'Free-Viewing' in 3D
For a dedicated 3D buff like Jane, however, there were ways of checking his work in stereo as he went along. “With the Red cameras, we had a live image in stereo—we had a monitor on the camera so we could put on polarized glasses and see the image, which was really great,” he recalls. “But with the SI cameras, we just had the two images on the laptops that were nailed to this goddamned board, and because of our budget we didn’t have a monitor that could flip [the images] back and forth in stereo.

“We ended up free-viewing,” he says, referring to an age-old tactic for merging a side-by-side stereo image pair by working your eye muscles to overlap two images and create a fused 3D image. “Some people can do it more easily than others. Fortunately, I had some experience, so I could check the stereo in an image if I crossed my eyes. It was really primitive, but it worked.”

“We were basically beta-testing these new systems,” Jane continues. “Different problems arose through production, all of which we were able to solve, but it slowed us down a little bit. Future productions will benefit from the ground that we broke. The second-generation SI-2K Mini cameras and the MK-V system will be tetherless. The capturing systems will be on board, and hopefully the motors will get smaller. What we want is ease of use. We want to be able to use the system just as quickly and conveniently as we would a 2D rig.”

So what is the prognosis for stereo filmmaking on a budget? Iridas CEO Lin Kayser is bullish, encouraged by what he sees in the marketplace. “I think it was last year at IBC, when I walked through the aisles and saw all the 3D playback technology being presented, that it struck me that this is a totally different situation than [the previous big surge in 3D production] 50 years ago,” he says. “There are so many technologies converging that allow you to see stereo on the screen that I think it’s here to stay. To prove the point, we’ve got this wonderful little small-budget movie, Dark Country. It shows that the tools have evolved to a point where even if you don’t have a big budget, you can work with them.”

Hays is a little more cautious. “I think a number of 3D features will be made this year in the $10 to $20 million range,” he says. “I’m not sure if it’s possible to repeat it on the budget Dark Country was made on. Bob Johnston, one of our executive producers, works really hard with people on a scenario to transition from a 2D budget to a 3D budget with the tools we have. What it takes to create not only a 2D movie—because, obviously, every 3D movie can be a 2D movie—but also the 3D movie as well, with all the potential additional revenue associated with that.

“When people see good live-action movies in 3D in the theater, it’s really going to be a turning point. But the material is not out there. Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, the first 3D digital live-action feature, is coming out in July, and hopefully Dark Country will come out later this year. But 3D so far has been mostly for children. And when adults go and see that they can enjoy a movie in 3D even better than they can a standard 2D movie, that’s when you’re going to see an additional push in the market.”