I was unexpectedly entertained by this film in more ways than one. The film was comedic, had elements of action, affective use of suspense, believable voice acting and animation ,and most importantly is the unexpected uses of 3 dimensional technologies. This is my first experience with the new 3-d technology and going into it I was already predisposed to find it gimmicky and there for the film would not really stand on its own. Many would argue that there are several scenes where the imagery depicted is for the sole purpose of exploiting the 3-d experience. I would agree with this but would like to add that the film tries very hard to push the boundaries of visual story telling in scenes where the 3-d experience is less apparent.
First I would like to bring to light the experience of snow fall as a 3-d effect. In the past and the present with films like Journey to the Center of the Earth, 3-d experiences were almost always designed to have visual imagery come out of the screen at the audience members to make them lurch back in their seat in expectation of the depicted object hitting them. In this film snow fall is depicted in 3 dimensions so that instead of coming towards the audience it is falling directly in front of the audiences face while characters interact behind it on the screen. This simple decision by the film changes the emotional connection the audience has with the characters in that scene by putting you directly in the cold yet fluffy fall of snow. Similar effects are used for walking down an alley close to a wall that appears inches from your face and when you reach the edge of a building scene unfolds in the background that recedes into the screen. The abrupt change in depth when you reach the corner of the building creates a shock affect that defies what has been seen in both 2-d and 3-d films to date.
One other scene that exploits the 3-d technology to change the way visual story telling occurs in this film happens while Scrooge is waiting for the “spirit of things yet to come” to appear in the clock tower. The shot creates a an extreme depth of focus by placing a bell and knocker in the upper right hand corner protruding from the screen, the clock tower’s mechanical workings in the left hand side near the physical existence of the screen and lastly places Scrooge in the middle of this massive towers floor only a few inches tall and appears to be an extreme distance away from the where the bell and knocker exist. The miraculous part of this shot is that all the objects are in complete focus. A handful of times in the film including this one we see the use of 3-d to create this bird’s eye view with the depth of focus so precise that we can still see the details of scrooge nervously panicking even though he is only a few inches tall on the screen. This affect also puts the viewer in a position that creates a point of view from someone near the bell and knocker that is about to strike and dictate the coming of the next spirit.
So, to bring this commentary to a close I will say that I am very excited about the use of this new technology to redefine the 2 dimensional screen that has dominated cinema for over 100 years. I am sure as more films are released using this technology more people will see how the techniques used are not just gimmicks but are attempting to expand the visual language that can be used to create experiences in a cinematic universe.