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 'Oz The Great And Powerful'?

Background

Oz The Great And Powerful is Sam Raimi's first 3D movie. Having licked the wounds of Spider-Man 3, Oz marks Raimi's return to the land of gigantic budgets, tons of CGI and 'franchise friendly' material. Optimists viewed the release of Oz as an opportunity for L. Frank Baum's classic novels to be visualised in the modern age, leading to a series worthy of their reputation as American Mythology. Cynics viewed the film's existence as a greedy crash-grab by Disney, fuelled by the phenomenal +$1billion box-office success of Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. Meanwhile, others fretted that the 1939 classic Wizard Of Oz was just as fresh today as it was then and, frankly, didn't-need-a-prequel-thank-you-very-much. So... having set the scene for audience expectations, let's dive into the 3D of Oz The Great And Powerful!

Native 3D

If you fell in the 'cynic' camp of the audience, you might be surprised how little 'cash-grabbing' was involved in the production of Oz. Despite being the first digital feature for either Raimi or his regular cinematographer Peter Deming, the pair decided to go all-out and shoot native-3D using Red Epic cameras with 3ality Technica rigs. They chose to mimic the 1939 Wizard of Oz film's colour and ratio shift between Kansas and Oz, with their own ratio change moving from an old-school Academy Ratio of 1.375:1 expanding outwards to an anamorphic 2.35:1. Shifting to the latter caused headaches for a few departments, who - usually out of self-interest because it requires less work - generally prefer a boxier frame. Of course the wider screen size also makes it harder for the human eye to focus on things in 3D, so more effort is required in the editing of the picture to make sure the audience doesn't suffer the crew's headaches.

Raimi also emulated the 1939 film by shooting entirely on a gigantic Michigan soundstage. Oz's crew constructed vast real-world sets that could be populated with actual props and hundreds of costumed extras. Given the busyness of the on-set footage, and the way Raimi likes his cameras to roam omnipotently, it probably appeared intuitive and cost-effective to film in native-3D.

Does the 3D 'pop'?

Some reviewers of Oz complained the film-makers tended to throw things at the audience more than they'd have liked. Others appreciated the gimmicks, with Time magazine saying, "the 3D effects are plentiful — hats, lions and baboons jump off the screen and into your lap." Tonally, the film sets the stage well for this effect; it's a film about a wannabe magician who is desperate for gratification, and will resort at razzle-dazzle sleights of hand to affect a sense of wonder from his audience. Is this the first 3D film to be thematically ironic in its overt usage of 'shock and awe' 3D techniques? Is Sam Raimi implying he sympathises with the pretend-Wizard's plight; having to conjure effects out of thin air that rival those of his Houdini-like heroes? So, yes, the 3D pops. Frequently. This is done sometimes by using faux frames that are then busted out of (sort of like the fish in Life Of Pi) and with others it's done using a true stereoscopic effect that reaches beyond the confides of the screen. These effects suffer no lack of clarity, so they clearly made good usage of the Red Epic camera's amazing resolution, which apparently allows the effects team to enlarge footage 50% or so without any signs of degradation.

How's the depth of the 3D?

Interestingly, these thematic and visual considerations often don't reach much farther than the foreground. The background of Oz seems to feel... static. It's as if the effects and action are so startlingly in-your-face that the designers of the film decided to just paint the background in. That may well have been Raimi's intention. Notice how the 1939 film used stationary matte paintings to make the studio-shot background stretch into nothingness, and how Raimi has replicated that feel in his 2013 version. The Hollywood Reporter astutely pointed out "As professional and accomplished as the effects appear in 3D, however, there is something almost cartoon-like about most of the scenery and backdrops, which are mostly placid and benign rather than spooky or threatening." In sum, there's nothing particularly noteworthy about the usage of depth in this film.

Did it make sense to film in 3D?

It is historically 3Defence's strong view that 3D is  projected better when it features bright colours and light. We've seen it time and again - modern 3D effects that are remembered are the ones that are shot in daylight, or have a brilliant illumination in their night-time scenes. It's not that 3D can't be shot subtly, it's just that it's much more reliably impressive (and requires less planning ahead of time) if you go for the Whiter Whites Brighter Colours approach. Now, think of the key things to do with Wizard of Oz folklore: "the yellow brick road", "the Emerald City", "the green Wicked Witch", "the horse of many colours", "Munchkinland"... we'll let you be the judge if it made sense to film in 3D.

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

Save the 2D! This is a gorgeous film, and deserves to be seen as its maker, perhaps unwittingly, intended: fully aware of its soundstage-filmed confines, over-saturated in colour, over-acted, and over-blown without needing glasses as an intermediary. It's worth noting too that Oz The Great And Powerful might have been a better candidate to debut 48fps out on the world. Oz's staged feeling (or-might-it-all-be-a-dream) would have lessened the artificial feeling some felt from watching The Hobbit in that format, and it would certainly have done a lot to reduce motion-blur. Oz suffers from 3D-worsened blur worse than any film in recent memory. Sam Raimi's camera is too wild and active for your eyes to keep up with when they're splitting the difference of 24 frames per second. Unconstrained by budget, like Peter Jackson before him, he crams the foreground of every frame with CGI beasties and beauties that your eyes are frequently overwhelmed. In 2D, this film would be an absolute joy.

The film itself

It's fun. It's a true return to form for Sam Raimi, who's proven recently he can still direct horror with the best of them, and now that he can still create big-screen spectacle worth seeing. Spider-Man 3 is a distant memory, thanks to the wonder of Oz. A shame then we weren't as big a fans of the 3D as we would have liked to be.

How Good Is The 3D in 'Frankenweenie'?

Background:

Frankenweenie is one of the more unlikely films to be released this year. Black and white, 3D, stop-motion animated, released by Disney, and an homage to 1930s horror films from Universal... you know, for kids! Bizarrely, this is the second time its director, Tim Burton, has tried to get the film made. Many years ago, the project was canned, after an exec realised that its subject matter might be a little, erm, off-putting. So, why has Frankenweenie been made now? We're inclined to blame Alice In Wonderland; after earning a billion dollars at the global box-office (despite its atrocious 3D effects) Tim Burton was probably in a solid bargaining position to get a few 'personal projects' made. But who cares about all that background info, you're here because you want to know... how good is the 3D in Frankenweenie? Should you see it with, or without, glasses on?

Post-Converted 3D:

Given Burton's history with post-converted 3D, we were worried how Frankenweenie would fare through the process. Luckily, the technology has come a long way since the release of Alice In Wonderland. The conversion was handled by Prime Focus World. Remember our glowing review of Men In Black 3's converted 3D? Prime Focus World were behind most of that gig too; they're fast becoming 3Defence's favourite post-conversion team. For Frankenweenie, they worked on 1500+ shots, and based themselves nearby the shooting locations, so they could confer with Burton and his animation team whenever they needed reference points for their work.

Does the 3D 'pop'?

Yes. Though there's not a lot of shots that use the 'pop out of the screen' effect, the few gags that do are well-timed and designed to capture the audience's attention. Frankenweenie adheres to a common trend in 3D films from 2012: elements like rain and lightning are being brought forward in the 'mix' to seemingly occur in the movie theatre itself, as well as in multiple panes of depth around the film's characters. We're wary the effect could get over-used, but for now we think it works ok, if only because it feels like the real world: rain falls in unpredictable places, so it makes sense that it's allowed to transcend the boundary of 'screen' and 'theatre'.

How's the depth of the 3D?

Frankenweenie's stereographer, Richard Baker, summarises his approach to depth well, so we'll let him speak for himself: "3D for me shouldn’t be a window into the screen. You need to feel surrounded by the movie to become truly immersed in the story. This was central to our planning when designing the 3D and creating the depth script. We had the opportunity to exaggerate the scale and depth much more than we would on a live-action show to really heighten dramatic moments, and we were also able to combat the miniaturisation of the puppets by using depth as a creative tool." We're glad to report that he succeeded in his goals: despite being filmed on small sets, with tiny figurines as actors, Frankenweenie's locations feel cavernous, lived-in, and they reach into the distance in a way that the 1930s films it's riffing on could never have dreamed of doing.

Did it make sense to add 3D to Frankenweenie?

No! Not by any stretch of the imagination did it sound like a good idea to post-convert a Black And White, stop-motion animated, film referencing incredibly flat (the sets were often cardboard, with smoke effects to disguise the lack of a real background) 1930s horror films. Are we glad they did it anyway? Hell yes. This is the first time we've seen a Black And White 3D film in the modern day, and it looks glorious. If you take your glasses off during the film, you'll notice the screen looks fairly harsh, with big contrast ratios between the deep blacks and the bright whites. Put your glasses on again though, and then a world of deep grey is revealed; probably the best greys we've seen in a monochromatic film since the wonderfully shot Schindler's List. Normally 3Defence insists that 3D films need to be brightly lit, and vibrantly colourful... but Tim Burton and his post-conversion team have proven us wrong with Frankenweenie.

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

The 3D version must be considered the 'definitive' version of Frankenweenie. If you're wondering "should I see Frankenweenie in 3D or in 2D" and you can afford the extra dollar or so, you ought to view this film with glasses on. The 3D brings depth that doesn't exist to the shots, and makes the world of our titular re-animated dog come alive (pun intended). The editing deserves mention too: it's cut at a leisurely pace, which is appropriate for the 1930s-style genre, but this has the added benefit of making the 3D experience easier on your eyes than modern-day films that are designed for a 2D screen. We at 3Defence watch a lot of 3D films, and we're quietly confident that Frankenweenie will be considered the gold-standard in post-converted 3D films for a long time. 

The film itself

Make no mistake about it, Frankenweenie is a modern-day Tim Burton film. You can interpret that whichever way you please, but for us here at 3Defence that means; predictable character 'arcs', unusual preoccupation with genre conventions, amazing set design and stylistic flare, fantastically over-orchestrated music, and a rushed / borderline incomprehensible third act. Burton is in the business of world-building, and we'd love to see him work with someone other than screenwriter John August soon. Frankenweenie wreaks of 'pet project' (yes, pun intended) and that usually means "no-one said 'no' to the director at any stage along the way." Frankenweenie is a lesser film in Burton's filmography, but it's a long way from his worst. File this nearer to Mars Attacks than something like Planet of the Apes.