It’s easy to spot the new trend in movies these days: people are always kicking the back of my chair while they text on their iPhones. Besides these unfortunate occurrences, more and more studios are turning to the 3D format to make boatloads of cash.
You might not have seen it. You might not plan to see it, and you might be sick of James Cameron’s blue cat-like aliens planted all over the place, but there is no denying that Avatar blasted the movie industry like an atom bomb. To date, in the US alone, the movie has earned more than $730 million dollars. Think about that number for a minute. Yes I know the premium price of 3D tickets inflated it, but that number is still remarkable for a genre film almost three hours long.
In the wake of the explosion, more studios like Warner Brothers and Lionsgate are scrambling to rotoscope newly made movies into the 3D format. The thing is, when studios take an existing movie and then apply the 3D process over it on the back end, the results aren’t nearly as spectacular as movies that were filmed with 3D cameras. Check out this excerpt from an article entitled “The Movie Studios’ Big 3D Scam” at Gizmodo.com:
“The process of making a movie 3D after it was shot is a complicated and time consuming process but can be somewhat convincing. The problem is it will never reflect the same results as if you were filming using two cameras, simultaneously, from slightly different perspectives. Endless rotoscoping provides layers that can be separated to fake a different perspective for the second eye, but that’s what it looks like, layers. So yes, you can push things away and pull things forward and enhance the depth, but the content within each layer has no depth.”
Say what you want about Avatar, but the 3D was extremely well done and immersive (it’s like they added a whole new dimension to the movie! Weird). The use of 3D in James Cameron’s film also didn’t come across as gimmicky. You know the cheesy 3D gimmicks I’m talking about. When the main character stares point blank at the audience and sticks his sword right at the old lady in the front row. Or when, for no reason at all, a character happens to have a jack-in-the-box that pops up only to freak out the audience. I mean really? Where did that jack-in-the-box come from? It wasn’t there a minute ago.
Hollywood has been pushing 3D down viewers’ throats for years, but last year things really began to change. Screenrant.com provides these statistics about 3D movies and screens that you might not have known:
- There were 20 films released in 3D in 2009 but only 8 in 2008.
- The number of 3D capable screens across the US and Canada jumped up from 1,514 to 3,548 in one year. Overseas that number increased even more – from 1,029 to 5,441!
- 3D movies made up less that 4% of the total films released last year but accounted for 11% of all gross receipts.
- The president of the MPAA (Bob Pisano) said the following, “Whenever screens are converted or built in 3D, the public seems to be embracing it.”
There is no question that 3D is here to stay. It will be a major component of the movie marketing machine at least for the next 5-10 years. But Hollywood will do what it always does: squander a good thing. Instead of making good movies with the proper 3D filming techniques, they will over-flood the theaters with inferior products (bad movies with shoddy 3D formatting) and the public will eventually grow weary.
So what will cause 3D to fail? Eventually its own success.
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Picture by Tom Small, used under a CC-Share Alike license.
I fully agree. Except it won’t fail. The initial wave of conversions will all but kill it. Then Avatar’s sequel will bring it back along with all the other films just starting now that are actually filmed in the format.
My biggest beef against Avatar is starting this new 3D trend. I enjoyed Avatar and I liked seeing it in 3D one time and one time only. Not an experience I care to try too often. The glasses eventually irritate the eyes causing blurry vision and eve head aches. It’s cool to check it out once but I don’t even want to go to the movies if I have to be in discomfort every time. Also 3D tickets cost more of our hard earned cash and in these desperate financial times, I don’t know who really wants to pay the extra cash. 3D is just another gimmick by the greedy studios to suck more money out of the consumers pockets. All that’s going to happen is that so much attention will be given to the 3D technology that the more important elements in a film, like story and characters, will be overlooked. They will instead be too focused on how to make things jump out at us. It really makes me exhausted to think that practically every single film is jumping on the 3D wagon hoping to cheat the cinema going public. Screw you Hollywood. Why don’t you actually start showing some concern for original stories with compelling characters like the old days? That’s where the real movie magic is.
3D is here to stay! I plan on buying a 3D TV and 3D BluRay at the end of this month when it is available at BestBuy. HD has been around for 10 years and 3D is long over due. I am excited this new technology can finally come to my home! However I think Hollywood needs to clean up their movies and remove all of the sex scenes that are unnecessary.
update… 3D is not a short trend, 3D is defiantly here to stay. Panasonic just released 3D TVs this week and everyone of them have been sold! Panasonic is 100% sold out of 3D TV’s! This is a sign that 3D is popular and there is a high demand for it. The question is can Hollywood keep up with the demand and start putting 3D moves on the market because currently there are no 3D blurays for sale yet.
Think of 3D like special effects. Special Effects has now flooded the market and we’re able to learn to pick and chose which movie we’d like to see right? It’ll be the same way with 3D. Just like special effects, we’ll view it as if it’s part of the film and maybe even a needed element like Special Effects. Soon smaller movies will tastefully adapt it like it does with special effects. That is if these Indie directors learn to use the technology than trying to fight against it.
“Why don’t you actually start showing some concern for original stories with compelling characters like the old days? That’s where the real movie magic is.” — totally agree filmguy. And Jo, Avatar 2 will save us all.
Every 28 years, like clockwork, 3D gets trotted out by Hollywood as the next big thing. Usually lasts 2-3 years. This time it might get 5.
Glasses are a problem, and all non-glasses 3D technology is geared toward one person. I’d imagine the people above that are raving about 3D are under 30 and single.
im all for the 3D films but the 2D to 3D films are just a let down and waste of are money, We need a way of knowing what the true 3D films are.
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If the film has been written and directed well it has no need for such pointless gimmicks.