How's the 3D in Edge Of Tomorrow?

Background:

Following hot on the heels of Top Gun's 3D re-release, Edge Of Tomorrow gives audiences another change to see Tom Cruise's million-watt smile in 3D. The film is based on a Japanese novel called All You Need Is Kill, though it deviates somewhat from the story's plot. The tale itself is a hodgepodge between Groundhog Day, Looper and director Doug Liman's own The Bourne Identity, while also calling to mind the rewards-based repetition that modern video games offer their players. More importantly than all that though, how is the 3D in Edge Of Tomorrow? Read on in our 3D-focused review to find out all you need to know!

Post-Converted 3D:

Edge Of Tomorrow was post-converted from 2D to 3D by Prime Focus World. Their approach to this film seems to be unique in 2014's crowded slate of post-converted films. Rather than hide the technique with a 'native lite' approach, they appear to have been directed to dial up the stereo at pivotal moments and dial it down in others. The beginning sequence is seemingly intentionally dull, before the visuals are dramatically opened up in a chaotic battle scene. We've seen visual 'kicks' before (think of the difference in The Wizard Of Oz between Kansas' monochromatic colours and the Technicolor world of Oz) but this is the first time we can recall one being initiated by a post-conversion team so strikingly.

The beginning sequence of Edge Of Tomorrow has 'flat' feeling 3D

The key to their success appears to be, perversely, how much of the opening sequence is kept close to its native 2D source. This lulls the audience's eyes into a relaxed state, before the post-conversion team shockingly uses scaled negative parallax to literally yo-yo soldiers in and out of the frame. It's a refreshingly brazen technique, and serves the narrative well; our anti-hero is being thrown from a comfortable world into a stark and gruesome reality. The shock is appropriate, and not as gaudy as it could have been in other contexts. The post-conversion team served the narrative well here, and it's likely the shock they were able to convey could not have been achieved if the film were shot in native 3D.

How's the depth of the 3D?

The depth varies wildly throughout the film. The battle scenes opt for a 'deep focus' that allows you to see for miles into the distance. Or, at least, you could if the camera kept still for long enough. The battle scenes are the most interesting visually, in that they provide an arresting focal point for each of Tom Cruise's character's (Cage) loops. One character dies as an object drops from the sky on him, and then in Cage's next iteration through the loop Cage saves the man before the object drops, and then the next loop Cage doesn't bother. Knowing the exact geography of the scene is important for Cage, and it's incredibly important the audience knows the impact of a character standing even a metre from their 'usual' position.

The film-makers attempt to show Cage's growing confidence grow with each new iteration. The camerawork is shaky and chaotic in his first few attempts at battle, and then slowly grows more steady and assured as he begins to learn the ropes. Unfortunately, this also means that the audiences eyes are expected to context-shift with each new iteration of Cage's battle. Your perception shifts from loop to loop; progressing from only seeing a few feet of depth behind Cage in his first loop, through to being eventually able to see for miles behind him as his skills develop. After enough rapid-fire edits and changes to the way the action is filmed, your eyes might wary and tire from all this visual change.

Does the 3D 'pop'?

As mentioned earlier, the opening battle scene is the primary example of negative parallax being used. Soldiers are thrown from a moving plane into a battle field below them, and some are accidentally suspended to the plane by rope. As the plane descends, they're flung at the audience in a yo-yo like technique that we wished had been included in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The remainder of the film uses this type of technique relatively rarely, with the only 'popping' elements usually being restricted to debris and out of focus guns aimed at the camera. Again, this kind of inconsistency can contribute to some amount of eye strain, as audiences eyes attempt to process the inconsistently applied visuals.

Dull night-time visuals, with a lack of background contrast

Did it make sense to add 3D to Edge Of Tomorrow?

The film-makers made a lot of good choices when considering the idea of Edge Of Tomorrow as a 3D film. The action is largely set in daylight, and the characters contrast well against their backgrounds. However, they made a few missteps once the second act is over. The climactic set piece is largely set in the evening, and it's very hard to differentiate the dark-suited soldiers from their background. Their enemy is cloaked in shadow and similarly hard to pick out visually. Without the kind of bright neon offered in films like Prometheus or Tron: Legacy, these night-time scenes suffer visually, particularly if your local multiplex hasn't adjusted the brightness of their projector to accommodate 3D projection's light loss. Just in case you hadn't noticed a recurring theme in our review; this narrative and visual choice can also lead to eye strain in audiences.

The film itself

Edge Of Tomorrow is one of the most arresting and relentlessly entertaining blockbusters to have been released in recent years. Simply put, it's a gem of a sci-fi/action film. If you're a fan of shoot 'em up video games, this is the film for you. If you're a fan of the enigmatic and interesting stars, then this is further proof that they're A-list talent. If you've ever bemoaned the influx of comic book movies and sequels in the American Summer movie-going season, then you'll find Edge Of Tomorrow's originality refreshing. If you ever watched an action film and wished the female lead were tougher and more heroic than the male, then Emily Blunt's steely performance is going to make you feel better about Hollywood. It's a joy of a movie, let down only by a somewhat anti-climactic final minute of footage. If there were Oscars for crowd-pleasing films, this would be nominated in several categories.

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

If you have the choice, see Edge Of Tomorrow in 2D. Buy the 2D Blu-Ray. Avoid the 3D version unless you're really curious. It's disappointing for us to say, but the 3D version is a noble failure. There's a bunch of great examples of stereo on display, but the eyestrain we suffered while watching can be traced back to several poor visual choices that other film-makers would do well to learn from. Just because you can post-convert from 2D to 3D, doesn't mean you should.

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.

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!

How's The 3D In 'The Wizard Of Oz 3D'?

Background:

Ask anyone of Generation Y "what's the oldest film you've ever seen?" and there's a very good chance that (after some prodding) the answer is The Wizard Of Oz. The Victor Fleming film was released in 1939, with World War II a month away from breaking out in Europe. Bizarrely - considering its legacy nowadays - Oz was something of a commercial misfire for MGM at the time. One of the studio's most lavish and expensive productions, it took a few re-releases for The Wizard Of Oz to fully recoup its costs and, more importantly, to be seen by subsequent generations as a landmark event in cinema. The better part of a century later, Warner Brothers now owns the film's rights, and Dorothy's had more "special anniversary box-sets" released than 3Defence cares to count. Warners probably figured out that, after fans have already bought the film on VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray in 2009, they needed to do something particularly special this time around. So, for a limited time only, viewers get to see the film on IMAX screens around the world, in post-converted 3D. How'd they do with the stereo? Is this re-release worth the trip to the big screen?

Post-Converted 3D:

This is actually the second 3D trip to Oz viewers get this year; Sam Raimi's native-3D Oz The Great And Powerful underwhelmed us in April. The Wizard Of Oz is a different beast entirely, because it's the oldest live-action feature film to be converted into 3D. It's much older than the likes of Titanic 3D or Jurassic Park, which both benefited from being originally filmed with cutting-edge 1990s technology. Put simply, getting any version of Oz onto the big-screen in a format that discerning audiences would find tolerable is hard enough; and getting a 3D version looking good seems nigh-on impossible. So, let's take a moment to discuss the restoration of the film, and then we can take a closer look at the technical feat of the stereo-conversion.

Filmed with a mixture of three-strip Technicolor and sepia-toned black & white footage, The Wizard Of Oz conformed to the original Academy aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (aka "4:3"). This means it fits better on the screen of your square-looking 1990s CRT TV than it does to your rectangular 16:9 LED TV from the mid-2000s. Likewise, if you project it correctly on a modern-day big-screen, the film will leave vertical 'letter-boxing' lines to the left and right of the image. It's unusual for 3D films to deal with this framing, though we've seen varieties of the square look in Katy Perry's 3D backstage footage and the Raimi Oz film's opening sequence.

The aspect ratio's reasonably easy to accommodate though. The real challenge for any team restoring Wizard Of Oz is the Technicolor negatives. The version you're familiar with of the film is actually an amazing combination of three strips of differently coloured images, layered on top of one another to form an image that makes sense visually as 'realistic colour'. Most Wizard Of Oz re-releases to date have been restorations of that 'end product': the original combination print. What makes the 2013 restoration different though, is that the studio restored and scanned each of the original three colourized layers again (cyan, magenta and yellow) then combined them again into a fresh combination print. The restoration team had a further challenge too - some of these negatives had shrunk to different sizes from one another! What was once "35mm" film was now 34mm in some cases! The team had their work cut out for them. Because of such quirks in this process, you're effectively watching a different film than audiences did in 1939. You're watching a sharper image than the original audiences ever had the chance to; processing these images digitally allowed the restoration team to precisely align each layer on top of one another, and removed the chance of accidental blurring occurring if a strip of film was misaligned.

After months of work, Warner Brothers were able to give Prime Focus World a 4K print that looked more crisp and detailed than any print of the film to date. As the firm's CEO put it, "to be trusted with one of the best known films of all time – an important part of American popular culture – is truly humbling." One challenge unique to this conversion is the average length of each shot in the film; being a 1930s MGM musical, the cuts from one shot to another are purposeful and at a much slower pace than the rapid-fire edits of a modern-day musical like Les Misérables or Chicago. As a consequence, Prime Focus World had to be just as purposeful with how they chose to use 3D in a shot that might run upwards of 30 seconds, lest audience's eyes wander about the frame and find gaps or errors in the chosen stereo effects. All up, the conversion took around 16 months to complete, which possibly makes it the longest conversion in film history.

Does The Wizard Of Oz's 3D 'pop'?

Warner Brothers' Chief Preservation Officer, Ned Price said to Variety “I don’t like 3D unless it’s really good 3D ... so I was probably a good pick to rein in the people we worked with. They’re very good people over at Prime Focus but I think I kept them honest.” Needless to say, Price largely avoided having flying monkeys pop out of the screen, or fireballs thrown at the audience. The few elements of the film that extend towards the screen are usually associated with the Wicked Witch, whose angular nose, fingers and hat occasionally venture outwards. However, the film is largely free of any "gimmicky" popping effects, and the 3D effects used are as conservative as Price's tastes allowed.

How's the depth of the 3D?

Until now, the backgrounds of The Wizard Of Oz looked either like very obvious matte paintings, or they looked like giant hand-painted backdrops that had reasonably obvious lines to the floor. Children might not notice, but adults surely did. In the 3D conversion process, Prime Focus World had to choose whether they made the backdrop look more 'flat' or if they enhance the suggested depth within it. They chose the latter, so the rolling green hills of Oz now look like they exist in three-dimensional space, albeit that they don't look like the pastures back home in Kansas. The effect of this is that the world of Oz feels more stylized than it did in previous versions, and now looks like a particularly fantastical land that feels effortlessly part-animated and part-photo-real. The effect is startling and breathes new life into each image. The haunted forests now stretch out for miles and you feel like lions-and-tigers-and-bears might actually lurk there. The witch's castle looms large over the landscape, as foreboding and terrifying as anything from The Two Towers. Munchkinland now seems brimming with more munchkins than ever before, because you can see how many dozens of characters are moving in the deep background of the wonderful sets there. The tornadoes in Kansas will seem more threatening than you remembered them, and more perilously close to the house Dorothy escapes to. Oz, for the first time in years, feels alive.

Did it make sense to add 3D to The Wizard Of Oz?

With its bright lights, vivid colours, inventive choreography, fantastical settings and varying planes of action (the Munchkins hiding in bushes when Dorothy first arrived were a real treat), The Wizard Of Oz is a natural fit with 3D. Many of the medium's current limitations are avoided thanks to the slow paced editing, locked-down camera work and artificially-lit studio sets. The only reason we can think of avoiding the conversion is that it would be very hard to pull off, and could seriously risk ruining the reputation of a beloved classic if done badly.

The film itself

3Defence has seen The Wizard Of Oz on the big-screen several times over the years, projected in 2D using 35mm. We've obviously all seen the film on TV sets throughout the past few decades, in varying quality of restoration or bastardization of the film's ratios or technical set-up. Throughout every permutation though, the unmistakable genius of the music, acting, set design, costumes, make-up and directing shine through. It doesn't matter what mood you're in, you'll be hooked by the episodic nature of the film's plot, and constantly be surprised at how breezy the narrative is. It's hard to define, but The Wizard Of Oz is one of those films that can hook in viewers of all ages, at any time of day, at any time in film history since its release. It truly is a magical piece of cinema.

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

This question is one we ask for each 3Defence film review. Normally it's an easy enough one to answer, and we tend to side with the 2D version as often as we side with its 3D counterpart. Today though, we are asked to judge the nostalgic memory of a 2D cinematic classic, against the cold hard reality that no version of it exists that looks as detailed or as 'clear' as the 2013's version's remaster. This particular 3Defence reviewer has seen the film dozens of times, but has never seen it in such startling clarity as he did yesterday in IMAX 3D. The film's soundtrack and visuals have never been so lively, and you'll see details that enhance (rather than detract, like say the Star Wars Special Editions) a film that is already a masterpiece. The Scarecrow's makeup alone is worth the price of admission. In 3D, you'll pick up every texture available to be seen, and each detail adds to a more positive impression of the whole film. We're going to say "archive the 3D!" in this case, and we reserve the right to this opinion until an 8K (or suitably ludicrous) 2D remaster release is unveiled for the film's 80th Anniversary!

How's the 3D in Pacific Rim?

Background:

Pacific Rim is Guillermo Del Toro's first film in 5 years. Much ink has already been spilled about his near-misses directing The Hobbit film trilogy and the potential James Cameron / Tom Cruise adaptation of At The Mountains Of Madness. Thwarted project after thwarted project, it seemed Del Toro just couldn't catch a break. Luckily, the big man had a big plan: direct a big film about big robots fighting big monsters. For all Pacific Rim's high-minded intentions, the movie's essentially Del Toro's love letter to the likes of Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla; his long-simmering kaiju vs mecha tale. So, how'd he fare? Was his 'boyhood dream' picture better than Peter Jackson's King Kong, or Spielberg's Jurassic Park? More pressingly for 3Defence, is its 3D any good?

Post-Converted 3D:

For a long time, Del Toro voiced a hedged opinion towards adding 3D to his films. In pre-production for his version of The Hobbit he started with a firm "NO" and ended with a potential 'maybe'. Likewise, in Pacific Rim's pre-production, he originally stated "I didn't want to make the movie 3D because when you have things that big… the thing that happens naturally, you’re looking at two buildings lets say at 300 feet [away], if you move there is no parallax." Later in the piece though, we eventually learned the film would be post-converted into 3D by ILM (who composited their own CGI shots) and Stereo D. The latter has been busy this Northern-hemisphere Summer, with Iron Man 3, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Jurassic Park 3D and many more titles on the way.

Pacific Rim was lensed by Del Toro regular cinematographer, the Oscar-winning (and similarly-named) Guillermo Navarro. The pair have had a long-standing relationship that has provided audiences with some of cinema's most enduring images. 3Defence is glad to see any work by Navarro on the big screen, and we were interested in seeing his first 3D film, regardless of how it came to get there. In the shooting of Pacific Rim, Navarro reluctantly shot digitally for the first time. He's been a celluloid hold-out, and his departure from 35mm is significant. The pair of Guillermo's shot using Steadicam-rigged 15 RED EPIC cameras, and they took advantage of that camera's colour-saturation to produce the images that Stereo D and ILM later post-converted. Apparently Del Toro then asked for an unusually long post-conversion period, so he could personally supervise the shots and get them looking as great as possible.

Does Pacific Rim's 3D 'pop'?

Frequently. Very early on, a fish swims out in front of the audience. It's one of those moments where kids and young-at-heart adults alike reach out to 'touch' a 3D creation. The effect is Del Toro's open invitation into his futuristic world. This is one of those 3D films you want to bring youngsters to, because they'll appreciate the pure visual magic on offer. Aside from fish, you'll see swords, sparks, dust, ash, snow, rain, fire, steam, tentacles and rockets breaking the 'fifth wall' of the screen. It's a loud-and-proud 3D that is refreshing to see embraced in blockbuster fare.

How's the depth of the 3D?

Kaiju have historically hated bridges

3D at the size of Pacific Rim's kaiju can sometimes leave us feeling like an image is oddly '2D'. To counteract this sensation, Del Toro usually places a dozen human-sized objects around the jaegers: helicopters dwarfed by the structures, a giant hand picking up a fishing trawler, or - more impressively - an oil tanker used as a baseball bat. So the 3D-added 'depth' is a sleight of hand. Just like the man-in-suit monster movies of old, your eye will be aware of a monster's size purely by what is small around it. Still, we've come a long way...

Did it make sense to add 3D to Pacific Rim?

This is where the wheels come off the giant robot-carried wagon. Pacific Rim features a couple of daylight moments in the jaegers, but the vast majority of the fight scenes are either set at night in the rain, or they're set in the Mariana Trench. Readers of 3Defence know the drill, but in case you're a newbie let's spell it out again: 3D (with glasses) usually makes the projected image darker. So, if a 3D film's set largely at night, the darkness gets really dark, and there's a possibility audiences will suffer some eye strain. 

Even in 2D, as a GIF, it's hard to make out what's happening here

Presumably Del Toro set Pacific Rim at night to save money in his effects budget. It's easier to fudge CGI if effects are obscured by noise-elements like rain, and artists can round off dodgy corners by cranking up the shadows. As far as 3D goes, Del Toro achieved a 'brightness compromise' by setting much of the nocturnal action scenes amid the bright neon lights of Hong Kong. He went above and beyond in other areas to add light to the frame too: there's approximately two million shots of holograms in Pacific Rim, and there's a lot of brightly-lit fire, lava, steam and sparks to compensate for the evils of wearing glasses in the cinema.

The film itself

A stunning character-focused flashback

It's a hoot. A good-natured, well-intentioned lark of a film that has moments of subtlety and warmth amongst a whole lot of monster vs robot carnage. It's hard to take seriously, but it's very easy to take as a jolt of big-budget Summer blockbuster fun. As per usual for 2013's tent-pole flicks, the third-act is a nonsensical race to the finish line, without much in the way of surprises or meaningful character development. We only mention it because, like Iron Man 3 and Man Of Steel before it, Pacific Rim gives you a great Act 1 and 2 before clobbering its way to the end credits in Act 3. Hopefully Hollywood will learn from this Summer's successes and mistakes. In the meantime, Pacific Rim is your most sure-fire ticket of fun right now.

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

This is a hard call. Pacific Rim's post-conversion was a great job. Stereo D and ILM exceeded their mandate by a kaiju-sized mile. Their work added visual depth that was thematically appropriate to the film, and added to the experience of watching it. Del Toro wasn't afraid to embrace the hokey aspects of 'fifth wall' breaking 3D either, and that also seemed appropriate given the fantastical nature of the film's visuals. But. Whoever it was in the studio that demanded Pacific Rim be converted into 3D should have been told "sure, if we get a few extra million to change the script to be set at day time." 3Defence can't abide a 3D film this aesthetically noisy (seriously, there's not a frame without sparks or rain) set at night, especially if there are hard-to-comprehend CGI creations running amock. Pacific Rim is a feast for the eyes, and you should see it in 2D, with as few layers as possible between you and Guillermo Del Toro's marvellous creations.