Filmonic » 3D

How to Train Your Dragon teaser poster

Liam — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:32:41 +0000

Below is the first teaser poster for DreamWork’s How to Train Your Dragon courtesy of IMP Awards.

Poster removed at the request of Paramount

The story centers around a Viking teenager named Hiccup, who lives on the island of Berk, where fighting dragons is a way of life. The teen’s smarts and offbeat sense of humor don’t sit too well with his tribe or its chief…who just happens to be Hiccup’s father. However, when Hiccup is included in Dragon Training with the other Viking teens, he sees his chance to prove he has what it takes to be a fighter. But when he encounters (and ultimately befriends) an injured dragon, his world is flipped upside down, and what started out as Hiccup’s one shot to prove himself turns into an opportunity to set a new course for the future of the entire tribe.

How to Train Your Dragon, which will be released next March, is co-directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders who both worked on Lilo and Stitch, and features the voice talents of Gerard Butler, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and America Ferrera.

Avatar footage appears in Japanese Panasonic commercial

Liam — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:00:37 +0000

A while back 20th Century Fox and Panasonic decided to team up in an effort to get the 3D revolution rolling. Panasonic have been providing hardware to James Cameron throughout the production of Avatar, and their first 3D TVs are expected to be heavily promoted with visuals from the movie alongside endorsements from Cameron himself.

The TV commercial below bears the first fruits of this 3D partnership as we get a glimpse at some new footage from Avatar while Panasonic advertise one of their TVs.

Will we be getting Iron Man 2 in 3D?

Liam — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:56:32 +0000

According to AICN Paramount and Marvel are apparently considering converting Iron Man 2 into 3D for it’s release.

Right now, there is a 1 minute demo of IRON MAN 2 converted to high quality digital 3D. I’m told this one minute is totally like Kim Basinger & Mickey Rourke in 9 1/2 WEEKS. HOT! Crazy Hot! Right now the Suits at Marvel & Paramount & now also Disney are considering this 1 minute.
At the same time that this is happening, they are fishing for bids with 3 different companies to see what the cost and time it would take to convert IRON MAN 2 to a complete 3D film. This same process is being done to Tim Burton’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND – but if this comes to pass. What will this mean for the rest of Marvel’s slate leading to THE AVENGERS? Will THOR & CAPTAIN AMERICA also go through this process? Or will they be shot from the get go in 3D.

If this turns out to be true it will no doubt please 3D fans. I think a lot of movies in the future (big movies anyway) will be converted into 3D to give people the option of either 2 dimensions or 3. The conversion can be quite costly, but if people decide to see the movie in both 2D and 3D then they shouldn’t have a problem making their money back.

Guillermo del Toro not thinking about filming Hobbit films in 3D

Liam — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:16:11 +0000

A few weeks ago word was flying around that The Hobbit films would be filmed in 3D. Upon hearing this TheOneRing.net threw up a poll asking if Tolkien fans wanted to see a three dimensional Middle Earth, and 75% of them said they didn’t (I agree with them). Then TheOneRing.net decided to ask director Guillermo del Toro if all this 3D talk was true:

Not wanting to disrupt the creative process going on around a pair of films based on “The Hobbit,” we nevertheless asked Guillermo del Toro just what exactly, if anything, was up with 3D Hobbit movies. Since he is the director of the films in question (you know, the guy who picks the director of photography, the cameras and formats and all that movie stuff) we thought he might know. Turns out he did and he told us, “I can safely say that, as of this moment, there are absolutely NO conversations about doing the HOBBIT films in 3D.”

Peter Jackson is a fan of 3D and will probably use it a lot in the future, having filmed Tintin in 3D, however it’s Guillermo del Toro who decides what’s happening. In my opinion Middle Earth is epic enough and doesn’t really need to be in 3D. What do you think?

Avatar’s 3D team to work on Resident Evil: Afterlife

Liam — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:54:00 +0000

Around two weeks ago we heard that Paul W.S. Anderson would be returning to direct Resident Evil: Afterlife and that filming was planned for September this year. What was not revealed, however, is that it will be in 3D. Milla Jovovich told ShockTillYouDrop that little nugget of info during an interview today:

“There’s a great script and it’s going to be pretty wild. It’s going to be in 3D,” she said diplomatically. “They figured out a lot of stuff. We start shooting in September, they’ve got it all figured out at this point.”
Anderson has really been getting prepared to make his return to directing the franchise since the first movie, especially with the 3D factor being added to the equation. “He’s been really studying it and seeing all the different things they have and watching every 3D movie ever made pretty much,” Milla told us. “Especially for a movie like this, because it’s wild and a lot of action and a lot of potential for 3D to use the medium at its best. Paul has been going to every 3D company and he’s now signed a deal to go with Jim Cameron’s 3D company–they did ‘Avatar’–It should be pretty interesting. I’ve never actually seen a 3D movie.”

James Cameron and his company spent years developing “3D virtual cameras which would produce stereoscopic 3D images simulating human sight” for Avatar, and the technology is supposed to bring 3D out of the ‘kid movie gimmick’ phase and revolutionize movies forever. That’s what we’ve been told anyway. We’ll have to wait till December to see if the technology achieves that, but with more and more movies being filmed in 3D it looks like we’ll be seeing more of it in the future anyhow.

Bland G-Force Proves Family-Friendly 3D Makes $$$

Dave — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:26:23 +0000

It was a dismal weekend for nation-wide releases this week in the US. Walt Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer ended up winning the weekend with their talking-guinea pig action film G-Force, which I sadly took time out of my weekend to see.

The future of 3D for blockbuster entertainment hangs in the balance, with theater owners being pressured into Digital 3D theater conversion in these economically trying times. Right now, Real D and the Regal Cinemas chain have the biggest commitment to furthering 3D projection with Regal pledging an additional 1,500 screens in May bringing the total Real D screens to 3,500 by the beginning of the fall.

Monsters and Aliens this year was the first film to add a 3D surcharge across the board, something that has acted as the carrot to Avatar’s ever-present whip. James Cameron and Robert Zemeckis have been the two filmmakers leading the charge on the 3D motion capture front, both pushing harder for 3D ready screens as their fourth-quarter blockbuster releases A Christmas Carol and Avatar loom on the horizon. If Avatar ends up being the must-see film of December, theaters don’t want to be left out in the cold when they could use that movie to recoup the costs of digital 3D theater conversion.

As for A Christmas Carol, it’s 3D family fare, and G-Force took this weekend to prove that if you have enough kid-friendly jokes and lots of stuff popping out of the screen at kids, the film can make money.

While watching G-Force and actually finding myself bored by the movie mid-way through, I started having very vivid Bolt flashbacks. Bolt, also released by Disney in Digital 3D, starred John Travolta and Miley Cyrus in a film about a television-star dog who was unaware he didn’t posses the super powers his on-screen character did. The movie was cute, I guess, but I can’t imagine I would have seen it if it hadn’t been one of the few 3D releases at the tail end of last year. 3D as a gimmick for kiddie films seems to get my butt in the seats despite negative buzz and an uninteresting plot.

As G-Force became less about action sequences and more about being “special” and part of a family, I started to turn my attention to the use of 3D in this particular film, since I could see little other reason why it was made. What I noticed was a 3D convention that I hadn’t seen before and I think it made me mad.

When the theater I was in started it’s pre-recorded “put on your glasses now for the amazing 3D experience” announcement, the screen widened to something damn close to a 4:3 aspect ratio. I thought I was just going to see a Disney movie that was all-ready to get pan-and-scanned for home video release, but when the film started, it was presented in a more-cinematic 16:9 aspect ratio. But here’s the tricky thing: The black letterbox bars that altered the aspect ratio were part of the film’s print. When something was supposed to be a especially spectacular 3D effect, the object would bleed over into the letterboxing bars as well as go more 3D for the glasses-wearing audience.

As soon as I noticed that the black bars actually had the slightest degree of negative depth (making the entire 16:9 part of the film look slightly more dimensional), I couldn’t stop noticing that a cog, spark or atmospheric effect would bleed over into the letterbox (I’ve attempted to demonstrate using the banner image on this post).

It was really annoying, but a convention I hadn’t seen in the 3D films of the past few years. I’m not even sure what to call it, as it was meant to simulate the characters and elements actually entering the audience.

One of my gripes with trailers for 3D movies is that shot where they show a CGI’d character from the film (or flames, or an axe) actually flying over the heads of an audience. I know it’s supposed to FEEL like things are actually flying out over the first few rows, but showing us this effect as if holograms were going to spring up in the crappy seats is a little disingenuous. However, when the 3D effects look to bleed off the screen into the actual theater, as is the desired effect with black, recessed letterbox cropping on the actual print, the illusion is maintained until you notice what’s going on.

And once I focused on that, G-Force’s plot was even more obviously bland to me.

But the surprising lasting-power shown by Ice Age 3D ($673.5 million worldwide after 26 days) and the surprise drop in Harry Potter numbers letting G-Force take the #1 spot for the weekend (with $32,185,000 in 3 days) goes to show that opening family-friendly 3D fare in the middle of an adult-male oriented summer release schedule is a winning strategy.

So, no matter how mediocre G-Force was (and I was forgetting it as the credits rolled), we’re going to see more of its gimmicky 3D ilk.

Will Transformers 3 be 3D?

Liam — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:29:01 +0000

For Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen director Michael Bay filmed three action sequences with IMAX cameras and made a life sized Optimus Prime. Over the past few years, especially this year, 3D has been gaining steam with more and more movies are being made in 3D, and many 3D screens are being fitted all over the place for us to see them, so will Michael Bay go a step further and give us a life sized Optimus Prime in 3D for Transformers 3?

No. No he won’t.

From the Wall Street Journal:

I prefer the flat screen. I’m not jumping to do 3-D at all—it’s a pain in the neck to shoot it and I actually like the flat image. I’ve heard that some people can’t even see 3-D and, moreover, that a major side effect of watching it is feeling exhausted. Can you imagine how you’d feel watching one of my movies in 3-D?

He has a point. Spending 2 hours and 40+ minutes watching 3D robots going at it, while cool, would be enough to shut down people’s brains and souls. Bay also commented on his next project, which shockingly will contain little or no special effects.

I’ve been talking to some big actors right now about something that is totally different. A small dark comedy, a true story, with actors just acting, no effects. I’m done with effects movies for now. When you do a movie like “Transformers,” it can feel like you’re doing three movies at once—which is tiring.
I just want to take some time off. It’s been almost three years that I’ve devoted myself entirely to this world of robots. At some point, enough is enough—and I literally carried this movie on my back. I only finished it in the last week. It was a tough movie for me to finish—especially with the writers strike, the possible SAG strike. At one point, we were the only union movie in America shooting—Hollywood was so messed up from those two events.

The Smurfs movie will be 3D

Liam — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:36:31 +0000

What’s better than a Smurfs movie? A Smurfs movie in 3D that’s what! According to ComingSoon.net the Smurfs will be getting all 3 dimensional on us when they hit the big screen in December 2010.

That is all.

Tintin will be released in 3D. It also has numerous release dates.

Liam — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:38:26 +0000

Paramount and Sony have made some big decisions regarding Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. According to Variety the studios have announced that the film will be released in 3D, which was expected considering the idea to make Tintin occurred when Spielberg and Jackson where playing around with the technology on the set of James Cameron’s Avatar. The studios have also announced that the film will be released in December 2011…in the US. Tintin will be released internationally in October and November, which at first seems like a risky move, but once explained the decision seems well thought out.

Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment unveiled plans to release the motion capture pic Stateside on Dec. 23, 2011. But in an unusual move, film will launch internationally in late October and early November 2011, with Sony Pictures Releasing Intl. handling Continental Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America and India, and Paramount distributing the film in Asia, Australia, the U.K. and all other English-speaking territories.
The decision signals the two studios’ belief that the property, which has been translated into 70 languages, shows stronger potential overseas than domestically. Not surprisingly, the film’s cast skews international with Brit Jamie Bell starring as the intrepid young reporter. Daniel Craig, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Gad Elmaleh, Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook round out the cast.
The two studios also revealed that they will release “Tintin” in 3-D, a move that had been mulled for several months. Insiders said the dailies convinced them that 3-D would offer the best rendition.

Tintin is popular overseas and it is pretty well known here in the UK thanks to a 90’s cartoon which I enjoyed as a child. One of the reasons both Paramount and Sony are working together on this is due to the property not being well known in the US, which meant there was a larger risk involved. Universal backed out of financing it last September which sent Spielberg and Peter Jackson on an epic quest to get financing from another studio. Paramount eventually offered them $135 million, however the idea was to film Tintin in 3D with photorealistic performance-capture technology, so the pair held out for a better deal. After what I expect was a long uncomfortable silence, one of the parties suggested getting another studio in on the action, so along came Sony.

[The cool Tintin image was made by Benef]

Avatar budget in excess of $300 million. Steven Spielberg predicts it will be the biggest 3-D live-action film ever!

Liam — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:53:08 +0000

The expectations for James Cameron’s Avatar just keep on growing! An article from Time magazine focuses on the future of 3D movies, and most importantly on Avatar. Here are a few interesting snippets:

Cameron’s Avatar, due in December, could be the thing that forces theaters to convert to digital. Spielberg predicts it will be the biggest 3-D live-action film ever. More than a thousand people have worked on it, at a cost in excess of $300 million, and it represents digital filmmaking’s bleeding edge.
The film is set in the future, and most of the action takes place on a mythical planet, Pandora. The actors work in an empty studio; Pandora’s lush jungle-aquatic environment is computer-generated in New Zealand by Jackson’s special-effects company, Weta Digital, and added later.
I couldn’t tell what was real and what was animated–even knowing that the 9-ft.-tall blue, dappled dude couldn’t possibly be real. The scenes were so startling and absorbing that the following morning, I had the peculiar sensation of wanting to return there, as if Pandora were real.
Cameron wasn’t surprised. One theory, he says, is that 3-D viewing “is so close to a real experience that it actually triggers memory creation in a way that 2-D viewing doesn’t.” His own theory is that stereoscopic viewing uses more neurons. That’s possible. After watching all that 3-D, I was a bit wiped out. I was also totally entertained.

To read the whole article, including quotes from Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg about filming Tintin, click here!

Update: TIME has updated its article with the following correction: “The original version of this story misstated the cost of the film Avatar as being in excess of $300 million. The correct figure is in excess of $200 million.”