Maybe 3D movies aren’t just a fad this time

Instapaper led me to “Four reasons 3D movies aren’t just a fad”. (And I’d highly recommend reading it through Instapaper or Safari Reader.)

The Wikipedia article on Hugo led me to “Can Martin Scorsese’s Hugo save 3D?”. (The BBC News site is better than Mashable, but I’d still recommend Instapaper or Safari Reader.) With this quote from Martin Scorsese:

I found 3D to be really interesting, because the actors were more upfront emotionally. Their slightest move, their slightest intention is picked up much more precisely.

3D again

If you want to understand how I feel about stereoscopic video, replace 2D versus 3D with...

black & white versus color

silent versus sound

monaural versus stereophonic

stereophonic versus surround sound

Yes, the things on the left side can be used to great artistic purpose, but that tends to be the exception rather than the rule. Yes, the things on the right side can be used in gimmicky ways, but most of the time they just add depth (pun intended) rather than becoming the message.

I suspect, however, that stereoscopic video will indeed turn out to be a fad yet again. Why? Simply because the fundamental technology has been around for ages and it has never made it out of the fad phase yet.

Now, there have been some recent developments. There has been some movement of some technologies towards greater practicality at the consumer level. So, I hold out some hope.

Why the 3D movie case is not closed

Roger Ebert posted a letter from film editor and sound designer Walter Murch. “Why 3D doesn’t work and never will. Case closed.”

Munch’s main point is around convergence and focus.

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.

The greater the distance, the less depth perception matters. The real magic of stereoscopy happen when the convergence and focus distances are similar. When you can see the small differences in depth within the form of the focal object. Large and exaggerated depths and rapid changes of convergence aren’t where the magic is.

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.

If you don’t have a lot of shifting convergence, then I guess this won’t be an issue. In any case, though, I think less rapid cuts would be a very good thing. Rapid cutting annoys me in 2D.

And lastly, the question of immersion. 3D films remind the audience that they are in a certain “perspective” relationship to the image.

shrug I know that I have never felt as immersed in a film as when I was when I was standing outside Baikonur Cosmodrome...when I was really sitting in an IMAX theatre with 3D glasses on.

But who am I to argue with an expert like Munch? Reading their arguments, however, I just can’t help but think that many of the people who dismiss 3D in films dismiss it based on bad and gimmicky 3D instead of on the merits of 3D when used well.