Creative Cow Magazine Stereos Copic

THE MAGAZINE FOR MEDIA PROFESSIONALS WORKING IN FILM, AUDIO, VIDEO, MOTION GRAPHICS, IMAGING AND DESIGN
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THE MAGAZINE FOR MEDIA PROFESSIONALS WORKING IN VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO, MOTION GRAPHICS, IMAGING & DESIGN
Creative COW
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C R E AT I V E CO M M U N I T I E S O F T H E W O R L D
M A G A Z I N E
M AY / J U N E 2 0 0 9
CREATIVE COW MAGAZINE

A CREATIVECOW.NET PUBLICATION In This Issue:
PUBLISHERS: Tim Wilson’s Column ............................................. 8
Ron & Kathlyn Lindeboom
The Back Forty with Ron Lindeboom ............... 50
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER:
Tim Wilson
magazine@creativecow.net
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS:
John Daro, Greg Foster,
Brian Gardner, Jason Goodman,
Chris Heuer, Bernie Laramie,
Jim Mainard, Ray Zone
LAYOUT & DESIGN:
Tim Wilson, Mack De Cypress
MAGAZINE ADVERTISING:
Ellen Parker
eparker@creativecow.net
8 Perception & The Art of 3D Storytelling
WEBSITE ADVERTISING: 3D adds another element to the storyteller’s toolkit: depth
Tim Matteson
tmatteson@creativecow.net
ONLINE SYSTEMS ADMIN: 16 Big Pictures from Tiny Cameras
Abraham Chaffin Stereoscopic cameras come in all sizes, so says Bernie Laramie
abraham@creativecow.net
CONTACT US:
magazine@creativecow.net 22 FotoKem Adds 3D DI for the Future
(805) 239-5645 voice An industry leader redefines itself, adding 3D DI to its workflow
(805) 239-0712 fax
Creative COW Magazine is published bi-monthly by

CreativeCOW.net (Creative Communities of the World) 26 All In! Dreamworks Animation Goes All 3D
at 2205 Villa Lane,, Paso Robles, CA 93446. (805) 239- Dreamworks Animation commits to 100% 3D for all its new films
5645. Printed at Rodger & McDonald Printing, Carson,
California. Postage paid at Carson, California. U.S. sub-
scription rates are free to qualified subscribers. Creative
COW is a registered trademark of CreativeCOW.net. All 30 IMAX: The Biggest Name in 3D Films
rights are reserved. Magazine contents are copyright © The head of IMAX reveals what they look for in a good 3D story
2009 by Creative COW Magazine. All rights are reserved.
Right of reprint is granted only to non-commercial edu-
cational institutions such as high schools, colleges and
universities. No other grants are given. 32 The 3D Zone
The opinions of our writers do not always reflect those An expert on 3D filmmaking looks at its past to reveal its future
of the publisher and while we make every effort to be
as accurate as possible, we cannot and do not assume
responsibility for damages due to errors or omissions.
38 The 3DVX: Uncompressed 10bit HD RAW
LEGAL STATEMENT: All information in this magazine is How filmmakers turned two DVXs into a stereoscopic rig
offered without guarantee as to its accuracy and appli-
cability in all circumstances. Please consult an attorney,
business advisor, accountant or other professional to dis-
cuss your individual circumstances. Use of the informa- 44 Turning Nosferatu into Orlok the Vampire 3D
tion in this magazine is not intended to replace profes- New generation tools speed the stereoscopic process
sional counsel. Use of this information is at your own risk
and we assume no liability for its use. Cover photo of IMAX London by Robert Aleck, www.cynexia.com
4 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

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Creative COW Magazine
Storytelling, Reality, and “Utopians of the Image”

From the time
we first heard
U topians of the Image. That’s an evocative phrase, isn’t it? Ray Zone uses it
in his article in this issue of the COW Magazine. We look at the world and
see motion, he says, so put our pictures in motion. We live in a three-dimensional
world, so we make those motion pictures in 3D. It is inevitable that the way we ex-
stories as perience the world makes its way into our storytelling.
Not that mimicking reality is the goal. The earliest filmmakers embraced the
humans, we ways that film is different from reality. It guided them in the creation of film’s fun-
have wanted to damental visual vocabulary — starting with the Cut. Even though we see them
together, nobody can be on both sides of an edit, in either time or space. After the
be persuaded by invention of the Cut, well, reality is gone, and anything is possible.
The same is true for all of the tools that we have at our disposal. For example,
illusions. a quick look at the before and after section of any colorist’s reel will show you how
the artistry of color only begins with the colors you see in the world. From cave
paintings to CGI, from firelight to three-point lighting, from cartoons to the canons
When we are, of history — reality is simply one of the tools that serves the storyteller.
we never say, As artists, we can more effectively manipulate audiences when we understand
how they perceive the world, and then start messing with it. And the more recog-
“That could nizable the elements we use to tell a story, the more persuasive we can be. As audi-
ence members, we know that there are no killer robots, and that these actors aren’t
never happen,” really lovers dying in each other’s arms — yet it bothers us when we sense that it’s
not true. From the time that we first heard stories as humans, we have wanted to
because it just be persuaded by illusions. When we are, we never say, “That could never happen,”
did. no matter how fantastic, because in the world that storytellers and audiences enter
together, it just did happen.
Depth is one of those fundamental perceptions that we can use to make our
stories more persuasive. One form of dimension or another has been part of visual
storytelling for a very long time, at least since perspective was added to painting
— probably earlier, but that’s about as far back as I can go without, you know, actu-
ally looking it up. We have more ways to manipulate depth — and to do so more
effectively — than we have ever had before. We are on the verge of a new age of
cinematic storytelling, says Brian Gardner in these pages, in which we won’t talk
about going to a “3D movie” any more than we say that we’re going to the “talkies”
today. “3D movies” will just be “movies.”
I’m oversimplifying that part of Brian’s very elegant discussion, and floating
merrily down the stream from Ray’s, but Utopia need not be a myth. It’s possible to
use 3D images in a way that neither mimics reality nor annoys us, that serves story-
telling on an equal footing with motion, sound, color, and the Cut.
Reading this issue, you’ll be reminded of how early we are in this stage of its
evolution, and the extent to which we’re still very much making it all up as we go
along. You might also recall that Utopia wasn’t just a place, but a community, as you
read stories by people taking extreme measures to tell stories the way that they
want to, and empowering the people around them to do the same.
In the end, even the most cynical of us has enough hope to sit in the dark and
say, “Tell me a story.” The artists in this issue add one more dimension of human
visual perception to their stories as they reply, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

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Perception
& The Art of
3D Storytelling
By working in the area between what you see, and what you can see, Brian Gardner
is helping re-write the rules of 3D filmmaking —
right before your very eyes.
O ur human perceptual systems have been driv-

ing changes in our entertainment media, one
sensor at a time.
Since we are built to see motion, pictures naturally
moments more romantic, scary moments more scary. I
use 3D to create an emotional undercurrent.
I start by making a huge graph, the depth score
of the movie, to show where every major element is in
evolved into motion pictures. Motion pictures evolved space, relative to each other, and to the screen.
to incorporate sound, color, 3D sound, and 3D vision. I also make notes about the size of the space. For
We use all of these, all day long. There’s no reason we example, when the 3D goes deep behind the screen,
would want to give any of them up when we watch a you get this large empty space, this feeling of the
movie. grandeur of God, the vastness of the possibilities. I
When sound first came out, a lot of people com- generally like to put that right at the act one climax,
plained that it was a gimmick. “So, what’re you gonna as the character goes off to explore the new world, to
do, have every movie be a musical now?” They didn’t convey that sense of adventure. That’s an example of
think about the emotional impact of hearing just regu- what I mean by using 3D depth to underscore emo-
lar dialogue’s nuances, nor of a full soundtrack. They tional dynamics.
were so used to working another way that it never
occurred to them to ask, what becomes possible now ALL THE CRAYONS
that wasn’t possible before? When color came into movies, people started with
That’s where we are with 3D. It has been treated technical questions — how do we chemically develop
like a gimmick, but we are starting to think about how the film? But they also had to ask questions like, what
it can be used as a creative tool. does it mean to the story to choose a red dress rather
My own goal isn’t to make 3D “real.” I don’t want than a yellow dress?
to make it a simulation. I treat 3D the same way that That was exactly the pattern when I started work-
people use a soundtrack. I use 3D to make the romantic ing on “Coraline.” I began with the technical side. I
Brian Gardner
Los Angeles, California USA
Brian’s diverse experience includes everything from directing stage plays to

being a technical director, 3D artist, or technology supervisor on visual effects
blockbuster movies, like “X-Men”, “The Matrix Reloaded, “Babe”, and many oth-
ers. “I don’t usually get interviewed,” he tells us with a laugh. “I’m hoping that I
can change the industry by sneaking around, and talking to people in private,
one-on-one.” We’re happy to help save him a few steps as he reaches a lot more
“ones.”

showed the crew, the camera crew, and the effects de- ley, Chris Peterson, and I then spent several lunches
partment some basic rules about how to place things discussing how to approach it. I don’t know what the
in depth, and hazards to avoid, like mismatched reflec- final percentage was, but I imagine that over a third
tions and nearby objects straddling the edges of the of “Coraline” has some sort of shallow focus. It worked
image. very, very well for the storytelling, because of Pete’s
There were also some issues specifically related artistic vision as a DP.
to stop motion, like planning 3D for forced perspec- I think that this emphasis on storytelling first,
tive sets, shooting single camera 3D through rain and rather than 3D itself, is one of the two reasons why I
windshields, and resolving 3D strobing artifacts with got hired. By the time that line producer Harry Linden
motion blur in post. brought me in, the producers of “Coraline” had spo-
Once they became familiar with these kinds of ken to a lot of stereoscopic experts before me. There
things, I found that they became more and more in- had been a focus on technical aspects of the produc-
terested in my story notes, and how that applied to tion — not hurting people’s eyeballs was almost like
their 3D work. “Why do I want Coraline in front of the their paramount concern. To me, it’s a given. I don’t
screen, versus behind the screen?” Once you under- even put it on my list of issues.
stand the emotion you want to get out of the shot, you Other people were trying to maximize the 3D im-
can think about how to use 3D to evoke it. pact. Some just approached it with the specific goal of
“Coraline” was really the first 3D movie to explore getting more butts in the seats. I got the feeling that,
soft focus through shallow depth of field, which was by the time I came along, everyone they’d talked to
considered a big no-no in 3D. It’s why the other stereo had a different approach, but all with technical mind-
experts who were interviewed for “Coraline” before sets.
me told the DP, Pete Kozachik, not to use it. I guess I was the only one who talked about 3D
When I met Pete, he was upset. It looked like they as a storytelling medium. While there are technical is-
were going to prevent him from using depth of field sues with 3D, film has technical issues, cameras have
and rack focus blurs in the movie, and he felt that technical issues, lighting and costume — everything
these were incredibly useful artistic tools for him. He has technical issues. But 3D isn’t a technical problem
didn’t want to lose them, just because was doing a 3D to be solved. It’s an artistic tool, alongside other artis-
movie. tic tools.
The first thing I said when I got on is, “No, Pete I think that there are probably a few people in the
needs this.” Not only can you do depth of field blurs 3D community who don’t like the fact that I’ll advise
in a 3D movie, but you should do depth of field blurs people to use a shallow amount of depth for certain
in a 3D movie. scenes, but I like to use all the colors in my crayon
The general rules of using DOF in 3D are differ- box.
ent than they are in 2D, of course, so Pete, John Ash- That’s why there’s no such thing to me as an op-
timum amount of depth. That would
be like having an optimum amount of
light. Sure, there’s a certain amount of
light you need if you want to see every-
thing perfectly, see all of the colors ac-
curately — but I wouldn’t use that kind
of light in a horror movie. You want to
pick what’s appropriate for the story
you’re trying to tell.
The director of “Coraline,” Henry
Selick, is very much about the story.
Hearing me talk about how to invoke
emotions with 3D must have struck a
harmonic in him. I could see his eyes
twinkle. He then said a few kind words
to me, and I received the job offer short-
ly afterwards.
MATH AND PERCEPTION

I think that the other reason I was hired
is that I can explain a lot of the math
stuff in plain English.
People have a lot of false assump-
tions about the way that the human vi-
sual system works. I hear people saying
that your eyes are 2 ½ inches apart, and
Creative COW Magazine — The Stereoscopic 3D Issue 9

that if you look at something in front of you, your eyes much stranger than that.
kind of cross as you look at the thing, what’s called You actually only have about 3 degrees of high
convergence. And the further and further away the ob- resolution, and about 11 degrees of medium resolu-
ject is, the less and less your eyes cross, so that if you tion. Everything else is very low resolution. In fact, eyes
were to look at something at infinity, then both your are almost entirely motion sensors. They see color for
eyes would be looking straight ahead. the thing you’re looking at, and about three degrees
Which means that, to them, if you were to put in- around it. Everything else fades into grayscale.
finity on a cinema screen, then the furthest separation And the only thing that’s really in focus is the
one object can have between the left and right eyes thing that you’re looking at, and maybe a couple of
would be 2 ½ inches. That was the mantra of 3D ex- other things around it. Most of what you see is out of
perts, that you can’t go more than 2 ½ inches of paral- focus. You just don’t know that, because every time
lax behind the screen. you look at something, it’s in focus!
I told Henry, well, that’s the English-y explanation Also, the veins don’t come up from behind and
of what they’re trying to say with their math — and it’s feed the retina. They come through a hole into the
wrong. eyeball, and spread out in FRONT of the retina. Your
Everybody thinks that the eye is like a camera. visual system actually has to erase the veins, and fill in
We have this nice little evenly-spaced resolution of x the missing parts of the picture.
and y, and the image goes straight through your pupil You don’t have to converge on something in order
and centers on the back of the retina, and all the veins to see it in 3D. You can look at something and still see
come up and feed it with oxygen from behind, and ev- the thing next to it in 3D — which means that all of the
erything is in focus all the time. math about looking AT something is wrong.
None of those things are true — the reality is So I told Henry, look, there’s the science of the real
DEPTH SCORING
The thick Black horizontal line represents the cinema’s At a glance, you can see that the sequence starts
movie screen. Everything above that line will be in rather calmly (the smooth parallel lines of the left side
front of the screen, toward the audience. Everything of the score), and gets dramatically more exciting as
under that Black line will be further away, behind the it goes oninto the climax of the scene — the jaggiest
movie screen. lines to the right side of the score.
The thin vertical dotted lines represent the cuts in The lines vertically squeeze together and spread
the sequence, from one shot to another. apart, as the character’s emotional state swings, driv-
The solid Red line is the location in depth of the ing his failures and successes at each moment of the
Point Of Attention — what the audience is looking at. scene’s conflict.
Usually, the POA is the main character in the shot. The main turning point in the character’s emo-
The dashed Orange line is whichever object is tional crisis is the sharp peak at the middle of the score.
nearest to the audience. It could be a character, a prop, This is a gripping moment for the audience.
or a piece of scenery. You can see that I’ve staged the scene’s depth in
The dark solid Blue line reprents the object fur- four movements, with markedly different line quali-
thest away from the audience. Often this is a moun- ties: curvature, separation, beats, and parallelism.
tain, some trees, or the far wall of a room. This divides the scene into four distinct emotional
The dashed sky blue line is the sky (if visible). Since stages, which I want the audience to experience during
this is an outdoor sequence, the sky is in this score. these story beats.
The amount of space between the two dashed Basically, I try to artistically direct the 3D to take
lines tells you the total amount of depth in the scene. the audience on an emotional ride, so that they will
Their placement up/down on the score tells you the feel the story more intensely.
placement of the scene in depth, relative to the movie Isn’t that what movie making is all about?
screen.

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K i P r o . B e c a u s e i t m a t t e r s .
world, which is the math these used to having their perceptual
other guys are doing. And then systems in that much conflict for
there’s the science of visual long.
perception, what your EYES In 1953, Raymond and Ni-
are capable of, and what your gel Spottiswoode created a
MIND is capable of perceiving short called “The Black Swan.”
from that. They believed that the “movie”
Because eyes have to erase world should never come into
veins to reconstruct images, the the “audience” world. It was an
mind is used to making things issue of separatism. They ratio-
up. It sometimes creates a re- nalized that they could relocate
lationship between things that this window into a fixed posi-
the real world may not have tion, away from the theater wall,
put there. For example, you see by adding a static black mask
a chessboard next to a person, to their film, which was made
and even if they’re not playing, slightly different for the left and
you automatically assume that right views.
that person is smart — just because of what’s sitting In fact, they floated it halfway out into the the-
next to them. John Singleton Copley used to put fruit ater to prevent any 3D object from accidentally com-
next to the women in his portraits, to imply that they ing into the “audience” world. There would never be
are more fruitful people. a window violation, because everything would always
I use 3D to create similar perceptual associations. be behind the window.
If I want to show that one person’s life is deeper than Audiences didn’t like it at all. They could clearly
someone else’s, then I actually make the space around see this static window floating in front of them, and
them deeper. You associate that person with depth. I it was distracting. Also annoying was that it created
can put another person in a shallower space, and you retinally rivalrous areas, large areas at the sides of the
automatically think that that person has a shallower frame which could only be seen in one eye. It created
life. more problems than it solved, and was never used
I may not squeeze the space so much that people again in 3D movies.
notice this and say, “Hey, this a deep space, and that Now, when I was in college, I studied the stereo-
one’s shallow.” But I play with the depth enough so grams of Béla Julesz, a perceptual psychologist. He
that people feel it. They subconsciously pick it up the used what looked like random dots to create stereo
same way that they subconsciously associate some- images on paper. One of my homework assignments
body’s intelligence with a nearby chessboard. was to replicate his experiments. And I messed it up!
But it was kind of an interesting mistake, so I started
to explore it — which is the difference between a tech-
PERCEPTION, DEPTH nologist and an artist. Technologists find bugs, and fix
One of the keys to using depth as a creative tool is to them. Artists find bugs, and explore them.
understand how it works in relation to the frame. I started grappling with, “Why is the frame of the
When you watch a 2D movie, you’re aware that the stereo image floating up off the page? Why don’t I per-
screen is on a wall. In 3D, the screen acts more like a ceive the paper as falling backward, away?” Instead of
hole in the wall, a window into the world of the story, random dot stereograms, I started applying it to ani-
with action taking place in a physical space on either
side of it.
If there is an actor who is only partially onscreen CORALINE
in 2D, you understand that the rest of the actor is “be- I really appreciate having worked with Henry Selick
hind” the frame. But if you were to take that exact and PK and the camera crew. You fight an awful
same shot in 3D, and the character was on the audi- uphill battle on many jobs, against people who
ence side of the screen, you’d see half the character just don’t get it. This was the first show that I ever
floating in the air! worked on where everybody got it. It was amazing.
Part of your perceptual system says, “I can only Someone would build a puppet, build a set, then
see half of the person, because the other half of him is the next person would come over and “plus” it, add
behind the window, so he’s behind the window.” Then something even cooler. Then the next person would
your stereo system says, “The window frame is behind come along and plus that. I think that if “Coraline”
him, but half of him is way in FRONT of the window! wasn’t in 3D, you’d still see that amazing magic.
That’s not possible!” I’m hoping that the 3D adds to that without
We call that a “window violation,” when some- being noticeable, or distracting from it, and instead
thing you see breaks your perceptual system. This pumps up the emotional volume and pluses it the
conflict causes eyestrain and headaches. If there’s a lot same way that everybody else’s work plused it.
of motion, it can even induce vomiting. People are not

mation and realized, “Hey, I’ve got this floating stereo 3D is a lot like sound was, in the way it revolutionized
window, and I can move it all over the place!” the industry.
I realized that I could lift it off the screen, or push Back then, sound came out and suddenly those
it behind the screen. I could tilt the top toward or away new movies were called “talkies.” Some number of
from the audience, kind of a Dutch Tilt but in 3D space. years later, they’re not talkies anymore. They’re just
I could rotate it, and even animate it — anything at all. called “movies,” and suddenly the other things are
By digitally manipulating the image borders, the win- called “silent movies.”
dow can be highly dynamic. The same thing is going to happen with 3D. Right
With the frame moving around so much, you’d now, we call them 3D movies, but a few years from
think that it would be easy to detect. But when com- now, they’ll just be “movies,” and the old 2D movies
bined with the animation on the screen, you can’t see really will be seen as “flatties.” That’s the way history
it at all. goes.
It turned out that the failure of the Spottiswoode I believe that art is that gap between what you
brothers was that their floating window was static, experience in reality and what your perceptual system
which made it obtrusive. The new Dynamic Floating is capable of experiencing. If you can play in that gap
Windows, which were moving all over the place, were and show things that the real world might not natural-
not even visible at all. ly present, but that you can present on a movie screen
Their invisibility came because they are dynamic. —that’s where the art comes into it.
It was hard for me to convince other industry I see 3D undergoing a revolution. It has gone from
people that Dynamic Floating Windows would work, a technical problem focused around cameras, into a
because the idea seemed so counter-intuitive to them. cinematic tool, and now, into an artistic tool.
They thought that the window changing so much I can’t talk about the specific movies, but I’m cur-
would be too distracting to the audience. rently working on two shows almost like an art direc-
This is like the evolution of editing. It took a little tor, where I’m coming on fairly early, talking about
while to figure how to make cuts invisible. Now, it’s everything — the set designs, and costume design,
weird that a cut that changes camera position, maybe and how all of it fits into the gap between reality and
the position in time, sometimes even both — the au- perception, the space between what we see, and what
dience doesn’t notice it. People are fine with it. Yet, a we can see.
Jump Cut, when the camera positions are more similar, That’s the space where people can perceive some-
is jarring. At first, invisible cuts seemed illogical. thing emotionally, even if it wouldn’t naturally present
The discovery of Dynamic Floating Windows sud- itself in the real world, even if they can’t consciously
denly opened this whole range of possibilities for 3D see it and can’t put their finger on it.
storytelling. It gave us the ability to get rid of all the They FEEL it. I love playing with that.
window violations, and gave us a tool for dynamically
controlling how we use depth in a scene. 
The first time I used dynamic floating windows

for storytelling was on “Meet The Robinsons,” and it
was a revolution that quickly spread. Almost every 3D CHICKEN LITTLE:
commercial animated film since then has used them — A GENERATION’S WATERSHED
“Beowulf,” “Bolt,” “Monsters vs. Aliens,” Pixar’s “Up,” Ray Zone calls the release of Disney’s “Chicken
and even “Fly Me to The Moon” from nWave Pictures, a Little 3D” the watershed event in this generation
relatively small production company. of 3D exhibition — and says that it might never
“Meet The Robinsons” wasn’t just the first time have happened without Brian Gardner.
that I got to use Dynamic Floating Windows in a movie. “I stay after hours on a film that isn’t 3D,”
It was also the first time that I really started thinking of Brian told us, “just to do sections of it in 3D and
them as not just a fix for a technical 3D problem, but show it around, in hopes,” he adds with a laugh,
as a way to use the 3D window as an artistic tool and a “that maybe I can convert people!”
cinematic element. Ray recalls that Brian was working as a visual
I used them with stop-motion in “Coraline,” and effects doctor on “Chicken Little” in March of
I intend to use them for a live-action movie that I’m 2005, and just for his amusement, made a second
working on, still in the planning stages. This may very eye view of it. Disney execs happened by as he
well be the first time that Dynamic Floating Windows was playing back an anaglyph view, and were so
will be used for live action. impressed that they decided to release the film in
I certainly hope so! Though, somebody may get 3D — in November!
there first, but it would be unfortunate if someone It was the first “wide” release for RealD (84
beat me to using my own tool for live action 3D! screens), and the rest, as they say, is history. Or
depending on how you look at it, the future.
ART IN THE GAP
I like to call 2D movies “flatties,” because I think that

SPLIT BY A TABLE
While today’s digital technology has fixed the pro- your eye can’t fuse the two images. The misalign-
jection problems of the 50s, it introduces some ment can also induce or amplify a strobing or stut-
new ones. tering look.
3D cameras capture left and right eyes at the One of the ways that these issues manifest
same time, but single-projector solutions from themselves is interpenetration. We had a charac-
companies like RealD and Dolby don’t play them ter in “Meet The Robinsons” who walked closely
back at the same time. They use a time-alternating behind a table and then stopped. The false depth
system that triple-flashes very quickly: left eye/ from the projector made it look like the top half of
right eye, left eye/right eye, left eye/right eye, for him was in front of the table.
each frame. When he stopped, the top half snapped back,
This creates a certain amount of false depth. and the top and bottom were reunited behind the
Let’s say that something moves from left to right. table!
For some brief period of time, your left eye is go- So when you’re planning 3D movies in this
ing to be seeing the next frame, and the right eye new digital age, you actually have to plan knowing
is going to be seeing the previous frame. that there will be certain artifacts from the projec-
When you’re trying to fuse those images, tor. You have to make that character walk further
your brain can’t tell how much of that parallax is behind the table than he might have otherwise
stereoscopic parallax, and how much of it is mo- The audience will not notice the false depth,
tion parallax. as long as the character onscreen is not being split
If something goes up and down, then one eye by a table.
will see it at one height, and the other eye will see
it at another height. Your eye is not very forgiving n
of vertical misalignment, so if that jump is too far,

The stereo rig pictured here is
1.75 inches across, with an inter-
ocular distance of 16mm. The
pictures it’s taking? They’re for
an IMAX feature. Please insert
your favorite “size” joke here.
T I N Y S T E R E O S C O P I C R I G S
BIG PICTURES
A fter I worked on James Cameron’s “Aliens
of the Deep,” an IMAX 3D production, I
also become a testing facility that other filmmakers
are using. One aspect of testing is a little abstract, to
became interested in 3D myself. When my friend Jeff try to understand what 3D is capable of. There is also
Pierce said that he was interested in putting that kind more project-by-project testing. Here is the movie I
of a company together, it was really just a question of want to make, now how do I do it in 3D? Or, how will 3D
how we were going to take advantage of the opportu- shooting work underwater, or for motion control, or
nity we saw coming. for high-speed shooting? Finding these answers rep-
Jeff has a great creative background, and he has resents a growth curve for all of us — for them as film
a good tactical sense of how to make things work. I makers, and for us as a production services company,
thought that my experience as a producer made a trying to help them achieve their vision.
good combination to marry together, so we founded
Stereoscope as a production company, to create 3D THE RIGS
content. We have seen that there are still only a few compa-
We are a new company in the 3D world, around a nies making anything specifically to serve the rapidly
year old, which means that quite a few of our projects growing 3D community. Combine that need with the
have not yet been released. We’ve also been doing 3D very, very fast evolution of camera technology, and
post, both for ourselves and others. Our experience you have a healthy environment for creating some
has shown us that 3D workflow has to begin in the dramatic new stuff.
planning stages, and proceed from there into shoot- Lately, we have focused on the use of new smaller
ing. rigs. We are especially excited about the work we have
The studio we set up for our own 3D shooting has been doing with the tiny Iconix cameras. They’re un-
Bernie Laramie
Bernie is Stereoscope’s co-founder and COO. He has been a producer for more
than 30 years, for such series as “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “Dark Skies,”
and “Profiler.” He was the post supervisor for “Max Headroom,” and a design con-
sultant to Lucasfilm’s Droidworks for the creation of the Editdroid NLE, released
in 1984. Bernie is also a member of the Producer’s Guild, the Director’s Guild, the
Editor’s Guild, and SMTPE.

der two inches, and can actually shoot up to 2K, and from the German research firm, Fraunhoffer, called
other resolutions that are a long way from most of the the Cumina. The size for all of these is typically only
smaller cameras before this, which have mainly been an inch or two in any dimension, and they allow us to
used for security monitoring. make very small stereo rigs for POV, or that can fit into
We are now beginning to see an entire line of extremely tight quarters.
smaller cameras coming out. We’re currently work- We have just started an IMAX project called “Air
ing with one from Toshiba, the IK-HR1S HD, and one Race 3D.” It will follow people on the Warbird racing
circuit, the old P-51 Mustangs. Rigs built us-
ing these small cameras will get us into the
cockpit, underneath the dashboard, and oth-
er very tight places. They will allow a cool new
visual approach that has seldom been done
before in IMAX, really opening up an entire
new world.
We also have a beam-splitter system
wrapped into a comfortable handheld unit,
but we are going in other directions as well.
Prism systems look like lots of smoke and mir-
rors, but they can be a simple way to get 3D in
small spaces.
We use two cameras that are looking at
each other. A very high quality prism splits
the image, so that we have a full stereo HD
setup in about two inches of space. This is
one of the ways that we will be able to shoot
HD from, say, underneath foot pedals, behind
the joystick, and so on.
Periscope systems work some-
thing like a standard periscope,
only with two mirrors for the two
cameras, providing a 3D view as
they look out into the world. They
are ideal for situations where the
camera needs to come from un-
derneath the dashboard, or be-
hind the airplane’s cowl.
We have also been playing
with the Vision Research Phantom
65. It is most known for its ability
to shoot at very high speeds for
very smooth slow motion, but it’s
an exciting camera for us because
we can capture its full 4K uncom-
pressed signal to a stereo pair of
2K images — with a single camera,
and a single lens.
We have developed a mirror
system for this, called Narcissus.
There are four mirrors in front of
the lens. The lens looks directly
at two mirrors, and those mirrors
in turn look at two other mirrors.
We segment this in post to wind
up with two 2K streams from that
single 4K sensor in that single
camera.
While beam splitter rigs used
on many current major 3D produc-
tions have worked well, they have
a few major issues: they are big,

use two cameras, and lose at least one f-stop of
light loss.
With the Narcissus rig and a few of our other
mirror/prism rigs, we knew we were going to be
shooting in a high stress environments, in limited
space and at frame rates up to 1050fps. At these
frame rates you need a lot of light, and unlike the
beam splitters, our mirror/prism designs have vir-
tually no light loss through the system. We have
used our Phantom65/Narcissus rig on a Steadicam
at 144fps, and been very pleased with the results.
The other major advantage is using a single
camera and a single lens to make the whole rig
more compact. We also eliminate much of the
variation between “eyes” seen in an image cap-
tured in a dual camera system.
We have already used this on a proj-
ect called “Rally Around the World,” an
IMAX film on competitive road rallying.
The rig is built to military specifications,
so, even though it includes four mirrors,
it is very rugged, not delicate at all. We
have put the camera on the car, on the
bumper, wherever we want. Even though
there are high g-forces and tremendous
vibrations, the mirrors allow us to easily
control the 3D depth while we are shoot-
ing.
RECORDING AND MONITORING

We record to a number of different de-
vices. One we have used quite a bit is the
Rave from SpectSoft, a VTR replacement
that records up to 4:4:4 2K. It also has
a dual I/O that allows us to record both
streams to a single unit. Since these little
Iconix cameras we use have optical fiber
out, we can tuck the Rave in a remote
area far away from the cameras, and re-
cord straight from the CCDs.
We have also used the Codex porta-
bles, as well as something from a really
cool manufacturer, FFV (Fast Forward
Video). They make a small, almost shirt-
pocket recorder called the Elite HD. It
has HD-SDI out of a two and a half inch
hot-swappable SATA drive that records
J2K at 100 Mbits/second.
Of course, it helps to see what you’re
recording. We wanted a more efficient
way to monitor and adjust both cameras
in a stereo rig, which is why we started
working with SpectSoft’s 3D Live.
We can preview and control the ele-
ments that are critical to proper shoot-
ing, such as interocular and convergence
adjustments, one eye or the other, or —
what’s unique — both together.
3D Live gives us the ability to know

To find your nearest dealer and schedule a demonstration, please visit us at: http://tgv.locatereseller.com
that the shots we are getting are going to be usable in Final Cut Pro, and some motion graphics systems.
post while we’re still shooting.
Even if we choose to keep rolling and not to do a WHAT’S NEXT
lot of convergence and interocular adjustments at the Although I can’t tell you the specifics of the project it-
time, we can add notes to the metadata about what self, I can tell you about one of the rigs we’ve recently
we’re seeing during the shoot, and use that metadata developed for a government project: a 2D rig that com-
in post. bines eight Iconix cameras for shooting 360 degrees.
(The critical part of our 3D post is the Quantel The individual cameras are about one inch by
Pablo 4K. We also use Avid DS Nitris for editorial, some two inches, so the entire 8-camera rig is only about six
inches wide. I can hold it in my hand! We are now in
the finishing stage of post for the first project we shot
with it.
We are also just starting on a 3D movie called
“Dance Machine,” a rather ambitious project featuring
many, many kinds of dancing. It will be an all-location
shoot — in Roswell, New Mexico — and will feature
several of the small, rugged rigs I’ve mentioned. If we
were doing something like a Hannah Montana 3D con-
cert, we would go with a full-sized camera like the Sony
F900 or F950. Our goal here, though, is to be able to go
handheld, or placed into extremely tight quarters.
We are also working on a direct-to-DVD movie on
belly dancing, as well as a 14-episode web series called
“Stacks.” The immediate plan is to publish it on You-
Tube in 3D. We’re not sure, but we think that this will
be the first 3D webisode series.
Moving forward, there are two big headlines.
The first is that, despite hard economic times, we are
seeing widescale adoption of 3D theaters. We will see
much more expansion, especially outside the US.
The main focus now is obviously and correctly on
theaters. We have a reliable environment where peo-
ple can distribute the content they are creating. How-
ever, that same opportunity is about to present itself
in the home. Since Jeff and I both had backgrounds in
television, we knew from the beginning that this was
going to be the key push for our talents.
We are obviously just now at the beginning of
that, both for the distribution of theatrical movies
and for the creation of original pro-
gramming. There are still only a few
million 3D television sets out there,
and we are just now in the specifica-
tion stage for production and delivery
standards.
Our experience is that creating
3D content for all of these platforms
is a case of using integrated tech-
nologies, across the entire workflow.
It is not solely dependent on camera
rigs, or special post processes. It be-
gins with testing, where producers
can work through some of the details
of how they will approach the shoot,
and how they will work all the way
through post.
The key is to remember to look at
the big picture.

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How an industry leader redefines itself for the future
FotoKem: 3D DI
FotoKem opened as a film lab in 1963, and has continued to evolve and expand. Here are some of
the tools they’re using as the industry, and their business, now adds another dimension.
3D DI is generally the same as 2D DI, with some

variations depending on the cameras used,
and how the stereo rig is configured.
other: they just can’t get as close together as your eyes
are, and there are often problems, such as lens flares, or
a corner of duvateen slightly reaching into the frame,
that only show up in one eye, and not the other.
Parallel rigs are usually used for back of the house,
The advantages of each rig, especially related to
longer shots, and vistas. The convergence point of par-
distance, are why most shoots use both rigs.
allel cameras are at infinity.
A beam splitter is two cameras, perpendicular to
CAPTURE AND CONFORM
each other, with a two-way mirror angled between
The rigs we see are, all equipped with different flavors
them. The camera that’s pointing forward shoots
of cameras. I can tell you about two projects in a little
through the mirror. The other camera points down, and
detail because they’ve shipped already, “Hannah Mon-
is getting light bounced to it from the reflective side of
tana/Miley Cyrus: The Best of Both Worlds in 3D” and
the mirror. The advantage of this approach is that you
“Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience.” Hannah
can get much closer to your subject, so it works well
used Sony 950s and F-23s, and Jonas was mainly F-
for Steadicam dolly shots and close ups.
23s.
Once the footage comes into post, we begin mak-
Both recorded to the Sony HDCAM SRW-1 deck,
ing adjustments to balance the two eyes, as the camera
recorded 4:2:2 x 2, interleaved. That is, the SRW-1 can
that is shooting into the mirror tends to have a more of
record two 4:2:2 feeds to a single deck. Both of the
a yellow kind of green cast to it. It’s not necessarily lin-
cameras connect via HD-SDI, and the deck records
ear. Depending on the angle of the mirror, sometimes
Frame 1: left eye/right eye, then Frame 2: left eye/right
it’s just on half of the frame. While it’s not a rule, there
eye, and so on.
is often more vertical misalignment with beam splitter
We use the Quantel Pablo for virtually every as-
cameras than parallel cameras.
pect of our stereo post, and one of its great advantag-
Parallel rigs tend to have the kinds of problems
es is that it digitizes both eyes simultaneously from our
that you can imagine from two cameras next to each
John Daro
Burbank, California USA
John is a 3D colorist and DI specialist at FotoKem. He has also been a member

of Creative COW since 2003, spending much of his time in the Avid and After Ef-
fects forums. “Stereo imaging became a hobby of mine since my first version of
Photoshop,” he says, “and I love getting to work it with it professionally.”

SRW-5800 studio deck. This makes it incredibly easy My preference is to balance both of them first,
to conform: it loads both eyes from one EDL, always then bake that in so that the stereo pair is matching
keeping the stereo pairs together as one source clip identically. That’s because the way that we are work-
The Jonas Brothers and Best of Both Worlds con- ing right now, we grade on one eye and then we apply
certs were similar projects, the big difference being that grade to the second eye. If the eyes match, you
the time to complete each one. Hannah Montana was just throw the correction from one onto the other and
done in 11 weeks. For Jonas, we had four months, with you’re done.
the last two being heavy on the DI side of things. That’s in a perfect world. Usually we are under the
With Hannah we were involved from editorial dai- same kinds of time constraints and deadline pressures
lies through finishing. Jonas we were involved from that people faced on-set. In cases like that, I’ll grade
the time the tapes were pulled out of the deck. This in- one eye, apply that grade to the other eye, and then
cluded logging the tapes, dailies screenings, editorial do a balance correction to match those eyes together.
3d previews, an ever changing “on-line” conform, final After coloring, we make a convergence pass. This
color grading, 3D convergence choices, and ultimately is usually unsupervised, and is more technical than
digital cinema packages and tape deliverables. creative —typically to remove the bumps or misalign-
I put “on-line” in quotes because things were pret- ments that are part of the nature of live footage.
ty well online already. We initially loaded the original When the cameras aren’t calibrated perfectly, I
footage onto the Pablo, and played stereo video out to may need to rotate and scale some shots to make the
a Quvis DDR disk recorder. We then sent the drives to eyes match. If I have some of the problems in only one
Disney for their dailies screenings. eye that I mentioned earlier (lens flares, objects slight-
They started to cut, and by a week or so into the ly reaching into view, etc.), I use the Quantel Pablo to
dailies screenings, we started to see our first EDLs. composite the good eye into the eye with problem,
They came back to FotoKem, we pressed a button, and warping to match perspective and lens distortion.
in the snap of your fingers, we had our conform. We After this, a creative convergence pass is done
didn’t have to load any tape, because the footage from with the client to heighten the emotional impact of
the dailies was already on our drives. the stereo and help tell the story. During this pass, we
So, most of our 3D projects come in at 1920, shot may choose to make the stereo a little more subtle in
HDCAM SRW interleaved, at 4:2:2x2. We’re work- certain spots, just to give the eyes a break, or a little
ing on a VFX-heavy project now, being shot with the more extreme to punctuate key moments.
Sony F-35 at 4:4:4, which requires two separate decks, Because the world’s not perfect, I sometimes have
ganged together. to combine the technical and creative convergence
(The footage we’ve seen from the F-35 has been passes into one to meet the deadline.
absolutely amazing. I can’t get over
it — by far the most beautiful images
I’ve seen out of digital tech. I have no
doubt we’ll be seeing much more be-
ing shot with this camera very soon.)
We’re also starting to see some Sil-
icon Imaging and RED cameras bring-
ing in 2K files, which typically come
in on FireWire drives or LTO tape. Fo-
toKem has a new division called next-
LAB, which handles every aspect of
file-based workflows. We’ve just start-
ed it, and it’s already booming. They
convert the RAW files to DPX files that
I load into the Pablo from our shared
Isilon storage.
Most clients are shooting 4K with
the RED. When we receive the R3D files,
nextLAB debayers the images and pro-
cesses them to oversampled 2K images
before we load them to the Pablo. The Pablo has great compositing and convergence
features. Convergence tools are basically a symmetri-
3D GRADING cal DVE, andtake place in real time. If it’s a complicated
Crews do the best on their sets, but they have time 3D face replacement or something, I’d definitely use
crunches and deadlines, and sometimes the cameras a Flame, but for color, editing, compositing, layering,
aren’t necessarily matched perfectly. Maybe the black graphics, and working with stereo footage, Pablo is an
level on one eye is a bit lifted, maybe one eye is slightly all-inclusive box.
more magenta or something. For all the previews, we play the Pablo through an

NEC digital cinema DLP projector using the RealD sys-
tem, showing on a silver screen from Harkness.
RealD has an external peripheral called the “Z
Screen” that we mount on our single projector to get
stereo. It oppositely polarizes each eye while triple
flashing the image: going left eye/right eye, left eye/
right eye, left eye/right eye before advancing to the
next frame. It definitely reduces flicker, and it really
saves the headaches during long sessions.
I wear the RealD glasses even when I’m grading a
single 2D eye. They have a slight yellow-green tinge to
them, so without the glasses, the image would look a
slight bit more magenta than I would normally want it
for a neutral picture. Once I put the glasses on, though,
I can compensate for that.
When it comes time to get to the trim pass, I al- are watching 3D DVDs now. That’s why I’ve taken the
ways work with both eyes, in stereo, making any ad- time to develop some special tricks for anaglyph mas-
ditional color corrections needed as it plays tering. We essentially take the red channel from one
Working in Pablo takes place in real time, at full eye, and then the blue and green channels from the
res —no proxies! Two streams of files this size, with all other eye, and combine them with an additive transfer
of the effects we can lay on them, are going to need mode.
rendering on output though. Pablo balances real-time That’s at its most basic, and that’s about all I’m go-
performance with background rendering. ing to say about that. The rest of what I do is the secret
As I finish grading the first shot and move to the sauce, and I don’t mind saying that my anaglyph is a
second, Shot One starts rendering in the background. bit superior to a lot of the others out there.
When I move to Shot Three, Shot Two starts rendering.
By the time I get to the end of the sequence, every- DOWNSTREAM
thing is ready to play out from the beginning, with no Most immediately from here, I think that we’re going
waiting. to start seeing more 3D rigs coming directly from the
This process creates new media, but the conver- major camera manufacturers, rather than production
gence tools do not. They just allow you to make choices companies have to fabricate their own. Sony, Panavi-
about what appears on screen. They’re very interactive sion, Arriflex — I would expect to see all of these and
— we can tweak this, change that, and keep moving. more with stereo cameras and stereo rigs in the near
The client often says, “Push it ‘til it breaks! Now come future.
one step back.” They want to see it happening. You’ll also see a push to on-set workflows, as the
line between production and post-production contin-
DELIVERABLES ues to blur. Imagine shooting to Codex, S2, or other
We had a LOT of deliverables on the Jonas project, kinds of DDR. You could turn over the disks to the on-
starting with the digital cinema package. This is what location post group, such as nextLAB. They process
goes to the theater where you’d see it in stereo. the shots for editorial while simultaneously making
After that, we did a film out for international mar- 3D dailies packages.
ket. We’ve also finished a DVD extended version. For With a 3D-capable NLE on the set, the shots could
the DVD, we did versions in 2D and anaglyph 3D. Both be quickly tied together in a sequence for the director
of those went out to tape for mastering. and DP. They could make sure on the set that sequenc-
Anaglyph is important because this is how people es of shots are landing in 3D space along the lines that
they envisioned, and they will cut in with others
already shot.
Software companies will continue to de-
velop the 3D toolsets. Avid is already shipping a
3D-capable version of Media Composer that can
acquire and work with streams from both eyes
on the timeline. The next step will be the abil-
ity to make offline convergence choices on the
spot.
Online machines downstream will need to
read the metadata generated on-set from these
cameras and NLEs, and be able to apply it to the
full-resolution media in the online. It will hap-
pen.
Last year about 70% of the work I did was

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in stereo. I expect this

number to get closer to
90% this year as studios
produce more and more
3D content. In short, the
trend is “up” — no pun
intended with Disney’s
animated 3D film!
I think the num-
ber of editorial pre-
view conforms will fall
as NLEs gain ability to
work with stereo foot-
age — and while the of-
fline machines get bet-
ter equipped to handle
stereo, the finishing
machines will also gain
more powerful tools to
fix more complicated
issues, giving us even
more power as more
productions move into
3D.
Just as the 2D DI
toolset continues to ex-
pand, so will the 3D DI
toolset.

DreamWorks wasn’t the first to make a modern-day 3D animated movie. But they were the first
to commit to do nothing else, and to commit to start-to-finish 3D authoring for all of it.
W hen Dreamworks Animation began in 1997, it

very much had a start-up mentality, and the
company kept that entrepreneurial spirit as it has rein-
assets was a challenge.
At the time, there were not many software sys-
tems to do those kinds of things, which led to Dream-
vented itself many times over the years. Works creating its own technology team. I was in the
We were a relatively small team then, just big early group of folks added to the software develop-
enough to focus on one movie at a time. The number ment team, to begin building the tools that could sup-
today is more like 1500 employees, and we are able to port the kind of filmmaking we wanted to do. We made
have many more production pipelines open. We are those kind of films with “Prince of Egypt,” through “El-
now typically working on three greenlit movies at the dorado,” “Spirit,” and “Sinbad.”
same time, with at least three behind those that are After “Sinbad,” we branched out into all CG films,
ready to fit into the next slot. At any given time, we trained traditional artists to use CG tools, and rewrote
might have eight or 10 productions in some stage of our toolset.
development. Research and development was the arm of the
Our first film, “Prince of Egypt,” was released in technology organization that was responsible for all
1998. It was a 2D animated film with a lot of CG effects the applications that the artists would use to make the
in it — things like fire, or the effects around the parting films. Some of that was integration with third-party
of the Red Sea. People tried to come up with words for software like Maya, and writing plug-ins. We also did
it. I think somebody called it a “tra-digital” film! I’m not things like determining new algorithms, for example,
sure that it fit exactly, but it was an interesting combi- for creating water solutions for the ocean surfaces in
nation of words to describe our hybrid approach. “Sinbad.”
The kinds of visual effects we were adding were The general charter of R&D in those years was to
quite uncommon in any kind of animated film at the push the envelope, to try to do more in an all-digital
time, partly because CG was expensive, and partly be- film than had been done before, bearing in mind the
cause the registration of the CG elements with the 2D creative appetite of the show.
Jim Mainard
Jim is the Head of Production Development for DreamWorks Animation, and was respon-
sible for the studio’s transition to stereoscopic 3D filmmaking. Before the entertainment
business, Jim’s background was aerospace, where, among many other things, he was the
Principal Systems Engineer for the Hubble Space Telescope’s ground station planning sys-
tems.

All photos in this article are ©2009 by Dreamworks Animation. All rights are reserved.
On the creative side, we had to discover the chal-

lenges of color grading and the implications of what
that meant for 3D filmmaking. Along the way, we
found that none of the cheats we had been using in 2D
would work anymore. Once you add depth, they be-
come quite obvious. We now found ourselves required
to, for example, turn to volumetric rendering in cases
where we might have gotten away with a cheap cam-
era trick or a blur before.
I was pulled out of R&D and asked to to take this
on as a studio initiative. Jason Clark (“Stuart Little,”
“Monster House”) from the producing side was also
brought on early, to help get the productions thinking
Above, “Prince of Egypt.” Below, “Monsters vs Aliens.” in the way that they would have to think to make a 3D
film. And then we brought on Phil McNally, formerly
ALL IN with ILM and Disney, as stereoscopic supervisor
Research into 3D production began a little over three My charter was to move forward, to get the stu-
years ago. The original plan was to do our next film in dio up and ready for making 3D films — whatever we
3D, and we had chosen as that one film “Monsters vs. found out that meant. Our goal was to institutional-
Aliens.” ize the knowledge of 3D filmmaking into the studio,
The big surprise came when, within just a few so that everyone, regardless of their role, understood
months of deciding that, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey how 3D filmmaking impacted their job or their role.
Katzenberg said in 2007 that he wanted to do all the That became a way of working. We were not look-
films in 3D, and that the first of those would be released ing to create a specialized team that would post pro-
in 2009. We obviously still had to build the same tools cess 3D or anything like that. We wanted to make sure
to make one film in 3D, but this certainly upped the that our best and brightest creative folks in every de-
game quite a bit. We now had to quickly ramp up every partment understood the implications of 3D, and that
part of the company to get all of our shows ready for a as a studio, we were making the most of it.
new kind of production.
That involved training programs for the artists. It FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, AND IN SPACE
involved rewriting and reformulating tools. It meant There are many implications for working in 3D. As film-
going to third party vendors to get them to add func- makers, they start right from the beginning, in com-
tionality, and where they couldn’t or wouldn’t, we had posing a scene.
to build it ourselves. And then we had to bring all of In traditional or CG animation, the animation
that together into an integrated package. generally occurs from left to right, within sort of a pro-
At the same time that Jeffrey was actively in- scenium stage, largely so that you can see characters
volved in engaging the exhibitors to get more screens, clearly against their backgrounds. But as soon as you
we were working with standards groups to try to help add depth you have opportunity to rotate that space
identify and support the light levels that would be re- and actually put the characters in depth from each
quired, and try to vet the systems already installed to other as opposed to simply left to right on the screen.
make sure they were producing similar results. 3D also impacts the way that you set dress the en-

vironment: it is important to add depth cues, to give a The general rule is something like a third of the to-
sense of the volume of the space. The classic example tal volume of the viewing space can occur behind the
is that, if you want people to see how long a road is, screen, and about two-thirds can occur in front of the
you show telephone poles going into the distance. screen. That’s important because, if you think about a
Lighting is even more important. It is important movie where you never play anything forward of the
screen, then you have very little depth to
work with in order to compress an entire
BY THE NUMBERS: Monsters vs Aliens real world behind that screen.
• $175 m budget Think about watching a movie in a
• $331 million earned worldwide in first 50 days theater. There’s a black border around the
• $59.3 million for opening weekend, on 4104 screens screen, and it functions like a frame — ev-
• 28% of those screens were 3D, and accounted for 58% erything happens inside that frame, and
of the gross behind it.
• .03% —that’s three-tenths of 1 percent —of screens ac- However, there is a trick in 3D com-
counted for 9% of the gross: 143 IMAX screens brought position that brings that black border out
in $5.2 million. into the audience. If you do that, then
everything is still, essentially, playing be-
hind that frame. Everything feels inside
the screen, but yet, it is not.
that the eye goes to where you want it to in stereo. Things work a little differently in most IMAX the-
Particularly for folks that are newer to looking at a 3D aters, where the edge of the screen is at, or near, the
film, the tendency is look around in awe at everything edge of your peripheral vision.
in the entire beautiful environment. “Wow, look at the As such, the frame is no longer important or rele-
leaves on that tree. That’s amazing!” vant. The vanishing point, the maximum depth is actu-
Unfortunately, they are doing that as the story is ally on the screen, so that EVERYTHING plays forward
unfolding. That’s not what you want to accomplish. of the screen,
You want them focused on where you want them fo- What we do on our films is to provide mechanisms
cused! In general, the rules of cinematography still fol- for adjusting the convergence to allow us to play that
low. The eye is drawn to brighter places on the screen movie appropriately. IMAX does the work in making
and drawn away from darker places. That’s a general this adjustment to our creative leadership’s expecta-
rule, but it’s an example of why lighting is so critical. tions, setting it to play “in the right place” in the the-
People also generally look at things in the fore- ater. You don’t want it playing so far forward that it’s
ground before they look at things in the background. necessarily looming over you.
It’s just a human reaction things closer to you are There are things that we can do as filmmakers to
more meaningful than things far away. make that easier as well. We can over render. “Mon-
With 3D space you can determine whether they sters vs. Aliens” was virtually all rendered at 1920, but
are close to you, but with also where they are rela- we could decide to render 2048 pixels. That would al-
tive to a space that includes the screen. That is, your low some flexibility between the left and right images,
eyes are focused on the screen, but the question is, re- to accommodate that difference in the playback scale.
ally, where do they converge? Where are they focused It depends on whether we think the shots would need
within the entire volume presented to them? adjustments.

WHERE WE GO
Looking at the numbers for “Mon- BY THE NUMBERS: TECH
sters vs. Aliens,” if I were an exhibi- • 500 artists working for 4.3 years: 20,456 human hours
tor, I definitely would have wanted • 35,000 sq. ft data center
a 3D screen in my complex, when • Hundreds of HP xw8600 workstations
the film came out. Or maybe two. • 9000 cores in HP ProLiant blade servers (primarily the
So despite all the sort of financial BL460c)
things going on in the world today, • One node of HP’s HALO telepresence technology for every
I think that we’ll see the number of 75 employees
screens probably double this year. • HP Remote Graphics Software to bridge facilities 300
By the time James Cameron’s “Av- miles apart
atar” comes out by the end of the • 17 million files per rendering set
year, we could certainly be push- • 1920x1080 frames
ing 4000 screens or maybe more. • 45 million computing hours — 8 times as many as hours as
Audience expectation is “Shrek,” nearly double as many as “Kung Fu Panda”
clearly high. Our polling showed • If only one computer had been used to render, it would
that people wanted to see it in 3D, have taken 4071 years.
and came back later to see it when • 4 kinds of 3D glasses used during production
they couldn’t get in. That tells us • Final storage: 120 terabytes
that there’s still capacity to grow • Approximate additional cost to budget added by 3D pro-
out there. Internationally, we’re duction: $15 million, 8.5%
seeing similar patterns, but the
numbers of 3D screens is so small
— I think its on the order of 1000
screens outside North America —
that it’s going to take some more
time.
Creatively, our objective is to hide the hard sci-
ence from artists, and let them get back to doing what
they do best, just creating art. I think we have mostly
accomplished that today. Even our training manuals
focus more on space and volume than on the mechan-
ics of the eye, or interocular distance, or the way that
the brain forms a 3D image from disparity between
the left and the right eye.
I think that the science frontier that remains is
more on the display side.
In particular today, there is the idea that there is
a left and a right image, and that that’s how you cre- coming out. We need to be careful that we are thinking
ate 3D. But practically, for moving in the direction of a about the technologies that will be there in the next
truly 3D display, autostereoscopic display that doesn’t decade.
require any glasses, new development needs to take When the 20 year anniversary of your movie
place. Peopl feel okay about them — but I think that comes up, you don’t want your library to be dead. If
getting rid of them makes 3D ubiquitous. you have perceived that stereo means a left and a right
Currently, there’s such a narrow viewing angle image for 3D viewing going forward, you probably
on an autostereo display that you can only move your looking at it little short-sighted.
head something like six degrees. Most of us cannot You probably have to think about archiving the
imagine watching a movie sitting on our couch and movie as 3D geometry plus textures that will be ren-
only moving our heads six degrees. It’s just not very dered separately. You can even imagine that, in the
practical. But I think that there are technologies com- future, the display systems will receive the geometry,
ing that will allow autostereoscopic displays to hap- and receive the textures, and will render that movie
pen. real time for you.
That’s the next place where the big science will The right thing to do, and the goal for any of the
done. I think we’ll see it. There are big places with studios that are making these kinds of films, is to have
smart people working on it. It might be a decade out, their technology groups focus on eliminating the sci-
but we need to be prepared for it. entific implications of decisions, and just allow creativ-
There are implications for the studios as well. As ity to rule.
we think about archiving a movie for the future of cin-
ema, we don’t want to get caught where we are still n
making black and white movies when color TV’s are

THE BIGGEST NAME IN 3D
TALKS ABOUT WHAT THEY LOOK FOR IN BRINGING 3D TO THEIR SCREENS
IMAX has made a “big” commitment to 3D exhibition: 200 new screens coming on line as
quickly as possible, with IMAX producing all of their documentaries in stereoscopic 3D
“M onsters vs. Aliens” is a line in the sand, a point

-at which things changed.
I think that the first line in the sand was “Polar Ex-
“Polar Express,” “Monsters vs. Aliens,” and James Cam-
eron’s “Avatar.”
press.” Jeffrey Katzenberg refers to it as “the eureka MORE SCREENS

moment,” when the world said, holy cow, when 3D is Adding new screens to show all of this 3D content isn’t
done in a certain way, and exhibited a certain way, it a logjam for IMAX because we’re not part of the DCIP
has the opportunity to not only be a differentiated ex- rollout. The credit markets have been tricky right now,
perience, but to produce significant incremental rev- but we’re self-financed. Conditions are a problem for
enue.” I believe that “Polar Express” was the impetus us in the grand scheme because we are part of the
for this giant new 3D surge. community, but they’re not a problem for us in terms
“Monsters vs. Aliens” was a line in the sand be- of our own rollout.
cause it was the first that was properly sold as a wide [Ed. note: The Digital Conversion Implementa-
3D release, that generated north of 50% of its revenue tion Partners is a partnership between the top three
from 3D, and that was authored with 3D tools. theater chains, with commitments from five major stu-
This is as opposed to being a movie that was not dios, whose expansion plans have been tempered by
made in stereo, but made in 2D, and kludged into 3D. recent economic conditions.]
It was also, on the exhibition side, the most screens We actually have more than two hundred Digital
ever for a 3D film until that point. IMAX screens coming over the course of the next 18
When we look back in 10 years, and think about months. We’ve already sold them, and are now install-
where and when things changed, my guess is that ing them as quickly as we possibly can.
the three 3D moments that produced that change are We were once just a company in Toronto whose
Greg Foster
Greg Foster is IMAX’s President of Filmed Entertainment. Before joining the

company in 2001, he was the Executive Vice-President of Production at MGM/
UA, playing a key role in over 150 films, including Get Shorty, Rain Man, Species,
Thelma and Louise, King Pin, A Fish Called Wanda, Moonstruck, and several of
the James Bond, 007 pictures.

theaters were in most of the cool museums, science two projectors, with an IMAX image enhancer that
centers, and aquariums around the world that you amps up the presentation.
could possibly be in, and we made fabulous 40-min- Before going digital, we didn’t have the reach into
ute documentary films. As wonderful as they were, we a lot of the international territories, and we couldn’t
were starting to get a little bit too far on the education get that reach without Hollywood films.
side, and a little bit too distant from the entertainment
side.
We used to do some 2D and some 3D documenta-
ry films, be we have started making only 3D films. We
have also moved the bar a little bit more in the middle
of the education/entertainment continuum, in slow
and steady steps to make sure we weren’t offending
anyone.
At the same time, we created a technology called
DMR (Digital Remastering) that lets us take commer-
cially-released Hollywood films and convert them into
IMAX. We have now created ostensibly three or four
film businesses.
The first is our documentary movies. “Deep Sea
3D” just crossed $80 million at the box office. Johnny
Photos licensed via Wikimedia Commons. Credits as requested by the photographers. London: Mnbf9ca; Eilat: Henrik Sendelbach; Valencia: demi/onnoth; Daegu: Ian Sewell.
Depp and Kate Winslet narrated, Howard Hall directed,
and Danny Elfman did the music. It was also produced
and written by Toni Myers, who has produced, edited,
written or directed around 20 IMAX features, includ-
ing “IMAX: Hubble 3D,” which is currently in produc- Astronaut Bill Shepherd uses an IMAX camera
tion. “Under the Sea 3D” is out now, narrated by Jim aboard the International Space Station.
Carrey, and with the same crew. (Courtesy of NASA.)
The second is our Hollywood, family-oriented
movies, in both 3D and 2D, such as “Polar Express,” Combine that demand with the lower cost of en-
movies from DreamWorks Animation, the Harry Potter try into our business through digital technology, and
films, etc. we’ve been able to cast a wider net.
And then we have our fanboy movies, edgier fare We have digital theaters now in Australia. We have
that’s really working for us. It’s a new demographic one that just opened up in Taipei. We have three that
that we started cultivating with Christopher Nolan are opening up in June for Transformers in Japan. We
and “Batman Begins.” They love our stuff — they’re have two in the UK. We have some opening up in the
the ones buying advance tickets for movies like “Star next six weeks in Austria. We are all over the place.
Trek” — and I say this with the utmost affection: we Our first step in the chain begins with a visionary
love those freaks. We embrace them, honor them, and filmmaker, with a great studio partner, with a movie
work very hard to deliver the coolest movies possible that is conceived to take you somewhere you dream
for that crowd. about going, but will probably never get to. That can
Along with our documentaries and family-orient- be Hogwarts. That can be Gotham City. That can be the
ed films, it makes for a very balanced set of program- Enterprise. That can be under the sea. That can be In-
ming. ternational Space Station or the Hubble Telescope.
When we hit those three characteristics, those
DIGITAL IMAX 3D three qualifiers, then we want to be involved with that
I can’t tell you exactly what the inside of a Digital IMAX movie.
3D projection booth looks like. I can tell you that it has n
Eilat, Israel; Valencia, Spain; Daegu, Korea; Wurzburg, Germany. In title, above left: London, UK.

The world expert on the history of stereo imaging looks at its past to see into its future.
T here are several compelling reasons why 3D is

not going to go away this time. The train has fi-
filmmaking is successfully creating 3D movies that are
simply more immersive. They have off-the-screen im-
agery, which you expect in a 3D movie, but it happens
nally left the station.
The first compelling reason driving studios and in a way that is coherent, and that fits in the story.
independent producers to make 3D feature films is The 3D films of the 50s had noteworthy examples
that the 3D version makes three times the box office — of a marriage between stereoscopic imaging and sto-
and sometimes even more than that. The 3D version rytelling. “Kiss Me Kate” was a wonderful musical, and
of “My Bloody Valentine” earned closer to seven times it was designed for 3D. “Inferno,” starring Robert Ryan,
more than the 2D version. was a great example of 3D being used as an integral
The second overriding reason is the technology part of the narrative. Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M for
itself. The tools for making both live action and com- Murder” is certainly a 3D film that stands out even in
puter-generated 3D movies are so sweet, and the form 2D.
factor of even 4K RAW imaging is so small, that you can Another wonderful 3D film that had a great influ-
easily make 3D movies that eliminate the difficulties of ence on many people — including me — was “Crea-
eye strain and visual errors that were seen in the past. ture from the Black Lagoon,” which is actually a kind
The exhibition paradigm has also been solved of poetic love story, along the lines of “Beauty and the
with RealD, Dolby Digital 3D, ExpandD and then IMAX Beast.”
3D, which of course is a wonderful platform for watch- So the 3D films of the 50s were not just B pictures.
ing 3D movies. There were some true A-list pictures that used 3D in a
These are some of the reasons why 3D is not going way that was seamless with the narrative.
to be experienced as a fad. Certain filmmakers may use
it as a gimmick to sell tickets or to create a spectacle, STEREOGRAPHY
but the fact is that the new school of thought for 3D I like to use the term “stereography,” because it means
Ray Zone
Ray is an award-winning stereographer, a producer of 3-D films and

an author. He is currently working for Santo Domingo Animation as
3-D Producer on “Brijes 3D,” the first stereoscopic animated feature
in Mexican cinema, and is the author of “3-D Filmmakers: Conversa-
tions with Creators of Stereoscopic Motion Pictures” and “Stereo-
scopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film: 1838 - 1952.”

literally rendering the forms of vol- to show how 3D cinema preceded
ume on a flat plane. It happens that the release of “Bwana Devil” by 100
the discovery of stereography pre- years, and to show how important
ceded the invention of photography anaglyph technologies and tech-
as well as motion pictures. niques were as a part of that period.
Stereography, as discovered by Since its discovery and perfec-
Charles Wheatstone in 1838, preced- tion by Louis Ducos du Hauron – he
ed the invention of both photogra- patented it in 1895 – anaglyph has
phy and motion pictures. In fact, the been continuously in production. It
realism of the very first stereo view has been the universal solution for
cards drove the invention of motion making, exhibiting, and displaying
pictures. These inventors looked 3D images, both in movies -- be-
through the stereoscopes and a saw Hammond’s Shadowgraph cause it works with standard projec-
a 3D image, and asked themselves, tions and a standard white screen
“What’s missing?” Well, motion was missing, so as uto- --and print media, which often supported the movies
pians of the image, they set out to add not just motion, even in the 20s.
but sound, and color, and depth. Anaglyph was used initially for Magic Lanterns
The first three-dimensional motion pictures were Slideshows, as well as some of the first movies made in
developed by William Friese-Green in 1889. He de- America, I suspect shown using dual projectors. In the
vised a dioptic camera with twin lenses that took two 20s, there was a wave of very popular anaglyphic short
pictures, side-by-side. The remnants of his system sur- films, along with a 3D shadow show called the Shad-
vive today in still versions as the View-Master — still owgraph (seen on this page), invented by Lawrence
in production, primarily with cartoons and 3D movie Hammond, also the inventor of the Hammond Organ.
promotional tie-ins. The earliest anaglyph feature film was “The Power
But well before Friese-Green’s invention, the ste- of Love.” debuting in Hollywood in 1922, and shown
reoview card had become the great mass medium of using two projectors. The films using this early process
the 19th Century — far more popular than newspa- were called plasticons and plastigrams. A plasticon
pers or anything else. It was only the proliferation of opened at the Rivoli theater in New York in 1922 which
the motion picture which led to the eclipse of the ste- made novel use of the anaglyphic process.
reoview card as a mass medium in the 20th Century. Two endings to the film were shown simultane-
(The title image at left is a stereoview card from ously. Audience members who desired a happy end-
1901 — of a woman ing simply viewed the
looking at a stere- film through the red
oview card!) filter, with a tragic
ending seen through
ANAGLYPH: YESTER- the green filter.
DAY AND TODAY Things changed
We will have anaglyph in 1939, when the
for as long as there is New York World’s
imaging. Fair showed Edward
Many people Land’s newly-patent-
in production who ed linear polarizing
champion newer material projected on
platforms think it’s a silver screen. That
necessary to deni- was the point at which
grate or put down the polarizing technology
anaglyph and its red for 3D movies become
and green glasses — a standard – but the
but it conveys a very anaglyph is still the
strong stereographic most versatile way to
experience when look at a 3D movie.
done carefully. It is Even though 3D
simply one of several TV is going to be us-
different ways to dis- ing some newer tech-
play what is essential- nologies that allow for
ly two movies: one for full-color imaging will
the left eye, and one surpass the anaglyph,
for the right eye. anaglyph is being
I wrote my book produced in greater
[“Stereoscopic Cine- numbers today than it
ma and the Origins of ever was before. Just
3-D Film, 1838-1952”] go to YouTube and

search for anaglyph Alongside the
3D movies. You’ll full-color anaglyph
be surprised that comics, I’m still do-
how many there ing conversion of
are. These films are comics to mono-
coming from ev- chromatic anaglyph
ery corner of the — essentially a black
world, from desk- and white image de-
top 3D moviemak- livered with the red
ers — and anaglyph and blue color selec-
works great in the tion.
RGB colorspace of Right now I’m
computers. working with Clive
So while there Barker and a writer
have been other im- and a team at IDW
portant platforms (Idea and Design
for people to dis- Works) to do an orig-
cover 3D, anaglyph inal Clive Barker 3D
remains the de facto comic. We are using
way for most young some unusual tech-
people to discover niques with red and
3D, as I did when I blue glasses, to cre-
was six. ate things like 2-step
animation or hidden
HANDMADE 3D image, or some visu-
I first saw 3D images ally interesting ef-
in the first issue of fects exploiting the
“Three Dimension differences in color
Comics,” by Joe perception between
Kubert and Nor- the left and right
man Maurer, fea- eye, called retinal ri-
turing Mighty Mouse, in September 1953. It sold over valry.
a million copies, leading to the release of over 50 3D I’m also making stereo pairs of paintings by hand,
comics, into 1954. They were primarily created by us- in acrylics and oils. One example is below, I was in-
ing three or four acetate overlays over a background fluenced by a local gentleman named Abe Fagemspm
board, and shifting the layers to create the left and who creates left and right eye images on a single can-
right eye views. vas, for cross-eye, binocular-free vision. You cross your
While there were a few examples in between, I eyes, and you see it in 3D without a viewing aid of any
worked to reinvent the form in the 80s, and have pro- kind. I’m making my own stereo pairs of paintings, of
duced over 130 3D comics -- the first hundred by using abstract images. You can use a viewing device, or you
a number 11 Exacto blade, and cutting and shifting can view them in cross-eye, or parallel free vision. You
photostats of the line art. It was a labor-intensive pro- can experience the abstract imagery stereoscopically
cess, but it meant that I was no longer limited to only 4 using any of these methods.
or 5 planes of depth. I could create as many planes as This is for art gallery display of 3D images, anoth-
the art could bear, as many 20 or 30 levels – so many er platform that I’m moving forward on. As a curator,
levels, in fact, that the art itself started to appear volu- and an art writer, and an artist myself, I want to show
metric! I also started to use techniques that would people that stereography can, and should, be dis-
stretch and twist the image. played in art gallery setting, and that there are numer-
This was well in advance of using a computer. ous strategies to show the image in 3D using binocular
When I started using Photoshop to create 3D comics stereopsis of one kind of another.
in 1995, they became polychromatic anaglyph, as op-
posed to the two-color comics used before. They now 3DIY
retained all of the color information of the original In the excitement over 3D releases from major studios,
four-color images, but also had the 3D embedded into one thing that doesn’t get discussed as much is that
that four-color scheme. there is, right now, a desktop 3D video revolution go-
The first comics to use this for the full length of ing on. People are cobbling together their own solu-
the comic book were a 12 issue run for Image Comics tions using readily accessible hardware and software,
that I did in 1997. The most recent 3D comics that I’ve and they’re sharing their stories with each other. I’ll
produced were for DC, “Superman: Beyond Final Cri- coin a term, “3DIY,” to describe it. This is much more
sis,” #1 and #2. important than people realize.

I think of companies with major software and The solution that friends and I in the Stereo Club
hardware platforms as 800-pound gorillas -- and of Southern California have come up with is using two
800-pound gorillas do not swing as high or as quick- smaller digital projectors, a silver screen and linear
ly through the forest as chimpanzees. There is this polarizing glass. Solutions like this are critical for the
amazing groundswell of 3D movie production with development for 3D moviemaking now, because I be-
the chimpanzees. They have kludged their own 3DIY lieve some of the great 3D moviemakers of the future
stereoscopic solutions, and they’ve actually built in are going to come out of this desktop revolution.
smarter, more sophisticated capabilities than the People just haven’t seen the full extent of how ar-
800-pound gorillas have. tistically diverse and conceptually rich stereographic
While the 800-pound gorillas are still undertak- imaging can be. But they are starting to find out, expe-
ing studies, trying to figure out what to do with it, this riencing these new movies and the forward motion of
technology is sweeping along at the desktop level. It’s of 3D on every kind of visual display, from mobiles and
bottom-up. It’s viral. And unlike a lot of areas where handhelds to the IMAX screen.
people are waiting for major studio-level tools to filter n
down to them, this is an area where the 800-pound go-
rillas have a lot to learn from the chimpanzees. At magazine.creativecow.net/rayzone:
So as exciting as the top-down forward motion of
3D in cinema is – and it is very, very exciting – one of • Additional historic pictures and comic art
my concerns as a film historian is access to the couple • Ray’s experience as an indie 3D filmmaker and
with Mexico’s first 3D animated feature
of thousand 3D screens for the many thousands of in-
• And much more.
dependent 3D movie makers.
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The 3DVX
Stereoscopic, uncompressed 10-bit HD RAW —
from a pair of modded DVX100s!
W e’ve been doing nothing but live-action
stereoscopic production since 1999.
undertaking, beyond the scope of our budget and
this one individual’s capabilities. That’s when we de-
Our biggest challenge in the beginning was that cided that it might be easier to take an existing cam-
we couldn’t just go out and buy a 3D camera. We had era and modify it.
to actually create the camera before we could do While we were trying to work our way through
anything. all of these challenges, Panasonic came out with the
We started out trying to create our own camera AG-DVX100. I said, “Aha! Here’s a camera with RGB
from scratch. We literally bought photo sensors from data at every pixel, it records to MiniDV, it’s small —
Kodak, and lenses from Schneider, and hired an elec- this is going to be great!”
tronic engineer to design a camera board to control We got two of those, and said, “Now we want to
the whole thing. do 3D — how do we get these cameras genlocked?”
At the time, MiniDV was a sort of industrial pro- We went back to the electronic engineer we had
fessional standard, so we wanted to make a camera worked with before. It took him a long time to figure
that could record on to MiniDV at 24P, and with full it out, but he did. We now had genlocked DVX cam-
color in every pixel. Our idea was to use a 1920x1080 eras, recording 3D to MiniDV.
Bayer-pattern sensor to create “super pixels:” com- That was fun for a while, but, obviously, MiniDV
bining individual red, blue and green pixels into a tape is very limited. The distance between the lens-
single pixel with full color information. es —the interaxial spacing — was also pretty wide,
It quickly became apparent that it was a huge which limited some of the things we could shoot.
Jason Goodman
New York, New York USA
Jason is the founder and CEO of 21st Century 3D. He is also a graduate of the New
York University (NYU) film school, a stereographer, and a long-time 3D enthusiast
whose first attempts at 3D imaging began with red and blue crayons. “I had a per-
sonal fascination with production and 3D from the time we started, 15 years ago. As
the company metamorphosized to focus on those things, we changed our name to
21st Century 3D in 1999, and haven’t looked back.”

Left: Christopher Lloyd and Joyce DeWitt, on location for “Call of the Wild,” with a 3DVX-based beam splitter camera.
As we set out to improve the camera, we ran into tween 45 and 105 degrees Fahrenheit. We had a sub-
some guys at Purdue University who were working stantial challenge just keeping the system running.
on an uncompressed interface for the DVX100. We Another problem was that the drives could re-
helped with financial and logistics support, and we cord for about an hour, and then it would take us
were the first to use the technology they created: a an hour to copy the data from the drives to a host
DVX100 with uncompressed 4:4:4, 10-bit RGB
RAW output.
They also created a unique algorithm that
allowed them to process that RAW sensor data
into a 1280x720, 720P high-def image for each
eye.
When we released it in 2004, we called it
the 3DVX. At a hand-holdable 19 pounds, it’s
still the smallest and lightest self-contained,
RAW-recording stereoscopic camera system in
the world.
BUCKETS OF BITS
But with the improvements we added, the
camera’s data rate skyrocketed to 29 MB per
second, per eye — not megaBITs, megaBYTES.
That’s almost 60 MB/second that needs to be
stored in some way.
We couldn’t record this copious data rate
to MiniDV. We couldn’t use P2. We wound up
integrating a pair of stripped down Mac Minis
— including CPUs, RAM, and the latest version
of the Mac OS — to allow us to record straight
to disk.
In the DVX100, the CCDs are caoturing
12 bits per pixel. We use user-defined lookup
tables to record 10 of those 12 bits. There is a
USB data interface inside our camera that con-
nects directly to the camera’s analog to digital
converters. The 10 bits of data, just ones and
zeroes, fly over this USB data interface and
go directly to the Mac Minis, where it is then
stored on removable hard drives.
(We record RAW data rather than a spe-
cific video format. The only application that
recognizes the data is the application that was spe- computer, which processes RAW data into image
cifically written for the camera.) data. Then it took another hour to low-level format
Recording to hard drives also meant that we no the drives. If we had just erased them, due to frag-
longer need the VTR inside the cameras, so could get mentation, the drives would no longer have the per-
them much closer together. The interaxial spacing formance to sustain this high data rate. This was all
came down to 2.75 inches, a much more natural dis- extremely time-consuming: at minimum, a two-hour
tance, more in keeping with the 2.5 inches between recycle process.
adult eyes. We actually developed a solid-state array a
Traditionally, we have been using high-speed couple of years ago trying to solve this. It worked,
7200 RPM drives with a specially-selected case and but could only record for 20 minutes, and cost over
interface that allow the drives to maintain high data $6000/drive! That was never deployed in any practi-
rates. Hard drives have been problematic for a num- cal sense.
ber of shoots, most particularly “Call of the Wild,” We have recently been able to add newer solid-
which we shot on location in Montana in February state drives that are affordable, have performance to
2008. deliver the throughput we need, and can record for
As you might imagine, it’s pretty freaking cold 46 minutes. We can unload the data in 23 minutes,
in Montana in February. There were blizzards. Hard then just empty the trash and be ready to go. Our
drives don’t like that. They are rated to operate be- two-hour recycle period is now down to 23 minutes.

tion has obviously has improved,
and the low light capability seems
to be improved. There are just so
many things about it are far dif-
ferent from the stock camera.
3DVX:
THE NEXT GENERATION
The 3DVX has proven to be a real
workhorse for us. It’s got a lot of
what people are looking for in a
3D camera. It’s not like a big crazy
rig — it’s more like just a camera.
You can shoulder mount it. You
look through a binocular view
finder. It’s ergonomic. It has a sen-
sible kind of interface to it.
We have incrementally added
lots of great functionality to the
3DVX since its introduction, with
version numbers to reflect the
hardware changes — almost like
software version numbers. We
had previously gotten to 3DVX
3.5, but have recently added
some major new features. We’ve
also added a new, black anodized
case, so for now, we’re calling this
new version of the camera the
3DVX Black.
One of those major new features is something
The solid-state drives operate in temperatures
we call “optical axial offset.”
as low as zero degrees Fahrenheit, and as warm as
Zero parallax is sometimes called “conver-
140 degrees Fahrenheit. They are impervious to
gence,” when the views from two lenses meet. One
shock and vibration, and can deal with the kind of
way to set the distance for zero parallax is to angle
harsh environments that had been a problem for
the cameras. You point them in toward each other,
hard drives.
the centers of the lens views — their optical axes —
cross somewhere in space, and that’s your point of
zero parallax.
TAKING THE ‘SUMER’ OUT The problem is that this makes for a mechanical-
Some people have a problem that our cameras are ly relatively complicated camera. It also introduces
based on essentially a prosumer camera system, but optical distortion into the image in the form of key-
that’s misleading. It is understandable that camera stoning, and other issues that make it not the most
manufacturers need to differentiate their product desirable approach.
lines, but cameras like the HPX300 and the Sony EX-3 We’ve approached it from another direction.
are blurring those lines. We also found that, when we The DVX100 and many similar cameras have an
opened these cameras up, many of the components optical image stabilizer. It uses an accelerometer,
were the same whether the camera cost $5000, similar to the one in an iPhone, which can detect the
$15,000 or $50,000. attitude of the camera. As the camera moves around,
Once you take those components and add a magnetically driven lens element attempts to
genlock, come straight off the sensor with uncom- counteract that motion.
pressed 10-bit 4:4:4 RAW data, user-definable LUTs We don’t like to use that. If we want the camera
and so on — you’ve pretty well taken “sumer” out of to be stable, we hire a Steadicam operator. We have
the picture, and moved into “pro” territory. disabled the stabilizer — anyone can do it; it’s just a
We are also seeing a dramatic difference in the software switch in the menu — but we have used the
imagery coming out of this camera compared to technology to our advantage.
many others in the market. The dynamic range has We have actually taken over the drive mecha-
increased to about 10 1/2 stops latitude. The resolu- nism, and added four controls that allow us to con-

trol the horizontal and vertical position of CALL OF THE WILD
the light falling on the sensor. Just like lens This is a modern day adaptation of the Jack London nov-
shift on a projector allows you to move the el, although we’re not seeing the novel acted out in the
image around the wall without moving the film. A young girl (Ariel Gayle) goes to visit her grandfa-
projector, and without introducing key- ther (Christopher Lloyd) in Montana, and as he reads her
stone distortion — we do exactly the same the story, certain events in the movie parallel events in
the book. Ariel’s character finds an
injured dog who she nurses back to
health, and this young girl from the
city falls in love with nature and the
beauty of Montana.
Principal photography on the
film began in Montana on February
7, 2008, and had its world premiere at
the 3DX Film Festival in Singapore on
November 22 — it was completed in
less than 11 months! I don’t know for
sure, but it seems like that has to be
some kind of record for a live-action
3D feature.
This is actually one of only a small
handful of all live-action features in
this new digital age of 3D motion pic-
tures, and it has been enjoying a great
audience reaction so far. It was shown
at “It Came From The 3rd Dimension,”
the world’s largest digital 3D film
festival, where it won the Audience
Choice award. There were films like
“Bolt” and “Journey to the Centero of
the Earth” in that festival, so we are
really, really pleased about that.
“Call of the Wild” will be released
in the fall of 2009, on RealD and Dolby
3D screens.
BEAM SPLITTERS
Whereas the 3DVX Black is a side-by-
side configuration, we now also have
a beam splitter camera system that we
used on “Call of the Wild.” It is based on
thing in our camera. You have four dials to turn to modified HVX200 cameras that are mounted per-
make these adjustments. The optical changes up- pendicular to one another using a one-way mirror, in
date in the viewfinder in real time, which makes it a fashion that you may seen in other camera systems
very easy to use. that have been around for quite a while.
Before we added optical axial offset, the cam- There has been no image quality modification
era was realistically operating at its best only at full to the HVX cameras we use, although they have been
wide angle. Any slight geometric differences in the modified for genlock, and had our axial offset system
images from the two lenses would be magnified as added to them. We call the camera system simply the
you zoomed in. This was impossible to adjust. BX1, one of the smallest and lightest self-contained
Now, as you zoom in, you can remove any sort of 3D beam splitter cameras available.
vertical mismatch in the left and right images. You We are currently developing our next gen-
can also achieve zero parallax manipulation without eration system, called the BX2. It is primar-
angling the cameras and introducing optical distor- ily being designed to accommodate larger, high-
tions. The 3DVX is the only digital stereoscopic cam- er-resolution cameras, including the RED One,
era in the world that can do that. the Arri D21, the Phantom, and the Sony EX3.

THE FUTURE
We have just begun shooting a project for the Boston Science Museum and the Museum of Health in Houston,
Texas called “Planet You,” which will be on the museum circuit soon. It’s part of the wide range of live-action 3D
projects we have worked on since 1999, many of them corporate and industrial productions for hi-tech companies,
pharmaceutical companies, retailers, amusement park rides, and even material for some rock concerts.
We have also just opened an office in Burbank. 21st Century 3D is
now the only stereoscopic production company with offices in both Los
Angeles and New York. This is helping us to give clients on both sides of
Get
the country, and in many different areas within the production world,
the best attention, service and creativity we can.
All of this has led to interesting evolutions of our systems. I’m ex-
cited by where we’re going, both at 21st Century 3D, and the entire 3D
industry in general. Your
n
FREE
Film
Guide!

The classic “Nosferatu” becomes...
“Orlok the
Vampire” in 3D!
Here’s how a very small team of independent producers added a new dimension to the first, and
what many believe may still be the greatest, vampire movie ever made.
W hen asked what it would take to turn the movie

“Nosferatu” into an anaglyph 3D movie, I thought
for a moment and then replied “Seventy thousand dol-
Bram Stoker’s novel, “Dracula,” and which has devel-
oped a massive cult following since its release way
back in 1922.
lars, and a team of 10 to 15 visual effects artists and 3 Puzzled by what to do with it, Carol consulted
months.” with local filmmaker, animator and horror film fan,
Curious, I then asked, “What do we actually have Keith Carter. Keith’s idea was to refresh this classic, in
to work with?” Keith Carter, the director of the project hopes that a whole new generation of viewers who
(and a good personal friend) replied “A very small bud- would not otherwise care to watch a silent film might
get... and you.” give this one a shot. He proposed re-editing the movie
Now to fill in some details. The reason I was able for a more modern pace, re-scoring the music and add-
to quote a price so quickly (which I would now con- ing foley sound effects to give new life to the action
sider way under budget) is because this story begins and...make it all in 3D!.
about a year earlier. Carol and Keith then approached me to see if I
Carol Bidault de L’isle of Media Fusion in Washing- could figure out a way to convert this 2D film into a 3D
ton, DC had acquired a library of recent independent experience. Fortunately, I had already begun playing
films. Carol and Media Fusion help independent film- around with anaglyph 3D. I was intrigued with an ef-
makers that cannot find access to the marketplace. fect that After Effects has called “3D Glasses,” and had
“Sometimes it is just a matter of repackaging these been experimenting with 3D After Effects scenes that
films,” she says, “and sometimes it’s re-editing that contained two virtual cameras. Using those cameras
can make the difference.” outputs with the 3D glasses effect creates perfect CG
Among these new titles was an odd copy of F.W. generated 3D imagery. I had also been working with
Murnau’s “Nosferatu” — the first film to be based on Chroma Depth glasses from Chromatek that place var-
Chris Heuer
Stevensville, Maryland USA
What I love about post-production is the innovative spirit that makes anything
possible. This is why I started Freefall FX, an animation and effects house located
about 30 minutes east of Washington DC on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. I enjoy
doing the creative work, but not as much as I enjoy watching people react to the
work I’ve produced.

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2007
EDITORS’
CHOICE
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was jumpy, flickered a lot and showed its years with
Movie stills courtesy Media Fusion. Software interface screenshots courtesy of Chris Heuer.
lots of dirt and damage, even after Keith edited out
the worst of it. Mocha did an amazing job of track-
ing through the clutter and was the final piece to the
puzzle that led me to believe that I could do this in a
reasonable amount of time.
Since there are many versions of this film already
floating around out there, production began under
the new title “Orlok the Vampire.”
(The word “nosferatu” appears in Stoker’s book as
the Transylvanian word for vampire. Stoker named his
nosferatu Count Dracula. Murnau named his nosferatu
Count Orlok.)
Keith worked tirelessly trying to faithfully update
the horror classic. About a month and a half later, I
got the hard drive that contained the first draft of the
movie.
Since time and money were tight, we decided to
ious colors at different depths only rotoscope and fully treat the shots with Orlok the
To begin, I knew I had to create a second camera’s vampire in them. That sounded reasonable. I started
perspective (which I call the Right Eye View) using only exporting all of the shots that we agreed I’d roto —
the original footage. Industrial Light & Magic achieved which turned out to be 70 shots in all! My stomach
this when they turned “The Nightmare Before Christ- dropped.
mas” into a 3D movie by basically recreating the en- With budget for only one effects artist (me), I de-
tire film in their 3D animation application. It’s brilliant cided not to look at the mountain of work. Just take
work, but we didn’t have the time, money, manpower it one shot at a time. I put on my cardboard red/cyan
or 3D animation expertise to pull that off. I had to find glasses and began using the technique I had devel-
a way that would work for a 2.5D compositor like me! oped:
As I created a one-minute 3D trailer for Media Fu-
sion to show around (and to prove that I could actually • Roto every element that was to have a different
do this), I tried out different ideas and techniques. The depth. (without glasses on!)
one I used to finish the trailer took every second of an • Shift these elements to create the new perspec-
ENTIRE weekend...for just one minute of finished foot- tive. (with glasses on)
age! • Clean up the background plate.
I rotoscoped each element that I wanted to give • Finally, combine this new “right eye view” with
depth, duplicated the rotoscoped mask, offset it a few the original footage using the 3D Glasses effect.
pixels, and used the AE’s “Reshape” effect, which basi-
cally morphs the pixels from Mask 1 to Mask 2. The first shots took longer, but eventually, I started
This worked, but some of the shots had strange to hit a stride. Even better, some new techniques were
edge distortions. It was, however, good enough to coming to mind, and others fell into my lap. I found
start generating interest in the project. that displacement mapping helped give texture and a
subtle, articulated depth to the “cutout” images I was
ROTO TIMES SEVENTY creating. I also accidentally discovered that stretching
The project continued, slowly at first, until the day a layer in one axis made it look like it was angled to-
Keith came back to ask me what it would take to do ward the viewer. That came in handy later!
a whole movie. He was about to start editing and
wanted to make sure this could really be done. I told
him that the process needed refinement, so give me
a couple of weeks. With a mild feeling of panic, I got
back to testing.
I already knew I had to shift certain elements in
each shot different distances to get this “new perspec-
tive.” My goal was to find a way to do this that didn’t
involve hand rotoscoping each element.
Three weeks later, the bad news: There was no
other way to isolate the elements other than roto. The
good news: mocha, from Imagineer Systems, was on
sale! Yay, technology! (A version of mocha is currently
included with After Effects.)
The “Nosferatu” footage, like any film from 1922,

With this technique, I was able to treat the rest of the
film in a few days.
The opening credits and end graphic were cre-
ated with Photoshop and After Effects so I had layered
files to work with. This allowed me to use the same
techniques used on the roto’d footage with even bet-
ter results. The opening credits really pop!
Finally, all of the dialog slates were given a subtle
treatment. Too much 3D made them harder to read,
so we went with a “less is more” approach. Can’t let
effects get in the way of the story!
Keith had been working on the sound while I
worked on the 3D, so I didn’t get to see the entire
film combined until my work was complete. We had
a screening before passing it on to Carol and calling
it finished. As hard as I worked, and as great as I felt
the 3D looked when I saw it completed shot by shot,
it was nothing compared to seeing it all together. The
pacing, the music, and the sound all felt like they were
there from the first edit of this film. The 3D seemed to
blend in just as subtly, which makes the compositor in
me happy. I take pride in finishing a shot in which no
one will detect my work.
After about a two week break, the producer
called to tell us that our work wasn’t finished. “The
Orlok scenes are great,” she told us, “but we need to
add something more to the film.” We decided to roto
other key scenes in the first part of the film, so that
the audience can get a taste of the stronger 3D effects
throughout the film.
After about a two week break, the producer
Some shots took only a couple of hours, others called to tell us that our work wasn’t finished. “The
took days. Mocha really sped up the roto, but some Orlok scenes are great,” she told us, “but we need to
shots still had to be done entirely by hand. This pro- add something more to the film.” We decided to roto
cess tapped almost every compositing trick I knew. other key scenes in the first part of the film, so that
It was an intense few months, working 4 to 8 hours the audience can get a taste of the stronger 3D effects
a day on top of my “day” job. I would take every Fri- throughout the film. As I finish this article, I have about
day off and try to spend any free time with the family. 15 shots left in the pipeline. This will have been a five-
Somehow, even with all the long hours and technical month project, working an average of 5-6 hours per
challenges, I always looked forward to seeing the next night, roughly five days per week.
shot completed. In the end, the film is a wild ride with lots of new
When you work this long on something, you lose features, including an introduction by Troma Enter-
perspective and sometimes have trouble discerning tainment’s Lloyd Kaufman (“Toxic Avenger,” “Class of
how good your work is. I knew the process was work- Nuke ‘Em High”). The DVD version will also have a pop-
ing, because after working for hours on a few seconds up trivia version, a Director and Producer commentary
of footage, the results would make me smile like a kid version, the “Making Of”, two pairs of 3D glasses -- and
seeing 3D for the first time. for the die-hard fans, a special edition with a comic
I looked for something in every shot that would book prequel and an action figure, complete with a
add greater depth. One of my favorite shots is when miniature rat!
Hutter (our protagonist) is cutting some bread, just I had never seen this film in its entirety before this
before the knife slips and cuts his thumb. I was able to project. I am very impressed with what Murnau was
give subtle depth between his body, arms, and hands, able to do. It really does hold up all these years later --
and the bread. If you look, it feels like you can reach Orlok is still the scariest vampire to date! I hope the ad-
through the hole between his arms and his body ditions we’ve made really do draw in a new audience.
...AND THE REST n

The rest of the film was treated with a much simpler
technique. The “right eye view” has a displacement At magazine.creativecow.net/orlok you will find more
map effect applied to it. With subtle tweaks, it can 3D stills —
and movie clips!
look almost as good as the rotoscoped shots... almost!

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T H E B A C K F O R T Y
Ron Lindeboom
Paso Robles, California USA
Taking the Lay of the Land in 2009

IDEAS THAT CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS GROW WHEN MARKETS ARE WEAK
G olfers must consider the lay of the land when planning their
next shot. Business people have to do the same thing, espe-
cially when market forces are less than advantageous.
Stay focused. Do not let people pull you off your game plan.
Often, especially when markets are “soft,” people jump at any
job, even if the money is bad. This looks wise on the surface —
any money is better than nothing, right? — but is often the
very thing that brands you as a low-baller, becomes a self-
perpetuating behavior, and sets up the very reason that you
cannot take a good paying job should one appear.
Make something happen. I often tell my team that
they should “Look for the busy person who is up to their
ears in work” when they want something done. Why?
The busy person is usually the one with room for one
more thing on their plate and will get it done. Ever
notice that the person with a lot of time on their
hands is the one who is late and offers excuses?
Stay busy. Work on that production or video
that you’ve wanted to produce. If you love it,
someone else will too. Build your website.
Use idle time to network. I hope Walter
Biscardi won’t mind, but I remember when he
was in some very dire straits in his business. To-
day, he is one of the most successful indepen-
dent editor/producers in the COW. How did he
get there? He’ll tell you that he used his free
time to help a lot of people on our forums. It
came back to him with interest. His networking
paid off in jobs with The Food Network’s Good
Eats and other productions he has become a
part of through his interactions on the COW.
I know people that say they only do work
that pays. In my experience that is just another
way of saying that they’ll soon be out of busi-
ness. My team would also tell you that I always
remind them to “cast your bread upon the wa-
ters and it will come back to you as sandwich-
es.” Just ask Walter, he’s eaten more than a few.
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THE MAGAZINE FOR MEDIA PROFESSIONALS WORKING IN FILM, AUDIO, VIDEO, MOTION GRAPHICS, IMAGING AND DESIGN

MORE SIGNAL, LESS NOISE™ — CREATIVECOW.NET MAY / JUNE 2009

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4 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

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Storytelling, Reality, and “Utopians of the Image”

6 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

One suite fits all

For more information or a trial version, visit www.sonycreativesoftware.com

*Vegas Pro Production Assistant sold separately.

Copyright © 2009. Sony Creative Software Inc. All rights reserved.

O ur human perceptual systems have been driv-

Brian’s diverse experience includes everything from directing stage plays to

8 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

MATH AND PERCEPTION

Creative COW Magazine — The Stereoscopic 3D Issue 9

10 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

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Experience Ki Pro for yourself at one of our US roadshows

12 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

The first time I used dynamic floating windows

14 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

Creative COW Magazine — The Stereoscopic 3D Issue 15

16 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

Creative COW Magazine — The Stereoscopic 3D Issue 17

RECORDING AND MONITORING

18 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

20 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

• LOW PRICES & BUNDLE SPECIALS!

Visit our New Web Site at Scoring Edition offers

3D DI is generally the same as 2D DI, with some

John is a 3D colorist and DI specialist at FotoKem. He has also been a member

22 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

Creative COW Magazine — The Stereoscopic 3D Issue 23

24 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

Unshakable Performance, Fusion F2

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Creative COW Magazine — The Stereoscopic 3D Issue 25

W hen Dreamworks Animation began in 1997, it

26 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

On the creative side, we had to discover the chal-

Creative COW Magazine — The Stereoscopic 3D Issue 27

28 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

Creative COW Magazine — The Stereoscopic 3D Issue 29

“M onsters vs. Aliens” is a line in the sand, a point

press.” Jeffrey Katzenberg refers to it as “the eureka MORE SCREENS

Greg Foster is IMAX’s President of Filmed Entertainment. Before joining the

30 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

Creative COW Magazine — The Stereoscopic 3D Issue 31

T here are several compelling reasons why 3D is

Ray is an award-winning stereographer, a producer of 3-D films and

32 The Stereoscopic 3D Issue — Creative COW Magazine

Creative COW Magazine — The Stereoscopic 3D Issue 33