Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Pallette.
Speaker 1: I'm an editor at how stuff works dot com, and
Speaker 1: sitting across from me, as always, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Well,
Speaker 1: you know it's that old shark screen, the bubble screen.
Speaker 1: You know, sharks don't like that. It's what they call
Speaker 1: a marine segregation. Okay, then that that quote comes from
Speaker 1: a movie that was in three D, and it leads
Speaker 1: us to our first in a long time listener mail.
Speaker 1: This listener mail comes from Calvin, and Calvin says, I
Speaker 1: was thinking that with movies like Avatar, Yes, I'm ill
Speaker 1: talking about Avatar and other big three D sort of
Speaker 1: c g I movies like Alice in Wonderland. Maybe a
Speaker 1: podcast on that would be fun. Any who, keep up
Speaker 1: the good work. Calvin B. From Minnetonka, Minnesota. All right,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna talk a little bit about three D movies. Now,
Speaker 1: we've talked about three D glasses in the past and
Speaker 1: three D television, but we really didn't go into the
Speaker 1: whole process of making a three D film or or
Speaker 1: three D video. Um and so we thought this would
Speaker 1: kind of fall into our movie making technology series. I agree,
Speaker 1: and I think it would be nice to start with
Speaker 1: a refresher about the three D glasses because that has
Speaker 1: a lot to do with how you make a movie
Speaker 1: and the reason why you make the movie the way
Speaker 1: you do. That's a good point. So let's start with
Speaker 1: talking about what makes three D three D in the
Speaker 1: first place. Okay, So the first thing you need to
Speaker 1: know is that we perceived depth through many different um ways.
Speaker 1: But one of those ways is through what we call parallax.
Speaker 1: And parallax is the difference in viewing angle between one
Speaker 1: eye and the other eye. So, if you were looking
Speaker 1: at an object that's a few feet away from you,
Speaker 1: you know your left eye in your right eye are
Speaker 1: not They're not located exactly in the same spot, otherwise
Speaker 1: you'd be a cyclops. Uh. So that means that your
Speaker 1: your brain is getting two sets of images that are
Speaker 1: slightly offset from each other, and it incorporates those two
Speaker 1: sets of images into a single image in your head.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's one of the ways we perceive depth.
Speaker 1: There are other ways as well, like visual cues of
Speaker 1: the size of something, and judging by the size, you
Speaker 1: kind of figure out how far away it is. And
Speaker 1: parallax only really works to a certain distance anyway. Once
Speaker 1: you get beyond you know, I don't know, I think
Speaker 1: it's like twenty or thirty feet, parallax doesn't play as
Speaker 1: big a role because it's getting far in the objects,
Speaker 1: getting far enough away where your eyes are getting closer
Speaker 1: and closer to being parallel. So if you focus on
Speaker 1: something that is effectly an infinite distance away, and of
Speaker 1: course that's you know, I'm saying effectively infinite. So for example,
Speaker 1: example a star out you know, if you're looking at
Speaker 1: a starry sky, the distance of that object is so
Speaker 1: far away that your eyes are essentially in parallel with
Speaker 1: one another. They're not converging at all. But parallax is
Speaker 1: a very important part of of getting a three D effect,
Speaker 1: especially on film or video and um so, the idea
Speaker 1: is that you have to present two different sets of images.
Speaker 1: Each set of images is going to be perceived by
Speaker 1: only the left or the right eye, and then when
Speaker 1: your brain sees, when your brain senses these two sets
Speaker 1: of images, that combines them into a single image that
Speaker 1: has the illusion of depth. Well, yeah, I mean there
Speaker 1: are there are two different types of of three D glasses,
Speaker 1: of course, the older one being the Anaglyph method and
Speaker 1: the newer one being the polarized version. Anaglyph was the
Speaker 1: one that had the two different colored lenses. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was either a red or blue, or red or green.
Speaker 1: And now you were saying to me earlier red and cyan.
Speaker 1: It's sort of the the accepted color and uh and
Speaker 1: the polarized ones. What that means is that the lenses
Speaker 1: are polarized to allow light that is aligned a certain
Speaker 1: way to pass through, and light that's aligned and I
Speaker 1: think it's ninety degree um other alignment that that light
Speaker 1: will not pass through the lens. So each lens is
Speaker 1: letting one kind of light through and blocking the other kind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's probably more sophisticated way of doing at
Speaker 1: The Anaglyph method required a red layer and a blue
Speaker 1: or green layer of the movie so that the glasses
Speaker 1: could interpret the images correctly, because, for example, the red
Speaker 1: lens uh makes the other color appear darker, so you
Speaker 1: see that better through that eye, and then the blue
Speaker 1: lens is the opposite. It makes the red uh frame
Speaker 1: is it? Frame would be the right word? Layer layer, Yeah,
Speaker 1: red layer show up better. Um, So it appears three
Speaker 1: D and because of the spacing between the two images,
Speaker 1: that's what gives the the illusion of depth. Right. The
Speaker 1: two images are offset, and of course that's really important
Speaker 1: because if they weren't offset, all you'd be doing is
Speaker 1: making a really lousy, fuzzy image for no good reason. Yes,
Speaker 1: which is kind of how it looks when you're not
Speaker 1: wearing the glasses. Yes, and there there is one a
Speaker 1: third type of of glasses that we should talk about,
Speaker 1: although this is I don't think it's ever used in films.
Speaker 1: I've never been to a movie where they used this method.
Speaker 1: But that's the shutter lens method, like the active active glasses,
Speaker 1: which are more often used for things like computers or
Speaker 1: sun Television systems are also experimenting with active glasses. Now.
Speaker 1: Active glasses require a power supply and they actually have
Speaker 1: a little l C D shutters in them that shutter
Speaker 1: on and off at incredible speeds. So to you, when
Speaker 1: you're wearing the glasses, it doesn't appear like they're shuttering
Speaker 1: on and off at all, but they really are and
Speaker 1: the images you're looking at are are are Wow. I
Speaker 1: had the word there you go synchronized with each lens,
Speaker 1: thank you. Um yeah, that was my brain gave out
Speaker 1: on me. But yes, like the the left lens would
Speaker 1: be synchronized with one set of images, the right lens
Speaker 1: would be synchronized with the other set of images. They
Speaker 1: would alternate those images at a speed that is uh
Speaker 1: so fast that you can't really tell when you just
Speaker 1: look at it. And um, so again, each eye would
Speaker 1: be getting one set of images at a certain alignment.
Speaker 1: Your brain would be putting all the information together and
Speaker 1: you get the illusion of depth. UM. Projectors have trouble
Speaker 1: with that. You have to have a projector that can
Speaker 1: can run at an incredibly fast frame rate for that
Speaker 1: to work, because you're you're you're shooting two different sets
Speaker 1: of images, um, but not at the same time. They're
Speaker 1: alternating so quickly that you have to you know, you
Speaker 1: have to keep that frame rate up really really high
Speaker 1: in order to maintain that illusion. These other methods, the
Speaker 1: polarized method, the anaglyph method, you can have both sets
Speaker 1: of images on the same strip of film. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's two different layers on a on a
Speaker 1: on one strip of film, so you don't have to
Speaker 1: alternate images back and forth, you know. So, um yeah,
Speaker 1: and your brain is doing all the work here. That's
Speaker 1: the great thing is that once you once you've developed
Speaker 1: the technology, the brain does everything else. All the special
Speaker 1: effects are supplied by you. However, it does mean that
Speaker 1: if you have suffered some vision loss, or if you
Speaker 1: have some other ailments, you may not be able to
Speaker 1: perceive three D in a three D film, right, So,
Speaker 1: but you'll still need the glasses unfortunately, because if you
Speaker 1: don't have the glasses, you're going to get that fuzzy
Speaker 1: effect that Poulette was talking about. It's gonna look like
Speaker 1: two sets of images on one strip of film, and
Speaker 1: that's not a really pleasant viewing experience, as anyone who's
Speaker 1: taken glasses off during a three D film could tell you. Right.
Speaker 1: But the trick is how do you actually make the
Speaker 1: movie so that it will appear in three D? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there are three main methods of doing this. Okay,
Speaker 1: There's there's converting a two D film into three D.
Speaker 1: There's shooting a film in three D to start with,
Speaker 1: and then there is using a computer generated film, and
Speaker 1: then you artificially create a second camera within your c
Speaker 1: g I world, and you make your film three D
Speaker 1: that way. Okay, I was kind of I was kind
Speaker 1: of lumping that in my head with the first one,
Speaker 1: which was taking the original and then doing something to
Speaker 1: it to make it three D. Yeah, it's when you
Speaker 1: said three I was going, Okay, I don't know that.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a bridge between the two when you
Speaker 1: think about it, because you're you're creating a virtual camera,
Speaker 1: so in a way, it's acting like you are actually
Speaker 1: using you like you're filming in three D from the beginning.
Speaker 1: But like you said, it's also incorporating some of the
Speaker 1: elements of conversion of two D to three D. Um
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about about the well, which
Speaker 1: one would you like to tackle first? Well, I was
Speaker 1: thinking that one of the things that's important to note
Speaker 1: here is that live action is much more difficult to
Speaker 1: convert to three D than computer graphics for the reason
Speaker 1: that you just brought up, which is in the computer
Speaker 1: graphic version, you can do things with the computers to
Speaker 1: you know, create a different camera angle, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: so that you would be able to do that a
Speaker 1: little bit more readily than you could with live action.
Speaker 1: So I think we should probably start with the traditional
Speaker 1: method of doing live action because three D movies have
Speaker 1: been around for quite some time since you're sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you were saying with the the just to tag
Speaker 1: on what you were talking about with the c g
Speaker 1: I movies, UM, yeah. The wonderful thing about c g
Speaker 1: I movies if you're a filmmaker is that you are
Speaker 1: not limited by the laws of physics, so you can
Speaker 1: create a camera angle that is the ideal angle, uh,
Speaker 1: to go with the other camera shots, so you know
Speaker 1: you can you could create two camera angles where the
Speaker 1: lenses would be the perfect lengths or the perfect distance
Speaker 1: between the two in order to create the three D effect,
Speaker 1: whereas in the real world most cameras are bulky and
Speaker 1: you can't get the lenses physically close enough to uh
Speaker 1: to mimic what you would see if you were standing there. Um.
Speaker 1: It's it's called the interocular distance. It's the distance between
Speaker 1: your eyes. Now, before we get into the actual physics
Speaker 1: of shooting, UM, I was just gonna quickly mention that
Speaker 1: the average interocular distance for a man is about sixty
Speaker 1: five millimeters for a woman, it's about sixty three millimeters
Speaker 1: and for a child it's about fifty one millimeters. So
Speaker 1: the average interocular distance used in three D filming is
Speaker 1: about sixty four millimeters. And most most cameras you just
Speaker 1: can't get two lenses that close together because the camera,
Speaker 1: the physical bulk of the camera prevents it. So, for example,
Speaker 1: if you had two red cameras, which we talked about
Speaker 1: that in the past, those are the really high definition cameras.
Speaker 1: That's a brand name. Yeah, yeah, not a description, right, exact,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. Yes. When I'm saying red cameras,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about the color red, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: a brand R E. D all in caps. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you were to get two of those and set them
Speaker 1: next to each other, the closest you'll be able to
Speaker 1: get the lenses is about a hundred and twenty five millimeters,
Speaker 1: So that's almost twice the distance as what you would
Speaker 1: need if you wanted to create kind of a natural
Speaker 1: looking effect that was easily translatable into stereoscopic vision um
Speaker 1: once you were finished. And uh so that's a problem
Speaker 1: there there, and there are ways around that, but we'll
Speaker 1: get into that. So you were going to talk about
Speaker 1: some of the historical three D films, or at least
Speaker 1: the historical methods were just a little bit of it. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean traditionally the way to do this since the
Speaker 1: the least according to Britannica, the typical distances between two
Speaker 1: and a half to two and three quarters inches, which,
Speaker 1: as you were pointing out, is about six point four
Speaker 1: centimeters to seven centimeters. Um. You know, there there are
Speaker 1: a couple different ways of doing this. You could put
Speaker 1: a couple different cameras side by side, although as you
Speaker 1: pointed out, that can be difficult, Or you can use
Speaker 1: a camera with two lenses, um, which seems awfully specialized
Speaker 1: and probably very expensive compared to some of the other
Speaker 1: methods of doing this. Um. Actually, the very first film,
Speaker 1: according to Britannica again to be you made using the
Speaker 1: natural vision process was Buanna Devil in two um. Although
Speaker 1: there there were some experiments uh done in the nineteen
Speaker 1: twenties and thirties using three D, but it was edwin Land.
Speaker 1: You know that name. It should sound familiar to you. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's not ringing any bells. He he created a polarizing
Speaker 1: material in nineteen thirty two. That the natural vision method
Speaker 1: is based on And that's the kind that of glasses
Speaker 1: that we were talking about earlier, not the anaglyph blue
Speaker 1: slash green slash san um. These are the lenses that
Speaker 1: look almost like their sunglasses, but they are not sunglasses.
Speaker 1: They're not do not wear them as sunglasses. Is their
Speaker 1: polarized And he was the inventor of the polaroid land camera.
Speaker 1: Got you, Um, but yeah, I mean he was. He
Speaker 1: was one of the people who were working on this
Speaker 1: and that that was you know, a long long time ago.
Speaker 1: But you know that's uh, that sort of water under
Speaker 1: the bridge, and there were a lot of people trying
Speaker 1: to do this. Um. You know, back when the Natural
Speaker 1: Vision System came out. Three D became big for a while,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people made a lot of very
Speaker 1: bad three D movies. It seems to move in cycles.
Speaker 1: We talked about this, I think in our three D
Speaker 1: Glasses podcasts as well, about how three D films seemed
Speaker 1: to come up as a gimmick for like every twenty
Speaker 1: to thirty years because they were they got really big
Speaker 1: in the fifties and then they kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: the processes just were not refined enough for it to
Speaker 1: really take off. Um, it just it came across as
Speaker 1: a gimmick. And then they had another resurgence in the eighties. Uh,
Speaker 1: which that's the era from which my quote uh derived.
Speaker 1: But then the quotes don't stop at the edge of
Speaker 1: the podcast, that's right. Uh, so the nice So they
Speaker 1: the the eighties had another little resurgence of of three D.
Speaker 1: But again the techniques still weren't truly refined, and so
Speaker 1: there were some problems. And I guess we'll talk about
Speaker 1: that in a little bit too. Uh. And then now
Speaker 1: we've got some point where digitally we're able to uh
Speaker 1: to correct some of those problems and and and head
Speaker 1: off some of those problems, so that we really have
Speaker 1: reduced the the the factors that made viewing three D
Speaker 1: less than a pleasant experience for some people. Um. And
Speaker 1: I guess I guess I can hit that really quickly
Speaker 1: right now. If since your brain is is creating this
Speaker 1: picture in your head and creating this illusion of three D, uh,
Speaker 1: if stuff is not aligned properly on the screen, your
Speaker 1: brain has trouble with that, right, So it has to
Speaker 1: be done just right or it's not gonna it's going
Speaker 1: to not work. In the opposite way, it's not not
Speaker 1: just going to be not convincing, it's going to actually
Speaker 1: be upsetting. Yeah, kind of like the way for example,
Speaker 1: here's here's a very simple way where it can it
Speaker 1: can really mess with your brain. Uh, we're not We
Speaker 1: can handle horizontal differences, you know, where you're shifting the
Speaker 1: image to the left or to the right a little bit.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's what three D is all based on.
Speaker 1: If we didn't shift the images, then you wouldn't get
Speaker 1: the three D u vertically, not so much. You shift
Speaker 1: an image so one image set of images is slightly
Speaker 1: higher than the other. That's gonna create a really weird
Speaker 1: distorted field for your brain to handle, and that can
Speaker 1: actually make audiences uncomfortable and and sick or give them
Speaker 1: eyestrain or headaches and a lot. And because the early
Speaker 1: early methods of creating three D films didn't always have
Speaker 1: everything stuch up just perfectly. I mean you're talking about
Speaker 1: using physical cameras and physical film to create two different
Speaker 1: versions of the same image. Um that that meant that
Speaker 1: just a tiny misalignment could cause an entire audience to
Speaker 1: start yakking, very much like the stand by Me infamous scene. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So you don't want that to happen. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: it's not great publicity to say that, Hey, audiences have
Speaker 1: been throwing up at this film for for for weeks now.
Speaker 1: Did you work for the Blair Witch Project? It worked
Speaker 1: for me anyway, So, but that wasn't the three D film.
Speaker 1: Don't write us so. Yeah, but but there was emotion
Speaker 1: remember the camera, Yes, yes, the idea was it was
Speaker 1: supposed to simulate somebody walking around with a handheld video
Speaker 1: game and the motion made people sick because we're bouncing around.
Speaker 1: Clover Field did the same thing there. They're quite a
Speaker 1: few handheld films out there now and I think people
Speaker 1: are starting to get a little more used to them.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you might want to take a drama mean
Speaker 1: before you go into the getter for that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: That is not medical advice, by the way. That's just
Speaker 1: me making a joke. Um anyways, just heading off the emails.
Speaker 1: Uh so, yeah, if now that we have the digital approach,
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier to correct for these problems. So
Speaker 1: that we've really reduced the factors that create things like
Speaker 1: eye strain and make people nauseated. We've managed to maybe
Speaker 1: not eliminate them, but dramatically reduce those elements. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're talking about the having two cameras next to
Speaker 1: each other or a camera with two lenses. Um, there's
Speaker 1: also there are also other ways that you can try
Speaker 1: and get to additional ways that you can try and
Speaker 1: get the three D effect. So let's say you're using
Speaker 1: two cameras and you cannot get these two cameras close
Speaker 1: enough to get to that ideal interocular distance. So what
Speaker 1: you might want to try and do is you'd have
Speaker 1: to find a way to direct the image the light
Speaker 1: in such a way so that it looks like the
Speaker 1: two lenses are next to each other. So you might
Speaker 1: have to use prisms and mirrors and a really really
Speaker 1: elaborate camera by camera rig Uh. These things are are bulky.
Speaker 1: They make shooting much more difficult. So shooting in three
Speaker 1: D is a difficult and expensive process. Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: you're either going to need specialized equipment so that's gonna
Speaker 1: cost more, like you said before, or you're going to
Speaker 1: need twice the equipment that you normally would need because
Speaker 1: you're gonna need, you know, two cameras instead of just
Speaker 1: one for every single kind of camera shot that you're
Speaker 1: going to be doing uh, and you're gonna need specialized
Speaker 1: rigging or mirrors or whatever, and those all have to
Speaker 1: be set up just right, because if you have a
Speaker 1: mirror that's not aligned properly, you're not going to get
Speaker 1: that stereoscopic effect. And then, of course there's a further
Speaker 1: argument you can have. Do you have both cameras shoot
Speaker 1: in parallel, so in other words, both cameras are facing
Speaker 1: directly forward, or do you arrange it so that the
Speaker 1: cameras converge slightly Because our eyes converge, true, so if
Speaker 1: you want to have the cameras converge, you have to
Speaker 1: set that up. And it's a really exacting, precise process,
Speaker 1: and if you get it wrong, the effect is going
Speaker 1: to be ruined. So shooting in three D is really
Speaker 1: complicated and really expensive. There are those who will argue
Speaker 1: that it's the only way to get three D, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the thing is really when when you get right
Speaker 1: down to it, there's nothing inexpensive about three D because
Speaker 1: the conversion process is also very expensive. Yeah, it can be.
Speaker 1: Up to the general rule of thumb in the industry
Speaker 1: for converting a two D film into three D is
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars per screen running time. So yeah,
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty minute movie is gonna cost a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars times a hundred and twenty and so
Speaker 1: that's yeah. You start you start adding up and you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's really expensive. It's still cheaper than shooting it all
Speaker 1: in three D, assuming that you again that you're shooting
Speaker 1: live action. Well, because again c g I, we've already
Speaker 1: mentioned that you could just create a a virtual camera
Speaker 1: and get that effect all on its own. So c
Speaker 1: g I is easy. Comparatively speaking, It's still gonna take
Speaker 1: a lot of time. It's gonna take up a lot
Speaker 1: of hard drive space, and it's not like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like it's a walk in the park. But
Speaker 1: compared to the problems you face from doing live action,
Speaker 1: it's it's fairly simple. But let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the conversion process of two D to three D. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was actually gonna to uh mentioned, especially to your
Speaker 1: point about how much it costs um the company that
Speaker 1: did the conversion for Alice in Wonderland, as that company
Speaker 1: called in three and uh, it can charge. It charges
Speaker 1: something along the lines of fifty thousand two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars per minute of time needed to do that. So
Speaker 1: you think about that in terms of you know, per screen,
Speaker 1: you're thinking this is really not cheap. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you can. I guess you do it once for
Speaker 1: a master and then you run copies. But at any rate,
Speaker 1: the uh, yeah, it's expensive and the processes is complicated
Speaker 1: because what you have to do is, let's say you've
Speaker 1: got someone gives you a film and by the way,
Speaker 1: you can do this yourself. I'll tell you at the
Speaker 1: end of the podcast about a program that will allow
Speaker 1: you to convert two D movies into three D movies
Speaker 1: UM using some some open source software. It's pretty cool stuff.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of time and it takes a
Speaker 1: lot of processing power. So if you've got an older computer,
Speaker 1: this is probably not something you want to try because
Speaker 1: unless you don't you know, need your computer for three
Speaker 1: or four weeks um. But converting two D to three D,
Speaker 1: the first thing you do is you've got this flat
Speaker 1: image because you know it wasn't filmed in three D,
Speaker 1: so you have to divide that image into a series
Speaker 1: of layers, and it's generally between two to eight layers Okay,
Speaker 1: two layers would be the bare minimum because of course,
Speaker 1: you know, you need to have that those two layers
Speaker 1: to create that that sense of depth, and really the
Speaker 1: number of layers you have per frame depends upon how
Speaker 1: much stuff is on screen at that time. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: makes sense. So there was a great example, uh I
Speaker 1: read about this uh on on slate. Actually there's a
Speaker 1: great example of talking about a guy standing in front
Speaker 1: of a brick wall. That might just be two layers
Speaker 1: that you create there, or two or three. And so
Speaker 1: once you've figured out what the layers are, next an
Speaker 1: artist has to go in an outline the object that is,
Speaker 1: you know, that's going to be at a specific depth. Um,
Speaker 1: So every single object in the image has to be
Speaker 1: outlined so that the computer program that you're going to
Speaker 1: run this through will be able to to calculate what
Speaker 1: depth each image needs to be in. And then you
Speaker 1: kind of turn every single image that's on that or
Speaker 1: every single object that's in that image rather into kind
Speaker 1: of a topographical map that makes yeah. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: is what's telling the computer which parts of that image
Speaker 1: are should be closer to the eye of the viewer.
Speaker 1: Because of course, in the three dimensional objects some bits
Speaker 1: are going to be closer to you than others. So
Speaker 1: let's say that you're looking at an airplane head on,
Speaker 1: the nose of the airplane is going to be closer
Speaker 1: to you than the wings of the airplane, right, So
Speaker 1: you need to make sure that you you design this
Speaker 1: topographical map so that the computer realizes, oh, the nose
Speaker 1: is the front, that's what that's what needs to be
Speaker 1: closest to the eye. So we're gonna shift that this
Speaker 1: much for the two images, whereas the wing is further back,
Speaker 1: we're going to shift that a different distance to create
Speaker 1: the proper illusion of depths. You have to do this
Speaker 1: frame by frame, yes, And it's that's why it gets
Speaker 1: really expensive because it it's a process that requires both
Speaker 1: manual work and computer programs. It's it's not something that
Speaker 1: you can just you know, you can't just chunk a
Speaker 1: two D movie into a what you can, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily work. You can't just chunk a two D
Speaker 1: move into a computer program and expect a great three
Speaker 1: D film to come out. Now. It's it's it's got
Speaker 1: to be done slowly and carefully, which is probably why
Speaker 1: it's so expensive. Um, the the inn three process UH
Speaker 1: starts with their previous pre visualization or previous program and
Speaker 1: then they actually use a technique they call dimensionalization, which well, okay,
Speaker 1: it's pretty self descriptive, but um, during the process they
Speaker 1: get the directors involved, and what they'll do is they
Speaker 1: basically can control the depth, shape, and perspective of different
Speaker 1: objects to tailor the image what's there now, to the
Speaker 1: screen size that it's going to be shown on, and
Speaker 1: and to give people, you know, for example, IMAX versus
Speaker 1: a regular size, regular ish sized movie screen. Not like
Speaker 1: there's anything that's particularly regular about that, um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's they have control over over that. And
Speaker 1: maybe one scene doesn't need so much three dimensionalization to
Speaker 1: make it a peer three D and another requires more.
Speaker 1: So they go in and scene by scene, frame by frame,
Speaker 1: they have an opportunity to take control of that. UM.
Speaker 1: They actually have a soft particular software package that they use,
Speaker 1: their own homegrown stuff called Intrigue UM. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it allows them to stay consistent shot to shot,
Speaker 1: and then they go through a depth grading process that
Speaker 1: you know, it allows them to do the screen size things,
Speaker 1: so they can have control over everything. And that's just
Speaker 1: another reason why it takes so long. But the studios
Speaker 1: that do this um uh in three and there's another
Speaker 1: one called Prime Focus that's based in Mumbai. They're the
Speaker 1: ones who did Clash the Titans, by the way, cost
Speaker 1: about four point five million dollars according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Speaker 1: I read an article by A Carol and Giardina, and so,
Speaker 1: I mean, they all have their own proprietary way and
Speaker 1: they sort of tell you what's going on, but they
Speaker 1: don't really get into, if you will, in depth on
Speaker 1: the matter. But let's talk about some of the problems
Speaker 1: of converting two D to three D, because there are
Speaker 1: some quite a few, uh, and there are directors out there,
Speaker 1: James Cameron among them, who are adamant that this approach
Speaker 1: is flawed and results in bad movies, or at least
Speaker 1: technically bad movies. Not necessarily that you know, the script
Speaker 1: is bad or whatever, but technically it is. Visually. Visually
Speaker 1: yes it is. It is an inferior product. And Cameron
Speaker 1: will argue that shooting in three D is really the
Speaker 1: only way to go right now because our conversion process
Speaker 1: just isn't good enough. And some of that is understandable
Speaker 1: because some movies have been converted to three D. Were
Speaker 1: never intended to be in three D in the first place.
Speaker 1: But actually he uh, it's kind of ironic in a
Speaker 1: way because he's partially to uh to blame, not blame,
Speaker 1: but he's he's partially the reason why everybody is rushing
Speaker 1: to make three D movies right now because the successive Avatar.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean when you think about it, that
Speaker 1: makes it makes perfect sense from Hollywood's perspective, because shooting
Speaker 1: and releasing a three D film means you can charge more,
Speaker 1: and it's it's capitalizing on the three D craze right right.
Speaker 1: Everybody's excited about it, so they wanted so it's do
Speaker 1: another one. It's easier to make a lot of money
Speaker 1: because you don't have to sell as many tickets to
Speaker 1: make as much to make a huge box office. But
Speaker 1: as well as the fact that it's cashing in on
Speaker 1: a craze. Uh So, some of the problems with converting
Speaker 1: two D to three D is is if it wasn't
Speaker 1: shot meant if it wasn't meant for three D, you
Speaker 1: may not be getting that. You know, the three D
Speaker 1: effects that you see may not be that that good.
Speaker 1: The sense of depth may not really be there because
Speaker 1: it wasn't intended to be there, that wasn't part of
Speaker 1: the original vision. Another problem is that sometimes if the
Speaker 1: if the conversion process is a poor one, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it is, you end up with what looks like a
Speaker 1: bunch of cardboard cutouts that are at different in depths.
Speaker 1: So there is a sense of depth, but there's not
Speaker 1: a sense of three dimensions. And I've seen this happen
Speaker 1: with a lot of software that converts two D photos
Speaker 1: to three D photos in real time, and it looks like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like, hey, that's not Bill, that's a cardboard
Speaker 1: cut out a bill. But the cardboard cut out a
Speaker 1: Bill is closer to the camera than the cardboard cutout
Speaker 1: of Sarah. It's not at all convincing, and it's actually distracting.
Speaker 1: That guy always left me a little flat to begin with.
Speaker 1: Ha ha, such a two dimensional character. Uh. The Another
Speaker 1: problem is that these films are shot. The two D
Speaker 1: films may be shot with a certain idea of what
Speaker 1: the level of light needs to be. Well, when you
Speaker 1: converted to three D, one of the problems is that
Speaker 1: if you're using the polarized lenses, that means that the
Speaker 1: image you're gonna see is already going to be a
Speaker 1: little darker than what was necessarily intended originally, so you
Speaker 1: end up with scenes that are darker than the director
Speaker 1: had intended. This was a big problem, one of many
Speaker 1: for Avatar The Last Airbender. There were scenes or shot
Speaker 1: at night that you could not you couldn't tell what
Speaker 1: was going on because by the time you had the
Speaker 1: glasses on, it made the shots so dark that you
Speaker 1: couldn't see anything. Right. Um, now I'm going to wrap
Speaker 1: this up really quickly. We've pretty much covered how this works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did mention that I was going to talk about
Speaker 1: how you could convert your own like convert two D
Speaker 1: movies to three D movies. Sure, there's Uh, there's this
Speaker 1: great program called avicynthe A v I S y n
Speaker 1: t H and it's it's free, you can get This
Speaker 1: is actually kind of a codec more than anything else. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's which means it plugs into U to something like
Speaker 1: Windows Media Player and allows you to read files that
Speaker 1: have been encoded with right. Right, it's not it's not
Speaker 1: its own it doesn't have its own user interface. It's
Speaker 1: not like you would run this program and something would
Speaker 1: pop up. Um, I got this, by the way from
Speaker 1: maximum pc so if you want, did you Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: an article by Alex Castle at maximum pc UM. The
Speaker 1: article title is how to upgrade your two D movies
Speaker 1: to three D, So if you want to look into
Speaker 1: it in detail, I recommend checking out that article. But
Speaker 1: in general, what does is it provides you a uh
Speaker 1: so the ability to to create three D films. You
Speaker 1: have to grab some code UH and the article tells
Speaker 1: you where to go to get the code. It's from
Speaker 1: a three D vision blog. And when you put this
Speaker 1: code in, you can actually convert a two D film
Speaker 1: into three D. It will create two sets of images. UH.
Speaker 1: It's a designed to work with Nvidia's three D system,
Speaker 1: so you need the Nvidia UH graphics card and a
Speaker 1: Navidia glasses and or if it leads to work. But
Speaker 1: it also has a setting where you can switch it
Speaker 1: to anaglyph if you want to, so you wouldn't in
Speaker 1: that case if you just switch it to anaglyph, you
Speaker 1: just need the anaglyph glasses in order to view it.
Speaker 1: But keep in mind that when you're viewing stuff with
Speaker 1: anaglyph glasses, that means that the color is going to
Speaker 1: seem a little off. It's not going to be as
Speaker 1: vibrant again. Um, so there are some issues. And just
Speaker 1: like we were talking about with the three D conversion thing,
Speaker 1: if you're using polarized glasses or really it's the act
Speaker 1: of shutter glasses, it may be a little darker than
Speaker 1: what the movie was originally intended to be, so you
Speaker 1: may have to adjust your brightness settings in order to
Speaker 1: be able to see everything properly, and that may affect
Speaker 1: the quality of the film. But yeah, check that out
Speaker 1: if you are interested in doing this yourself, Remember that
Speaker 1: it's going to take a lot of processing power and
Speaker 1: a lot of hard drive space if you want to
Speaker 1: save these, and they actually go into another open source
Speaker 1: program that will allow you to save the films. Because
Speaker 1: avicynthe is really a real time conversion thing. It's not
Speaker 1: designed to save the movie that you've converted. It's just
Speaker 1: designed to to kind of do the conversion on the fly.
Speaker 1: If you want to save it, you're gonna need to
Speaker 1: use a separate set of programs and codex. But maximum
Speaker 1: PC spells that all out, and the three D Vision
Speaker 1: blog also does so if you're interested, check that out. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right. That sums up our movie making Technology three
Speaker 1: D podcast spectacular. I hope you guys enjoyed it. If
Speaker 1: you have any questions or you want to hear more
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