by Sarah Berman.

Before audiences step into the theatre, they’ll already know the ending of Titanic 3D. (Spoiler alert: it sinks in all three dimensions.) But one unsettling question mark looms above the blockbuster’s re-release: can James Cameron credibly convert a 2-D classic into the eye-popping 3-D of Avatar?

“The reputation of 3-D is a little uneven at the moment,” explains David S. Cohen, film and technology critic at Variety magazine. Following the $2.7-billion success of Cameron’s Avatar, studios jumped onto the 3-D bandwagon in droves.

Early 3-D converts like Clash of the Titans rushed through the stereoscopic rendering process – with nauseating results. Many critics dismissed postproduction conversion as fake 3-D, while others defected from the 3-D format entirely. In 2011, revenue from 3-D movies sagged by 18 per cent, despite the release of a record 47 3-D films.

But 2012 has seen a healthy resurgence in 3-D excitement – thanks in part to advances in conversion technology.

Read the rest of this article from the Vancouver Sun.

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by Mark Savage.

Martin Scorsese’s new film Hugo has been called a watershed for live action 3D film-making, but is it too late to save the format?

It has not been a great year for 3D.

Given a choice between 2D and 3D, film-goers have increasingly been choosing the cheaper option. The split is now 60/40 in favour of 3D, compared to 78/22 a year earlier.

Sales of 3D television sets have been sluggish, and the price of Nintendo’s 3DS console was slashed by more than £100, just five months after its release.

It’s not just a headache for the entertainment industry. Research by California State University found that people watching 3D content were three times more likely to suffer sore heads, eye strain and blurred vision.

It’s only two years since Avatar broke box office records – but is the honeymoon over already?

“We are at an absolutely pivotal moment,” says Chris Parks of Vision 3, a UK company which advises the film industry on stereoscopic technology.

Read the rest of this article from BBC News.

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from True Hero Studio.

With the rise of 3D technology in filmmaking, many aspects of film production and film viewing are changing, not always by much but usually to a visible degree. Film industry employees at various levels and in a range of fields are affected to different extents. Special effects artists, cinematographers, and of course directors all have new techniques to learn. But what of crew members in other areas of production?

Despite the fact that shooting in 3D produces a different kind of material, editor Rodrigo Balart of upcoming 3D release Bait does not believe that 3D affects the central aspect of his work. This aspect, of course, is the story. The job of the editor, he feels, is to construct and maintain the narrative in a visually effective way. The work of adapting to the new type of film footage and the equipment needed to handle it has not interfered with his focus on sustaining the film’s drama.

Read the rest of this article from True Hero Studio.

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by Scott Bowles.

Once hailed as a technology that would revolutionize filmmaking the way sound and color did, 3-D has become as much an albatross for some films as a lure. And studios are noticing.

According to a study by Exhibitor Relations, which tracks trends among theater owners, the number of big-studio 3-D films will drop by at least 25% a year through 2013. There were 40 new 3-D movies this year. Next year, 30 releases are planned for the big screen. That number dips to 15 in 2013, though that schedule remains incomplete and studios shuffle release dates. The study also found that some high-profile 3-D conversions are planned for classic films, including Finding Nemo and Beauty and the Beast.

“We might see a few more 3-D movies in 2013, but I’d be surprised if the number was more than 20,” says Jeff Bock, box-office analyst for Exhibitor Relations. “People are feeling burned, the studios are feeling burned. Everyone is pulling back.”

Read the rest of this article from USA Today.

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by S.T. VanAirsdale.

After a weekend of speculation, guesses and second-guesses about which top-secret “work in progress by a master filmmaker” would in fact screen tonight as a last-minute addition to the New York Film Festival, Martin Scorsese confirmed today’s reports by taking the stage at Avery Fisher Hall in Manhattan and introducing his family-friendly 3-D opus Hugo to a loving hometown crowd. Not everybody in attendance had monitored the buzz around tonight’s event.

A few wizened viewers who probably couldn’t distinguish the output of a stereoscope from that of a stereophone looked baffled as ushers issued fistfuls of plastic-wrapped glasses with their seating directions. (“What are these? “They’re for the 3-D.” “Row 3-D?”, etc. etc.) But most of the house settled in with the type of anticipation befitting any never-before-seen Scorsese film, let alone a crowd-pleasing gambit applying the premiere moviegoing gimmick of our day to a product that even the filmmaker admitted beforehand wasn’t quite finished yet.

Read the rest of this article from MovieLine.

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by Adam Jacques.

It was horrible losing my passion for film-making. I’d been working steadily since 1970 [on films from Assault on Precinct 13 to Halloween] and eventually became exhausted by the whole process. By [2001's Ghosts of Mars] it was total burnout. So I took some time off, away from Hollywood, and got to reconnect with my family. With The Ward [out earlier this year], I found the joys of making movies again, and now I’m back to developing a couple of new projects.

There are only two types of horror stories. It’s all about where evil comes from. One is that it’s from the outside: the other tribe, the other person, the people who live in the woods; the other type is the interior story, that evil comes from your own heart. That’s a harder story to tell.

Read the rest of this article from The Independent.

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from The Peninsula Qatar.

Cinemagoers in Pakistan’s eastern cultural city of Lahore can expect good news around Eid as talk of another 3D cinema is making rounds.

The 3D craze in Pakistan began in 2009, after the worldwide release of a James Cameron’s sci-fi film Avatar. It was either because of the fact that it took Cameron more than 10 years to execute the idea or due to the magic of 3D effects that the film managed to set a number of box office records, and even beat Titanic to become the world’s highest grossing film of all time.

The Atrium digital cinema was the first 3D cinema in Pakistan, which opened in December last year to an entertainment-hungry and 3D-curious crowd in Karachi. Earlier this year, however, the fever spread to Punjab with Cine Star offering the 3D experience to Lahoris.

In a span of four months, from April to August, the city is already buzzing with talk of 3D technology at the DHA Cinema.

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from Moving Pixels.

While Nintendo’s 3DS launched with a great deal of fanfare and excitement, recently announced sales figures reflect a fading enthusiasm for 3D gaming. While 3.61 million units is nothing to laugh at, the number falls a good deal short of Nintendo and Iwata’s four million sales goal. Although gamers are not inundating retailers to snag the 3D gadget, the future of 3D entertainment is assured. Nintendo’s slow sales announcement is a clarion call, not a death knell, for publishers and developers to better persuade the industry and consumers of the opportunities that 3D gaming has to offer.

As early a few years ago, 3D held no secure place in the film industry. Some live action major motion pictures featured portions of their films upconverted to 3D, but most of its use remained within niche animated films. The first time I that actually enjoyed 3D effects was during Coraline in 2009. For some time, many considered the revival of 3D a temporary fad, a gimmicky last-ditch effort from the movie industry to boost theatre revenue by charging a few dollars more per film. Now few can deny the permanence of 3D film making. Whether you find Transformers: Dark of the Moon palatable in 3D or not, the technology is here to stay.

Read the rest of this article from Pop Matters.

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by Ben Child.

It has been one of the most remarkable developments in Hollywood – the transformation of 3D technology from an 80s relic to the forefront of 21st-century blockbuster film-making. But with a number of recent high-profile films having delivered poor results for screenings in the format, one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures has expressed anger at the way he says the industry has mishandled the potential of the medium.

In a new interview, Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of 3D powerhouse DreamWorks Animation, said Hollywood only had itself to blame after it was revealed that more US film goers have been choosing to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean and Kung Fu Panda films in 2D, breaking a previously unbroken rule that 3D screenings always deliver higher box-office yields.

Read the rest of this article from the Guardian.

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by Susan Ashworth.

At the 2011 NAB Opening keynote session, filmmaker James Cameron called on broadcasters to embrace the possibilities inherent in stereoscopic technologies, while announcing plans with 3D producer Vince Pace to form a new firm devoted solely to supporting the development of 3D programming across film and broadcast.

The newly formed CAMERON–PACE Group will have its eye on building 3D camera systems and accelerating the acceptance of 3D programming across film, live television, sports and education. Following in the footsteps of the 3D technology that the two co-founders collectively built, including the FUSION 3D system, the new company will be focused on creating both technology and processes that will allow for the ubiquitous acceptance of 3D.

Read the rest of this article from TV Technology.

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