3D's BIG COMEBACK
by Gabriel Chong & Linus Tee with John Li | 2 October 2009

Hollywood loves a good comeback story - and there’s no bigger comeback in the industry this year than 3D. Indeed, DreamWorks Animation boss Jeffrey Katzenberg hails it as the third great shift in cinema history: from silent films to talkies, from black and white to colour and now from 2D to 3D. Katzenberg trusts so zealously in the future of 3D that he has announced that all future DreamWorks Animation films are going to be made for 3D.

He has good reason for his belief. 3D movies are riding on a wave of resurgence, if their numbers and box office figures are anything to go by. Beginning in the 1920s, the fad of 3D came and went twice- first in the 1950s with movies like "House of Wax" and "13 Ghosts”" and more recently in the 1970s and 1980s with films like "Jaws 3D". Then in the 1990s and the first half the decade, 3D films almost disappeared from screens (save for the occasional "Spy Kids 3D" or "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl").

But the first 9 months of this year saw a total of 18 3D movies released in the United States, with close to 10 of them playing in Singapore (some of which like "Caroline" are still making their way to our shores). And it seems audiences just can’t get enough of that third dimension- recent 3D releases have typically grossed about three to five times more at the box office than their 2D counterparts, and that is despite playing at fewer venues.

Bob Whitehill, Pixar’s 3D expert and driving force behind their first 3D feature “Up”, says that 58 per cent of "Up’s" US$290 million in ticket sales came from 3D screenings. It’s not just "Up"; at this year’s 3D Entertainment Summit, Screen Digest analyst Charlotte Jones echoes that 3D has been a main revenue driver for this year’s summer blockbusters.

“Without 3D premium pricing, the summer would not have registered as positive,” she says. Moreover, she adds that where 3D has permeated a genre (like in the animated arena), titles not available in 3D are at a significant disadvantage. That explains why almost all the major movie studios are planning their animated movies in 3D- including "Toy Story 3", "Cars 2", "Happy Feet 2", "Smurfs 3D", "Yogi Bear" and "Shrek Forever".

But it’s no coincidence that the current stereoscopic craze is focused on the genre. 3D, which requires two camera views- one representing the left eye and the other representing the right- are accomplished more easily in digitally animated worlds simply by generating another camera view in the computer.

Live-Action 3D Is Complicated

Shooting a live-action 3D film with camera rigs is much harder. In order to replicate our stereoscopic view, filmmakers shoot with two cameras placed a certain distance apart. This interaxial distance determines the perceived depth of the scene, also known as volume. “The wider you separate the cameras, the more 3D volume there is,” explains Phil McNally, global stereo effects supervisor at DreamWorks Animation. “But if you shoot too small, and scale up too much, viewers get a headache.”  

Moreover, filmmakers also need to calculate the zero parallax setting, or ZPS, the point where the two digital images converge onscreen. ZPS determines what appears to occur in front of the plane of the screen and what seems to happen behind the screen. A good case-in-point is Disney’s live-action 3D feature G-Force.

In order to create the stereoscopy effects, Sony Pictures Imageworks used a technique known as dimensionalizing- where artists take a 2D image and pick the layers where they want to create depth. Scott Stokdyk, visual-effects supervisor at Imageworks, explains how big the endeavour was: “Turning G-Force into 3D made every shot a VFX shot and we ended up having over 1800 shots in the movie. Spiderman 3 only had 900.”

The Digital Aid

Without digital technology, it’s probably impossible to do a live-action 3D movie with animated characters like G-Force. But audiences have a lot more to thank digital technology for the revival of 3D.

In the past, the two cameras that were required to shoot a scene in 3D had to be aligned the correct distance apart by hand. They also had to capture the scene in perfect time with each other- which is quite impossible given that the movement of film through a camera in itself causes distortion.

Projection in theatres was also problematic as it was not possible to perfectly align the two projectors. The need to repair the reels of film during its screening cycle also left discrepancies between the two reels. All this meant that after the novelty of the extra dimension wore off, viewers were left with a headache.

With digital technology, filmmakers now rely on computers to determine accurately the interaxial distance and ZPS and to align the cameras. Digital capture also eliminates distortion, and filmmakers can digitally correct any errors during filming in the post-production stage. Instead of two projectors for 3D, cinemas now need only a single digital projector outfitted with a photo-optical device, so problems of alignment and repair were in the days of the past.

Gone too are the red and cyan lensed glasses for audiences to experience stereoscopy. Known as anaglyphs, they were originally designed for black and white, so using them on colour film led to poor colour representation (as viewers who watched Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids 3D and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl can attest). Today, glasses are circularly polarized so watching a film in 3D no longer meant having to endure the distorted colours.

Pete Buckingham, head of distribution and exhibition at the UK Film Council puts it aptly: “The big game change is that we now have the technology to deliver a really good experience of 3D. It’s a combination of digital projection and new forms of glasses that iron out previous problems for a much more natural experience.”

The Future of 3D

Had filmmakers (and audiences) had their way, the resurgence of 3D would probably have taken place faster and earlier. But there’s still one hurdle that needs to be crossed- theatres are taking longer than necessary to replace their analogue projectors with digital ones. In fact, director James Cameron delayed the release of his highly anticipated stereoscopic epic Avatar in part to give exhibitors in the United States more time to convert to 3D capability.

The same can also be said of cinemas in Singapore. At present, there are only 10 screens capable of playing 3D movies (that’s less than 10% of the total number of screens here). The problem, as in the United States, is cost. The success of recent 3D movies though shows that it may very well be a worthy investment- especially for the future of the cinema business.

Worldwide, the film industry has in recent years been dealt a stiff challenge by home cinema and piracy. Amidst this climate of declining revenues, 3D may be the film industry’s best response to audiences- since it cannot yet be reproduced in lounge rooms or copied by pirates. And so far, it appears that this addition of a third dimension- depth- to the viewing experience has been more than successful in luring audiences back into cinema halls.

Bob Whitehill says that the 3D experience is like going from a filmed version of a play to watching the action live on stage. He adds: “I spend so much of my time watching our material in 3D that when I watch it in 2D it's almost as though you feel the sound is turned down or the screen isn't as big.”

"It's hard to quantify but there is definitely something palpable and something real about seeing it in 3D and feeling more connected to it and feeling more a part of that world.” And this ability to bring audiences into the film and make them feel a connection to the story may prove to be an unstoppable force from here on end.

“You can experience film as you actually see the world,” Pete Buckingham says. “Think about going from black and white to colour and even from mono to stereo- you’re not going to turn around and say to me that you get better sound with just one speaker.”

In the next page, we shall take a look at some of the announced 3D films that will be coming to our theatres soon >

"3D's Big Comeback" continues...

OTHER TITLES IN 3D:



The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D (2005)



Chicken Little (2005)



Bolt (2008)


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Monsters Vs Aliens (2009)


My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)


Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)


Up (2009)


G-Force (2009)


The Final Destination (2009)


Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs (2009)