ALICE responds to audience demands for 3D

La Prensa de San Antonio.- Audiences can expect to get up close and personal with the Cheshire Cat's disembodied head when Alice in Wonderland debuts in theaters next Friday. Using what has become the most popular 3-D technology in the world, RealD, goth director Tim Burton's latest feature film will burst off the screen in full stereoscopic vision.

Once considered a fad reserved for gag effects in hokey 1950s horror flicks, 3D is now arguably the movie industry's biggest hope for a hero to rescue ever declining box office sales.
 

For nearly as long as there have been moving pictures, there have been attempts to bring the 3-D experience into the mainstream. But despite promises of an ultra-realistic movie-going experience, expensive equipment, unreliable projection systems and those corny red and cyan (anaglyph) glasses have prevented stereoscopic films from gaining wide acceptance in theaters.
 

Until now.

With advances in digital technology and polarization systems, the latest 3-D film-making techniques provide a crisp and vibrant, high-definition stereoscopic image with undisputable box office appeal.
 

While ticket sales for conventional "flat" films continue to fall, their 3-D counterparts have consistently brought in more revenue over the last seven years, according to Jim Chabin, president of the International 3D society, which recently held its first awards ceremony, honoring greatness in the field of stereoscopic cinema.
 

"The response by the public has been very positive in this bleak economic environment," said Chabin. "So you have seen in recent weeks, the announcement of the next Spiderman that was scheduled to be in 2D will in fact be in 3D. That's just one indication of how successful 3-D movies will be."

That’s a sharp turnaround from the 90s, when the only place to see a 3-D movie was at your local IMAX theater. However, as 3D made its cautious return to non-IMAX theaters in the last decade--after almost completely fading away in the 80s--many dismissed the technology as a novelty for kid flicks like Spy Kids 3D: Game Over and The Polar Express, according to Chabin.

3-D innovator James Cameron blew that theory out of the water and into audiences' laps with his sci-fi action/adventure Avatar.
"Now maybe the next James Bond movie will be in 3D," speculated Chabin. "I think [3D] is here to stay."

Avatar not only motivated big-money movie producers to jump on the 3-D bandwagon, but also had what some might consider a surprising effect on independent and experimental film makers, according to New York-based video artist Kristen Tretheway.

"Avatar was really inspiring for artists, and people who work with installation and video are really interested in experimenting with [3d]," said Tretheway. "I think as a medium, Avatar showed the potential to break 3D open for new uses by artists, even if it were to be simple."

Students at the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas in Austin are currently experimenting with low-budget 3-D techniques using two consumer video cameras mounted side-by-side, according to RTF facility manager Keefe Boerner.

These "do-it-yourself" rigs imitate the more high-end camera systems used by directors like Jim Cameron and Robert Rodriguez, capturing the left and right eye perspectives crucial for the 3-D illusion.

Boerner, who worked with Austin-based Rodriguez on Spy Kids 3D and Shark Boy and Lava Girl 3D, said UT is planning to offer students a 3D class by Spring 2011.

"We need to meet the demand from students and also meet the expectations when they go out into the industry," said Boerner.

Film Festivals around the country are also giving a nod to stereoscopic filmmaking. Sundance screened the well-received 3-D documentary Cane Toads: The Conquest this year and Boerner is leading a panel discussion entitled "3D Stereoscopic Production Tools, Production and Post" at South by Southwest in March.

As computer generated imagery continues to evolve and increase in popularity, viewers can expect to be inundated with more and more stereoscopic films. From now until the end of 2010, audiences can look forward to a new 3-D movie nearly every three weeks. While quite a few of these will be live-action, the majority will be CGI.

This is because it's fairly easy to create the "right eye" needed for the 3-D effect within the virtual environment and 3-D movies make a lot of money.

"All CGI movies are going to be in 3D," said Boerner. "That is the standard already."

Another alternative to shooting live-action with a dual-camera rig is to create the 3-D effect in post-production with a process called dimensionalization. This is the route Burton took to bring his Alice to three-dimensional life.
 

"After seeing the conversion job that was done on Nightmare Before Christmas, I found no reason to do it any other way," stated Burton in a press release. "We were trying to do it faster and at the end of the day, I didn't see any difference in quality."

Burton relied on the expertise of dimensionalization specialists In-Three, Inc. to turn the live-action segments of his Lewis Carroll-inspired fantasy into possibly the next 3-D blockbuster.
 

Alice in Wonderland can be divided between the part of the movie that takes place above ground, which is mostly live action, and the part that occurs down the rabbit hole, the CG "Underland."

"When she goes down to the Underland, that was mostly handled by Sony Imageworks and we handled everything before she goes down," said Damian Hader, vice-president of business development at In-Three, Inc.

The In-Three, Inc. dimensionalization process has been in heavy demand lately, according to Hader, who described business as "off the hook."

As manufacturers such as Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic prepare to ship 3-D television sets this summer, the need for 3-D content is unprecedented. While ESPN and Discovery Channel are set to launch 3-D channels later this year, the need to convert flat shows and movies into stereoscopic experiences is sure to grow-if and when those new screens begin to fly off the shelves.

Although experts seem to agree it's just a matter of time before every household will host a high-definition 3-D flat screen, some consumers, like San Antonio-resident Jerry Portillo, remain guarded.

"I'm still paying on the two big HDs I have right now," said Portillo, an insurance customer care representative.

And despite all the advancements in 3-D technology, there is one complaint that won't seem to die.

"From what I understand [3-D movies] are supposed to be better now, as opposed to back in their first days," said Baltimore homemaker and mother-of-four Leslie Danovich. "I personally don't see a difference. I still get the headaches."