DreamWorks: Making 3D Movies

By Michael J. Miller

Perhaps no company has promoted 3D harder than DreamWorks Animation, which created Monsters vs. Aliens the first 3D Blu-ray movie I’ve seen as well as the recent How To Train Your Dragon and the upcoming Shrek Forever After in 3D. These movies have probably done more to push 3D than anything other than Avatar.

Recently, I spoke with Phil McNally, who carries the title Global Stereoscopic Supervisor at DreamWorks (the company actually calls him “Captain 3D”), and ask him about what makes a 3D movie different.

All of DreamWorks Animation’s movies, said McNally, are actually created with 3D models, so the difference between the original Shrek movie and the new one is actually monoscopic versus stereoscopic. But when asked whether that made a difference in making the film, he asked me, “Would it be different if it was a radio play instead of cinema?” The core elements of the story remain the same, he said, but the techniques of how you deliver the story to the audience is different.

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