While it seems that 3D movies are a new technological invention that has only been available to filmmakers in recent years, it has actually been around for a long time. The first patent for a 3D movie process was filed in Great Britain as far back as 1890, and the first movie viewed by a paying audience was shown back in 1922. In the 1950s, 3D movies became popular for awhile, but remained a novelty. In the early 1980s, movie makers again tried to sell the 3D technology, and this time reached more mainstreams producers. Titles such as Jaws 3D and Friday the 13th 3D showed some success. New, computerized cameras and processes led to the latest 3D craze, but these processes did little more than expand on the already-existing way 3D movies are filmed.
Before answering the question on how are 3D movies filmed, it must be noted that not all of todays three dimensional movies are filmed directly in 3D. Some of them were filmed with standard cameras, and then they are sent to a third-party production company that converts the movies into the third dimension. The three dimensional effects in post-production movies are generally not as good as movies that are originally shot in three dimensions. In many instances, the effect seems forced, subdued, or otherwise unnatural.
The best 3D movies are shot with special cameras that were invented for just that purpose. The most advanced of these cameras is the Sony 3D camera system developed by James Cameron and Vince Pace in conjunction with Sony. Cameron used the cameras to produce two documentaries before using them to film what is considered the greatest 3D movie of all-time, Avatar.
In gaining an understanding of how are 3D movies filmed, it is important to understand how 3D works. Three dimensional vision works on the principle of human binocular vision, the use of two eyes to create one image in the brain. Having two eyes that work together in this way is what allows people to perceive depth. The brain uses the triangulation between each eye and an outside object or point to determine how far away the object is. Because movie screens are flat, all of the images are the same distance away, so a system is used to trick the eyes into seeing two different images.
Older 3D movies were made with two cameras that recorded one image in red and the same image from a different perspective in blue or green. The images were then projected onto the screen using two cameras in synchronization. Viewers had to wear special glasses with red and green or blue tinted lenses so each eye could see only one of the projected images, creating a 3D effect.
Today’s 3D cameras use two lenses to capture two sets of images, but instead of colored filters, the images are differentiated by vertical and horizontal or opposing diagonal polarization. The movies are projected using a standard projector with a special lens that projects the two polarizations used. Viewers still have to wear special glasses, but they are no longer colored. The lenses filter each of the differently-polarized images to each eye, producing the 3D effect.

AvaIn a letter to reknowned film critic Roger Ebert, Walter Murch, whom Ebert desribed as "the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema," says 3D film is a system that defies 600 million years of evolution and thus, should be done away away with. If you question Ebert's assessment of Murch, this should ease those doubts.

 

I saw Avatar in Imax 3D and was somewhat impressed, but I thought the admission price far exceeded the value of the experience. Since then I have avoided 3D films like the plague. I just consider it an over-priced gimmick that failed miserably when they tried it in the 1950s and will fail again today. I noticed My Hero removed her glasses early during our viewing of Avatar because the 3D experience was causing her [hysical discomfort. In his letter to Ebert, Murch explains why:

The 3D image is dark, ... (about a camera stop darker) and small. Somehow the glasses "gather in" the image -- even on a huge Imax screen -- and make it seem half the scope of the same image when looked at without the glasses.
I edited one 3D film back in the 1980's -- Captain Eo -- and also noticed that horizontal movement will strobe much sooner in 3D than it does in 2D. This was true then, and it is still true now. It has something to do with the amount of brain power dedicated to studying the edges of things. The more conscious we are of edges, the earlier strobing kicks in.
The biggest problem with 3D, though, is the "convergence/focus" issue. A couple of the other issues -- darkness and "smallness" -- are at least theoretically solvable. But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen -- say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.
But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point.
If we look at the salt shaker on the table, close to us, we focus at six feet and our eyeballs converge (tilt in) at six feet. Imagine the base of a triangle between your eyes and the apex of the triangle resting on the thing you are looking at. But then look out the window and you focus at sixty feet and converge also at sixty feet. That imaginary triangle has now "opened up" so that your lines of sight are almost -- almost -- parallel to each other.
We can do this. 3D films would not work if we couldn't. But it is like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, difficult. So the "CPU" of our perceptual brain has to work extra hard, which is why after 20 minutes or so many people get headaches. They are doing something that 600 million years of evolution never prepared them for. This is a deep problem, which no amount of technical tweaking can fix. Nothing will fix it short of producing true "holographic" images.
Consequently, the editing of 3D films cannot be as rapid as for 2D films, because of this shifting of convergence: it takes a number of milliseconds for the brain/eye to "get" what the space of each shot is and adjust.
And lastly, the question of immersion. 3D films remind the audience that they are in a certain "perspective" relationship to the image. It is almost a Brechtian trick. Whereas if the film story has really gripped an audience they are "in" the picture in a kind of dreamlike "spaceless" space. So a good story will give you more dimensionality than you can ever cope with.
So: dark, small, stroby, headache inducing, alienating. And expensive. The question is: how long will it take people to realize and get fed up?

The 2011 Berlin International Film Festival will feature 3D films to celebrate the potential of the format since its recent revival in Hollywood.
The 61st festival will see the debuts of five films, and will also feature a 3D animation, according to the director of the festival, Dieter Kosslick.
“There will be many new filmmakers, many female directors … and technical novelties that we hadn’t ever shown before at the Berlinale.”
Amongst these technical novelties is of course 3D, with three films in the tridimensional format set to show at the festival in Germany.
Kosslick believes that 3D however shouldn’t be confined to the mainstream Hollywood productions:
“These three movies show that you can really play around with 3D in arthouse film… We wanted to take on new people and not just bet on the safe horse.”
3D will benefit massively from uptake in the indie film world, with the credibility of the format still very much up in the air given its tendency to predominantly bring poor films into the third dimension.
There is no reason that indie cinema, artistically, can’t use 3D, but financially it may prove a problem given the increased cost of producing a film in 3D.
Hopefully the Berlin International Film Festival will prove a good expose for 3D indie films and there will be more to come in the coming months and years. Our only hope is that Lars Von Trier won’t see fit to use the format, or it could all get very ugly indeed…

After Hitchcock taught me how to frame actors kissing in a romantic two shot, I had no idea I would have the benefit of his tutelage again so soon (and about 3D of all things).

Java knows squat about 3D movies. It's that gimmicky format meant to lure audiences away from other passive forms of entertainment and into a public place to wear goggles so that someone can throw random things at your face. It's a pie throwing contest, and you're the target.

Or so I thought.

A few weeks ago, yours truly happened upon The Alfred Hitchcock Geek's 5-part series on why the master of suspense is also the master of 3D movies, using Dial "M" for Murder to set up his points. The author, Joel Gunz, notes that when Margot reaches towards the audience as the killer strangles her, it's a plea for help that draws the viewer in, as opposed to the usual 3D film where that which lunges out of the frame is meant to repulse.  Gunz also points up  items in the foreground (e.g. fences, lines of bottles on the tables, etc.)  used when Hitchcock wants to divide space, or keep the audience at a distance during a crucial moment in the plot.
I found the Dial "M" series very informative, not only about this particular movie's machinations, but also about 3D movie tropes in general. Hitchcock uses the process subtly, - no spear throwing, snakes lunging or cars jutting out over a precipice -  a simple point that I had assumed wasn't possible without making  the 3D format superfluous in a movie.
Fast forward and I am at the cinema watching a film in 3D. I'm not thinking about  Dial "M", until there's a random row of flowers on a desk spanning the bottom of the screen, tickling my nose. They are directly in front of a character who is about to be murdered in cold blood.
I giggle.
The blooms, coffin-like, are boxing him in (framing him like the lamps and bottles which frame Margot and her forbidden lover in Hitchcock's movie). The guy is already pushing up daises; that's kind of cool. Unfortunately, the movie goes downhill from there, rarely using the gimmicky format for anything but hurling people and shrapnel at you as explosions hit. But for one brief moment, I appreciate a rather macabre, but funny, joke that nicely incorporates 3D.

I received a letter that ends, as far as I am concerned, the discussion about 3D. It doesn't work with our brains and it never will.
The notion that we are asked to pay a premium to witness an inferior and inherently brain-confusing image is outrageous. The case is closed.
This letter is from Walter Murch, seen at left, the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema. As a editor, he must be intimately expert with how an image interacts with the audience's eyes. He won an Academy Award in 1979 for his work on "Apocalypse Now," whose sound was a crucial aspect of its effect.Wikipedia writes: "Murch is widely acknowledged as the person who coined the term Sound Designer, and along with colleagues developed the current standard film sound format, the 5.1 channel array, helping to elevate the art and impact of film sound to a new level. "Apocalypse Now" was the first multi-channel film to be mixed using a computerized mixing board." He won two more Oscars for the editing and sound mixing of "The English Patient."
"He is perhaps the only film editor in history," the Wikipedia entry observes, "to have received Academy nominations for films edited on four different systems:
• "Julia" (1977) using upright Moviola• "Apocalypse Now" (1979), "Ghost" (1990), and "The Godfather, Part III" (1990) using KEM flatbed• "The English Patient" (1996) using Avid. •  "Cold Mountain" (2003) using Final Cut Pro on an off-the shelf PowerMac G4.

Movie theatres everywhere are presenting some sort of 3d film every day. Most of the movies are remakes of movies that were produced in Hollywood a long time ago. Then again there are others that are being introduced to the IMAX world that are just being pure genius. The latest IMAX hit is the new Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 movie. Imagine how it made you feel when it was shown in a normal theatre; now imagine it in IMAX.
Along with a new generation of kids comes new way to present movies: the IMAX experience. So why just go and see a movie at a regular theatre when you can be living it up adventurously the IMAX way. You must see these in IMAX because of the way you will experience the action and adventure. It is an awesome feeling, as though you are a part of the movie. Characters seem to come to real life when you are part of the IMAX experience.

 

IMAX seems fairly new to most people still, but in actuality it has been operating since 1967. In the late 60′s Canada was the first place to experience such a blast of pure genius. California then became creator of this genre a few years later after it was finished perfecting more ideas. The main question on most people’s minds is: how did they creat that effect? Well, after you have seen one IMAX movie you may never get the answer to that riddle. They must be pure geniuses is all that can be said

On August 28, 2009, I posted an entry called “Has 3-D Already Failed?” As I wrote then, my title was deliberately provocative. It depended on which of two yardsticks you measured success by:

1. If you’re Jeffrey Katzenberg and want every theater in the world now showing 35mm films to convert to digital 3-D, then the answer is probably yes. That goal is unlikely to be met within the next few decades, by which time the equipment now being installed will almost certainly have been replaced by something else.

2. It also seems possible that the powers that be will decide that 3-D has reached a saturation point, or nearly so. 3-D films are now a regular but very minority product in Hollywood. They justify their existence by bringing in more at the box-office than do 2-D versions of the same films. Maybe the films that wouldn’t really benefit from 3-D, like Julie & Julia, will continue to be made in 2-D. 3-D is an add-on to a digital projector, so theaters can remove it to show 2-D films. Or a multiplex might reserve two or three of its theaters for 3-D and use the rest for traditional screenings.

If the second, more modest goal is the one many Hollywood studios are aiming at, then no, 3-D hasn’t failed. But as for 3-D being the one technology that will “save” the movies from competition from games, iTunes, and TV, I remain skeptical.

So, nearly 17 months later, where do we stand? There has been a considerable increase in the number of screens with 3D projection systems, from 4,400 in May 2010 to 8,770 in early December. that’s out of roughly 38,000. This growth presumably came in response to the huge success of Avatar and Alice in Wonderland. Anne Thompson’s “Year-End Box Office Wrap 2010″ quotes Don Harris, Paramount’s executive vice-president of distribution: “There are more screens, so a theater can now handle anywhere from two to three 3-D films at one time.” By year’s end, there were roughly 13,000 3D-equipped screens outside the North American market. The number of 3D films per year has grown from 2 in 2008 to 11 in 2009 to 22 in 2010 to an announced 30+ for this year.