[Tokolosh]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

SYG never took math

I wouldn't go that far.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

I think the main advantage right now is a business/marketing one-- you have an exclusive product and you can shut out competitors that lack the resources and technology to do the same. This doesn't mean the product is good, however, it just means that you control a commodity.

Sure, business and marketing play a big roll, but I wouldn't exclude the hunger for innovation. I don't agree with the lack of resources bit. It's steadily getting easier to find and rent a relatively cheap stereoscopic rig at most rent houses. Especially in the US. BTW, Element Technica rule in that area.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

That's a HUUUUGE "if". That would be a holographic image rather than what we're doing today. Holographic mages would indeed be amazing, but they would likely require completely different filming and projection technology. I would love to see holographic film, though i wonder if it wouldn't be restricted to room-size scenarios-- how the hell do you fit in the horizon line into a limited space? But anyway, that's another thing altogether.

Holographic projection seems to be the next logical step, but we could be way off. WAY OFF! Take for example optical flow. It has drastically changed the way we deal with FX in post. It has only been around for about ten years and look at how it has revolutionized the industry. Here's an excellent article about it at fxguide: http://www.fxguide.com/featured/art_of_optical_flow/
We have only scratched the surface of what's possible with digital imaging.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

What we have right now isn't amazing-- it's a gimmick that sometimes is nice and sometimes sucks ass.

It's a no-brainer that 3D works a lot better for animations. With film/photography it's still pretty much in the dark ages.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

The fact is that we've had access to 3D film and stereoscopic images for over 50 years. It was a fad in the 50s and it went away. I think this fad will also pass because it brings nothing new to the table-- it's the same old shit in a brand new package. Once the novelty wears out there is nothing behind it.

I would have to agree with you on that, but don't ask me what my answer would be five years from now.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

That would still require a stereoscopic image that's not there, but I image one could be extrapolated and rendered by computer without excessive hassle. Actually you'd need 2 extra images to recreate the original one in the middle in 3D.

When I wrote "old stock" I was referring to stereoscopic images being shot today, dig?

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

wait, i don't get how this is possible. you can't "saturate" black and white-- you can colorize it, like ted turner did with old movies, but if there's no color information there is nothing to saturate. the opposite trick is useful however-- to shoot in color and later DEsaturate-- desaturate all or maybe just one channel for a "pleasantville" effect. Maybe I'm not understanding what you're saying.

Oops, Typo! Add the D and E in there. Can't get it right all the time.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

That i suppose is true in some level, but you also kill your finances, use double the film stock (if shooting film) and have to use pricier cameras. When you consider the cost and risks of making movies, suddenly the idea of burning a ton of money out of the gate for no particular purpose ceases to be appealing.

Celluloid would be out of the question with the current climate, but it's definitely doable digitally. Even for indies.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

HDR is very promising because it offers to reproduce the way we see the world, without clipping whites and crushing blacks the way video does today, but that's completely separate from the 3D problem. Better motion capture is a good thing too, anything better than the creepy looking shit like "polar express" (yuck), but again it's a separate problem from 3D or dynamic range.

One of the major problems with 3D is how dark the images get. Something also has to be done about the glasses, which make it even darker. A while back I read that HDR can help reduce the contrast of both images so that you get "blacker than black" and "whiter than white" when masking. I'll have to look it up again before I can comment further. Industrial Lights and Magic's OpenEXR also helped improve Lucas' 3D productions. Another good read: http://www.openexr.com/

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

hell yes. goes without saying. but to understand the technology also means to know its limitations.

Sure.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

Yes, true, but when the good story isn't there the result is utter shit, like avatar. I know that movie was a commercial and technological success, but I find it unwatchable, except as a scientific curiosity ("oh, wow, look how they did that") which places me completely outside the universe of the movie.

That goes without saying, but it takes the two to tango.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

Just the other day i watched "My Dinner With Andre" for the first time, and one of the great things about it was that it filled my mind with pictures while the movie itself was just 2 dudes talking. That's what a good story can do.

I'll look out for that movie. Thanks for the tip.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

I have a friend who shoots in 16mm. Beautiful experimental stuff, some of it hand-painted, but at $50 for every 2 minutes of raw footage-- OUCH! Still, only way to get that stuff done. We've had HD video for years now, but most festivals still lack the capability for HD projection, so you end up downrezing and compressing your HD movie for consumption. BR is not as widespread as one would expect and how many people have the capability to watch HD video files? DVD is still the main distribution medium for movies even though it's theoretically "obsolete". Shit, even a lot of TV is still SD, in spite of all the advances.

Barco and Sony are moving in the right direction:
http://www.barco.com/pressrelease/2612/
It won't take long before most major cinemas adopt 4K and
TVs go UberHD.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

2D films are here to stay, just like we still have books and paintings that don't need to be replaced with instructional videos or photography. 3D will remain a specialty market for a very long time, at least until we discover a way to make true holographic movies. 3D TVs look like utter shit and I don't believe the hype. Cameron making those pronouncements is just trying to psych out the competition and drum up business for his products. Fuck him. Fuck Peter Jackson too-- Lord of the Ringworms was fucking boring! Del Toro is a much more imaginative director-- Pan's Labyrinth used effects and technology to a great end.

Again, let's reminisce in five years.

Speaking of Cameron, I read that he chose ARRI's Alexa over RED's Epic saying that 5K was overkill and unnecessary. I later read that the real reason for not shooting in 5K was because of the astronomical costs he would have animating at that resolution. 3D was not the issue.
Oh well, we'll all just have to accept watching Avatar 2 at a low 1080p. Ha!