There are technical reasons why 3D gives us a dimmer picture, but you don’t need to be an expert on film projection to notice the difference. Should you see Toy Story 3 in 3D, consider for a moment past Pixar movies. The studio’s films have always been vibrant and colorful and yet here (and when Up came out in 3D last year), everything is a shade too dim, as though the entire film were taking place at dusk. Why is this? Something about the 3D process makes the image dimmer, but those glasses don’t make it any better. Granted, they’re a marked improvement from those red/blue glasses that used to be the standard, but they’re still a discomfort. And if you already wear glasses, they’re even worse, having to awkwardly place them over your prescription lenses.
But this gets more into my second problem with 3D – that it’s a distraction. When Avatar came out, the buzzword everybody used was “immersive.” James Cameron’s innovations in 3D technology were supposed to pull the viewer in and make them a part of the experience. For many, the effect worked. For me, it was frequently distracting. Yes, those sweeping shots of oceans and flying mountains looked pretty spectacular in 3D (though I suspect they’d have been just as memorable without it), but what about the dramatic scenes in between the sweeping effects shots and action sequences? Did you notice the way the image blurs a little when two people are just sitting and talking to each other, or walking? Some call the effect “ghosting” and it was all over the place when I saw Avatar. The 3D blends nicely in action scenes, but for those quieter moments, it became very noticeable that I was watching a 3D movie, pulling me out of the experience rather than into it.
3D is being touted as the next great innovation in movies, as if 2D movies are suddenly inferior and outdated. Even using the term 2D is a misnomer. Were you ever unsatisfied with how “flat” movies used to be? No, of course not. That’s because since birth, our eyes and brain have worked together to interpret pictures and film as representations of depth and movement. Adding the artificial third dimension only calls attention to the fact that we’re watching a movie.
And then there’s the price. We’re paying extra money for an inferior product. I’m dazzled enough by Pixar’s animation, or the latest CG effects, why do we need 3D? The simple answer is that we don’t. Studios like it because they can make money off it, and they are. Avatar is the highest-grossing movie of all-time, largely thanks to the 3D surcharges. Then there’s the IMAX surcharge that, in an AMC theater, charges you for putting a faux-IMAX screen in front of the regular screen.
These scams will exist as long as people are paying for them. Christopher Nolan spoke out recently against 3D in response to questions about how the third Batman will be filmed. He explains that the choice is not up to him. Audience members speak through ticket sales and studios listen by looking at box office receipts.
So ask yourself: Do you need to see Toy Story 3 in 3D? Or Harry Potter? Or (God help us) the new Jackass movie? You can voice your opinion one way or the other with a ticket purchase.
Further reading: Roger Ebert’s “Why I Hate 3D (And You Should Too)”
- Steve Avigliano, 7/01/10
I can offer a little bit of technical insight here, if that's worth anything. Basically the image looks darker just because you're seeing half the light you used to see per frame. Put a pair of 3D glasses on in broad daylight and see how effectively they work as shades - not very, but the effect is noticeable. That's how much light you're cutting out. Most audiences, due to the immersive nature of film to begin with, won't notice and will just adjust their eyes to the brightness. Honestly, it never bothered me when I saw Toy Story 3 in 3D, but I could tell when I thought about it.
ReplyDeleteThe problem I have with 3D is the focus problem. Shots in 3D (and this is going to be a problem for games, too) have their focus pre-determined. If you attempt to focus on distant objects when the movie/game wants you to be focusing on the foreground, you're likely to have trouble seeing details and that kind of thing.
I don't think it's fair to call the 3D "distracting," though. You're noticing that it's in 3D because you're supposed to. It's not an unintentional side effect of some other process. Years from now if 3D continues as a trend we won't consider it a novelty anymore and then there will be nothing 'distracting' about it, it will just be acknowledged as a way of shooting movies. And then you'll have some filmmakers who choose not to for artistic reasons, just like you have Cloverfield getting filmed shaky-cam style, and Joss Whedon ordering a bunch of old film cameras for the western-style lens flair he wanted in Firefly, or even (outside the medium) the resurgence of 2D in games in the last five years.