stevey.eu

Hav­ing seen Avatar in “3D” this week­end just gone, I left the the­atre with my mind a wash of con­trast­ing thoughts.

First and fore­most Wil­helm Roll­mann (not the U-boat com­man­der) I salute thee. We have pro­gressed from his early tech­niques of cre­at­ing anaglyph images in 1853 via var­i­ous incar­na­tions to what we today know as three dimen­sional cinematography.

Any­one born pre 1990s will no doubt recall the card­board glasses with red and cyan lenses, oh what a joy they were! In some respects I feel it is a shame that they have improved to the stan­dard they are today with polar­iza­tion, there is a lack of what you or I asso­ciate with 3D images when we put on what could eas­ily be described as a cheap pair of sun­glasses. By all means do not take that state­ment in the wrong man­ner, I am utterly fas­ci­nated by the whole con­cept and the ever improv­ing methods.

Look­ing at my first expe­ri­ence with the new era of 3D I feel, being an avid film col­lec­tor I must com­ment on the fact that Avatar as a film even in two dimen­sions, leaves a lot to be desired to put it rather mildly. In 2154 would the US mil­i­tary still be using vocab­u­lary such as “Ooh-Rah”, wear­ing the same stereo­typ­i­cal com­bats, and still wear­ing their caps backwards?

Dear James Cameron,

Please can you leave the writ­ing, and prob­a­bly even the direct­ing of cin­ema, to those with con­sid­er­ably more talent?

All the best,

Steven

Now, back to the point of this arti­cle, 3D cin­ema as a whole. Bar­ing in mind that this is the first 3D piece of cin­ema I have seen of the new era, I am by no means an expert and fully appre­ci­ate there are a num­ber of for­mats on the mar­ket. I am writ­ing of my expe­ri­ence with RealD.

The con­cept has come on leaps and bounds, but as with ani­mated cin­ema in its hey­day, there are still many more steps to be taken to improve. One major flaw, that seems to be expe­ri­enced by many, is the blur­ring or ghost­ing of cer­tain ele­ments of the image, in par­tic­u­lar the mid­dle and far dis­tance. Is this is a side effect of the polar­ized glasses, I do not know, but for some it can be nau­sea inducing.

I do believe that with the right improve­ments it is going to be a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence, but until that day arrives, I will be stick­ing to my reg­u­lar two dimen­sional view­ing. My eye­sight will thank me, I am sure.