3D R.I.P.
By Jesse Brown - Friday, January 6, 2012 - 0 Comments
The first (and last) thing that needs to be said about 3D movies themselves is that they aren’t.
Three-dimensional, that is. A layer of schmutz floating around a few feet in front of your nose while a movie plays behind it is not a reasonable simulation of our tactile physical universe. We can sit around arguing about the increasing quality of this floating schmutz in the digital age, but schmutz it remains–distracting bits of pollen hovering around our theaters. For a moment it amazes us, and then we struggle (consciously or not) to ignore it so we can focus on the story.
And the story is at the crux of this. 3D advocates point to early resistance to sound and color in the movies as proof that they are on the right track. But sound and color became crucial elements in cinematic storytelling. We’ve yet to see a 3D film where the floating schmutz is integral to the plot, and which could not be understood if you took the goofy glasses off. 3D is a gimmick, and has been since the days of the drive-in.
Poor Hollywood. The industry’s hopes and dreams were pinned to 3D. It was supposed to be a piracy-resistant bit of spectacle that would levitate teenagers out of their basements, away from their Playstations and smartphones and into movie theatres, where they would gladly pay a hefty surcharge on an already hefty ticket price for an “in-your-face” experience. 3D was also supposed to perpetuate the endless consumer gadget cycle, compelling overcompensating dads to ditch last year’s 52 inch HD LCDs for giant 3DTV flatscreens that let them bring the schmutz home. This in turn would propel the next wave of physical media sales, wherein we all would dump our DVD (or Bluray) collections at yard sales, replacing each classic flick with a new edition, digitally upschmutzed to 3D. George Lucas was moist with anticipation!
In short, 3D was the last best hope for business as usual in both the entertainment and consumer electronic industries. A couple of years ago at CES, the massive electronics trade show in Vegas, 3DTVs were everywhere. A couple of years ago, Avatar made Hollywood salivate. But as CES 2012 gears up, the reality is sinking in: Consumers don’t really want 3D at home, and Avatar was a one-off. Sports fans are lukewarm on floating balls, and people feel ridiculous wearing those goofy glasses in well-lit living rooms where they can be seen by their friends and families. Even gamers who bought Nintendo 3Ds are tiring of the optical illusion and turning 3D off.
There are still a few (hundred million) bucks more to be squeezed out of 3D before consumers grow completely sick of the experience, so we will surely see a slew of schmutzy pictures in the months and years to come. And of course, there will be an Avatar 2.
But this thing is on the wane, and Hollywood may soon have to resort to actually producing movies people want to see on account of their content.
Or they could just bring back Smell-O-Vision.
Jesse Brown is the host of TVO.org’s Search Engine podcast. He is on Twitter @jessebrown
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Scorsese’s ‘Hugo’ is quietly enchanting. Imagine that.
By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 12:33 AM - 0 Comments
Asa Butterfield and Chloë Grace Moretz in Martin Scorsese's 'Hugo'
I was braced for the worst. The notion of Martin Scorsese making a 3D spectacle of family entertainment sounded like a bad joke, as if Mr. Mean Streets had finally thrown in the towel. The messy trailer did not help. But when I saw Hugo, something happened that reminds me why, after all these years, I’m still thrilled by movies. I was surprised. Really surprised. Adapted from The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the bestselling children’s book by New York writer and illustrator Brian Selznick, Hugo is Scorsese’s first 3D movie, and it could serve as a primer for his Hollywood colleagues. Although it has moments where it might threaten to turn into a whiz-bang action movie—some brief chase scenes and a shattering dream sequence—the pace is on the whole remarkably slow and subdued. With 3D, that’s a good thing. The Dream Factory may have developed 3D technology to feed the war machine of action blockbusters, but throw in that extra plane of movement and too often the eyeballs feel they’re dodging shrapnel. In Hugo, Scorsese uses 3D to build an immersive display case that opens a portal to worlds within worlds: (a) a sad childhood (b) a picaresque Montparnasse train station in 1931 Paris, and (c) the magic of silent cinema’s own childhood in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Hugo, who’s played by Asa Butterfield (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas), is an orphaned urchin who lives as a secret stowaway behind the walls of the Montparnasse station, maintaining the clocks and stealing food. Inheriting the mechanical acumen of his late father, he can fix all kinds of gadgets. But his passion project is to build a clockwork automaton, a tin man who seems to be his closest companion. Hugo lives on the edge, playing cat-and-mouse with the strict Station Inspector, a war veteran with a mechanical leg played by Sacha Baron Cohen. What winds up the narrative is Hugo’s fractious relationship with Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley), a curmudgeon who runs a toy shop in the station. George is vault of intrigue just waiting to be unlocked. Continue…
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10 new rules for saving 3D cinema
By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 12:10 PM - 4 Comments
Enough with the gimmickry, price gouging and 2D conversions
Paramount Pictures; Getty Images; Photo illustration by Taylor Shute
It was hailed as the biggest revolution in cinema technology since colour. But less than two years after the triumph of Avatar, 3D seems to be wearing thin. For the first time since the new digital format was launched, the majority of viewers are choosing to watch 3D movies in 2D versions—at least in the U.S., where a 3D ticket bears a $5 premium. There, 2D outpaced 3D at the box office by about 60 per cent for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Kung Fu Panda 2, Green Lantern—and in advance sales for the final Harry Potter movie. Canada is another story. “We see movies consistently outperforming in 3D,” says Cineplex Entertainment spokesperson Pat Marshall, explaining that Cineplex charges just a $3 premium. But as American audiences abandon 3D, studio executives who once embraced it as cinema’s salvation are sounding the alarm. Jeffrey Katzenberg, head of DreamWorks Animation, called the trend “heartbreaking.” Blaming a glut of bad 3D movies from other studios, he told the Hollywood Reporter: “We have disappointed our audience multiple times now, and because of that I think there is genuine distrust.”
3D’s big test is Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which opened Tuesday. James Cameron convinced Michael Bay to shoot in 3D, providing the tech he created for Avatar. But armed with that third dimension, Bay’s blitzkrieg style of kinetic action is exhausting to watch. And it will take more than a sci-fi sequel to restore our faith. To cop a phrase from Bill Maher, here are 10 New Rules for saving 3D:
1. Sell 3D and 2D tickets at the same price. Studios complain 3D movies cost more to make, while exhibitors carp about upgrading theatres. Who cares? Viewers suspect they’re being gouged. If you’re trying to acclimatize the audience to an iffy new technology, level the playing field. That would also be the acid test of 3D quality—to see how many people would still choose to see the 2D version.
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The future, or a flop?
By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments
Manufacturers are rushing out new 3-D TV products, but some analysts see trouble ahead
Kimimasa Mayama/Bloomberg/Getty Images
At a recent trade show in Tokyo, Toshiba unveiled a 3-D television that doesn’t require users to wear bulky glasses. “A dream TV is now a reality,” said Masaaki Oosumi, president of Toshiba Visual Products. The main impediment to widespread 3-D TV adoption has always been that consumers—at least half of them, according to Nielsen research—refuse to buy 3-D TVs because of the hassle of wearing special glasses.
Despite that obstacle, industry research firm iSuppli estimates that by 2015, 40 per cent of TVs sold will be 3-D. Other manufacturers are betting on 3-D, too. Nintendo will soon launch a glasses-free hand-held gaming console, the 3DS. But even as manufacturers rush to churn out more 3-D products, some analysts say the sales predictions are too bullish. “If [the iSuppli forecast] is true, I’ll eat my light bulb,” says Alan Middleton, a consumer behaviour expert at the Schulich School of Business in Toronto. It’s true that Toshiba has overcome the biggest hurdle to mainstream adoption, but consumers can be fickle, says Middleton. For one thing, 3-D appeals particularly to sports fans and their “dream TV” doesn’t max out at 20 inches, like the new Toshiba. It also likely costs less than the Toshiba’s $2,950 price tag. Then there’s the question of comfort. The new Toshiba model produces its 3-D effect by shooting nine beams of light at each eye at slightly different angles. But to get a clear picture, viewers need to position themselves at a specific angle to the screen.
Another challenge for manufacturers will be to convince the average consumer to buy 3-D TVs when most TV content still isn’t filmed in 3-D. After all, “no one seriously expects all TV programming to gradually be converted to 3-D, unlike HD,” says Stewart Clarke, editor of TV industry magazine TBI. “There’s unlikely to be much demand to watch the six o’clock news in 3-D,” he adds. For those reasons, Clarke says it’s still too early to know if 3-D will become the new standard at home. Middleton agrees. “Mass adoption is certainly not going to happen in five years,” he says. “In 10 years, it’s possible, but before then? I expect not.”
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Peter Robertson vs. James Cameron
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 10:12 AM - 0 Comments
We’d still be stripping screws if it weren’t for Robertson, but we wouldn’t have the special effects we do without Cameron
Peter Robertson
Why he’s famous: He’s the inventor of the Robertson screwdriver—you know, the square-shaped one in your toolbox.
Why he deserves to win: Before Robertson’s invention in 1908, we were stuck with the slip-prone flat bladed driver and slotted-head screw, a combo notorious for causing injuries. Later, when the cross-shaped Phillips screw and driver were invented, Consumer Reports magazine declared the Robertson superior because Phillips’ screws are easily stripped and degrade with wear. As writer Witold Rybcynski put it, “no matter how old, rusty, or painted over, a Robertson screw can always be unscrewed. [It’s] the biggest little invention of the 20th century.”
James Cameron
Why he’s famous: The Terminator. Aliens. True Lies. Titanic. Oh, and those blue people in Avatar.
Why he deserves to win: Whether you like his movies or not, director James Cameron is a visionary. If the technology he needs to shoot a film doesn’t exist yet, he invents it. He initially dreamed up Avatar in 1995 and spent over a decade waiting for technology to catch up to his vision. His most notable invention is the 3-D camera that mimics human sight, revolutionizing the cinematic 3-D experience, and allowing the people behind the camera to observe the actors in their virtual forms. Now Cameron is working with NASA to incorporate that 3-D technology into a camera for the next Mars rover. Show off.
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Notes from the Underworld: Reviews of 'Hellboy II: The Golden Army', 'Journey to the Center of the Earth,' 'The Wackness'
By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 10:59 AM - 0 Comments
It’s a weekend of underworld heroes, in all shapes and colours. An infernal brute fights off an underground horde in Hellboy II: The Golden Army; a trio of subterranean explorers go spelunking in the 3D depths of Journey to the Center of the Earth; and a young drug dealer scores pot from Jamaican gangsters beneath the streets of Manhattan in The Wackness. These movies are, respectively, a state-of-the-art supernatural fantasy, a corny family adventure, and a quirky coming-of-age picture. But they’re all guy movies. Each is geared to a different demographic. Hellboy II is a masterful fantasy that should appeal comic book fanboys, Lord of the Rings freaks, fans of director Guillermo del Toro, and anyone who appreciates sci-fi spectacle. Unless you’re 12 years old, or are a boomer trying to graft your childhood onto your innocent progeny, you might want to pass on Journey to the Center of the Earth. Sure, it’s in digital 3D, which offers an undeniable novelty, but better 3D movies will be coming along soon. As for The Wackness, which won this year’s Audience Award at Sundance, it’s a charming American indie film that offers a more modest style of summer escape. Details:
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
I came to this movie as a total skeptic. I was bored by the original Hellboy, and unlike most cinephiles, I was unmoved by Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-nominated Pan’s Labyrinth, which I found to be a nasty, heartless, gratuitously violent exercise in high-minded pretense. Well, maybe it wasn’t that bad. But clearly it rubbed me the wrong way.
So I was not looking forward to Hellboy II. As I watched the film, I tried to resist for a while and found some good reasons to—del Toro’s dialogue is clunky, his plotting is schematic, and his abject devotion to monsters, who are more dimensional than his humans, is suspect. But Hellboy II is one of those rare sequels that’s far better than the original. It’s a visual tour de force, with an original narrative that riffs on a motherlode of mythological and surrealist fantasy while leavening it with pop wit. In the succession of brilliant directors who invent fantasy creatures, del Toro now seems poised to inherit the mantle of creature fetishism pioneered by David Cronenberg, Tim Burton and Peter Jackson.
