’t worry so much while you are shooting. If you are using the right equipment, you can set convergence in post without any hiccups. In fact, you should revisit convergence in post.
4) Which brings me to my forth point, drop the cheese. Throwing graphics out into the theatre and into the face of your audience might be OK if you are making the next Spy Kids movie. This alone will determine if you are someone who is using 3D as a gimmick vs. a new art form.
5) Drop the shaky cam. If you have a stereoscopic video camera you might be able to get away with a small dose of reality, but unless you know what you are doing, you’re better off telling a story with a locked down camera and or slow smooth movements. If you are adding shaky cam in post and you are doing 3D, you might be an idiot. Never add shaky cam in post if you are adding wiggle on the x axis. You might be able to get away with a little y axis shaky touch-o-magic, but x axis is right out.
6) On Interocular distance or interaxial separation, with an off the shelf camera, your options might be limited. Otherwise, you’ll want to lock your primary imagers in at about 2.75 inches from center of lens to center of lens. Better still to lock them in at 2.5 inches or a little less. Why? The average human eyes are 2.5” apart. So the average subject will be able to process information in a range of 2.5” or less in interaxial separation. The important thing to take away from this is that anything over this distance “might” present information that the audience has never processed before. This hyperstereo effect might detract from storytelling. Hyperstereo has and will have its place in the future of 3D, but right now, the narrative of whatever that place is has not been written yet. So unless you are shooting a distance or telephoto shot, remember 2.50-2.75” Interocular distance is your friend.
And there you have it. These simple steps will take you from suck to successful stereoscopic 3D faster than you can say banana-bana.

Wow, there must be almost no interest in 3D or this post

I find your post fascinating, you have just outlined a great Discovery Channel show you could make.

Everything you say makes a lot of sense. The real issue on 3D stock is the format or how to upload. Two separate 1920x1080, one for left and one for right? Combine both left and right into a single 1920x1080 like a lot of post software does? Or a single 3840x1080 with left and right side-by-side? Currently there is no standard.

Also with post, many 2D movies are being reprocessed into 3D. So is there really a need or market for 3D stock with almost any piece of footage can now be processed into a 3D. An example is the movie Titanic which was reprocessed into 3D.

Any suggestions on what format or size would be most beneficial? I've sold a couple 3D 1920x1080 with left and right side-by-side.

Interesting article here about slump in average earnings of 3D movies at UK cinemas:

http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/is-this-the-end-of-3d-films.html

Hi! Very impressive post! There are some minor observations I would like to make if you allow me:

"you can set convergence in post" + "shooting a distance or telephoto shot, remember 2.50-2.75” Interocular distance is your friend"

Definitley not. 3D stereoscopy involves lots of mathematics, I mean professional stereoscopy, not that done with stereoscopic consumer cameras. Improper camera setup or postprocessing mistakes could lead to audience vertigo, dizziness(a happy scenario) or to even epilepsy.

One important issue that many "stereoscopers"(I hope it is a good word for people making stereoscopic images) are unaware of the fact that the final image size directly affects your setup: shooting for a cinema screen requires a different camera setup than one for a TV set.

3D popularity: one gets really easy used to 3D. After a while one no longer notices it. 3D will never die: in the medium history, there were a lot of 3D waves. They all came and gone and will do the same for ever.

If you do not like what I said please do not shoot me, else buy me a coffee(I do not drink alcohol).

Regards,
Christian

Is discussion bring to mind some thing that happened back in the mid 90's. A coworker was all excited that a local station was going to air a 3D movie during the weekend. So Randy went to K-mart and pickup 3D glasses ( you know the old red & blue eye wear) for the coming event. Well the following Monday we asked Randy how was the movie and he answered that he didn't see any difference between 2D & 3D. See no one told him that in order for one to view 3D movies of any kind one had to have two eyes. Randy of course only had one.

The process is getting better. I was just at an event with AVID where they showed the new 3D post facilities in AVID Media Composer 6.x. This software can handle and also very nicely correct just about anything you throw at it in regards to 3D. It doesn't care if you do side by side or dual/parallel whatever. It also lets you make proper adjustments to the point of convergence. It was nice to finally see the true aspects of 3D in action in regards to post processes. And yes, it is not for just anyone to jump on or try to produce. One thing that was mentioned is that the Sony 3D rigs with the 90 deg camera (prism) setup so far has produced the best results in all respects and also gives the most working room in regards to post. I am not a 3D producer, but I found it more interesting now that I have a bit of better understanding of what all is involved. Cool.

In any case - it is nice to know that there are people here that do understand it and that could be a resource for those that don't. Very nice info nickped.. always good to get some real info.

All very good comments. I'm learning as I go. But then I have a mantra that if you know it all then you’re only deluding yourself. To ionescu you are correct in your assessment of the complexity of doing 3D well and doing it right. The simple answer to setting convergence is that yes it can be set in post. But, to muddy the waters, it becomes more difficult to set the perspective of each 'eye'. The human eye rotates in when sight converges in and out when sight converges out. So when you focus on something very close your eyes each have a different perspective (or keystone). To the novice I would say don't even go there. Shoot each primary imager straight forward and parallel at an interocular distance of 2.5 inches. The likelihood of producing eye strain (in my humble opinion) is only going to be compounded (unless you do want to get involved heavily in hitting the books and becoming a full on stereographer) if you attempt to pivot the primary imagers left and right in this way. You should be OK for most shots to just lock the imagers down at a set distance apart and parallel.

To RekindlePhoto, HD stereoscopic standards are to fill a 1920x1080 frame with both images either compressed horizontally or vertically OR to weave left and right channels on every other frame. In my oppinion, this standard is lacking. Ideally one would weave every other frame at 60 FPS, to retain a full 1080p for each eye. This is of course not standard. Assuming that the producer will have to do a little more than edit scenes together, one could optionally weld two full frames together side by side at 30 FPS so that all the content is present and the video editors could decide for themselves what they want to do. I generally produce a clip that is a compressed side by side and a clip that is a full side by side. I guess I will continue to use this procedure until a new standard arises or someone points out a better or more accepted way. Another option is to produce two separate clips and let the editor put it all together himself.