3-D Entertainment Panel

February 5, 2014, Electronic Imaging Conference, San Francisco—Lenny Lipton from Leonardo IP moderated a panel on 3-D in entertainment. Panelists included David Cohen from Variety Media, Barry Sandrew from Legend Films, and Chris Ward from Lightspeed Design. Stereo cinema is at an inflection point and is doing well for the distributors and studios, but is still getting poor press.

Cohen reviewed the state of 3-D from theaters where space is natural to its affect on journalism. The creative people are always looking for ways to change perceptions, but mostly consider cinema as flat. Just as there were business reasons for color, stereo needs further justification. The premium for 3-D makes the audience user experience a call for awareness of the effects. The format is stalling even as good movies like Gravity, The Hobbit, and Frozen are shown in 3-D to good effect and audience approval. Nevertheless, we are not getting intimate dramas in 3-D.

Sandrew noted that 2-D flops are not blaming the 2-d for the failure, but 3-D disasters are due to the 3-d effects. In the past few years, 8 of 10 of the top grossing movies were in 3-D as were 16 of the top 20 films. This doesn’t indicate the death of the medium. 3-D is not the same as 2-D, and offers different experiences and a more personal experience.

Ward stated that the technical side of 3-D is doing well. Everyone is changing to digital cameras for cost and resource issues, and HFR is available in 3200 screens in the world. High-definition sound and 4k images are already here, and the move to laser projection will help to grow the industry. The international markets are the drivers for the tent pole movies, with almost 70 percent of the income from international markets. These blockbusters are mostly visual, with little dialog.

3-D is a business success and making money, but it is being used mostly for spectacles and cartoons. Is this a budget issue for creators?
Cohen observed that 3-D started in the early 19th century, and made many appearances in the ’20’s, 30’s, and ’50’s but never took off. It has always been considered a gimmick, which is a lingering stigma. The motivation has always been about making money. In the ’50’s,TV entered the equation and drove content. then, and now, the creative people resist change.

Sandrew argued that, for now, it is easier to convert to 3-D due to the rigs. More creative people are starting to shoot in 3-D, as the rigs become more user friendly. Poland is making a lot of 3-D features and documentaries. More cinematographers will move to stereo because it gives one more tool for creation. Conversion another tool for the directors.

Rigs are cumbersome?
Sandrew considered that the technology needs a lot of improvement. Matching mirrors is not the same thing as good lens quality. When you convert a single frame, the result is 2 almost identical frames plus disparity. The rigs lack this capability, so the artifacts are still obvious.

Image capture has CG as the gold standard, but the big issue is projection brightness?
Ward noted that the films are dimmer due to the technology. About 80 percent of the light is lost in the various optical components like the polarizers.

Causing the images to be too flat?
Ward responded that the stereographers are working towards a least-common-denominator setup to minimize complaints.

Sandrew offered the opinion that the directors are too conservative.

Cohen added that the brightness matters. The goal is a brightness that is about the same as 2-D at 14 ft-lamberts. The trend is for all images to get brighter over time, but 3-D will always trail 2-D due to the double images.

At a level of 2-3 ft-lamberts, vision is poor, but 7 is ok?
Sandrew suggested that theaters have no control. It is better with lasers, but lasers are just starting out. Lasers are much brighter than xenon and reduce manpower requirements.

Ward agreed that lasers will be a niche product for years, mostly for large theaters and outdoors.

Cohen declared that lasers cost less because they require less cooling. There was a tendency to break standards when moving from film to CRT, and now all the standards are changing and presenting a moving target.

The technology is changing but inertia and conservatism in the creative areas are resistant to change?
Sandrew commented that before the change to digital in ’90, cinematographers could not eliminate grain. The higher quality images from the digital cameras had different color, and the same is true for laser versus xenon.

Xenon versus carbon arc- the arc is better, brighter, and has cleaner color. Filmmakers cannot afford conversion on a $20M budget, nor can they afford 3-D rigs?
Sandrew responded that conversion costs are now less than $4M.
Cohen opined that 3-D TV will become the big driver. Black and white films got no Oscars since ’68, when all the studios changed to color. 3-D TV has something that the cinema doesn’t offer, but is still not ready for prime time. The need for glasses and other equipment is bad for retail. In addition, there is very little content. therefore, movies don’t need to go to 3-D for a while. Some movies can get away with 3-D.

Technology push into the studios?
Sandrew declared that all new flat screen TVs are 3-D ready. The installed base will grow. The problem is that autostereo is not ready and needs new technology to be viable, possibly lenticular or parallax barrier.

Need a big technology change? Shutter glasses are not good at home because they are too expensive and incompatible across brands. Passive glasses may be ok?
Sandrew noted that the LG passive displays are excellent TVs.

Cinema is on a 40′ screen, versus a 50″ monitor?
Sandrew suggested to get as far away from the screen as possible to increase parallax.

Home TV brighter than cinema? Natural vision?
Cohen agreed, but movies are not really natural. The movie is not natural, the frames are not natural, all parts of a movie are artificial. These images can be neat and seem real. The areas of higher creativity like CG are very unnatural.

Not realism, but a different user experience. This is another sense to perceive, however stereo is complex and a departure from visual fields. The directors and cinematographers are afraid to use this other dimension?
Cohen noted that 12 years a slave could have been in black and white, but was in color because it is the current norm.

3-D TV did not launch well. Did the manufacturers change too quickly?
Sandrew noted that 3-D doesn’t really exist now. The manufacturers and retailers did too little education for consumers. The industry has to make 3-D easier for the consumers to use.

Little 3-D content is available?
Sandrew claimed that some good 3-D is available on Blu-Ray disks in many genres.

Cohen commented that most dramas and sports are not in 3-D. ESPN 3D folded as a signal of the failure for this as a broadcast entity. The same for CBS Sports. In the control room, 3-D is not the same as that viewed in the home. TV broadcast of 3-D is only of value if you can get it into the homes.

Sandrew claimed that other technical advances like HDR are muddying the waters. The data for the pixels in a 2k HDR have a higher resolution than native 4k. 4k has better 3-D images and when adding HDR it improves even more.

Cohen added that creators are beginning to improve the quality of depth and getting better visual impact. Even though Avatar and Life of Pi got cinematography Oscars, the mainstream cinematographers are still using the photographic origins of their craft to make successful flat images.

Existing depth cues allow the cinematographer to direct attention for a 3-D effect without the depth cues of stereo. Is this craft ignored in 3-D? Does disparity contribute to storytelling and emotion? Do we need a change in filming language?
Cohen offered that animated people are using a new 3-D language for their films. These changes are not being adopted for live action.

Sandrew agreed that cinematographers could learn more from CG and use more negative parallax to move out of the screen and into part of your personal space. Effective use of the techniques is essential for good story telling.

Visual discomfort?
Sandrew opined that stereographers are partially responsible, since most movies need more blending and rest time. Some people cannot adjust, but if they sit farther back in the theater their eyes will have less work.

Cohen added that this is also a legal issue, so most studios are conservative and ask the film makers to reduce the creative risk.

Dark projection contributes to fatigue. Color grading for each shot needs to make sense, but this doesn’t exist in stereo. For example Hugo was a mix of deep and flat?
Cohen claimed that the stereo cameras are too limited, so will eventually be replaced by light-field cameras.