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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: Mark Kermode : How 3D Really Works
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 01-08-2011 10:45 PM
Very interesting -- do you know how he did the experiment? I suppose in theory it can be possible --the idea of a kind of sensory overload, but then wouldn't that apply to real life as well? But we see stereoscopically in real life continually. Are we less attentive to detail when there is too much all at once? Would a format like IMAX do the same thing; i.e., a huge amount of visual information being a distraction of some sort? As I say, interesting, but not intuitive. I like to see his data.
My experience with 3D is that it never caused any fatigue or even minimal discomfort. Perhaps I am lucky in that regard, or maybe it has something to do with when it was that I first saw 3D. I was just a young kid (HOUSE OF WAX) so it might be that a youngster is able to learn more easily and adapt; perhaps the eye/brain mechanism can learn faster in the young that the focal plane and the convergence don't necessarily have to be the same as they are in real life, if this can even be learned. Just a theory. Or maybe some people are just more tolerant of the discrepancy than others.
All I know is that for me, I've never gotten a headache from 3D, with either stills, Viewmaster (loved them as a kid), or 3D 50s movies and later on in life, even when I was watching hours of 3D movies -- three full length features and "selected short subjects in a row....each day....for a week, at the 3D Expo at the Egyptian. Now granted, that was all dual projector so there was no issue with the time displacement which also causes some people discomfort, but that said, so far I have not experienced any discomfort with long-ish periods of sequential frame 3D (AVATAR) and the movies I've watch with the 80s shutter glasses and sequentical NTSC 3D projection. And it also can be as simple as some people like myself are just more tolerant than many others, who knows. All I know is that the feeling of 3D depth is incredible to me.
Stereoscopic imagery to me is exactly akin to stereophonic sound. It's a FEELING of space and depth, very distinct from the illusion of depth we understand by perspective in monoscopic images (2D). In a 2D image, our knowledge of distance and roundness comes from an intellectual, learned experience -- you have to learn that one object is further away from another by many visual clues: relative size, previous knowledge the actual size of familiar objects -- in other words, perspective. Whereas stereoscopic vision gives the brain information that is unique and quite separate from perspective or anything else you learn from just looking at an image with only one eye.
With two eyes, you FEEL the depth between objects; it is a sensual information, not intellectual information. It's the same as how binaural sound informs you about where instruments are located by FEELING the space between them. I like the "feeling" of stereophonic music and I equally appreciate the "feeling" of space in a stereoscopic image.
And I dismiss the often heard idea that to enjoy a movie you don't "need" 3D, or that 3D doesn't add anything to the story. Well, the same can be said for stereophonic sound. You don't need stereo sound -- the movie would be the same in mono sound. Well, not by a long shot, and I find that argument facitions -- you can try to make that assertion with almost any tool that a filmmaker has at his disposal to create entertainment -- how about color...how about scope wide screen? Are those fads too? Did the "color craze" die out? Is scope just a fad?
I got an incredible sense of spectacular "awakening" I guess is the best I can describe it, the very first time I saw 3D. It was like a veil had been lifted and I was seeing something amazing for the first time....at least for the first time on a movie screen. And it's exactly the same sense of wonder as when I heard my very first stereo sound, i.e, aural 3D. I couldn't believe my ears. For this kid, both experiences were THAT spectacular.
The first stereo music I heard was an experiment that WQXR in NYC did, playing the Right ear via their FM station and the Left ear via their AM station. Our FM was encased in a big RCA TV/AM-FM radio/record player combo console piece of furnature common in the day, with its speaker next to the floor. There was no room to situate the AM radio 8 feet apart, so I placed my small, AM table radio on the floor next to the console so that I could lay on the floor with my head between the two. The announcer said, "And now here is Tchaikovsky's Overture of 1812 in full stereophonic sound," and then it began. I was transfixed....enthralled with what I was hearing. It was as if the room had just opened up to the size of a concert hall and I could hear where all the instruments were located. I got so excited as the piece progressed that I got up and ran into the kitchen and dragged my mom by the hand and insisted that the poor woman who had a chronic bad back, lay down on the floor between the two speakers and listen to what I had discovered. She did, and we kept switching back and forth throughout the short piece. It is a memory that is burned into my brain to this day. From that moment on, stereo was all I wanted to listen to and it became an integral part of my life's work.
Same thing with stereoscopic vision in movies. There is something so powerful about that added feeling of depth and the feeling of it as a tangible component of what I see, that to have it is certainly more exciting and more dynamic an experience than not having it. And I find it difficult to understand how people who certainly understand the value of stereophonic sound to the hearing experience of recorded sound, don't quite understand that stereoscopic imagery is equally as spectacular for the visual experience. For me, the two are incredibly sensual and powerful....and for the same reasons.
Thanks for letting me share.
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Hillary Charles
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 748
From: York, PA, USA
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 01-09-2011 07:53 AM
I'm with you Frank!
Yeah, in his video, Mark Kermode is being snarky while suggesting that to utilize binocular vision for depth cues is folly. I'd like to see him put his money where his big mouth is and poke out one of his eyes. After all, he obviously is aware of the perspective depth cues which do not rely on two eyes.
Unless he really is afraid that he'll see a world populated with people of alarmingly variable sizes! ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
And that whole "glasses" effect. I have never seen any 3D image that looked like an old tv set not quite tuned in properly.
I've said it before: 3D isn't necessary to tell a story, nor is color or sound (of any number of channels). The technology of the moving image itself began as a "gimmick." If you want to enjoy the storytelling experience in its purest form, without ANY gimmicks, read a book! But like any other aspect of a movie, 3D enhances the visceral experience for me, and makes the experience more enjoyable. After all, it is about entertainment, isn't it?
I can point to similar arrogant and pissy protestations (as well as more reasoned ones) to each and every addition to the moviegoing experience throughout the years. I can't say if 3D will become as integral as those others, but I can say that my experience has been enhanced by every movie I've seen in 3D because of the 3D, and that includes "Up."
The distractions people blame on 3D likely come from being largely unfamiliar with the format. Again, I have examples of the same thing happening ("Color distracts from the drama," and people laughing in joy at the sound of ham and eggs frying in the early talkie "In Old Arizona"), in the dawning days of those other cinematic innovations. If 3D becomes more prevalent, that feeling of distraction will possibly diminish. But it could also have the effect of making 3D more mundane.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 01-09-2011 09:35 AM
The color argument is very absurd. While early forms of color (hand colored and dual color...etc.) were indeed unnatural distractions. However, it is B&W that most differs from how we perceive. No matter where you sit in the theatre, B&W calls attention to it not being natural. That isn't to say that B&W can not be used to accentuate other details (like shading) to heighten the senses. But, by and large, it was a means to an end.
Sound, as well, with the absence of it, calls attention to the problem. Having an orchestra and script cards come up on screen highlighted the absence of sound. Actors had to almost over-act to over come the absence of sound.
Sound, however, after its addition has had similar issues to 3D. With mono, there is the complete absence of depth and perspective between the music, the dialog, the effects and where to place all of those to achieve a reality. Now 80-years after sound on film has been common, we still struggle with how to do it. Because dialog is considered so important, it is most often locked hard-center (mono) because moving it about, to some seemed like distractions. I find it very distracting to have it locked hard-center...but it is a problem. I do find that a mere 3-screen channels is insufficient to create the illusion of being able to locate the audio anywhere within the screen. Furthermore, where one sits can affect this illusion (note, color does not have this same sort of issue...it looks the same, regardless of where you sit).
In some cases, the foley work gives sounds to things that only exist in one's imagination. They, unquestionably, add something that the absence would be a distraction.
3D suffers from the same issues as much of the stereo sound. It is extremely dependent on where one sits. It is an unnatural 3D perspective. It requires, at this point, some form of outside apparatus to achieve its current level. It almost always seems to be calling attention to itself (something that MOST of the other previous technologies tried NOT to do...they, more often tried to eliminate the lack of reality that was being shown).
The VAST majority of 3D installations involve silver screens. With that, one has a severe degradation in the color perspective, image uniformity (constant illumination across the image). If fact, if one is sitting towards the right side of a theatre, the left part of the screen will likely be only 1/4 as bright as the right (and vice-versa). At present, the light levels are SO low that there is no such thing as a bright-sunny day...It simply can not be done at 5-fL (or thereabouts).
Just how much must the image be degraded before the faux representation of 3D (and I'm NOT just referring to the 2D->3D process) before one considers it more harm than good? Clearly, based on the expressions of Frank, Hillary and Claude...there is a range of opinion even in this statistically small sample.
I firmly believe that is is a VERY small percentage of the population that actually sees/feels a benefit of 3D to most/all movies.
From my personal perspective, I see the 3D effect just fine (so far all of them)...I do experience eye fatigue though not the pain that some experience. I have yet to have it benefit a movie I saw beyond a scene or two. I recall setting up theatres this summer for Toy Story 3D and thinking about the short (Night and Day or words to that effect)...WOW now here is an example of where 3D really DOES add to the experience. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then the feature started...all of that faded away into a gimmick again. I think part of the problem, for me, with this current 3D go around is the DIGITAL images themselves. I seem to be pre-disposed to see them as hyper-flat images. When I see digital-3D, I see a VERY faux sense of depth where the various cues for my eyes that sense depth being thrown off and hence distraction. I blame digital due to its low-resolution pixel nature. Both images have a hyper-sharp appearance...which is not natural...they are essentially throwing away the data that does not fit into their 2K grid...it totally screws up ones sense of depth and adding another version of the image does not restore that...it is hard for me to describe but it appears like a flat image, with depth. It doesn't look anything like how I perceive depth in reality. Note, some of the same arguments can be said for many of the sound mixes of today. Hard center dialog, music in Left/Right effects in the surrounds and/or Left/Right. Blah, blah, blah...perhaps better than mono but the dialog remains very much mono. Again, they have been working on the issues of sound for the better part of a century and have not got it figured out. 3D has not had near the same attention and, at the end of the day, it has an issue with that the seated person and the camera, except for one lucky seat, have a different perspective and thus a faux 3D experience. It is fake and it calls attention to the fact that it is fake. At least with the viewmaster...everyone has the same perspective...camera and viewer.
-Steve
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Hillary Charles
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 748
From: York, PA, USA
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 01-09-2011 10:43 AM
quote: Steve Guttag
The color argument is very absurd. While early forms of color (hand colored and dual color...etc.) were indeed unnatural distractions. However, it is B&W that most differs from how we perceive. No matter where you sit in the theatre, B&W calls attention to it not being natural.
The comparisons of critcisms against color and 3D are very valid. I have a 1939 review of "Gone With The Wind" in which the "false Technicolor" was singled out, and the reveiwer went on to suggest that the film would have played better in black and white."
During the filming of (the first 3-color Technicolor feature) "Becky Sharp," Karl Hale, an early color "specialist" decreed that "Too much color will tire one very quickly..." Sound familiar?
In a review of "The Dancing Pirate," another early Technicolor feature, it was said, "One hour of color is too much color at one sitting. Eyes are accustomed to reading from black and white." Again, insert "3D" and "2D" for the appropriate terms, and it seems very modern.
Carole Lombard expressed reservations of appearing in Technicolor with, "...you know, color goes a little screwy at times and I'm not just sure I want to make a Technicolor picture." Of course, she would go on to make "Nothing Sacred."
Talk about distraction, here is an excerpt from the New York Times review of "Becky Sharp," from June 14, 1935:
"The major problem, from the spectator's point of view, is the necessity for accustoming the eye to this new screen element in much the same way we were obliged to accustom the ear to the first talkies...At the moment, it is impossible to view 'Becky Sharp' without crowding the imagination so completely with color that the photoplay as a whole is almost meaningless. That is partly the fault of the production and partly the inevitable consequence of a phenomenon."
Now, doesn't THAT doesn't sound like so many anti-3D tirades today (including the experiment you mentioned)?
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