Here's one that's in my mind at the moment. Having seen Toy Story 3 and wondering why it needed to be made in 3D, it raised a question in my mind. Is the trend for 3D comporable to the move from black and white to colour?

Not being around when colour started being mainstream, I don't know what it would have been like in that transitioning phase. For example, colour could enhance the narrative - I am sure that some directors used it because they could or were told to. Others likely saw it as an extra tool in their story telling box, and would have used it wisely. Looking at story boards for modern films, colour is at times very strong keyed, and this is to enhance the narrative.

Now I do know that some very good films were made in black and white, and even today it could be *the* way to present the film. However, the transition to colour was a long time ago now, and we accept it as part of the art form.

So, what about 3D ? I get the idea that regardless of necessity, everything will be presented in 3D. However, I am yet to be convinced that it is narrative enhancing. I was expecting much from TS3, given Pixar's past performance. They showed that CGI can be a viable story telling medium, yet this offering failed to convince me that the funny glasses are enhancing the film at all. If 3D us to be a defacto method of production, then surely there has to be a justification beyond the financial requirements of the studio. So far, not even James Cameron has convinced me that it adds anything more than a novel twist to the presentation of the film.

I'm not a film historian - so I can't easily compare how 3D is different to early popular color films, how it was seen by the studios, directors, cinemas and ultimately audiences.

Colour can bring something to a film, with 3D, I can't see what it brings, apart from headaches...

When the technology is ripe and I don't need to wear glasses, it really works (3D with glasses generally doesn't work, for me) and it doesn't give me a headache, I might see it differently. At the moment, it just doesn't make a big enough difference to the experience to warrant the downsides, for me.

I find the less distractions bringing me out of the film the better, so 3D is/was never gonna do anything for me...

Ironically, in the early '30s, most film execs were unwilling to do full length films in colour because they thought it would give anyone who watched them headaches.

It's a good question, Paul.
I don't recall my Mum ever talking to me about the change over from B&W TV sets to colour ones, and it's not like we haven't ever spoken about this either because I know that my Mum's family at the time she was young was one of the very first households in Blackburn to get a TV.
Colour is more naturalistic than B&W and 3D is more naturalistic than 2D, but 3D at the moment isn't proper 3D, is it? You can't look around objects by moving your head. No matter what your viewing angle of the cinema screen, you're presented exactly the same image as someone that's at the opposite side of the room, or that's at the back/front/middle of the seating area.
The glasses also cut down on the amount of light getting through to your eyes, which doesn't appear to have been taken in to consideration for the projection of the image, so everything is just a little too dark.
In fact, it's less like 3D and more like 2.25D.

Mark

There's always been a massive amount of 3D hate here. I can see why. I haven't seen 3D add to storytelling specifically.

However, for me, it does add to to the experience in the case of Avatar. TS3 felt like Up to me. Nice, but not essential. However, given the choice (now that I have glasses to keep and the ticket price is only 50p more) I'll take "Real 3D" every time. At my local, there's a reasonably new DLP projector and I don't find light levels drop noticeably.

Does it have the same impact as colour? Maybe. But I think it's a thing we'll come to see over the next decade. Bearing in mind that plenty of people still won't be using it for a while yet.

Think of all the thematic and emotional nuances colour brings to a piece.
Yes, good lighting on B&W is powerful, but look at the use of colour in a piece like Blow.
The current trend for 3D is simple 'because we can'.
As a broad rule of thumb, when making a film the first question you should ask when considering a certain technique is 'Does this advance the story in some way?'.

To my mind, I'm hard pressed to think of an example where 3D was absolutely the correct thing to do in order to advance the story.

I have other issues with it as well.
When scanning a frame, like a cinema screen, I am aware of it's edges.
With 3D, those edges become quite jarring - it's not immersive at all. Here I am, experiencing the world in 3D already, and here's some bizarre visual effect that's kinda kidding me on that it's also as 3D as the rest of the room. And it's not, I can see the edges.

Mark's also quite right about the luminance of 3D films - the standard (and required) level for a regular 2D film is 14ft-L (Foot-lamberts) whereas 3D is only 4ft-L.

Also, it may just be the system we have at my local, but I find the twinkly speckly bits get irritating. I wasn't expecting that in TS3, but there they were.

If I was making a film tomorrow, I'd struggle to think of a convincing reason to make it 3D. I genuinely think it's not going to last, just like the last time it was popular. I may be wrong, I may be right, we shall see.

+1

atm it looks like an early 3D video game, where objects are presented as a 2D object that always face the same way no matter what direction you look at it from. it cant really be called 3D until we get fully interactive projections, but only a high-frequency carrier wave beamed directly into the brain can do that

I take issue with all of the colourising they do on old war footage etc. It looks crap, JC take note.

Yeah, because it's [LIFTED]. (8+)

Mark

I don't really see 3d being a bit leap until full holographic projection has been achieved so you can walk around the projection and see how things change or the objects can be moved around the viewer. Not quite sure how that would work in terms of a cinema, they'd basically have to be rebuilt from scratch.

B&W and colour on the other hand clearly enhances a film and be used very creatively. For example, the little girl in the red coat in Schindlers List. Being in red in a B&W film really made her jump out of the screen and made her subsequent demise more wrenching. I don't thing the same effect couldn't have been achieved using 3D in an ostensibly 2D film (plus people would be a bit narked wearing the glasses for the entire film for just a couple of scenes).

Having said that, I did think 3D added something to Avatar compared to watching the 2D version but it was patchy in places and simply didn't work well in a few scenes. I certainly wouldn't bother investing in any of the current 3D TV incarnations.

It wasn't in Avatar!! But you hated that movie, so pointless argument.

Aside from that, fair play - it's [LIFTED].

Indeed - everything in a stereoscopic image (which is what this 3D really is) tends to appear on a plane - much like scenery flats in a theatre, or in a pop-up book. As you say, there is no benefit from sitting to the left of the screen or to the right.

A fully 3D experience would be able to play with the audience - perhaps giving the left seated people a warning that something will happen, while surprising the righthand audience members. The right hand lot would see Greedo pull a gun. The left hand will see Han hinger his blaster. Neither side would know what the other side was up to until shots were fired. Imagine being in an audience knowing that the other side will “get it” in a few moments.

I doubt very much that anyone shooting in 3D has figured out what it means to the story telling process. Some are so keen to use 3D that they have forgotten the simpler techniques to tell a story and set up a scene properly (I’m looking at you, Cameron). Others are being dragged into it, probably screaming and kicking.

As I have said before, we do already have 3D cinema. It’s called theatre.

Now, I thought Avatar was okay - not great, but not awful - it did suffer from an incredible amount of hype, largely because of 3D availability.

I didn't and don't keep uptodate on how 3D tech is progressing, and was shocked to find that we still had to hang a hideous pair of specs on our noses to experience the effect. FFS Jaws 3D was doing that 27 years ago! The effect hasn't improved since then either.

Given the choice, and certainly in hindsight, I would rather have seen Avatar in 2D.

I agree with Mark's 2.25D remark - it sums it up perfectly, 3D is sh!te.

I thought Jaws 3D was a red/green anaglyph?