Seeing as this is my first post, I thought I'd mention that I am a huge fan of movies, filmmaking, and all of the technologies & creativity involved in the process. So if you share the same interests, hopefully you'll find some of my film-related posts interesting.
Some of you may have noticed that there has been a sudden surge of movies being released in digital 3-D now, many of them being animated films. Now you might be wondering, why is this old Hollywood gimmick being utilized again as new, "revolutionary" technology? Afterall, 3-D has had its chance to revolutionize watching movies twice since it's conception - once in the 1950s as a way to compete with the growing number of TVs in American households, and secondly in the early 1980s to compete with the invention of cable TV. Well, the difference today is that it seems Hollywood has finally found a way for newly developed 3-D technology to truly enhance the movie watching experience well beyond most viewers' expectations.
Gone are the days of the blurry red and blue double-images when you're not wearing the glasses. As some of you may have seen during the Super Bowl TV spot for DreamWorks' Monsters vs. Aliens last night, you can now watch 3-D enhanced films/shows either with the glasses on for the full effect, or without them and still be able to watch the program without the distraction of the blurry double-images. Beginning in 2009 and over the course of the next few years, you're going to see a great deal of films presented in 3-D and possibly even up on IMAX screens across America, as expressed in Wired Magazine's article that I've linked to below.
Though 3-D is easier to apply to CGI animated films like Monsters vs. Aliens and Pixar's upcoming film Up, the true test of whether the format is here to stay this time or not will come with its re-application to live-action films, which is where the true revolutionizing of the format is coming into play. The answer to this question may come as soon as December 2009, with the release of James Cameron's first film in 12 years, Avatar, a film that has been in development for nearly 10 years and supposedly has cost upwards of $200 million to make. However, this price seems to have been spent with great reward. Supposedly, Cameron's newest sci-fi epic has been shot entirely with a new proprietary 3-D technology that will expand the audience's vision perception by extending the 3-D imagery into their peripheral vision, making the objects seem to surround them more.
Should this new technology open up a whole new world to viewing movies and even TV, 3-D could be the next logical step beyond just watching films in digital High Definition formats that may prove to be very exciting over the next few years. But what do you think? Is this just the same, 50-year old Hollywood gimmick re-branded, re-packaged, and thrown back in our faces again? The technology may finally be there, but is the consumer ready to accept it or fall for it? Afterall, we CAN control how successful media can be, right?
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2008/04/3d_movies
Monday, February 2, 2009
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