In what instances would use of 3D be necessary?
The problem is that 3D technology should alter the spacial conception of the director. The films I’ve seen using it have a clear 2D sensibility, which is comprehensible coming from filmmakers working within a medium that has always used that way of capturing and transmiting the narrative.
Color changed the whole visual impact possibilities. Sound allowed for a new human sense to be stimulated. 3D can help in creating a more immersive experience, but can also be a distracting factor for audiences used to many decades of 2D filmmaking.
Herzog’s new film made great use of the technology. Cave walls would not have looked as good or my understanding of what the artists were doing would not have been as strong with 2D. The process of calcification of the caves was more pronounced with 3D. it didn’t work all the time, but I’m glad he shot it in 3D.
Well, the thing is that 3-D is not new in the sense that it’s just creating an illusion of depth, something that, strictly speaking, the photographic image already did. Really all you’re gaining with 3-D is the ability to create (the illusion of) some processional depth from the plane of the screen to somewhere in front of the viewer’s glasses. One of the trade-offs of this, I think, is that both the filmmaker and the eye of the viewer neglect the (illusion of) recessional depth inherent in the photographic image, which obviously has been used to great effect throughout the history of film:
If this is true, the processional depth actually gained from the use of 3-D is less than the recessional depth that is compromised by the use of 3-D.
. . .
Roger Ebert printed “a letter from Walter Murch”: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/01/post_4.html that discuss some of the other problems with 3-D:
“Hello Roger,
I read your review of “Green Hornet” and though I haven’t seen the film, I agree with your comments about 3D.
The 3D image is dark, as you mentioned (about a camera stop darker) and small. Somehow the glasses “gather in” the image — even on a huge Imax screen — and make it seem half the scope of the same image when looked at without the glasses.
I edited one 3D film back in the 1980’s — “Captain Eo” — and also noticed that horizontal movement will strobe much sooner in 3D than it does in 2D. This was true then, and it is still true now. It has something to do with the amount of brain power dedicated to studying the edges of things. The more conscious we are of edges, the earlier strobing kicks in.
The biggest problem with 3D, though, is the “convergence/focus” issue. A couple of the other issues — darkness and “smallness” — are at least theoretically solvable. But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen — say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.
But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point.
If we look at the salt shaker on the table, close to us, we focus at six feet and our eyeballs converge (tilt in) at six feet. Imagine the base of a triangle between your eyes and the apex of the triangle resting on the thing you are looking at. But then look out the window and you focus at sixty feet and converge also at sixty feet. That imaginary triangle has now “opened up” so that your lines of sight are almost — almost — parallel to each other.
We can do this. 3D films would not work if we couldn’t. But it is like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, difficult. So the “CPU” of our perceptual brain has to work extra hard, which is why after 20 minutes or so many people get headaches. They are doing something that 600 million years of evolution never prepared them for. This is a deep problem, which no amount of technical tweaking can fix. Nothing will fix it short of producing true “holographic” images.
Consequently, the editing of 3D films cannot be as rapid as for 2D films, because of this shifting of convergence: it takes a number of milliseconds for the brain/eye to “get” what the space of each shot is and adjust.
And lastly, the question of immersion. 3D films remind the audience that they are in a certain “perspective” relationship to the image. It is almost a Brechtian trick. Whereas if the film story has really gripped an audience they are “in” the picture in a kind of dreamlike “spaceless” space. So a good story will give you more dimensionality than you can ever cope with.
So: dark, small, stroby, headache inducing, alienating. And expensive. The question is: how long will it take people to realize and get fed up?
All best wishes,
Walter Murch"
edit: Pierre’s example of Herzog’s film seems to be a good example of one way it which 3-D can be a benefit—when you’re staging on a plane that’s unusually lacking in depth.
I’m not sure if it’s ever completely necessary, but sometimes it does work better than others. Avatar was always going to be spectacle, but was even more so because of the 3D. And I agree with Pierre that Herzog made great use of it. But was it the only way to do the film? Not necessarily. It’ll be interesting to see how the medium evolves, but for now I can’t think of something it would allow that absolutely cannot be achieved another way.
all roads point here
Herzog actually was somewhat unsure about using the 3D, but after some serious thought he decided it was completely necessary. “The Only way to do it.” I still haven’t gotten a chance to see that movie yet, which is disappointing.
@Jardun, you should if you can. The texture and contours of the cave’s walls and floors are heightened by the effect. As I said, it’s not perfect as mentioned by others here (darkness) but it’s not this:
There was a relevant piece on the new MostlyFilm blog last month.
RaySquirrel
I’ve built for myself a makeshift 3D camera set-up. I have been trying to think of ways that 3D can be used in a film were it is absolutely necessary for the understand the story and to enjoy the film. There are obvious examples of the previous technological advancements in cinema.
Fritz Lang used sound to indicate the presence of the serial killer in M.
Color has been used to particularly good effect especially by Kurosawa and Keselowski. They did not use color simply as scene decoration but as narrative and thematic indicators.
3D seems more like widescreen in that its aesthetic has little or no barring on the thematic or narrative of the film. Widescreen can be used to excellent effect in classic action movies and musicals. If you’ve ever watched TCM you’ve probably seen the PSA where Martin Scorsese dissects famous scenes from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Ben-Hur, and how those action sequences were specifically composed for the widescreen.
There are also many instances where the illusion of depth has been used to great effect. All action-sequences that feature two or more actors interacting depend on forced perspective, and anybody whose seen Top Secret remembers the great telephone gag.