"Why 3D doesn't work" - Walter Murch (via Roger Ebert)

I saw Red's list of movies coming and most are 3D. I wish there was an option to see 2D. The Hobbit in 3D. Was the Lord of the Rings not good enough? I thought 3D was over in the 80's. Its back and better but still not as good as 2D. A good story will beat it every time, and I don't think that a good story in 3D will work as well as 2D, it will just distract from the story. I've been to a few 3D movies and I end up watching the effect and not the story line. Some love it though and the theatres love charging a premium.
 
Definitely interesting, but with a major problem: it does work. It has worked. Not everyone gets headaches. Most of us can see it just fine. It might put undue stress on our eyes and brains for an hour and a half, but Avatar and Tron worked out fine for me, although Avatar had a lot of shots that definitely added difficulty to the experience. The theory he mentioned makes sense, but evidence says something else if it's shot right.

If it should be used or not- that's a whole different question.
 
Cassius said:
Definitely interesting, but with a major problem: it does work. It has worked. Not everyone gets headaches. Most of us can see it just fine. It might put undue stress on our eyes and brains for an hour and a half, but Avatar and Tron worked out fine for me, although Avatar had a lot of shots that definitely added difficulty to the experience. The theory he mentioned makes sense, but evidence says something else if it's shot right.

If it should be used or not- that's a whole different question.
Click to expand...

"it does work", "Not everyone gets headaches", "Most of us can see it just fine", "It might put undue stress on our eyes and brains for an hour and a half"...

It doesn't work, No one gets headaches with 2D, Everyone can see 2D just fine, 2D doesn't put undue stress on our eyes (the brain part depends on what you're watching).

Place WA-WA-WA sound here...:)
 
3D.
BAD.

tumblr_lej4dgFAhc1qzm2r3o1_500.jpg
 
This part from the article I don't entirely agree with...
The biggest problem with 3D, though, is the "convergence/focus" issue. A couple of the other issues -- darkness and "smallness" -- are at least theoretically solvable. But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen -- say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.

But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another.
Click to expand...
And here's why.

1/ If you look in a mirror do you see 3D? Yes you do. Is it a 2D flat surface? Yes.
Are your eyes in conflict trying to converge on that surface and also with the enviroment? I don't know.
Could you feel nauseous or get a headache after looking in the mirror for 1.5 hrs? I don't know. I suppose it depends on what's on the other side of the mirror. I haven't tried it though.

2/ What about these?
sony3dheadset-8.jpg


Would your eyes try and converge on a surface so close to your eye? Let's say tiny screens 1 inch away.
Imo, your eye's wouldn't try converging on the surface because it is too close. You would literally end up severly cross eyed trying to so you wouldn't. I haven't tried those either though.

There's reasons for the nausea and headaches but I don't think the convergence theory is as important a contributor as suggested in the article.
 
Gord.T said:
1/ If you look in a mirror do you see 3D? Yes you do. Is it a 2D flat surface? Yes.
Are your eyes in conflict trying to converge on that surface and also with the enviroment? I don't know.
Could you feel nauseous or get a headache after looking in the mirror for 1.5 hrs? I don't know. I suppose it depends on what's on the other side of the mirror. I haven't tried it though.
Click to expand...
A movie shifts focus and is constantly changing. The objects you look at are constantly moving and the simulated stereoscopic "room" is different in every shot of the film.
The focus of the shot wants you to look at one thing, like a vehicle or a person, in the foreground, while comparing that to the space in the background. A normal 2D image wants to you look at the thing in the foreground while separating that from the background using DOF or lighting temperature but a 3D image wants you to look at everything at once or else 3D will have no effect on you.

A 3D object in the foreground is only 3D when compared to the background. You can't have a 3D object without having a space it exists in.

So you can't really compare that to a mirror, which is constantly the same and it's not even a stereoscopic image. It's a reflection, and not even remotely the same as a simulated 3D image.
 
I think you explained it better than the article. I gotcha on the shifting focus now. I guess your right, it would be hard on the eyes having to refocus every shot.

So it's not exactly the same thing I was describing. Here's where he's confusing me about the convergence...
But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen -- say it is 80 feet away.
Click to expand...

I still entirely don't agree with that statement.
 
teddybear said:
i get headaches.. i get dizzy..
Click to expand...

I don't...not with real D and imax 3D. I've watched probably 5-10 features in that format by now. I'm not sure Murch's convergence argument holds water. It's sort of like the argument against MTV style cutting. Eventually, it becomes the norm and people adapt to it. But his comments about 3D making the image seem 'smaller' are interesting and I think I agree with them. The scale of The Dark Knight's IMAX scenes was stunning, an effect I didn't get with Avatar and Tron in Imax 3D.
 
I was going to make the same argument that Gord did... I don't think people are focusing on the screen at a constant distance. I'd bet that if you could watch the mechanics of the eye that we're sometimes focusing close... and sometimes focusing far... even though the image distance is constant... much like a mirror. Forget 3D glasses... think real glasses. I can change how close or far you have to be if I change the focal point for your perspective... that's what lenses do on cameras... so sure, you want the film to be hit with the desired light, and then later you want to project that film to hit the screen with the desired focus, but who's to say the audience doesn't sometimes look "into" that window at varying depths?

I'd honestly like to know if it's a scientific fact that nobody is focusing their eyes "deep" into the film screen at times... or, if the film suddenly stopped... would everyone simply be focused on the screen itself?

The little salt shaker image is simplifying it... I've seen movies where I feel like I'm changing my own eye's focus from objects close on screen... to a gaze into the distance (of a BG on screen).

Isn't it safe to say that 3D is an eye/brain trick however? Nothing is really floating out in front of you... as Murch states... but the assumption that the only way 3D will "work" is with genuine holography... well... I agree with the statement that 3D already works. I'm not a fan of 3D... I avoid it... and I still think it's cheesy and lessens my own experience, but I do think it works... and I think Murch's analysis is flawed... because to go back to the camera/lens relationship... you can argue a lot of points on it, but the fact is that when you put a light modifier in front of a camera you can choose what will be seen by it... and that's all the 3D glasses are doing for the audience individually.

If you could shoot a film only half-way in focus... then give the audience corrective glasses that got the movie the rest of the way in focus... well... it would be annoying as hell, but if the images on screen were then sharp... you could say the whole effort was stupid, but you can't say it didn't work.
 
I hate to say it, but I don't think 3D is going away this time. Never before have people been given the tools to capture, edit, and display everything in 3D... still cams, video cams, TVs... nah... it isn't going away this time.

The more it grows roots in pop culture... the more it will become the norm in cinema.

Originally... cinema verite was explained to me as sort of a loose shooting style... giving the cam a wandering eye through a scene... we're talking 20 years ago here... only european films did it... it was considered really wacky at the time. I'll be surprised if we don't have TV shows broadcast in 3D... in less then 5 years. I'm talking shows like Mythbusters, or even sitcoms... where every single week... put on your glasses (as long as you bought a 3D enabled TV).

If you could invest in 3D "futures"... I'd definitely throw a lump of cash at it.
 
teddybear said:
i get headaches.. i get dizzy..
Click to expand...

I don't. However, my brain is constantly aware that something is slightly off.

I enjoyed the 3D used in "TRON: Legacy," but what I enjoyed about it most was that all the "real-world" scenes were 2D. Only the scenes within The Grid were 3D, evoking that sense of a sense of virtual reality. In that respect, 3D worked very well for the story. What distressed me were the previews that came before, and how many films are coming out in 3D (the fourth "Pirates of the Carribean" and "Cars 2") in which 3D does absolutely nothing for the story.
 
Gord.T said:
I think you explained it better than the article. I gotcha on the shifting focus now. I guess your right, it would be hard on the eyes having to refocus every shot.

So it's not exactly the same thing I was describing. Here's where he's confusing me about the convergence...


I still entirely don't agree with that statement.
Click to expand...
I think what he means is, we're talking about two separate eye movements here.

One is the Cilliary muscles in each eye that tenses and relaxes, creating the focus depending on the distance of the object.
The other is the eyes moving closer together or further apart depending on the distance of the object.
Your eyes don't look straight ahead, they look in a triangle with the object they're focusing on being the tip of that triangle.

Put your finger in front of your nose and focus on it. Now you're cross-eyed.
Push your finger forward away from you, now your eyes move apart.


When you're looking at a stereoscopic image in a 3D film, the canvas doesn't move. If it's 80 feet away, that's where it is and that's how far apart your eyes stay. The triangle stays the same.
But your Cilliary muscles still has to work as if the eyes DID move together or apart and they're not used to doing this without the eyes moving.
That's like trying to draw a circle with your foot and drawing the number 8 with your hand in the air.
Or it's like patting your head with one hand and rubbing your stomach in a circle with your other.

It's muscle coordination, and if your muscles are not used to it, it becomes strenuous, which is why some people experience headaches.

That's what he means.
 
Last edited:
Mitch is right in a sense. Your eyes aren't meant to do this. 3D in it's current implementation is inferior to what could be. 3D is being used as a gimmick, and therefore Hollywood has not "thought" about how 3D is best, they've just abused it,

3D CAN BE GOOD! Think of it like looking through a window. The world behind is 3D, you move your head side to side and things move in proper prespective. This to me is the holy grail of 3D, head tracking (which doesnt work with 1 screen and audience). But even more importantly, NOTHING EVER COMES THROUGH THE WINDOW. This I see as the big failure of 3D movies. It comes off the screen. Instead of being a deep multi-dimensional picture, like looking through a window into another world, the audience is abused by objects flying at them in front of the screen and foreground objects that dominate the image so it feels more "3D". When I think back on the 3D movies I've seen (let's roll with Avatar and Narnia), the best 3D shots, were always wide and uninhibited by "foreground" or "jumping out" objects. Consider in Avatar the flying scene among the floating islands. AMAZING! Why? The 2D picture had depth, like peering in a window. Consider Narnia where I remember multiple shots of a high sky prespective, looking down and across the vast expanse of ocean with an island in the distance. SO DEEP and amazing as you felt you were looking into a window.

But then, the camera snaps to a shot with leaves of the tree jumping off the screen at you while trying to watch two alien creatures talk. Or a rope from the rigging on the boat sticking out from the screen while trying to watch Lucy converse with her cousin. Or the worst I've ever seen was "Journey To The Center Of The Earth 3D", with yo-yo's and rocks and dinosaurs and EVERYTHING jumping off the screen at me. Yuck!

I firmly believe that when shot correctly, 3D can add DEPTH to flat images and thus improve the image and experience of the world/story we are viewing. The moment the world "jumps off" the screen, we lose believability and end up in the gimmick land of pop music, "me too" mentality, and frantic attention grabbing.

With 3D, give me DEPTH, don't give me child parlor tricks.
 
Last edited:
@Jawa: post #17.
I understand convergence okay. I have to disagree with you on this statement though from post 17...

When you're looking at a stereoscopic image in a 3D film, the canvas doesn't move. If it's 80 feet away, that's where it is and that's how far apart your eyes stay. The triangle stays the same.
Click to expand...
I don't believe that's true.

I made a visual aid (because that's what I like) just to help illustrate what I think we're both talking about.

Fig.1 shows two eyes converging on a red cube.
Fig.2 shows the cubes projected on a screen where the lines of convergence crossed the screen in Fig.1 (assume 2 seperate screens here, one with each image).
The eyes convergence at the same point even though the 2D plane (screen) is at a closer distance.
Would you agree with that?

convergence.jpg


Next comment is about 'focus'. Based on the above, do eyes focus automatically based on the point of convergence?
If so then your theory falls apart. If not then it's valid.

So, I googled around. This is a quote from a wiki article. That doesn't mean it's accurate but...
The eyes normally focus and converge at the same distance in a process known as accommodative convergence. That is, when looking at a faraway object, the brain automatically flattens the lenses and rotates the two eyeballs for wall-eyed viewing.
Click to expand...
source-Simulated 3D perception)

That suggests that there is a level of 'auto' focusing, if you will. So that leans towards my opinion.

I'm not saying it factual, I'm saying at this point It helps to support my opinion that the image plane does not affect the viewer in the way mentioned by the article that I mentioned before.
I understand the problem about the focus changing for every scene and how that can be a problem. But as far as the eyes wanting to converge on the screen, I still don't buy it, unless I can be convinced.

'Am' I misunderstanding the conversation or was that okay? Because I've been up for quite a few hours. (typos)

//edit: And I'm not that familiar on how eyes and eye muscles function, so I could be off here.

//edit:again. Maybe your right. I'll have to read more later. From the same wiki, which I think is what you were saying...
Stereogram_Tut_Eye_Trick.png
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top