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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: Why 3D doesn't work and never will. Case closed.
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System Notices
Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi
Posts: 215
Registered: Apr 2004
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posted 01-26-2011 02:15 AM
Why 3D doesn't work and never will. Case Closed.
Source: Chicago Sun Times
quote:
I received a letter that ends, as far as I am concerned, the discussion about 3D. It doesn't work with our brains and it never will.
The notion that we are asked to pay a premium to witness an inferior and inherently brain-confusing image is outrageous. The case is closed.
This letter is from Walter Murch, seen at left, the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema. As a editor, he must be intimately expert with how an image interacts with the audience's eyes. He won an Academy Award in 1979 for his work on "Apocalypse Now," whose sound was a crucial aspect of its effect.
Wikipedia writes: "Murch is widely acknowledged as the person who coined the term Sound Designer, and along with colleagues developed the current standard film sound format, the 5.1 channel array, helping to elevate the art and impact of film sound to a new level. "Apocalypse Now" was the first multi-channel film to be mixed using a computerized mixing board." He won two more Oscars for the editing and sound mixing of "The English Patient."
"He is perhaps the only film editor in history," the Wikipedia entry observes, "to have received Academy nominations for films edited on four different systems:
• "Julia" (1977) using upright Moviola
• "Apocalypse Now" (1979), "Ghost" (1990), and "The Godfather, Part III" (1990) using KEM flatbed
• "The English Patient" (1996) using Avid.
• "Cold Mountain" (2003) using Final Cut Pro on an off-the shelf PowerMac G4.
Now read what Walter Murch says about 3D:
Hello Roger,
I read your review of "Green Hornet" and though I haven't seen the film, I agree with your comments about 3D.
The 3D image is dark, as you mentioned (about a camera stop darker) and small. Somehow the glasses "gather in" the image -- even on a huge Imax screen -- and make it seem half the scope of the same image when looked at without the glasses.
I edited one 3D film back in the 1980's -- "Captain Eo" -- and also noticed that horizontal movement will strobe much sooner in 3D than it does in 2D. This was true then, and it is still true now. It has something to do with the amount of brain power dedicated to studying the edges of things. The more conscious we are of edges, the earlier strobing kicks in.
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. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point.
If we look at the salt shaker on the table, close to us, we focus at six feet and our eyeballs converge (tilt in) at six feet. Imagine the base of a triangle between your eyes and the apex of the triangle resting on the thing you are looking at. But then look out the window and you focus at sixty feet and converge also at sixty feet. That imaginary triangle has now "opened up" so that your lines of sight are almost -- almost -- parallel to each other.
We can do this. 3D films would not work if we couldn't. But it is like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, difficult. So the "CPU" of our perceptual brain has to work extra hard, which is why after 20 minutes or so many people get headaches. They are doing something that 600 million years of evolution never prepared them for. This is a deep problem, which no amount of technical tweaking can fix. Nothing will fix it short of producing true "holographic" images.
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.
And lastly, the question of immersion. 3D films remind the audience that they are in a certain "perspective" relationship to the image. It is almost a Brechtian trick. Whereas if the film story has really gripped an audience they are "in" the picture in a kind of dreamlike "spaceless" space. So a good story will give you more dimensionality than you can ever cope with.
So: dark, small, stroby, headache inducing, alienating. And expensive. The question is: how long will it take people to realize and get fed up?
All best wishes,
Walter Murch
Salt shaker and landscape Photoshops by Marie Haws.
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Mark J. Marshall
Film God
Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted 01-26-2011 09:26 PM
I prefer to sit as close to the screen as possible when seeing non-IMAX 3D because of the "screen getting smaller" problem. But as far as horizontal motion problems in everything 3D... I'm not sure what he's talking about. After sitting through 35 dual strip 3D movies at Jeff's first festival, I didn't notice ANY motion problems in any of them. Now I see motion problems all over the place in EVERY direction on the alternating eyes stuff, but that's because the eyes aren't in sync. That goes for RealD and the 3D TVs.
quote:
A lot of them dismiss 3d negativity as ramblings of the old and out of touch?
I think it is they who are a bit out of touch,perhaps they have never seen or learned to love the magic of great presentations in 2d because they sure don't seem to mind losing it in this digital era!
That's just silly. I think some of the 3D nay-sayers have a hard time believing that some people actually enjoy seeing things in 3D. For me at least, it has nothing to do with not being able to appreciate a good 2D presentation. I'm the guy who said he was NOT going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in IMAX because it was going to be in fake 3D, and it would be too distracting. But when WB dropped the 3D, I saw it in IMAX before seeing it anywhere else.
I very much appreciate good 2D, and yes it pisses me off that shooting with and presenting film properly is a dying art - or rather is an art that is being killed off is a better way to say it. And I understand that some people can't train their eyes to look at 3D for various reasons without giving themselves a headache. I get that. But I'm also getting tired of hearing Ebert bitch about it because he's one of those unfortunates who can't enjoy it.
We get it Roger. It gives you a headache. Ever hear the joke:
Patient: "Doctor it hurts when I do this."
Doctor: "Don't do that."
If 3D sucks that bad for you, then you should probably stop trying to watch it. But try to understand that some of us like it. Including Leonard Maltin, who sat next to me during "Charge At Feather River".
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Hillary Charles
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 748
From: York, PA, USA
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 01-26-2011 11:19 PM
quote: Joe Redifer
Murch is also correct in 3D images seeming smaller. I saw an IMAX 3D presentation on a very large screen (real IMAX maybe 10 years or more ago) and everything just seemed so tiny. There was definitely no "big screen experience" to be had like there is when watching 2D on the same screen.
I asked someone if they noticed this as well, but I don't think I was able to explain it properly. In 3D, the size of the objects on the screen are determined by the interocular spacing of the camera lenses. If it's more or less like our own, a face will appear normal size, but of course without the 3D, it might be 20 feet wide on the same screen.
You really do lose the "big screen experience," but the size of the IMAX screen permits them to do away with the "stereo window" because the edges of the frame go mostly unnoticed. And that allows the "space" of the movie to extend closer to the viewer. Not a gimmick like a sword or paddle ball, but the entire environment feels closer, and yes, more "immersive," IMO.
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Hillary Charles
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 748
From: York, PA, USA
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 01-27-2011 10:38 AM
Tom, I haven't seen the THOR preview yet. The last IMAX 3D I saw was the Hubble movie--I must say those IMAX 3D documentaries have the most impressive Warner Brothers shield logos ever! ![[Cool]](cool.gif) Was the audience dodging the rocks? ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I also tend to sit a bit closer for a "regular" 3D show in order to fill more of my field of vision. Get too close, and the depth of the 3D will flatten out, and as Bobby says, the offscreen effects will make your eyes go wonky. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) And compared to IMAX, there is a sense of peering through a window, rather than being in the environment. It can still be good, if not as immersive, and does make for a very different experience than 2D. Not saying it's better or worse (I like both), just different.
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