(Originally published on The Rec )
At this year’s Showest Convention, speculation about 3D and its effects on the future of moviegoing has dominated the proceedings.
Studios and theater owners are quite right to worry, as ticket sales have continued in a downward spiral over the last decade, due in large part to the rise of the internet and digital piracy. In 2006, ticket sales actually increased slightly over 2005, and anyone with a brain cell can imagine that the powerhouse 2007 lineup will no doubt continue the slight increase of last year. However, the internet and home entertainment remain constant threats to Hollywood due to their inability to harness and control them.
Many in Hollywood, including technological prophets George Lucas and James Cameron, have declared 3D to be the potential savior of the movie business. In fact, both directors have spent the better part of ten years pushing digital and 3D technology forward in order to bring audiences back to the multiplex.
The technology was once used in conjunction with hideous glasses in order to show shit like “Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman” in 3D – which actually sounds like a pretty good idea. The 3D effects were almost entirely a gimmick, used by cheesy Z-grade horror films to beef up attendance.
Despite an early eighties mini-revival (”Jaws 3-D,” anyone??), 3D has largely gone the way of “The Tingler” and other gimmicky nonsense. Part of the problem lies with the horrible cardboard glasses that always hurt your nose and gave you a headache, not to mention how utterly ridiculous you looked and felt while wearing them. After the initial coolness of seeing a movie in 3D wears off, it becomes more of a nuisance than anything else.
Enter Cameron. The genius behind some of the most successful and popular films in history (and some of the least interesting documentaries ever) has fashioned a camera that allows for a true 3D experience at the theater. Here is a peek at how the technology works:
(Whoops … apparently embedding isn’t working … head over here if you want to see it)
The power and allure of 3D technology to Hollywood is that the film becomes very difficult to reproduce through piracy, nor does it work as well in home entertainment systems. It also prevents camera phones and camcorders from capturing movies. This gives Hollywood the control they have craved over their product, while at the same time giving audiences something new to lure them to the theater.
Will the technology accomplish these things for Hollywood? Preliminary figures suggest that it will. For instance, the shitwad “Polar Express” opened in 3,550 2D theaters, and only 62 3D theaters. However, the 3D theaters accounted for 25% of the gross for the film during its run, in which 3D theaters earned 14 times as much per screen as their 2D counterparts. The technology has advanced so dramatically – with such staggering results – that recently Dreamworks announced that all of their future animated movies, including the unwelcome “Shrek 4: Please Kill Mike Myers,” will be in 3D.
Looks like someday soon we will need glasses to see the big picture.
