Friday, September 18, 2009

Visual Grammar in movies will change for 3D Cinematography?

The thought occurred to me a day ago while watching a soccer match at home on my projection home theater screen. I was about 10 feet away from a 12 foot screen watching the fast paced action.

The fast camera panning did leave me a bit disoriented, so I had to reduce the projector zoom a bit to “take in” the whole screen surface into my field of view. If 2D video can do this to you, I was imagining what the whole 3D Digital Cinema experience would do to a person who decided to spend a few hours at the movies, a year from now, when the savior of cinemas… “3d movies” becomes mainstay.

Would just high tech 21st century projection equipment, modern full color reproducing 3d glasses and technically sound camera systems be enough to eliminate movie discomfort in audiences? or would the actual story telling and choice of cinematographic moves be unknowingly contributing to another epidemic of 3d induced headaches in audiences?
To answer some of these questions I took my 3d camera rig and did some test shots:

1) a simple 360 pan on a tripod in a park
2) Handheld shot (no steady cam) while walking
3) Slow 360 degree pan on tripod
4) Long Shot and then mid shot of people talking (edited later) to cut between the two.
Then projected this footage on the screen and zoomed projection to approx 8 feet.

I learned some practical lessons from this:
a) Even though I have watched numerous hours of 3d, I still felt mild nausea at the simple 360 panning shot
b)Cut shot between long and mid range on the people disturbs the eyes’ ability to quickly adapt to focussing.

Only the very slow pan shot was ok. It seems that with 3D, there’s so much more info that is being fed to you, its not so much the story being told (or directed) that a person pays attention to… but its the scene as a whole that a person absorbs.
This leads me to think that many rules of current camera work need to be re-worked if Digital

Cinema is to succeed in the long run of luring people back. (2D cinema wont, as home theatres are adequate in that area and getting cheaper) its the 3D size that may get people back.
So eventually, if all Digital Cinema is going to be 3D, will movies be shot from an overhead perspective? like the holographic Star Wars R2D2 projections?

Or
2) If front projected, will Camera Zooms, pans and fast cuts be eliminated? So the eyes can take in a scene with comfort and be able to “rove” around the vista? i.e“Mise en Scene” … This would mean that storyboards would change drastically.
3) Would home movies be “top projected” in 3D? – Actually this is already possible somewhat.. It’s a process called Phantograms.
A simulated image here: http://www.bildirgec.org/imaj/Chat+Noir+1/holotv.jpg
…Is it worth exploring these lines of thought, before Cinema owners and Producers invest a lot of money in future proofing Digital Cinemas and converting them to be 3D enabled? As this article suggests,
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/business/stories/2008/11/01/3dtheaters.html?goback=.hom

What do you say?

4 comments:

Maya said...

Its so true

Tom said...

I don't know I believe the old fashion one is much amazing

JD said...

Me too Yom

Dailey said...

Come on guys evoluation is so good