24 TVBEurope News & Analysis 3D finds emotional depth
Leading filmmakers are beginning to treat stereo 3D less as a technical problem or cost issue than as a craft on a par with colour, lighting, composition and sound for enhancing storytelling. Adrian Penningtonand Carolyn Giardina tell the 3D story
A GROWING number of leading filmmakers have begun to explore how stereoscopy can enhance a story’s dramatic potential, by using the third-dimension as narrative element. In a sense the first phase of the new wave of digital stereo 3D has been passed. The technical issues, while not completely smoothed out, are well understood and the technology has become commoditised. It’s time then to concentrate on not just technically accurate 3D to create a comfortable viewing experience, but for a creatively enhancing 3D that lifts content into the artform of filmmaking. Certain filmmakers have
instinctively reached for artistic metaphors with which to describe the new medium. Working on Hugo, Martin Scorsese likened the technology to cubism and sculpture, understanding that characters and objects can be seen from new perspectives and need no longer be fixed to a flat canvas. “With sculpture you walk
around it so it becomes something different every place you look,” he says. “In doing so you are visually performing a tracking shot. Suddenly the sculpture has a very powerful presence with different aspects to it and that is the effect that 3D delivers.” Wim Wenders has also
compared 3D to sculpture. Struggling to find a way to capture the choreography of Pina Bausch on film, he claims, “3D could open out the flatness of the cinema screen and give dance the depth and sculptural quality it needed to work cinematically.” Filmmakers have traditionally
represented depth using a variety of techniques that have become ingrained in our understanding of what it means to watch a motion picture. Techniques such as depth of field, movement, framing,
‘roundness’ or simply ‘give me more/or less’ 3D. “Filmmakers are adopting a
new language to describe how they want the 3D to work for a particular scene,” observes Jamie Beard, a pre-visualisation supervisor who worked with Steven Spielberg on The Adventures of Tintin. “It is not an exact science and there is no creative industry bible you can refer to. Consequently, descriptions can be a little broad, often using a very emotional type of language, but nonetheless one that is understood in context.” All of this presumes that rather than isolated or added-on, stereo 3D is embedded into the design of the film and all other craft tools from the get-go.
“We are headed
perspective and other cues like shadow and texture can convey the depth of a scene. Yet, as Wenders argues, “We
have to deal with an art that has established itself over a century, with an incredibly intricate and elaborate grammar and vocabulary that we love and cherish, but which we should perhaps see as some sort of a mistake — a two-dimensional film with the second eye missing. “If we agree that 3D is indeed not only a new technology, but also a new film language, it is obvious that it needs its own grammar and its own vocabulary.”
New visual grammar Getting there means shifting the focus of what it means to think about 3D from a technical discipline or a cost equation toward the creative potential of stereo to enhance mood or emote
RTW TM3 at the Proms By Jake Young
COVERAGE FOR BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall London was taken care of by SIS LIVE from two trucks, Mastersound and
OB5. In Mastersound SIS LIVE’s Sound Supervisor Andy Payne was responsible for the sound balance of the HD Proms in 5.1. At his instigation, realtime experiments using EBU’s
character or help convey a connection with an actor’s performance, a landscape or a narrative. Already terms
from the story telling. The point is that when used as an integral part of the filmmaking process, 3D helps create a unique emotional response that, were you to see the same film in 2D, then the emotional content would be diminished.” Those filmmakers we
interviewed believe passionately that 3D is a creative discipline and that only a creative approach will determine whether stereo 3D will this time stay for good. We selected to case study the
toward a day when 3D will be accepted as matter
like ‘convergence’, ‘interocular’ and ‘screen plane’ are forming part of the burgeoning new visual grammar that might soon become as natural to filmmakers as the ‘close-up’. A new stereo language could
of fact just as colour design, sound or the absence of sound, but it will take dialogue between
filmmakers to push and
change the perception of 3D and to give it a new language” Martin Scorsese
get incredibly technical, wrapped up in calculus for measuring interaxial distances against focal length or analysing disparity values for every pixel. Yet many of the artists we interviewed say that they prefer to use more descriptive and instinctual terms such as dial up (or dial down) the stereo, ‘punchy’ or ‘shallow’, ‘volume’, ‘immersive’ and
loudness recommendation R128 was also being trialled. Julian Gough of Noises Off was the co-Sound Supervisor for the project. Being independent he works with many different companies and with the interest in R128 at the Proms was looking for an audio meter that would be portable and provide him with
“It’s hard to simply separate out 3D and state with certainty of what it brings to a drama,” says Rob Legato, the Oscar winning visual effects supervisor for Hugo. “You may as well ask what function colour alone has on the impact of the drama or how you divorce selective focus depth of field, lighting and production design
accurate loudness measurements and PPMs. Having contacted Aspen Media, RTW’s UK distributor, Gough purchased a six-channel RTW TM3 to use with stereo or 5.1. TM3 complies with all the latest international loudness standards including EBU R128 and incorporates single-channel and summing bar graphs, loudness
very best 3D work in each genre since the inception of the new age of digital 3D filmmaking in 2008 and have talked to the key filmmakers involved. These include directors Martin Scorsese (Hugo), Wim Wenders (PINA), Henry Selick (Coraline), Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon) and Baz Luhrmann (The Great Gatsby) as well as the teams behind Avatar, Flying Monsters 3Dand U23Dand live sports productions like the FIFA World Cup 2010. As Martin Scorsese argues: “3D is an element to be used like sound and colour but when new things are introduced there is always a resistance to change. We are headed toward a day when 3D will be accepted as matter of fact just as colour design, sound or the absence of sound, but it will take dialogue
between filmmakers to push and change the perception of 3D and to give it a new language. The
technology will inevitably find a
way to become less expensive. At a certain point 3D will be as inexpensive to use as colour or the digital intermediate process and when it finds that level it will become normal.”
Exploring 3D: The New
Grammar of Stereoscopic Filmmaking, by Adrian Pennington and Carolyn Giardina, is published by Focal Press.
range and numerical displays for measuring loudness.
Gough commented: “I’m very
impressed with the configurability of the TM3. It’s so easy, using the Devicer software, to configure presets determined by the job I’m doing. I’ve never come across this before.”
www.rtw.de
www.tvbeurope.com September 2012
Photo credit: “How To Train Your Dragon” © 2010, Courtesy of DreamWorks Animation
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84