INTERVIEW: Tips To Maximizing Your 3D Movie Experience

Details: Category: Interviews; Created: Monday, 12 September 2011 22:00; Published: Monday, 12 September 2011 22:00; Written by Lupe Haas

Tips To Viewing THE LION KING in 3D

THE LION KING returns to movie theaters in 3D, and with the onslaught of 3D movies, the Stereoscopic Supervisor on THE LION KING 3D reveals the best seats in the house for maximizing your 3D movie-going experience.

As a Stereoscopic Supervisor for the Walt Disney Animation Studios (Tangled, Bolt), Robert Neuman takes two-dimensional images from artists drawings and transforms them into three dimensions using a depth map or "3D script" much like he did for the 3D conversion of THE LION KING. Once he finished "choreographing" the 1,197 individual scenes in THE LION KING, he gave the depth map to a team of four Sequence Supervisors and sixty 3D artists, who completed the process in four months.

Best Seats For 3D

The Stereoscopic 3D conversion also included overseeing Quality Control on the audience's perspective of the 3D. To enhance the 3D experience, Robert and others test that every seat in the movie theatre experiences the three-dimensional aspect equally, but he explains there are "prime seats."

"Picture the screen having a 30'degree cone coming out of there. You kind of want to be within there. The best is going to be in that 30 degree cone. And you want to be back within that cone at least one screen width or more back within that cone. There are varying degrees of quality."

3D Glasses

Movie theaters often provide different 3D glasses. CineMovie inquired about the difference in the glasses and the superiority of one over the other. According to Neuman who also recently completed the 3D conversion of Beauty and the Beast, there are three different types of glasses; the polarized, active, and Dolby 3D system glasses. The three variations in glasses offers "roughly the same experience," Neuman said. Furthermore, for Disney's Digital 3D, the studio requires the exhibitors (movie theater owners) to meet a "bar" for their equipment to ensure the best quality.

2D to 3D Conversions

Neuman explained to CineMovie that their goal for creating the 3D elements is to serve the story versus being just a gimmick. Unfortunately, most films fall victim to that especially most live-action films converted into 3D after filming.

"I'm kind of not that happy with the 3D conversions."

What fails in 3D conversions, he says, is when they compress everything down and it looks like cardboard. Over-the-shoulder shots tend to be the hardest scenes to convert to 3D and that's where depth is especially important. 3D is essentially a second point of view. If you close one eye, you're essentially watching the original movie.

THE LION KING 3D is in movie theaters September 16 and then the Disney classic makes its debut on Blu-ray November 15.