Paying the price for 3D roll-out
By Emma Saunders
Avatar, Clash of the Titans and the upcoming Tintin trilogy – all of them big budget movies made in 3D.
But it’s not quite as straightforward as that.
The price you pay to watch a 3D movie at the cinema is always the same – but there are several ways of tricking your eyes into seeing that extra dimension and, according to some, the quality varies greatly.
Avatar, for example, was filmed entirely using a 3D camera system, which was partly developed by director James Cameron.
Other movies, including the forthcoming Harry Potter finale, are being shot with regular cameras and converted into 3D during post-production.
Clash Of The Titans director Louis Leterrier had wanted to use 3D cameras to shoot his Greek mythology epic – but the technology was so new, the only ones in existence had already been booked for Avatar.
Leterrier had reservations about the conversion process – which, in essence, cuts the picture into layers like a pop-up book – but ultimately, he was impressed with the result.
“It was absolutely amazing, just the amount of detail. It doesn’t look like cut-out people on flat backgrounds – everything was absolutely realistic,” he told BBC 5 Live.
But not everyone agrees.
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