A Beginner’s Guide to … 3D entertainment

FIRING ON BOTH LENSES: CREATING 3D CONTENT

The illusion of 3D on a flat screen is only possible if the content is in 3D. One way to achieve it is to use two cameras side by side, one capturing the left-eye image and the other for the right eye. That’s easier said than done, though. Professional cameras are big, so it’s often hard or impossible to get them close enough to simulate the 6cm typical distance between humans’ eyes.

Imax’s custom-designed 3D film camera weighs over 100kg, making it extremely difficult to manoeuvre. Sky’s early experiments with 3D capture involved mounting one of the two cameras vertically, facing a mirror. The stop-motion feature film Coraline (2009) just used one camera, and for every frame it had to be shuttled across to capture an image for each eye. Even when it is possible to mount two cameras side by side, there are problems with keeping their settings and frame rates perfectly in sync.

Panasonic’s compact AG-3DA1 broadcast camera

Fortunately, digital technology has come to the rescue. Panasonic broke ground with its AG-3DA1, a dual-lens, dual-sensor HD video camera aimed at the TV broadcast market. And now there’s even 3D digital cameras and camcorders aimed at consumers, such as the Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D W3 and the Panasonic HDC-SD90 with its optional 3D lens. For a cheaper option, even the Nintendo 3DS can take 3D images and show them on its glasses-free display.

One of Fujifilm’s range of 3D cameras, complete with 3D display on the rear

Computer-animated films such as Monsters vs Aliens are relatively easy to produce in 3D. Because the actors, sets and camera are all virtual, no extra technology is required to produce two points of view a few virtual centimetres apart. Pixar was even able to go back to the original animation data for Toy Story and Toy Story 2 and render them again in 3D for a new theatrical release in 2009.

Converting existing live-action films from 2D to 3D is much harder because the depth information must be added manually, but it has been done. Special effects experts Industrial Light and Magic produced a 3D version of The Nightmare Before Christmas in 2006, 13 years after the original was released. Meanwhile, after the success of 3D spectacles such as Avatar, Warner Bros decided to re-master two of its big films for 2010 (Clash of the Titans and the latest Harry Potter film) for 3D, even though both were shot using normal cameras.

3D games designers have the easiest ride, as not only are the graphics created in a virtual environment, but that environment is generated in real time as the game is being played. Because of the way DirectX works, games don’t even have to support 3D explicitly because it’s the graphics card’s job to turn the 3D geometry, textures and lighting into images on the screen.

MAJOR HEADACHES: IS 3D A COMFORTABLE VIEWING EXPERIENCE?

3D cinema has often been criticised for being hard work to watch, and even for causing headaches and seasickness. If that was once true, our experiences of recent 3D footage haven’t backed it up. This might be partly down to improvements in the technology. Polarised and LCD shutter glasses give a full colour image that doesn’t have the distracting colour-offset issues of anaglyph’s red and green glasses. Meanwhile, digital projection eliminates problems concerning keeping two film projectors in perfect synchronisation.

Just as significantly, directors are refining the way they use 3D. Daniel Glennon, Assistant Marketing Manager at Odeon, commented: “What’s exciting is that 3D is being used in so many different ways by different filmmakers. From the likes of Final Destination, where 3D is used to ‘throw’ items at the screen in the same way as 3D was used in the 1950s and 1980s, to Up, where 3D is used to add depth to a beautifully constructed tale. James Cameron is a real pioneer in the field and Avatar uses 3D to literally immerse the audience in another world.”

Pixar’s Up took a subtler approach to 3D, placing everything behind the screen and nothing jumping out

Dennis Laws at the BFI Imax sees filmmakers increasingly using gentler forms of 3D. “In reality, although we walk around in a 3D world, we don’t have things breaking into our own space. That’s done as a gimmick. It’s fun… but you don’t need to do it all the way through the movie.”

John Dollin, Senior Product Development Manager for Sky 3D, showed us footage of Sky’s first tests in 3D. “In the early days, we were still learning how to shoot 3D”, he commented. “The 3D effect was certainly visible but camera angles changed too quickly for our liking, and moving camera shots sometimes spoiled the illusion. However, later tests were done with the help of Vince Pace, Director of Photography for Avatar. The later footage was much more comfortable to watch, and really conjured up the feeling that we were at a live event.”