Anti-3D hits Hollywood

A must read for all of you that are looking for a new and cooler work flow and process:

http://televisionbroadcast.com/article/104384

or http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/business/media/03-3d.html?_r=3

Thanks for posting Andy.
Interesting article. Personally, I'm not into the 3D thing.
I guess I would go see Avatar in 3D but I just like the blue woman.
There is just something about a 9 foot tall blue woman with a tail :-)

Hmm maybe the 3D bubble is starting to flatten out a little.

I'm not down with 3D. I saw Avatar in 3D at the theatres and couldn't get into it for about 15 minutes before feeling comfortable with the look. Once I saw the 2-D version on Blue-Ray I instantly loved the look much more.

My day job is in video production and I've already had to flat out say NO WAY when I was asked if we could do a short segment for a presentation in "3D" with the glasses and such.
It's a fad and I will not embrace it.
It is also logistically impossible for me to do at my job. We are just not set up to do it. Even if I had said yes to it, then presented them with the equipment $$$ budget to do it and the time line required, they would have said no anyway.

Now give me the technology to make my own holodeck, like from Star Trek, then I'd entertain this situation in more detail. :)

Holodeck, now you're talking!

Sadly, it's not a fad for Hollywood... The rental of the glasses adds to the ticket prices and boosts revenue. Even if, artistically, it makes no sense to do the movie in 3D. Look at Alice in Wonderland... The 3D effect was pretty crappy overall and like many early 3D movies, the 3D moments were contrived. They felt like they were added JUST for the 3D effect.

Like Mike, once I saw AIW in 2D, it was actually an enjoyable movie.

Personally I agree with what Will Ferrell had to say about his new work flow to get there... :)

Will Farrell and Adam McKay gave 3D production a cheeky backhand in an MTV interview about their upcoming film, “The Other Guys.”

“We’re shooting on six-hour Maxwell tapes,” Ferrell said. “These have yet to be released to the marketplace. What you get, is... you get six hours of play...”

“This is cutting-edge stuff,” McKay chimes in. “This is cutting-edge VHS technology.”

“This is standard grade right here,” Farrell continues, holding up a cassette, “but the movie is being shot on these videocassettes and then being transferred to a sketch artist, who is actually storyboarding every frame of film. That is being filmed. That is then being downloaded to a DAT--a digital-audio tape. It is then being put into a microprocessor and sent over to a lab in South Korea. And then into anime...”

“Which then goes to a projector screen, which then takes it into 34 millimeter, live-action regular film,” McKay says. “It increases the steps, but with each of those steps there’s a chance for creativity, there’s a chance for process, reinterpretation. What we’ve found is it drives the cost way up, and the margin of error goes way up. Quite frankly, we’re getting some awful-looking film out of this. But with any new process, you’re going to have that discovery; that R&D sort of phase.”

“In today’s financial climate, people are looking for costs to go up,” Farrell adds, “and that’s what we’re getting done.”

“We also screwed up, we used the wrong grade of film, the wrong stock,” McKay says. “We’re shooting this in drive-in film stock. So this movie can only be shown in drive-ins...”

Ah reminds me of when I was a young lad editing on two VHS machines state of the art technology :-)

Very, very intereeesting!!