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.

The BBC, In 2D

We don't talk about 3D TV much on this site, because we're technically a site about 3D Film. This week though, serious news broke that might very well have an impact on the future of both the cinematic medium and its televised equivalent. So, we interrupt usual film-based discussion to take a brief look into 3D TV and its - now somewhat perilous - future.

Post-Avatar, it seemed that movie theaters were guaranteed 3D movie-going successes. All eyes (literally) turned towards the home theater industry, to see whether TVs would be able to catch up. In the short-term at least, the holy grail was to get Avatar 3D into living rooms as soon as humanly possible. A deal was struck so that copies of Avatar would be shipped with a particular brand of TV. Other TV manufacturers were stuck hawking Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and a few made-for-Blu efforts.


The thing the TV industry neglected to mention was that you'd only get a couple of 3D glasses with your $3500 telly. And each additional pair of glasses would cost $100. Given that the nuclear-family is usually a home theatre system's target demographic, the limited number of 3D glasses pretty much doomed 3D TV from the outset. Mum and Dad could watch in 3D, while the kids watched blurry outlines. At least, this might be the case until someone eventually forked out for a few extra pairs of glasses on EBay.

The price of 3D glasses on EBay, July 2013

At first, there wasn't much in the way of content for 3D-capable television. Eventually this changed though, and 3D Blu-rays began to be released same day-and-date with their 2D brethren. Prominent 3D Blu-ray content like Prometheus and The Avengers shifted many thousands of units, and broke records for their market share of 'High Def' content vs 'Standard Def' mediums like DVDs offered in the past. If you consume content via Blu-ray, these days it's possible to build a library of a few dozen 3D titles (including a few X-rated titles too...)

Eventually, TV caught up too. ESPN and the BBC began providing programming that had been filmed natively in 3D. Viewers were able to see significant events such as Wimbledon championships, the 2010 FIFA World Cup and even Queen Elizabeth's Christmas message in 3D. ESPN's efforts were particularly noble, in that they offered a dedicated 24/7 3D channel. Sports were the most obvious type of programming to benefit from 3D; flattened 2D images cause issues for home viewers when you're trying to figure out if someone was off-side, or if a goal missed its posts by a few feet. For a time, things looked bright for 3D TV. 2011's Consumer Electronics Show (widely known as 'CES') prominently featured second-generation 3D TVs from major manufacturers, and even demonstrated a possible future of 'glasses-free' 3D. By 2012, there were 55 3D-only channels worldwide.

Just a year later though, 2012's CES big news story was... the absence of 3D TV. Much finger-pointing began. Some blamed the lack of quality content (there was content, but it couldn't stand toe-to-toe with the James Cameron Standard), others blamed glasses-dependent technology, and others blamed... the consumer's unforeseen unwillingness to upgrade their TVs. As the year wore on, it became clear that "3D-capable" was no longer a must-have selling point for a TV, and many manufacturer's marketing departments instead began to tout their TV's Wi-Fi capabilities and built-in web applications. By 2013, perhaps reading the tea leaves of customer desire, the industry considered "3D-capable" to be a mere checklist item; hastily written on the side of boxes, next to "2 HDMI ports" and "Batteries included with remote". 2013's CES featured 4K-quality TVs prominently instead, and paid nary a mention to 3D. 

This week, things really took a turn for the worst. After two years of its 'pilot project', the BBC announced it would wind down its 3D operations until 2016. For the time being, the Queen's next few Yuletide greetings will be back to normal old 2D. The head of the BBC's 3D programming described the viewing experience as "a hassly experience" but also hesitated to "call the whole 3D race." It's hard to say exactly why they've chosen 2016 as a date to revisit the 3D methods of broadcasting, but it's fair to assume that the number of 3D-capable televisions will have grown significantly by then. What will they watch in the meantime? That, it seems, is now down to Hollywood. ESPN is shutting down its 3D operations this year too, citing "low adoption" as their reasons. It all seems a bit chicken-and-the-egg; without an existing customer-base, we'll not get much more 3D TV content... and without any 3D TV content, there's unlikely to be much of a customer-base.

What's the solution then? Potentially, games consoles. The PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One get released this year, and both will sport Blu-ray drives. This is significant, because the previous Xbox iteration was limited to a standard-def disc drive, and this limited the potential for 3D content on it. Months out from the release of either console, both are setting pre-order records, and it seems likely that their successful launches will keep Blu-ray players in the living room for the rest of the decade. This is significant because, for now at least, there's not many other legitimate methods for watching a 3D film. iTunes and Netflix don't support 3D content, but these new games consoles' Blu-ray players will. If enough people can get acclimatised to seeing 3D content in the home, it's possible the likes of ESPN and the BBC will legitimately revise the viewing landscape in 2016. We may yet see the Queen in 3D once more, but we'd best hope that Microsoft and Sony succeed in their console launches this Christmas.

List of 3Defence's Reviews

This is a compilation of 3Defence's 3D film reviews. Hopefully the table below provides a quick resource to see all of our reviews at a glance, and also shows we're not overtly biased in one direction or the other between 2D and 3D versions of films*. Enjoy!

Film Title	What type of 3D?	Which version to preserve?
Edge Of Tomorrow	Post-Converted 3D	2D
X-Men: Days Of Future Past	Native 3D	3D
Godzilla	Post-Converted 3D	3D
The Amazing Spider-Man 2	Post-Converted 3D	3D
Captain America: The Winter Soldier	Post-Converted 3D	2D
Gravity	Rendered 3D	3D
The Wizard Of Oz	Post-Converted 3D	3D
Pacific Rim	Post-Converted 3D	2D
World War Z	Post-Converted 3D	3D
Iron Man 3	Post-Converted 3D	2D
Man Of Steel	Post-Converted 3D	3D
Jurassic Park 3D	Post-Converted 3D	2D
Oz The Great And Powerful	Native 3D	2D
Life Of Pi	Native 3D	3D
Bait 3D	Native 3D	2D
Frankenweenie	Post-Converted 3D	3D
Dredd	Native 3D	3D
Katy Perry: Part Of Me	Both	2D
The Amazing Spider-Man	Native 3D	2D
Men In Black 3	Post-Converted 3D	3D
Prometheus	Native 3D	2D
The Avengers	Post-Converted 3D	3D

And here's a visual representation of whether we came down in favour of the 2D or 3D versions:

*Worth mentioning though, we tend to avoid writing reviews that explicitly urge you to spend your money in one way or another. Instead, we've preferred to opine on whether the 3D or 2D version of a film is the 'definitive' version that should be archived and preserved. After all, most critics and audiences would agree that the 3D version of Avatar projected in cinemas in 2009 is the version with the most historic significance. Likewise, most would agree Alice In Wonderland's post-converted 3D should never be seen again, and if we needed to archive anything we should archive the 2D version. If nothing else, we're hoping that this site can be a resource for future scholars, documenting what audiences responded to in the modern 3D era, and what we didn't.

New trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Today Warner Brothers released the first trailer for their upcoming epic The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. It's filled with dramatic wide-angle shots and sword-bearing creatures leaping towards the camera. Even when viewed on YouTube, the footage looks devoid of motion-blur, very much like the 48fps HFR version will in theatres. Check out the trailer below:



What do you make of the trailer? Are you excited to see an explosion of butterflies in 3D, or a waterfall scene at twice the frame rate of any waterfalls from the original trilogy? You'll be able to see the trailer in 24fps 3D this Friday, as it's likely attached to most Man Of Steel 3D prints.

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's The 3D In 'Life Of Pi'?

Background

Considered an 'unfilmable' book, Life Of Pi has been kicking around Hollywood for years. Despite being briefly in the hands of Shyamalan and Jeunet, the burden of adapting Yann Martel's award-winning novel eventually fell to Ang Lee. A proven master of visual effects in films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hulk, Lee seemed a good fit for the material. Eyebrows were raised though, when Lee announced he would film in native 3D; the wider industry seemed to ask, "doesn't he have enough trouble with the tiger and the ocean?" If you're after more background info, check out this 3Defence piece from a couple of months ago.

Native 3D

Life Of Pi was shot using Alexa cameras on Fusion 3D rigs provided by the Cameron Pace Group (as in, James Cameron). In charge of the film's visuals was accomplished cinematographer Claudio Miranda, whose most recent film was the similarly stunning Tron: Legacy. Between these films, his prior work with David Fincher, and upcoming film Oblivion, Miranda is carving out a niche for himself as one of digital cinema's true pioneers. If you're interested, we recommend having a read of this article to read about the challenges Miranda faced, filming digital footage whilst being surrounded by water. The crew had to contend with very bright reflections, whilst always measuring how 'seasick' the audience might feel bobbing up and down along with Pi and his tiger, Richard Parker.

Does the 3D 'pop'?

Does it ever! Ang Lee was reportedly motivated to film in 3D because of the new cinematic language it offered him (and not motivated by financial necessity or 'fad' like frenzy). His choices in Life Of Pi reflect this desire to learn and to innovate. The most significant trick he deployed was to add subtle letter-boxing to shots, to allow elements to jump out of the frame without actually popping out of the screen itself. You can see this technique in use in this picture, where a fish tail briefly flashes outside of the black border. This approach drew gasps from the audience 3Defence saw the film with, perhaps because the integrity of the frame was not compromised, and yet the film seemed to defy dimensions with something still managing to break free of the frame.

How's the depth of the 3D?

Life of Pi runs the gamut of depth choices available to modern film-makers. Many scenes favour the 'deep focus' Lee applied to his 2003 film Hulk. Others seem to stretch out to an infinite horizon, the likes of which are impressionistic and - dare we say it - nigh on Kubrickian. Then there are Pi's flashback scenes, which are often shot with incredibly shallow focus, where an actor's close-up is visibly separated from a blurry background. On paper, these stylistic choices may seem a hodgepodge of disparate ideas, but their varied usage in the film's extended opening sequence helps establish visual cues that later create a sort of short-hand that Lee can use to ease his audience into a narrative that jumps around between decades, multiple actors playing the same part, and various changes in scenery too. In short, Lee didn't just shoot in 3D to learn to speak its 'language'; he clearly shot this way so he'd later be able to teach the language.

Did it make sense to film in 3D?

That depends who you talk to. One imagines the crew on Life of Pi dreaded the complications of real tigers, over-bright sets filled with water, and child actors; they didn't need 3D bringing an extra headache to their shoot. Creatively, it makes sense to use every visual trick you can muster when telling a tale which overtly demands your suspension of disbelief in its own narrative. Finally, from a business perspective, the film was always likely to do well in the wider Asian market, where 3D cinema has been doing particularly great business for years, so it makes sense that the film's producers would chase a few extra dollars this way.

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

The 3D version, without a doubt. Life of Pi joins the likes of Hugo and Avatar as an Oscar-nominated triumph that is a superior experience when watched with glasses on. Ang Lee abides by rules set by James Cameron: night-time scenes must have a dedicated light source (bio-luminescence is used here too), editing is allowed to be abrupt if quick-fire shots aren't "overtly 3D", and massive action (like Pi's shipwreck) ought to be framed with a human in the foreground to give us an easy sense of scale. It's clear to the audience that each shot's usage of 3D effects have been clearly thought out, and designed with purpose by master craftspeople.

Roger Ebert, notorious naysayer about 3D technology, has this to say: "What astonishes me is how much I love the use of 3-D in Life of Pi. I've never seen the medium better employed, not even in Avatar, and although I continue to have doubts about it in general, Lee never uses it for surprises or sensations, but only to deepen the film's sense of places and events"

The film itself

The one flaw most bring up with Life of Pi is its extended opening sequence, which deals exclusively with characters who, by and large, disappear from the narrative from Act 2 onwards. Many misread this as a 'waste of time'. The story itself is fiendishly difficult, in that grief plays a large part in the wider tale, and for that grief to seem palpable we must be shown how good things were before they got really, really, bad. Luckily, Ang Lee coaxes great work from his child actors and shoots these scenes with a warmth and sure-footedness that makes the shock of being stranded at sea that bit more effective. We at 3Defence didn't mind the pace of the film one bit - as an epic piece of cinema that traverses continents, it is a worthy Awards-season contender from 2012.

The Hobbit Frame Rate... Explained in FAQ Form

If you're reading this site, you're probably savvy enough to understand what it means to watch a film with a higher frame rate. If you're interested in a real discussion about the shift in projection technology represented by the first Hobbit (An Unexpected Subtitle Journey), then read our post on the matter. If, however, you want a corporate-styled explanation, then feel free to read the officially released briefing below (click the image to expand)

How Good Is The 3D In 'Dredd'?

Background:

It's 3Defence's mission to chronicle the development of 3D Cinema. Dredd arrives at an interesting time in the medium's modern history: ultra-violent, reverent to the comics it's based on, filmed in native-3D on location in South Africa... it's hardly 'the norm' amongst 3D films in 2012. To make things even more interesting: Dredd was written by Alex Garland, who is fast becoming the 'go-to' writer for dark and semi-believable takes on near-apocalyptic sci-fi tales. Dredd is also probably the most kick-ass English language action film to come out along in a long time. But... how good is the 3D?

Native 3D:

The majority of the film was shot using Paradise FX rigs, on location and in sets in South Africa's Johannesburg and Cape Town. Digital extensions were used to transform the city into the post-nuclear-war landscape of Mega-City One, but the original footage was seamlessly integrated into this sprawling urban chaos. In charge of the filming was Anthony Dod Mantle; responsible for the stylised look of films like 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire and The Last King of Scotland. If anyone knows his way around a digital rig, it's going to be Dod Mantle. One gets the impression with Dredd that the idea was to take as much stereoscopic information in as possible, and then use various post-production methods to 'enhance' the experience in every way possible.

Does the 3D 'pop'?

Damn right it does. It's the most 'invasive' 3D we've seen in a live-action film in a very long time. A key plot point of the film revolves around a drug called, imaginatively enough, "slo-mo". The drug makes its participants see the world in a euphoric haze of smoke, stars, and ultra high-definition slow motion footage. Overdone at first, and then used for good reasons later, the shots where we 'see' the effects of the drug remind the viewer of other highly stylised action flicks like The Matrix and 300. While it's not done often, the 3D effects extend beyond the screen and seem to travel through the theatre towards the audience - usually while someone's blood is being splattered behind them. If that's not enough (and really, with Dredd, over-the-top is the preference) the film's hero is paired up with a psychic, who can see people's thoughts in a vivid, and surreal, view that also sends visible shock-waves outwards from the big screen.

How's the depth of the 3D?

Tell you what, watch the video below to find out! It shows you how they extended the sprawl of South Africa "into infinity":

What they don't show you in that clip though, is how often you end up staring down the centre of these cavernous towers, looking down from the top floor through to the lobby below. These gigantic buildings can become tombs when protective blast doors shut around them, effectively trapping the occupants inside. These massive objects quickly take on a claustrophobic quality, despite their hulking size. There's a scene where a character is outside one, looking out across the city, and the loneliness they feel is made palpable by the height and distance of these structures from one another. They may be able to see the world around them, but they are completely and devastatingly alone, separated by hundreds of meters from outside assistance. In sum then? The depth is fantastic, when it needs to be.

Did it make sense to add 3D to Dredd?

In theory, no, it didn't make sense to add 3D to Dredd. Are we glad they did anyway? Hell yes. The 3D is one of the best parts about an already fantastic action film. But, thinking about it, the comic strip 2000 AD was always fairly dark, Dredd's 'modern-day superhero' costume is fairly muted, and the gritty take they were going for ought not to have worked in 3D. But clearly, the creative team thought the idea through, and delivered one of the most successful stereoscopic films we've seen in a very long time.

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

The 3D version of Dredd has to be considered superior. It's clear that Dredd was designed with 3D in mind, from the ground floor of the film's high-rise building, up to the top floor of slo-mo peddling gangsters. The film is structured much like a theme-park ride; introducing you to key characters and locations, and then proceeding to trap you in them, throw you upside down and over steep drops, while showering you in sparks and smoke. For the sheer 'thrill ride' of it all, the 3D version must be considered the 'definitive' version of Dredd. Get yourself a ticket, and strap yourself in, because you're in for a heck of a ride.

The film itself

The narrative is the weakest point of Dredd. Its strength (other than the 3D) is its characters. No-one is a throw-away character. Every actor gets to play an arc, from a homeless vagrant who barely speaks, through to a medic who has a few lines, and then the titular down-turned lip hero himself; they all start the film in one place, and are completely changed by the end of the film. The friends that 3Defence saw it with were both keen to spend another 2 hours in Dredd's world, which clearly means we weren't bored by the end! Alex Garland deserves a lot of praise for the work he did on this script: Dredd doesn't deserve to be this good, but we're glad it was!

Life Of Pi - Preview of Ang Lee's first 3D Film

A couple of days ago, Ang Lee unveiled his new film Life of Pi at the New York Film Festival. Though the film's not quite finished (Lee has another fortnight of tweaks to go, apparently) it's amazing that a version of it exists at all. There's an old Hollywood adage, that says "never make a movie about kids, animals or water," yet Ang Lee has somehow managed to make a film about all three. If an 'unfilmable' novel weren't challenge enough for him, Life Of Pi is also Lee's first 3D film. What can we expect from Ang Lee's usage of 3D?

Well, for one thing, the film itself is going to be painterly. If the trailer's anything to go by, the film is a fifty-fifty mixture of real-world footage and digitally-created backdrops. Life Of Pi's crouching tiger is a CGI construction too, though computer-assisted characters have come a long way since Ang Lee attempted one in 2003's Hulk. In sum, with all this digital information available to be fed into the 3D footage, you can be assured that pixels will be where they need to be to make your eye at ease throughout the film. /Film's positive review of the film says: "the 3D enhances the experience by replicating the expansiveness of the ocean — breadth and height may be constrained by the edges of the screen, but the depth seems to stretch out indefinitely"

Ang Lee filmed Life Of Pi in native 3D, so you're not going to be seeing much post-converted footage in the film. It's interesting to see who has the clout to film in this way amongst the Hollywood "A-list" directors. In 2012 we'll have seen native 3D films from the likes of Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Peter Jackson, and Ang Lee. Unlike his peers, Lee's gone for a very impressionistic usage of 3D. Given the allegories that are built into the story's narrative, and the various flash-backs and flash-forwards, this seems appropriate.

So, what are critics saying about the film? Well, The Chicago Tribune suggests that the impressionism becomes nothing more than "pantheistic fairy dust." The website Film School Rejects is more glowing, "It’s a powerful film with a moving performance by Suraj Sharma and one of the finest examples of 3D." Variety was less enthused, but suggested that Lee's team summoned "the most advanced digital filmmaking technology to deliver the most old-fashioned kind of audience satisfaction."

We here at 3Defence can't wait to review it ourselves, so stay tuned for our wrap-up that will inevitably ask, "How Good Is The 3D In Life Of Pi?" You can read other similar reviews here.

How good is the 3D in 'Katy Perry: Part Of Me'?

Background:

Katy Perry now ranks amongst the best of the early-21st Century's pop stars. She ties a record with Michael Jackson for the most number one hit singles from one album, and was the first female to do so. It's been several years since she invaded the airwaves with her hit single, I Kissed A Girl, and now Perry is out to dominate movie theatres with her own quirky take on the doco/concert film. To do this, she's recruited the directing team of Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz. The pair are producers on the wildly popular 'the show must go on' TV series Project Runway, and they made Justin Bieber's 3D film Never Say Never  in 2011. Safe to say they know how to manipulate documentary footage into a narrative! Since Katy Perry: Part Of Me's release last week, critics have been unexpectedly kind to this particular manipulation of Perry's life and recent worldwide tour. It deftly juggles three narratives: Perry's rollercoaster of a personal life (she goes from a honeymoon to a divorce in the course of the film); real-world (likely 2D) footage of fans responding to Perry's music; and her colourful concert tour itself, shot in native 3D.
 

 

Native 3D and Post-Converted 3D:

Archival footage of Katy Perry

Despite our best efforts in researching (and watching a dozen or so "yeah we had a great time making this film" interviews), it's hard to find any solid information on the filming techniques used. From what we can deduce from the footage shown... Katy Perry: Part Of Me was made using a mixture of cameras and technologies. Generally speaking, whenever the star is onstage, it's likely filmed using 3ality Technica camera rigs, all in glorious native 3D. That footage is full-frame, shot wonderfully, featuring deep blacks and brighter-than-bright colours. In the other narrative, where we're backstage, most of the footage seems to have been filmed using 2D HD cameras, and then that footage was later post-converted into 3D. It's possible some of the backstage stuff was filmed with the native-3D rigs, but the muddy quality made us think that wasn't the case. Then we've got 'the rest of the film', which is a mixture of archival footage and home-made clips that were definitely filmed in 2D. In these cases, the film-makers don't even conceal the 2D nature of the footage; they just suspend the square shots over a rectangular animated background to create a sense of depth.

 

Does the 3D 'pop'?

Put it this way - if you were told to make a 3D film, starring one of the most cartoonish pop stars ever to grace this earth... how would you frame your shots? Would you make the screen an imaginary wall, and limit all action to the background? No. You'd do crazy stuff, like have confetti and glitter shoot out of canons, straight into the theatre. It's a mystery then why the directors didn't do this! The screen is mostly an absolute wall that never allows anything through it. If you're backstage, or watching fan diaries etc, the 3D effect is minimal in general, and definitely confined beyond the screen.

How's the depth of the 3D?

As far as depth goes, this film is real mixed-bag. Most of the stuff backstage is muddy looking and flat. Some of the footage on-stage is marvelous, mind. When the film-makers got the shot they were after, Perry's packed arenas look amazing. Hundreds of cameras and cellphones held aloft help add layer upon layer of depth to Part Of Me's concert footage. Every now and then though, you get the feeling that the camera operators were restricted to locked-down positions, unable to follow the action as you might expect they'd like to. It's very rare to see a close-up shot of Perry onstage; everything's filmed from a distance. While it's admirable to have prioritised the real-world concert-going audience's experience like this, the theatre-going audience are left feeling like they watched a really well shot bootleg of a cool looking concert.

Did it make sense to add to 3D to this film?

Yes... and no. In the 'yes camp', we have the evidence that around 50% of concert films that were released wide and globally since 2009 have been in 3D. Put it this way, Katy Perry's amazing stage shows are ten times more interesting than anything by the likes of the 3D-ified Justin Bieber or The Jonas Brothers. It's a colourful and brightly lit performance, filled with pyrotechnics and glitter, all of which is a joy to watch while wearing glasses. In the 'no camp' though we have the muddy and murky post-converted behind-the-scenes footage, and the aforementioned boring angles and cinematography. On paper, this film seems a natural fit with 3D, but in hindsight... they should've skipped the format altogether.

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

Save the 2D! Half the film basically is in 2D anyway. A cynic - the kind who thinks 3D is a Hollywood devised money-grabbing ploy - would find it easy to argue that Part Of Me is the first gimmicky and pointlessly 3D-ified film of 2012. This makes us here at 3Defence sad, because we love the idea of 3D being a legitimate technique employed for the power of good... not for money-grabbing evil. We hope Perry shoots her next concert tour exclusively in native-3D; gives the film-makers full stage access for a couple of shows so they can get epic close-ups; and just revels in the fact that her music is fun and her fans are loud!

The film itself

It's great! It's a hoot. Critics have been kind to it. Part Of Me is an appropriate title; while you never feel Perry has revealed all of herself to her fans, you do feel like she's been more honest than any of her peers in the pop world. The extraordinary ups and downs of her last two years seem to have taken a toll on her, but her resolute strength and showmanship are demonstrated in this film to be second-to-none. It's an amusing and entertaining film that we recommend hiring on DVD sometime if you're a fan of her music.

The Amazing Spider-Man: How Good Is Its 3D?

We at 3Defence have decided that film critics aren't giving audiences enough information about the usage of 3D in modern-day cinema. As such, we've been working on an ongoing series that can help you decide whether to fork out a few extra dollars or not to see the latest and greatest blockbuster while wearing glasses. Today we're looking at The Amazing Spider-Man, the fourth webslinger film, and the first to get the stereoscopic treatment being heavily pushed by Sony. You'll notice the article below is separated by sections; we've standardised these sections, to help regular readers compare one film's usage of the 3D technique to another. Let us know if you think of anything else that'd be useful in the comments section!

Native 3D:

Like Prometheus, The Amazing Spider-Man was filmed using Red Epic cameras, in 'native' 3D. In 2012, we've seen a string of high-quality post-production conversions, and we were hoping that Spidey webslinging in three-dimensions would blow them all out of the water. Much was made in the lead-up to the film's release of how much real-world filming was completed (see the photo nearby as an example of leaked images from the film's shoot), so in theory we were due to see the most vivid superhero scenes yet seen in 3D. Indeed, whenever Spider-Man has his suit on, the shots are busy, shot from interesting angles and broad in their scope. Bizarrely though, if Peter Parker's at school or home, the 3D footage is some of the most boring we've ever seen. Considering how much Peter Parker features in this film, we were left wondering why they filmed in native 3D at all.

Does the 3D 'pop'?

Incredibly rarely. The odd holographic image in the Oscorp Labs reaches beyond the screen, and every once in a while Spidey's legs break the artificial 'wall' of the theatre's screen, but these are the exceptions to the rule. In comparison to, say, Men In Black 3's 3D, which felt like there was no plane of depth left unexplored, The Amazing Spider-Man's action takes place well beyond your seat. Until the last shot, you're not going to see webs fly out at the audience, or Lizard tails flaying about over the front row's seats. Check out the image nearby as a wasted example, where a key scene involves the Lizard... behind a shuttered door. If it were us making the film, we'd have had the Lizard stalking his prey in a way where you were terrified his head would jump out at you without warning. Instead, in this scene, he was overtly restricted from doing so! Boring.

How's the depth of the 3D?

As mentioned above, when Spider-Man's swinging like a pendulum over the New York city skyline, the depth is fantastic. It's the most vivid depiction of Manhattan we've ever seen on the screen. Much of the action is shot at night-time though, so it's hard to visualise the gaps between individual skyscrapers. Instead, we see the differences of city blocks, or long avenues that culminate in a gigantic building like Oscorp's tower. Mostly though, the film is set in a fairly bland looking suburbia, and the frame is focused on the foreground and midground, with an out of focus background. This means that depth is restricted to the first couple of metres, with a universal background of blurriness that lacks any sort of visual interest (or reason to have glasses on). In comparison to the deep-focus of Avatar, or the intensely layered shots of Hugo, Spider-Man's interior scenes utterly failed to justify the extra admission fees that 3D cost. Check out the image nearby as an example of a wasted shot composition: two characters in the foreground and a blurred background.

Did it make sense to add 3D to this film?

Sure. On paper, it sounds like a done deal. Spider-Man is the 'daylight hero', wearing bright blue and red colours, framed against brownstone buildings, hundreds of feet in the air above the world's most dynamic city. For some bizarre reason though, the studio (I'm loathe to blame the film's director) set the majority of the film at night-time, darkened the suit, and adjusted the physics to be so realistic that Spider-Man needs the assistance of the city's engineer-folk to swing a few metres at a time. So, if brightness and depth are the priorities, they compromised both in favour of a "more realistic" Spider-Man that feels untrue to the comic's roots.

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

The 2D. Without a doubt. Bear in mind that we here at 3Defence are massive fans of the Spider-Man books, the 3D technique, native 3D films, director Marc Webb, and many of the key creatives who made The Amazing Spider-Man. So when we say the 2D version of this film is the only one to keep, we mean it, and it hurts to say it. Bummer!