Wow, in 2007 Lucas to Re-Release all Star Wars film in 3D - in theaters!

[Christopher C. Murphy]

3D will eventually be like "in color" movies. They'll drop the "3D" and just call them movies. It will take years, but it will happen eventually.

Robert, 3D filmmaking exists and has for many decades and today it's more popular than ever. It's very profitable for many companies already - Imax being the one the public is most familiar with today. Why are you still ranting? You are so negative about the future of 3D filmmaking, but no one has the facts on the future.

The present day -- I saw "Mysteries of the Nile" at the "OmniTheater" in Boston last night. It wasn't in 3D, but a huge dome screen. Then tonight, I just saw Ring 2 at Loews in standard 1:85. They were both interesting to watch visually - both were films made by filmmakers today.

1-2 years ago there was a huge movie in the theaters -- Spy Kids 3D. It's just another way to make films - I'm done arguing. Spy Kids 3D made alot of parents and kids happy, so there you go.....it's 3D filmmaking today and forever just like every other filmmaking tool available.

I started this thread...can I close it now? lol

[Joshua Starnes]

<<<-- Originally posted by Robert Knecht Schmidt : When you think of the latter, you think "story film"? "Character study?" Radioland Murders is nothing but effects film, having been designed principally as an in-house exercise in testing digital compositing methods. -->>>

I think of screwball 30s comedy when I see it. It was not designed princiapally as an exerciese in testing digital compositing methods. As it turned out, it wasn't a very popular movie, and that was one of positive things that came out of it for them, but that wasn't the reason that Lucas made it, any more than he created Young Indy to test digital compositing techniques. And the fact is, the digital compositing in Radioland Murders is so good, and used so seldom and in such small ways, that it's invisible - so no, when watching it you don't think effects film because most of the time you don't know that you're watching an effect until someone tells you later.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Out of respect for Christopher's closing of the thread, I'll say nothing more of my own, but I'll let George Lucas respond to Joshua's latest. (Quoting here from the Sally Kline Interviews book. All remarks are from 1994.)

"We did a shot in the TV series [The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles] for $1,500 that would have cost a studio $30,000 if they were doing the same shot for a feature film. Radioland Murders, the movie we're working on right now, is an experiment for us in that we're applying the cost-saving technology we learned on the TV series to the big screen. I don't think we can get that same shot done for $1,500, but we may be able to get it for $10,000 or $12,000. But even going to $12,000 from $30,000 is a major leap. And this is just the first step. We're inventing new technology that I feel very confident will allow us to cut that cost in half again. Within the next couple of years, we'll be able to take what was a $30,000 shot and do it on the big screen in full resolution for $6,000 or $7,000."

"...the techniques that we pioneered in the TV series that we're now using in features are going to be one of the major differences about the way movies are made. And we are obviously moving that forward considerably to develop 3-D sets and build less and less and be able to fill in more extras of people and surroundings and that sort of thing. We'll do that all digitally... Shot-wise, there are around 100 effects shots in the picture, which doesn't seem like much. But when you consider something like Jurassic Park, for which ILM did all of the dinosaur-generated shots, there were less than that. So it's a fairly high rate of special effects for a movie."

[Yi Fong Yu]

as i've mentioned before (and people keep missing), 3D will work only for interactive mediums.

the other thing i've mentioned is that the future of 3D is that you won't need glasses. the technology has been developed already for both home and cinema. i saw it once but dunno where the link is anymore, but it is available.

[Keith Loh]

Last night I attended Hamlet. Which, as you know, is a 3D experience. It was interesting feeling that I'm five feet away from a guard waving a partisan that could very well lop off my head. It was a small production so I was in the second row. I could well imagine that in more expensive productions I wouldn't be able to afford a front row ticket.

[Joshua Starnes]

<<<-- Originally posted by Robert Knecht Schmidt : Out of respect for Christopher's closing of the thread, I'll say nothing more of my own, but I'll let George Lucas respond to Joshua's latest. (Quoting here from the Sally Kline Interviews book. All remarks are from 1994.)

"We did a shot in the TV series [The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles] for $1,500 that would have cost a studio $30,000 if they were doing the same shot for a feature film. Radioland Murders, the movie we're working on right now, is an experiment for us in that we're applying the cost-saving technology we learned on the TV series to the big screen. I don't think we can get that same shot done for $1,500, but we may be able to get it for $10,000 or $12,000. But even going to $12,000 from $30,000 is a major leap. And this is just the first step. We're inventing new technology that I feel very confident will allow us to cut that cost in half again. Within the next couple of years, we'll be able to take what was a $30,000 shot and do it on the big screen in full resolution for $6,000 or $7,000."

"...the techniques that we pioneered in the TV series that we're now using in features are going to be one of the major differences about the way movies are made. And we are obviously moving that forward considerably to develop 3-D sets and build less and less and be able to fill in more extras of people and surroundings and that sort of thing. We'll do that all digitally... Shot-wise, there are around 100 effects shots in the picture, which doesn't seem like much. But when you consider something like Jurassic Park, for which ILM did all of the dinosaur-generated shots, there were less than that. So it's a fairly high rate of special effects for a movie." -->>>

That doesn't make the movie merely an experiment in compositing and nothing else. No one makes a movie to test one particular filmmaking technique. It's too complex, to expensive, and too time consuming. The difference between Murders and Jurassic Park is that the Park's effects (and there were more effects shots than 100 in Park, they just weren't digital ones done by ILM, but there were plenty of effects shots in it) are pretty out in the open and a major part of the story and the film experience, and the Radioland Murder's effects are not.

He's not saying Radioland Muders is an experiment for them. He's saying Radioland Murders is an experiment for them in that they are trying some new production techniques. That's two different things. I might try some new lenses on the next short I make to see if I get a different look. Am I experimenting with a new technique on my new film? Yes. Am I making my film mainly in order to experiment with new lenses? No. Some people do it with shorts, I concede. No one does it with multi-million dollar feature films. Did they experiment with new production techniques on the set of Radioland Murders? Yes. Is that the same thing as making a movie specifically to experiment with new production techniques? No. You can't confuse how a film was made with the reasons why it was made.

[Christopher C. Murphy]

I believe Joshua is correct.

[Christopher C. Murphy]

Indiana Jones IV may be 3D feature!

http://www.dvdfile.com/news/viewpoin...005/03_21.html

That may help off set the age thing with Ford...they need to have a little extra to draw in the crowds. He's not holding onto his youthful looks to well...he looks his age!

This article talks a little more dollars and cents than we have done here:

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?lay...117919744&cs=1

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

I don't at all relish the role of enthusiasm-curber, but on the other hand I'd be remiss if I didn't take a moment to address the somewhat overly optimistic claims propagated by exaggerated press releases and inexpert media accounts.

...company called In-Three located in Agoura Hills, California has perfected image-processing software it calls the Dimensionalization Process.

This statement and the no less exclamatory ones that follow aim to imply that some magical automated algorithm can now perfectly recover Z-depth data from 2D images for all cases with no additional cues (such as information about light source position and intensity). Were this actually true, the company would have on their hands the most significant computer vision achievement in the history of the field. Especially where the camera is static (rendering unhelpful photogrammetry techniques as are used in matchmoving), alas, there is no magic wand to the depth problem, though there are a number of tools available for achieving photometric stereo, especially where the assumption of smoothness (on faces, for example), meaning that there are no discontinuities in depth or in the partial derivative, or even piecewise smoothness, provide a strong constraint. But most of these tools, even in combination, only provide good results under very specific lighting conditions--for example, a single point source like a keylight. (In addition, makeup work in films, especially on actresses, is invariably designed to thwart dimensionalization, "flattening" out facial features by attenuating shadow. This is one of the classic examples in any graduate-level CV class. Two images are shown of the same woman, one a Max Factor dollface and the other a homely Eliza Doolittle, and the class--or a computer shape-from-shading program assigned as a project--is asked is to recover the Z-depth of the face. The difference is, of course, remarkable, but I digress.)

Were it simply a matter of setting a render farm to work on the prequel trilogy and allowing it to chug away for a few, the cost of "dimensionalizing" legacy footage would not amount to upwards of $5 million per feature film. Undoubtedly whatever "software" under development poses heavy reliance on a small army of human users (read: unpaid interns) to matte separate features, assign boundaries, and provide guesstimates on depth and specifics about other cues.

None of this is to downplay the tremendous feat on In-Three's part of successfully commercializing (and, their shareholders hope, capitalizing on) 30+ years worth of work by computer vision academia, nor the wonderful fruits that are sure to be passed down to the movie-going public, such as the forthcoming Howard the Duck 3D.

The details of In-Three's process will no doubt remain guarded for the next several years at least. The details of how In-Three Inc. was awarded and intends to defend a registered trademark on the dictionary word "Dimensionalization" are another matter entirely.

Those wishing to learn more are directed to the Forsyth and Ponce text Computer Vision and Horn's slightly older Robot Vision, particularly chapters 10 and 11. Ramakant Nevatia's books are also good primers but slightly outdated, and therefore, out-of-print and hard to find.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Last of all let me repeat my assertion that there is nothing that any such algorithms can do that is not already done by the human visual system when perceiving a 2D image, thus obviating the raison d'être for the Dimensionalization process.

The most advanced computer graphics system in the world is already built right inside your head, as you prove to yourself each time you dream and the complexity and verisimilitude of what you see convinces you that you are experiencing reality.

[Christopher C. Murphy]

Hey Robert, I think the next reality show I'd like to see is you and Mullen together on a deserted island together.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Steve would win all the reward challenges, starving me into submission, but it would take a while: by the grace of Chris Hurd Probst, I have been granted immunity. However, this is sure to be revoked, as pedantry isn't the best way to achieve ratings in the coveted 12-18 demographic.

(Incidentally, Kuror survivor Caryn is an associate of my mom's. They room together at the national conference every year for their branch of law.)

[Yi Fong Yu]

hi folks,

looks like we're gonna run into some lawsuit problems before the 3D stuff is ratified:

http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/arti...lm_resurgence/

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Neil Feldman, vice president of In-Three, said the company has patent-violation concerns of its own. He said Imax had approached In-Three, which did some 3-D conversion tests for Imax. He assumed a business relationship would result, but obviously Imax decided to go its "own direction," he said.

"But before doing so, they came in towards us... then backed off away from us... then came in waaay close towards us again..."

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

I have re-animated this once highly animated thread to return to a topic that has seen many prophecies come true, and a few not. It's been a half-decade since this thread was hot, but let's review:

- 3-D actually is catching on in American theaters. Audiences really are paying a premium to put on silly glasses and watch a darker picture for 2-3 hours.

- Indiana Jones 4 wasn't made in 3-D, nor have any of the Star Wars movies been three-deified. Various folks affiliated with Lucasfilm have hinted that at present the cost-benefit analysis doesn't work out in favor of the process, but that it may happen sometime in the distant future (presumably once the relevant patents have expired).

- 3D is coming to the home but home viewers will have to wear bulkier, heavier shutter glasses that will need to be recharged periodically.

- A large number of animated, action, and super-hero films have been mandated by their producers to be completed as 3-D films even though doing so was not contemplated at the beginning of the process (e.g., Up, Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans). Probably thanks at least in part to the success of 3-D with box office receipts, one studio (Disney) has said they're exiting the conventional movie business entirely to focus only on the types of kiddie movies that 3-D caters to.

- And I haven't changed my mind about 3-D. It's fun for certain films, and it's nice to have the option of seeing movies in 3-D, particularly Pixar movies, which are always great no matter what number of dimensions they're in. But it's still a gimmick; it didn't make Avatar a good movie; it's not the future of Hollywood (though it does seem to be a bigger sidetrack than I was expecting 5 years ago); and, like Roger Ebert writes, it is unlikely that "adult" films, or in other words the films typically considered Best Picture-worthy, will ever be produced in 3-D.

- But above all, I'm surprised and impressed by how much things have changed in five years, and I have to hand it to James Cameron. Avatar and other recent films seem to have gone a long way in priming the format as something available in every town, if not quite yet every multiplex. So, bravo, and now I must off to work up an appetite, as I will be eating some off my words from five years ago.