How's the 3D in X-Men: Days of Future Past?

 

Background:

It could be argued that the first X-Men (2000) film began the modern-day phenomena of blockbuster superhero franchises. 4 films and 2 spin-offs later into this series, X-Men: Days of Future Past arrives in 3D, directed again by the series' original helmer, Bryan Singer. This is not the first time we've seen Wolverine and his pals in 3D, so we've a lot of precedent to judge this effort against. How's the 3D in X-Men: Days Of Future Past? Read on to find out!

Native and Post-converted 3D

X-Men: Days Of Future Past is a hybrid stereo film. Interior and dialogue scenes were largely shot in native 3D. Several key sequences were post-converted sequences from a mono source. Other shots are largely CGI in nature, and the responsible effects houses were able to natively render their footage to stereo. It's therefore quite a confusing film to critique. To do the job properly, one would need a shot list or production schedule. We'll do our best though.

As a rule of thumb, most "first unit" sequences (character beats that would typically be directed by the director himself, and featuring the A-list stars) set indoors are clearly shot in native 3D. An observant audience member will be able to tell the difference. The trick is to look for subtle details; strands of hair, the length of an actor's nose, or even just compositional details like the layers of props on a table. In these scenes, it's interesting how at ease your eyes become. The camera is often locked down, actors are interacting in multiple panes of depth, and the stereo feels completely natural. You're there, say in Professor Xavier's mansion, with the other X-Men. These sequences were shot on ALEXA Ms.

Credit: http://www.arri.com/news/alexa-xt-on-x-men/

"Second unit" sequences (eg: the type of moment that doesn't usually require an expensive star, such as a shot where a hand picks up an object) are often show in 2D, and later post-converted to 3D. The same is true of large sequences that are shot on older film stock, using cameras from the 1970s, where the footage was later converted to a subtle form of stereo too. The conversion is handled well, and there are no glaring errors in the added depth. Aside from having marginally more eye strain, most audience members won't be able to tell the difference. What's interesting though, is the 'feeling' one gets from this rapid-fire transition. According to editor John Ottman, he edited the film in 2D, while the mono footage was being converted to stereo, because the cuts between the two formats were so regular and jarring that he couldn't process the visuals consistently. While audiences are thankfully spared from experiencing this, we at 3Defence definitely came away with a feeling that the film lacked a stereoscopic 'continuity'. Post-conversions are great, until they're compared to native 3D in the same sequence. These sequences were shot on ALEXA XT's.

 

Of course, as usual with most Hollywood blockbusters, there are also shots in the film that are 'rendered 3D'. In shots where the majority of the action is a composite of shots with digital characters (for example, a few shots of Sentinels in the beginning sequence), it's more than likely that the effects studios in charge of the shots provided the stereo rendered 'natively'. So, X-Men: Days Of Future Past is a hybrid of techniques.

How's the depth?

As mentioned above, the visual continuity is inconsistent throughout X-Men: Days Of Future Past. That is due to a number of reasons, in addition to the differing methods of filming. For one thing, large sections of the film's schedule were aggressively organised around the ensemble cast's availability. For another, the film went through several rewrites (even during production), major edits, and even rearranged which actors were part of key scenes.

So, ignoring the inconsistency of depth used in the film, we can look at a few shining moments where depth is used really creatively. The stand-out sequence, both from an entertainment perspective and a technical perspective, is a prolonged slow-motion one where Quicksilver single-handedly disarms and defeats several foes. The character's power is to be able to "move and think at superhuman speeds." Consequently, like The Amazing Spider-Man 2 before it, we're offered another version of a bullet-time like sequence, where a character is able to interact with a chaotic environment where objects are suspended in mid-air. Aside from being hilarious, the sequence allows the character dozens of objects to interact with and run around, on various panes of depth. It's an engaging sequence visually, and single-handedly worth the price of admission.

 
Another fantastic sequence is provided in the way Blink's powers are used in the film's first big action set-piece. She can project an entry and exit portal, that allows characters to jump through a kind of wormhole. In 3D, we get to see characters leap from one side of the room to the other, to startling effect. Just as your eye learns where a character is in the scene, the character is transported to a different spacial plane, forcing your eye to try and catch up. It's a power visual, that is used well in the beginning and end sequences of the film.

Does the 3D 'pop'?

There are a few instances where debris, water, dust and other particle-based elements come very close to the edge of the screen. Generally the film treats the screen's boundary as a safe barrier between the audience and the action. If you're after yo-yo styled pop-out effects, X-Men: Days Of Future Past is not the 3D film for you.

Did it make sense to add 3D to X-Men: Days Of Future Past?

In theory, it makes sense to add 3D to any X-Men movie. Their characters are colourful, with a variety of interesting powers, and in Days Of Future Past they interact across time and space. In practice though, this film spends a lot of time in a murky and dark post-apocalyptic future, and in 3D these scenes are distractingly gloomy. 3D projection's light-loss was evident in many sequences throughout Days Of Future Past, and we didn't feel the film-makers did enough to counteract this. Films like Prometheus and Tron: Legacy have worked around this issue with bright neon-flavoured yellows and blues. Days Of Future Past's 'fire-light' orange didn't have the same effect, and made the image softer than we'd like.

The film itself

X-Men: Days Of Future Past is a great film... provided you have watched at least four key films from the series beforehand. It's assumed at this point you know the key characters' powers, without any real introduction or back-story. Most characters get an arc of some description, though the impact of that arc is more meaningful if you've seen the other films the arc relates to. In that sense, this is a perfect comic book movie. We wouldn't advise casual viewers check this out, unless they're prepared to do their homework ahead of time! If you have done your homework, you'll be rewarded for as much as effort as you were prepared to put in. The complexity of the lore on offer here is getting seriously dense, and it's a treat to see your favourite characters navigate unfamiliar terrain in the way we see here. At least as of our first viewing, this film vies with X-Men 2 for the title of 'best in the series'.

Should we archive the 2D or the 3D version?

Archive the 3D version, if only for the beauty and hilarity of the Quicksilver heist sequence. Seeing that in 3D is worth it, if you were umming and ahhing about paying the extra dollar for premium 3D ticket prices. There are parts of X-Men: Days of Future Past we weren't fans of, from a stereo perspective, but that one sequence is going to go down as one of the 'all time great' 3D moments.

How's the 3D in 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2'?

Background

The fifth Spider-Man film in 15 years, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is also Spidey’s second 3D film. We were reasonably underwhelmed by the 'original' The Amazing Spider-Man, despite it being shot in native 3D. How does the most recent sequel fare in comparison? Read on for all the details on the film’s post-converted 3D, its depth, effects and whether or not we should save the 2D or 3D versions for archival purposes.

Post-Converted 3D

Unlike its immediate predecessor, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was largely shot on film, and post-converted to 3D. This task fell to Legend 3D, and Stereo Supervisor Ed W. Marsh. The company has a mixed record with its stereo conversions. Some of their earlier work left much to be desired (eg: Alice In Wonderland and Green Hornet). Like much of the conversion industry, they've upped their game in recent years (eg: Top Gun, Man Of Steel). The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is another  massive step forward for them; average viewers won't realise this film was post-converted 3D.

A film, made on film!

That's a misleading sentence though, because much of the film is not 'post-converted' in the truest sense. Due to the web-slinging nature of the film, large sequences of the film feature hundreds of composite effects shots, most of which would have been digitally rendered directly to stereo by the effects studio in charge. Consequently, most of the action scenes you see in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are 'rendered 3D', and are therefore as 'native' as the computer generated character they feature.

The movie is a warm looking one, perhaps afforded a softer image by filming on film. Of course, even in 2D you can tell the difference between a digitally shot image and one filmed on celluloid. We mention the film's warmth here primarily because it makes for a nice change, amongst many of its contemporaries. The scenes with Peter & Gwen are radiant, in a way that is as much about the leads' performances as the technical goings-on behind the camera.

 How's the depth of the 3D?

The Amazing Spider-Man from a few years ago had a depth problem. The action scenes were vibrant, but the dialogue scenes were not. Its sequel has learned a few things from this. Half of the dialogue scenes are just as boring as they were last time around, but the other half are staged in locations that emphasize depth. For example, Peter Parker catches up with a - rich - old school friend, and they spend a few minutes talking in a room, separated by an oppressively large stairwell. They then go to a river's side to continue their discussion, which is staged fairly traditionally. But the boys then begin a stone-throwing competition. Each stone thrown goes further and further, and eventually Peter's powers let rip and his stone is seen skipping across a hundred foot of water. These are slights of the hand, allowing for an engaging image while also getting through truckloads of exposition nad 'character development'.

Then, of course, there's the action scenes. When 'Spidey Sense' is triggered, the viewer is allowed to see the world as Spider-Man sees it; the camera can roam in and out of space and time to focus on what's important. As time slows down, and the camera speeds up, the action takes on a balletic quality. This is the most nimble and agile Spider-Man we've seen on screen yet, and his contortionist nature is all the more miraculous in 'bullet-time'. These scenes frequently use focus, color and camera movements to convey geography and choreography. For example (this requires bullet-points to communicate the progression, sorry):

• Spider-Man might begin a shot in mid-air in the foreground,
• the camera then whips over to a falling pedestrian, 
• the camera zooms in on something that endangers that pedestrian (eg: an electrified handrail),
• the focus then is pulled again and we see Spider-Man, now in the background, engineer his web slinging perfectly,
• his web then reaches out and prevents a death in the foreground.

This type of sequence repeats itself in key moments throughout the film. Each iteration shows more and more variety of depth, building towards a pivotal showdown between the hero and his adversaries. The showdown, high above the ground, uses stereo-emphasised depth to communicate the peril our hero faces. When a web misses its target, we feel as pained as the hero does. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 uses the bullet-time technique to make for a more engaging 3D image, while enhancing the narrative too. The slow motion allows our eyes to take a rest from camera blur and post-converted characters, and when 'real time' comes back the shock of reality is sometimes made intentionally jarring. Its an overtly manipulative technique, and it works well in 3D.

Does the 3D 'pop'?

The 3D in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is largely in keeping with the modern stereo aesthetic; aggressive negative parallax is used sparingly. This seems like a missed opportunity. Electro's sparks could certainly have flown into the audience, and Spider-Man could have swung over our heads a few times. That gimmick was essentially what made people pay to see Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark and it would work well in this series too. It's not fashionable to have this opinion, but in 3Defence's view, this series has a 'dork' of a main character, and it'd be in keeping with his nature to make a visual joke or two using negative parallax.

Did it make sense to add 3D to The Amazing Spider-Man 2?

It absolutely made sense to distribute The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 3D. The primary villain is bright blue neon coloured, and he fights with startling blue blasts of electricity that illuminate any night time scene. The primary hero is primary coloured himself, and - when he's not battling Electro - is often shot in daylight, in broad and open exteriors. When he's web slinging, there's a deliberately vertigo inducing quality, as we focus on our hero in the foreground while a busy background of skyscrapers rapidly pass behind him. This is the most '3D appropriate' entry in the series so far.

The film itself

The Amazing Spider-Man 2's tagline was "his greatest battle begins". The issue 3Defence has with this film is that "his greatest battle" should have been split into more movies. There's so much going on in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - much of it interesting and of worth - that the film feels rushed and chaotic. Perhaps if an extra half hour were added to its running time, it would have allowed things to settle. Perhaps rogue story elements like Peter Parker's parents' research could have been eliminated to free up more character development. In any case, the film is highly engaging, it just feels like a second draft; bloated with great ideas and poorly cut down for coherency. The "greatest" thing we could say for the film is that it is the closest we've come since Sam Raimi's own Spider-Man 2 to perfect web-slinging action. If you've ever read a Spidey comic, you owe it to yourself to check the film out, just for that alone.

If we had to archive one version, should we save the 2D or the 3D?

The 3D version of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the definitive version to archive. Unlike its predecessor, the film-makers made great decisions here, and designed an engaging 3D experience that you'll remember long after you leave the theatre. The depth of field afforded, and emphasised, by stereo gives the audience a reason to watch the film with glasses on. Legend3D should be proud of their work.

How's the 3D in 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'?

Background

This April, Captain America: The Winter Soldier kicked off the 'Summer' movie-going season early. Its over-sized box-office takings match the muscle and reputation of the hero himself, and critics were quick to praise the film too. He's the linchpin for Marvel's Cinematic Universe, which is why it's the fourth time we've seen Cap in 3D. Is this the definitive Steve Rogers story? How does the 3D fare in comparison to the post-converted likes of Iron Man Three or The Avengers? Join us for this in-depth review of the film's stereo effects, and let us know if we've missed anything!

Post-Converted 3D

Marvel makes bold bets on its directors. In retrospect, many of their choices often made total sense; Shakespearean-influenced Kenneth Brannagh was well matched with Thor, as was the wise-cracking Iron Man helmer Jon Favreau. While some of their directors had previously made big-budget films, none had ever made a 3D movie. We assume that's why the studio's 3D output to date has largely been post-converted; why make a nervous director's job harder than it needs to be on set? The technology improves every day, but filming in native 3D remains a challenge for even the most experienced of directors. Captain America: The Winter Soldier was not filmed by the likes of Peter Jackson or James Cameron. It was filmed by the directors of TV's Arrested Development, Anthony & Joe Russo. As best as we can tell, Marvel never divulged the reason they chose to post-convert this movie, but we assume the directors' green-ness to big-budget movie-making contributed to the decision.

As a result, the task of manually post-converting this behemoth of a movie fell to Stereo D and lead stereographer Anjel Alcaraz. We've covered their work before. They do a fine job of subtly enhancing 2D footage. 3Defence takes the view that Stereo D are a reliable shop, generally churning out quality work that is worthy of your attention. Indeed, they won a 3D industry award for their work on The Avengers, and we expect they'll be seeking recognition for their efforts here on Captain America: The Winter Soldier too.

How's The Depth of the 3D?

Captain America can't fly like Iron Man. He can't soar through the air like Thor and his hammer. He is basically human-sized, unlike Hulk. He doesn't web-sling, use magic, and he's not even a pint-sized gun-toting racoon. His buddies in this movie are all human too: Black Widow, Nick Fury and The Winter Soldier himself. To put it bluntly; stories about Steve Rogers don't necessarily call for depth imbalances in the way that his Marvel buddies' movies do.

Without a depth imbalance based on character size itself, usually 3D movies convey depth by relying on an arresting visual. For example, a character overlooking a large vista (say Sandara Bullock's space-faring character in Gravity), or one placed atop of a large structure (say Will Smith on the Apollo mission's launch pad in Men In Black 3). For much of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, this type of 'imbalance' is not achieved. The nearby landscape - low-rise Washington DC - is neither spectacular or noteworthy. The foes are identifiably human-sized, and generally fighting in close proximity. Indeed, the film is purposefully shot in a way that invokes the memory of paranoid and close-quarters 70s thrillers like All The President's Men. Much of the movie is also shot in a traditional way; a blurry object is in the deep foreground, while a mid-ground character commands a sharp focus against a blurry background.

 
There's an interesting opening set-piece, set on the decks of a boat. It's closest 3D peer is Life Of Pi's shipwreck scene. There, Ang Lee shot the action from close angles, as if the camera operator were in the same predicament as the protagonist. Captain America's seafaring battle is similarly chaotic, but is filmed more objectively. The film-makers are unafraid to pull back a long way, to show the full speed and agility of their hero. It's an interesting touch, especially in light of how few film-makers have filmed superheros this way recently. The Dark Knight, Spider-Man, Superman, Thor, Iron Man and a myriad of others have often been filmed 'just over the shoulder' in a way that makes the action seem more immediate, but also makes their heroes appear more human. There were moments in the opening battle where distance and depth helped convey how powerful Steve Rogers is, and how superhuman his abilities are.

Where the film really comes alive though, from a depth perspective, is its last half-hour. Set high in the air courtesy of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s helicarriers and accompanied by a flying Falcon, the super-sized action allows for an explosive finale. Still, there's nothing in this sequence that comes close to Iron Man Three's airplane freefall or even the skyscraper-soaring conclusion to The Avengers. The action here is also shot largely in the traditional modern superhero style of 'just over the shoulder', so you'll be disappointed if you're looking for new bench-marks in depth here.

Does the 3D 'pop'?

While objects don't fly out into the audience, objects like Captain America's shield regularly fly from the background right up to the edge of the screen. You won't spend much of the movie ducking for cover.

Did it make sense to add 3D?

Dark, gritty, political thrillers are not a natural fit with 3D. We weren't particularly blown away by the post-conversion used in this film's predecessor (Captain America: The First Avenger) either. Thankfully, someone in charge of The Winter Soldier made sure they catered many of the film's set-pieces with 3D in mind: the biggest action sequences all happen in broad daylight. Sunlight helps provide clear and crisp images to a glasses-wearing audience. By setting their fast-paced fight scenes in the afternoon the Russo Brothers made 3D easy on the eyes. We thank them!

The film itself

This is the easiest section to write for this review: it's a great movie. At the time of writing, it's firmly placed in the IMDb Top 250. The film's best watched with some beginner's knowledge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it's definitely easy to keep up with for outsiders. Chris Evans nails his part, and Scarlett Johansson continues to play Black Widow with a surprising intensity (though we'd like her part more if she were filmed from the same distance as her male peers and if there were more meaningful female characters for her to talk to). The Winter Soldier himself is a meaningful 'bad guy' (particularly if you've seen The First Avenger) and his relationship with Captain America is pivotal to the story. You couldn't ask for a better comic book movie this early in 2014.

If we had to archive one version, should we save the 2D or the 3D?

We hope this review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier's 3D has been regarded as largely positive. If anything, we at 3Defence are 'lukewarm' on the conversion. We're going to side with the 2D version. There's nothing to 'dislike' here, and 3D haters would struggle to point at anything that detracts from the movie-going experience. However, 3D enthusiasts would also struggle to find much that radically improves the movie-going experience in stereo. This is about as middle-of-the-road as it gets.

46% of 2014's Oscar Winners Were 3D Films

The 86th Academy Awards were held in March, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres. When the gathered stars and glitterati weren't taking selfies, the famous gold statues were being handed out to a host of worthy winners. Amongst them, 3Defence counted 11 wins for 3D films, helped mostly by Gravity, but ably assisted by Frozen and The Great Gatsby. This means that 46% of 2014's Oscar winners were 3D films. By comparison, 21% of 2013's winners were stereo movies, and 23% of 2012's were too. So, why the meteoric rise this year?

Gravity - as many predicted - swept the majority of the 'technical' categories. It took out the Visual Effects, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing awards early on in the evening. These particular awards have been given to 3D films in the past. Cinematography and Film Editing came next though, and winning both of these awards is a significant breakthrough in terms of the industry's recognition of stereo film-making. For one thing, the teams working on both fields for Gravity were utterly dependent on each other to succeed. Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography filmed the unfilmable, and had to predict where effects and edits would be made many years before they could be finished. Alfonso Cuarón and Mark Sanger's editing stitched together hundreds of shots and effects into a seamless whole, to the point where their edits were nearly invisible to the audience. Their combined achievements meant that 3D cinema was awarded its first Best Film Editing Academy Award.

Steven Price took out the Best Original Score Oscar for Gravity too, joining Life Of Pi and Up's composers as the third 3D film to win that particular award. Finally, Alfonso Cuarón won the Best Director award for the film. After Ang Lee's win last year, this makes it the second year in a row that the Academy has awarded a director of a 3D film... and then not awarded them a Best Picture Oscar to boot. 12 Years A Slave pipped Gravity to that eventual win, and by all accounts the race was very tight.

As mentioned earlier, it wasn't just Gravity cleaning up at the Oscars; smash hit Frozen picked up 2 golden statues. Frozen has widely been regarded as a 'return to form' for Disney's animation division, and is the first time the animation studio has won an Academy Award in 14 years. The film has now earned over $1 billion at the global box office (ably helped by 3D ticket surcharges) and one of its songs Let It Go reached the Billboard Top 10. That particular achievement may have helped the studio win Best Original Song, and it also picked up an award for Best Animated Feature.

Finally, the immaculately designed and photographed The Great Gatsby picked up 2 Academy Awards also. Catherine Martin & Beverley Dunn were rewarded for their efforts in Production Design. Following wins from Avatar, Hugo, and Alice In Wonderland, this category is beginning to look like a 3D-dominated one. Catherine Martin picked up another gong for Best Costume Design (another category that Alice In Wonderland took out a few years ago). Gatsby's opulent aesthetic has had a major cultural influence in music videos and dress-up parties this year, and the decadence came alive wonderfully in stereo.

In a few years' time, a 3D film may eventually take home the Best Picture Oscar. While it hasn't happened this year, it's still great to see the film industry recognising the craftsmanship of stereo film-making. We at 3Defence heartily congratulate the likes of Catherine Martin, Mark Sanger and their esteemed peers for their efforts in making 2013 a banner year for 3D cinema.

Dr. Cinephile or: How I Learned to Stop Reading 'Movie Gossip' and Love the Internet: The Best Apps

If you're an active reader of 3Defence, the chances are you're a movie nerd; a cinephile; a film buff; a student of cinema; or generally just the type of person who appreciates long-form articles on interesting topics. I know this, because that's who I am. I can't think of anything better than a Saturday morning coffee and a chance to learn about how movies are made, or what the critical community thinks of the resulting product. That's why 3Defence exists; to help provide a place for balanced criticism and reasoned study of stereo film-making in the modern age. However 3Defence is also just a place for movie geeks to hang out. In that spirit, today we kick off a series that offers up other ways to get your cinematic fix from the web. Article #1 is going to focus on two of 'The Best Apps' for movie geeks, and offer up a couple of other ways to make sure you keep up to date with your favourite film sites while on the go.

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Ain't It Cool News Picks & Peeks (iOS & Android, free)

Ain't It Cool News' early days were filled with exclusive 'scoops' and early reviews of unproduced scripts, and their stories permanently changed the way Hollywood makes movies. While it used to be possible to get direct access to crews and cast of big budget films, most have become tight-lipped and NDA'd to the point where even DVD / Blu-ray Special Features of released movies rarely feature honest observations. Perhaps as a result, Ain't It Cool News' best work these days is focused on the past: retrospectives on genre pictures, obscure cult classics and recently released blockbusters. 

Their Picks & Peeks column is a semi-monthly one (irregularly updated) that usually covers around 4 weeks' worth of DVD / Blu releases, and their corresponding app pushes you notifications to help you keep up. The stand-out feature isn't the app itself, but the content: every column will offer you something you need to buy, and something you're offended by, and something else that challenges your assumptions about a movie so you need to re-watch it to make up your own mind. And surely that's all we can ask for as movie geeks, right? The app also allows you to trawl through the archives of the column, which is super useful if you're ever in need of some movie-watching inspiration while in the 'Weekly' section of your local DVD store. You can download the app via the Google Play of iOS App stores here: http://www.picksandpeeks.com/

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Cinefex (iPad, free but in-app purchases unlock content)

Cinefex is a special-effects magazine that began in the 'George Lucas / Steven Spielberg' era, when effects work stopped being an afterthought and became a primary driver for Hollywood's blockbusters. Cinefex has an astounding back catalogue of "behind the scenes" articles, covering 30 years of movie-making artistry; from the advancements in matte painting, rotoscoping and model work done in the 80s, through to the birth of mainstream CGI usage in the 90s, to the reaction to 'overdone' CGI in the '00s, and now the exclusively digital cinema of modern films. The magazine's released quarterly, and tends to focus on the films that have had the most unique effects-work attempted in the last few months. Regular subscribers usually get to read exclusive content that you'd not find in studio-mandated press materials until the home video release of the film many months later. Put simply, if you ever buy DVDs purely to watch the "making of" documentaries in the special features... this is the magazine for you.

The recently released iPad edition is a big leap forward for the magazine. It offers three great 'value adds' you'd not normally get from the print edition. For one thing, an annual subscription is much cheaper than the print version. The other great thing about a subscription to their newer content, is that they are now making the magazine tailor-made for the iPad experience: in the articles you get to see effects reels, user-controlled toggles between on-set footage/wire-frames/pre-visualised concept art/and the final product itself, and you generally get to interact with the magazine in a designed way that dramatically enhances your understanding of "how the hell did they do that?" But the other great perk? The back-catalogue.

For a long time, much of the Cinefex back-catalogue was out of print. Thanks to their iPad app, all of their content is back, ready to read for the small price of $4.99 USD an issue. To be fair, buying the lot will set you back a substantial sum, but if you choose wisely you could find yourself with hiterto unseen behind the scenes shots of your favourite films from the 80s, 90s, 2000s and today. For us as fans of 3D cinema at 3Defence, this history is important, because modern-day 3D tends to only be included in the most expensive productions, which also tends to be effects-heavy films. The overlap in craft and crews are important, and it's great to have a publication like Cinefex open its doors for movie geeks around the world. The app is responsive, and has a nice 'back catalogue' scrolling UI that feels fun to interact with. Worth a try!

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Feedly (Multi-platform, free) and Unread (iOS, $2.99 USD)

I know what you're thinking; how the hell is a news aggregator and an RSS reader related to movie-focused apps? Well... you're a busy person, right? There's a bunch of movie-focused sites you like to read, but you can't be bothered going to each and every bookmark to keep up with them? Enter Feedly. Sign up with your Google account (the same one you use for Gmail or Google+), tap "Add Content", search for a site you like (hint - "3Defence" is a good term!) and subscribe to the site so that Feedly can keep you up to date with any new posts.

Now that you've amassed an array of sites you care about, you might be wondering how you're going to keep track of all their updates while you're out and about. Enter Unread. Unread brings the act of 'reading' your RSS feeds to the fore. It has a gesture-focused interface that feels incredibly well designed. The app empowers you to quickly scan over what's new, before jumping headfirst into the articles that interest you most, and then allows you to quickly mark the rest as 'read' to hide them from your site. 

You can break your feed up into categories and individual subscriptions, or you can just read the whole lot from 'most recent' to 'oldest'. And when you're done, the app makes it abundantly clear that you're done! You'll never need to worry about missing an update from your favourite site again. The other perk of the app is its deep integration with many other services; you can easily share quotes, URLs, or the article itself to your iPhone's Reading List, Instapaper, Readability, Pinboard etc. Combining apps like these will unlock a world of cinema on the internet you never knew existed, we promise!

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Instapaper (iOS, Android, Kindle, generally around $4 USD)

Speaking of 'sharing', Instapaper will change your life if you travel a lot. One of the best ways to read web content while 'offline', Instapaper can help you read long articles like this one on the go, regardless of whether of not you can get a 3G connection. A godsend on planes or underground trains, Instapaper is easily integrated in with Chrome, Twitter apps like Tweetbot and now Facebook's Paper, so you can always send an interesting article to your Instapaper account for reading later. You can read on Instapaper on your desktop, or on native apps for iOS and Android, so you'll be able to read whatever you want regardless of which device you've got in your hands. The app has a great feature where it syncs your reading positions constantly, so (provided you were online at some point) you can pick up on your tablet where you left off on your phone, and then do the same when you fire up the ol' laptop too. It's a game-changer, always has been, and it's one of those 'essentials' that make owning a smart mobile device in the modern age a genuine pleasure.

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That wraps up our round-up of great apps for movie geeks. Tune in soon for our next installment, which will focus on Podcasts!

And the Oscar goes to... a 3D film?

This year's Awards Season is gearing up for its main event: the 86th Academy Awards. Many cinephiles justifiably find the concept of 'Awards Season' horrifying. They can validly cite examples through the years where Oscar was wrong  (My Fair Lady over Strangelove? Crash over Good Night and Good Luck? Shakespeare In Love being allowed in the same room as the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan?) and they can cite many more examples where films "should at least have been nominated!" Thankfully, the Academy broadened the nomination pool after universal outcry at The Dark Knight's nomination snub in 2008, and that's alleviated those tensions a little. It means we get a more balanced summary of the year in cinema: edgier films get nominated (District 9, Amour), and broader-playing fare (Up, The Help) makes the cut as a nearer summary of what movie-goers... go to the movies for in the first place.

The Nominees

2013's nominees are typical of the post-Dark Knight era: a David O. Russell "actor's movie"; a film about American racial discrimination; a couple of films about elderly people; a movie about finding love in an unlikely place; a smattering of biopics and... a 3D film. Wait, what was that? A 3D film, nominated for Best Picture? You got it. Every year since 2008 there has been at least one 3D film nominated for Hollywood's biggest accolade. In 2009, there was Avatar and Up. In 2010, Pixar stayed the course with Toy Story 3. Scorsese's Hugo literally popped out of the screen in 2011. Life Of Pi followed in 2012, and now we have the big kahuna: Gravity. We'll get to Gravity's chances later though.

For now, let's discuss what this means for the acceptance of 3D in Hollywood and the 'mainstream'. Does it mean anything at all? Given the post-Dark Knight boom in Oscar nominations, it seems easy to discredit any significance a 3D-focused site like ours might impose. So, we've decided to go one further. Today we're going to look at broader trends within The Academy Awards for the nomination of 3D films in the modern age, to see if we can read the tea-leaves for Hollywood's true view on 3D movie-making.

Cinematography

From 1928 onwards, every Academy Award for Best Cinematography was given to a 2D movie. Depth was communicated with focus pulling, the mono illusion of parralax, or a savvy combination of both. Those two concepts were fundamental to how cinematography "worked". At least, that was how it "worked" until 2009. That year, Mauro Fiore took home an Oscar for his revolutionary work on the 3D film Avatar. Two years later (enough time for Hollywood to hastily revisit this whole 3D business) Robert Richardson deservedly earned his third Oscar for his stereo work on Hugo. The 85th Academy Awards officially made it a trend: Claudio Miranda and his team were rewarded for working with the ocean & kids & animals & 3D on Life Of Pi. And guess what? 2013's Best Cinematography Oscar has another 3D film nominated: Gravity. We'll find out how realistic Emmanuel Lubezki's chances are after the American Society of Cinematographers announce their Award for Outstanding Achievement later tonight.

Visual Effects

So, we've established there's a trend underway for 3D Best Picture nominees, and 3D Best Cinematography winners. What about any other categories? As it happens, 3Defence has done deeper digging to reveal other surprises. The Academy Award for Best Visual Effects has been inundated with 3D films. This isn't that surprising: visual effects are expensive, and 3D is where the money is these days. The exponential growth in this field is surprising though. In 2006, Superman Returns was the first (partial) 3D film to be nominated in the category, Avatar was the first to win, and then - like the cinematography field - two years later a veritable deluge arrived. 2010 had one 3D nominee (Alice In Wonderland), while 2011 saw a 3D winner (Hugo) and 2 nominees (Transformers 3, and Harry Potter 7.5). 2012 saw another 3D winner (Life Of Pi) and 3 nominees (The Hobbit 1/3, The Avengers 1, and Alien 0.5 Prometheus). 2013... 4 of the 5 nominees are 3D movies (The Hobbit 2/3, Iron Man 3, Star Trek 12 2, and of course, Gravity). While we're a wee way off from 2014's nominees, it's fair to assume that we'll see a similar ratio of nominees this year (likely contenders are The Planet of The Apes 8 2, The Hobbit 3/3, Maleficent and Transformers 4), and probably the following year too. 3D is here to stay in the visual effects category.

Animation

You'd imagine that, having exhausted the two most obviously 'visual' categories, we'd be done with the 3D-focused trend at the Oscars... but then you'd be forgetting Best Animated Feature. Guess what? Since 2008, 4 out of 5 Animated Feature winners were 3D films (WALL-E, Up, Toy Story 3 and Brave), and in addition to that, 10 of the nominees were 3D films too. It's a hard call who will win this year; will the 2D Miyazaki effort The Wind Rises reward the animation legend for his years of long-service, or will the Academy bow to the populist choice and reward the 3D hit musical Frozen? At this point we'd peg the chances for both at 50:50.

Other Technical Categories

Following on from these trends, 9 Oscars for 3D films have also been dealt out amongst the Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Original Score,  Costume Design, and Best Original Song categories. Notable absences can be found in the editing, hair & makeup, costume and two screenplay categories. It's possible Gravity will buck the trend for editing, and The Great Gatsby does the same for Costume Design, but we wouldn't recommend betting the house on either!

A 3D Film For Best Picture?

Which leads us back to Gravity's Best Picture nomination. Will it be the first 3D film to win the industry's most coveted of awards? It's got good chances. In its director, Alfonso Cuarón, the film has a 'career come-back' narrative that Academy voters love (his last film, Children Of Men, was well regarded critically, but poorly attended at the box-office). The film has the 'popular vote' sewn up, with wider audiences still paying millions to see it on the big-screen, despite it being 3+ months into its cinematic release. The Director's Guild of America gave its top honour to Cuarón, and the Producer's Guild gave a rare tie to Gravity and 12 Years A Slave. The scales are weighed in Gravity's favour, save for one thing: it's not got many actors in it. 22% of Academy voters are actors, and they have historically bestowed Best Picture awards out to, well, 'showy' films with large casts (see Crash, for example). It's certainly possible their enduring love for Sandra Bullock will help out Gravity's chances, but we at 3Defence would be weary of giving the film more than 60:40 odds to take out the Best Picture Oscar.

Still, the very fact this conversation is possible is amazing. Within a month's time, either 3D movie-making will either finally be legitimized, or we will have to wait for another year to have this debate all over again. No matter what happens, it's clear that - from Hollywood's perspective at least - 3D is here to stay. The movie industry's own voters are recognising the technical excellence being used to pull off stereo movies convincingly, and are rewarding their talented crew and studios accordingly. Fingers crossed Gravity helps break some more records on March 2nd!

How's The 3D In 'Gravity'?

Background:

The best 3D film of the year? Ordinarily conservative critics have fallen over themselves to proclaim Gravity a landmark cinematic event, ranking it amongst distinguished 3D peers like Avatar, Hugo and Life Of Pi. James Cameron, the king of commercially successful 3D films, told Variety "I think it's the best space photography ever done, I think it’s the best space film ever done, and it's the movie I've been hungry to see for an awful long time." Riding a wave of breathless hype, Gravity broke US October box-office records, and is fast becoming the 'word of mouth' hit of the year. So... does it live up to the praise? Is Gravity a ground-breaking achievement in 3D film-making?

Post-converted / Natively Rendered 3D:

Modern-day 3D films are produced through three broadly classifiable means; 'native 3D' (where the majority of the movie was shot with stereoscopically capable cameras that have two lenses to capture the information in 'true' 3D), 'post-converted 3D' (where the film was shot largely in 2D by a camera that had one lens, and then later converted into stereo by a company that separates out layers of the 2D footage digitally) or what we at 3Defence call 'rendered 3D'. Often the latter might be a film like Toy Story 3; a digital construction where animated characters exist inside a virtual environment that has mathematically accurate axes, horizons and depth. Wall-E or Up's 3D effects are not automated by any means, but their film-makers do have a geographical point of reference when applying stereo to their rendered footage. Pixar's reconstruction team re-made Finding Nemo 3D in this way, modifying source elements to render out to stereo footage in a way that made sense physically... but in actuality differed from its 2D predecessor. It's all a little bit confusing, and is not nearly as straight-forward as you'd think!

Anyway, that's a gigantic tangent, but we bring it up because Gravity defies classification. The very concept of "post" production is moot; nearly every shot is a 'special effect' stitched together by talented rotoscopers, artists and technicians. When you see a shot of George Clooney's face, it was shot in 'mono' using a 2D camera rig, then post-converted into 3D by Prime Focus World. Complicating definition though is that this face was then superimposed inside a digital spacesuit, which was then placed into a virtual environment, such as the Hubble telescope or the exterior of the ISS. The resulting face is thus just another layer of a natively rendered output. Closer to one of Pixar's rendered 3D films than the post-converted 3D of World War Z. As fiendishly complex as it is to explain this, it must have been doubly more so to actually film it! Gravity was originally due for a November 2012 release date, but the film was granted another half a year to get its effects 'just right', and we can safely say you won't believe your eyes.

The only comparison in modern cinema, as best as we know, is Avatar. While Avatar is famed for being a 'native 3D' film, and indeed much of it was filmed with real 3D cameras on real sound-stages with real humans, a large portion of that movie was rendered through Weta Digital's server farms, with animated characters interacting with filmed ones, creating an 'informed' 3D post-conversion. Gravity, it seems, was made with a similar approach. We can therefore label Gravity as something of a 3D anomaly; a post-converted / natively rendered 3D film.

Does the 3D 'pop'?

Despite the title, there sure are a lot of scenes set in a zero-gravity environment. The possibility of things floating out towards the audience is endless, and doubly so because Gravity is a largely digital creation. The only thing stopping this from happening ad nauseam is Oscar-nominated director Alfonso Cuarón's curative tastes. Negative parallax effects in Gravity are used sparingly, but when they are used they are at optimum points in the narrative, with a pre-determined purpose. Cuarón deploys such 'popping out at the audience' moments in the same way that a master roller-coaster designer might give their riders a brief moment of respite... before then flinging them into an unforeseen and terrifying corkscrew. In Gravity, these 3D effects are therefore used as some sort of appropriately inverse cliffhanger; a second or two of levity before a new and even more dire situation is revealed. The overt manipulation of the audience's emotions is stunning in its simplicity. Cuarón giveth and Cuarón taketh away our movie-going delight in a way that hasn't been seen since the heydays of Kubrick or Spielberg.

How's the depth of the 3D?

The great thing about space is that it's infinite. The terrifying thing about it is also... that it's infinite. From a cinematic perspective, we've never seen that scale conveyed before. We've all seen space-walks on-screen, but we've never felt like one wrong move by an astronaut might send our favourite character spinning into an endless purgatory of relentless high-speed rotation. Space has never been as dangerous as it is in Gravity. Very quickly, you learn to fear "the blind" that exists outside of Earth's orbit, where stars stretch out into a distant blanket of darkness. Of course, you'll also learn to fear what lurks within Earth's orbit, hurtling around the planet at many thousands of miles per hour, approaching far too rapidly from a distant horizon. And you'll appreciate too that a hasty descent to Earth could kill a rogue traveller in their spacesuit, as the continents of our world loom discomfortingly large. Ordinary "Sci-Fi" genre pictures usually rely on exposition to explain all this to their audience, but in Gravity these chilling facts are often conveyed visually; we innately understand the primal fear of our heroes plight, by layers of depth masterfully created by Cuarón and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki.

Did it make sense to add 3D to Gravity?

In the '90s and early 2000s, directors were ramping up excitement levels by shaking the camera and rapidy cutting from one high octane shot to the next. Gravity proves that cinema is able to move beyond such gimmicks, with its long, steady, shots and fluid choreography. Perhaps it might not have seemed the 'perfect' candidate for 3D a few years ago, but coming at the end of a Hollywood blockbuster season stuffed to the gills of shaky-cam 3D epics, Gravity's deliberate pacing and meticulous camera-work seem positively inspired. 3Defence was reminded (as we learned from The Wizard Of Oz recently) that audience's eyes crave the ability to rove around a stereo frame. There is a noticeable feeling of "immersion" when we are allowed to choose what to focus on within a deep-focus shot. More than anything, Gravity showed us that a new language of film-making is possibly still to come for "the best" 3D experience. This is a modern medium that is still finding its feet, and Gravity can rightly be considered a new touchstone for future directors to build upon.

The film itself

Gravity, at the time of writing, has an average rating of 96% on Metacritic. That's not to say the film is "perfect", but it does mean that hardened reviewers are imploring their readers to see Gravity on the biggest screen possible, at their soonest convenience. If it's not clear already, we at 3Defence consider this more of a 'thrill ride' than a cerebral and thought-provoking epic. We don't mean to diminish Gravity's impact in saying that though. We just want to warn you that this has more in common with Sandra Bullock's Speed than it does with Cuarón's thinking-man's sci-fi epic Children Of Men. From our perspective, that's a good thing. Provided you go in with those expectations, you'll have a white-knuckle thrill-ride, the likes of which you can usually only find in a theme park.

If we had to archive one version, should we save the 2D or the 3D?

It's hard to know right now if the hype for this film will last into the next few decades or not. It's unlikely that people in 3013 will look back at Gravity in the same way as they do for 2001: A Space Odyssey or Voyage Dans La Lune. But as of this moment in time, Gravity is a monumental success as much because of its usage of 3D as its taught plot or excellent casting choices. The 3D version is the definitive version as best as we can see, and - if for no other reason than an eventual curio in the ongoing development of modern stereoscopic cinema - the 3D version of Gravity is the one we'd advocate be archived. It's hopefully going to show the way forward for other directors who will build on the lessons taught to them by Cuarón and his team. It certainly looks like another 3D film that will reap Oscars and Golden Globes come early 2014!