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Posts tagged as “3D”

Avatar Day or how I tasted the 3-D revolution

Avatar Day or how I tasted the 3-D revolution

I’m just back from seeing the 15-minute preview of James Cameron’s Avatar and one word comes to mind: gorgeous.


Wiggle your big toe!
We were able to see six very intense scenes in 3-D from the movie’s first half.
A quick note regarding the story: I didn’t expect much beforehand so I wasn’t disappointed on that part. It looks like a “green futuristic Pocahontas.”
Nothing more, nothing else.

Yesterday, I said I was going to wait until after Avatar Day to see the 2-D version of the teaser trailer, thinking the teaser would look pale in comparison to the true result. Looks like I was correct.
Indeed, the 2-D version is, dare I say, awful. Too flat, too unrealstic, too CGI. A video-game of sorts, like Crysis but on screen.
However, the 3-D end-product transcends everything you might expect.

Here it is folks: the most immersive movie in History.

Yes, that’s what over 120 years of technology have led up to.
I’ll refer you back to my November post about how “3-D will be introduced in 2009.”
If you think about what all those technological advancements in the entertainment industry were for, the answer is simple: realism.
With the use of sound, color, and now 3-D, mimicking the real was always the main goal of cinema.
And this is real enough, folks.
The CGI is so advanced that its uncanny valley equivalent has been skipped. Sure, we’re not talking about fake-humans here, this is no Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, but the Na’vi skin and eyes are more than convincing. There’s no dead-eye syndrome either.
The movie seems to have completely immersive CGI aesthetics that perfectly blend in with the raw footage. Though you can obviously guess what was added (answer: everything non-human), it is still extremely realistic.
The night scenes are absolutely amazing, same goes for the fauna. Colors were vivid, despite the use of darkening glasses.

I might seem overly enthusiastic about the movie but I had two problems with the footage (hey, there had to be some):
The first scene we got to see was one only involving humans, and presented to us the world we were about to enter. As the camera was dollying in, the depth of field created by the 3-D camera felt too…forced. It was almost problematic. Basically, it looked to me like the technology seems to work great with CGI-based sceneries and scenes with some human/CGI interaction (like above), but seemingly not that well with “semi-raw” footage (or rather scenes only involving human interaction in normal surroundings).
Given that about 40% of the movie should be live-action, I’m still waiting to make up my mind regarding Cameron’s use of 3-D in non-VFX scenes.
Probably the main disappointment however came from the main action sequence featured in the preview (a chase between Jake Sully and an alien creature through a forest). The camera and editing were way too quick. The scene was almost all a blur. With 3-D, eyesight cannot really adapt to the various depths.
Also another minor quarrel: Given that I saw the preview in Paris, the movie was subtitled (fortunately not dubbed). You might have noticed the use of subtitles yourself during the native Na’vi language as well as its Papyrus font. They were pretty distracting overall. The eye has to deal with the subs in the forefront, plus the whole movie behind with its own depth of field.

Anyway, in case you’re wondering, theatres aren’t being equipped with Avatar-only technology. It’s your standard run-of-the-mill modern 3-D tech, including XpanD glasses (the ones you might have used on Up).


Incidentally, Cameron has just inked a deal with Panasonic to help promote 3-D TV and 3-D Blu-Ray players. The home video business plan for Avatar will be extremely interesting to see…
That said, what separates Avatar from previous movies is its use of the revolutionary Fusion/Reality Camera System 1 developed by James Cameron and Vince Pace allowing groundbreaking stereoscopic imaging.

Remember when I said:

If [typical 2-D movies were meant for 3-D], something huge would have been missing from the first time we laid eyes on them.

Avatar is exactly that.
Seeing the 2-D trailer just shows how great the gap between the two “dimensions” is.
Even on a big screen, I doubt Avatar 2-D would visually work, or at the very least if it would be as immersive as 3-D.
James Cameron clearly revolutionizes 3-D not by the way it is made but by the way it is used.
We’re far from Journey to the Center of the Earth or My Bloody Valentine with their “gimmicky” use of the tech.

We’ll just have to see the 2-hour result on December 18th.

The teaser is out!

Not much time today to post something worth it but there’s one thing you should check out either immediately or tomorrow, post-Avatar Day: the freakin’ Avatar teaser.

Personally, I’m waiting ’til after I’ve seen the 15-minute preview on the big screen in 3-D.

More on that tomorrow.

Don Bluth: The Man who would not scream "Eek-A-Mouse"

Don Bluth: The Man who would not scream "Eek-A-Mouse"
Hey again, Lordofnoyze here with an unusual look at one overlooked master of animation. Now, for this blog, I will talk about a time way before DreamWorks Animation and Pixar, way before 3-D (well, as we know it or we are about to know it…I see you, James). Ever since the launch of Walt Disney Studios, in the 1930s, the Mouse firm maintained a strong domination in terms of animation feature films. (Warner Bros. and Universal only competed in short films).
That is, until the 1980s, when a renegade director born in El Paso, Texas (*insert Clint Eastwood music here*) took the challenge to direct animation feature films and fight Dinsey on their own turf.

The first Don Bluth-directed movie was for MGM, a little movie called “Brisby and The Secret of Nimh“. It was adapted from a Robert O’Brien book, that may have its second coming on screen thanks to Paramount and Neil Burger (but this time, it would be live-action…with a little CGI enhancement, of course).

It was followed by two videogames: “Dragon’s Lair“, and “Space Ace“. But Don Bluth hit the jackpot when he associated with Steven Spielberg and Universal. The results were two of the better-remembered 80’s kids flicks: “An American Tail” in 1986, and “The Land Before Time” in 1988. It spawned two franchises built around the heroes, Fievel the Mouse from the West, and Littlefoot. Fievel had one theatrical sequel, and two direct-to-video sequels. Littlefoot returned in a staggering 12 video sequels (!!!), the most recent dating way back to 2007. Both also had animated shows, and proved worth a lot of money for Universal.

This is where I pause. You know the first time when I cried while watching a movie? Nope, it sure wasn’t “Bambi”. It was the earthquake scene of “The Land Before Time”, when Littlefoot loses his mother. It was disturbing as hell to me, and it was the first time where I realised my own mortality, as well as the ones around me. Needless to say, putting four orphan dinosaurs put into situations of danger, all while grieving, took a lot of balls. It made for a highly emotional movie, that disputed any of the Disney classics.

Shortly after that, Bluth reunited with MGM for his most daring movie yet, “All Dogs Go To Heaven“. And if you thought that “The Land Before Time” had dark subject matter, I present to you the IMDB pitch.

A dog returns from the dead looking for revenge on his killer using an orphan
girl who can talk to animals.

Yes, we’re talking about a G-rated movie.

And a kind soul put the ending on YouTube, so to all of you that are not afraid of spoilers (right…like you cared about this movie until now), enjoy the imagery.

I mean…

Come on.
The movie was the first one produced under his new Sullivan Bluth Studios in Ireland. Right after the average box office scores, trouble began. Right after finding trouble in investments, and having a hard time distributing “Rock-A-Doodle“, his final movie for the Lion Firm, Bluth signed a deal with Warner Animation Studios, a newly founded wing destined to produce animation movies…and also compete with Disney. He produced two movies under the Warner banner: an adaptation of “Thumbelina“, one of Hans Christian Andersen’s tales, and “The Pebble and The Penguin“. The first one did good, the second one was a flop, critically and commercially.

Bluth had to wait until 1997 until luck found him again. 20th Century Fox appointed him and Gary Goldman to be chairmen of Fox Animation Studios, also a new division destined to compete with Disney and soon-to-be-open DreamWorks Animation. The success of “Anastasia“, with voices from Meg Ryan, John Cusack and Kelsey Grammer, led to a DTV sequel around Bartok the rat (again). But the phenomenal flop of “Titan A.E.” in 2000, scripted by three screenwriters well-known of us geeks, John August, Ben Edlund and Joss Whedon, led to an early retirement.

Now he’s opened his own website, donbluth.com, and his Don Bluth Films based in Phoenix, AZ, produces content for Web and IPhones alike.

OK, so…what’s my point?

Well, Bluth is a forgotten “artisan” that always stayed true to 2-D animation, and if you can see anything in his movies, it’s uncompromising (and yes, often dark) subject matter. But even if seeing it with very young kids is not a very good idea, it stays great to rediscover an alternative to rosy-colored, two-dimensional characters. I mean, for crissakes, the dogs in “Charlie” gamble, and it’s set in 1930s New Orleans, Vice City before Miami claimed that crown!!! But think about it: if there weren’t any Bluth movies, would Disney execs have accepted a pitch where an old man goes on a quest for adventure when his wife dies of illness?

(Well…they probably would have, since it’s Pixar. But you get my point.)

So, here’s my 2 cents to respect the artist. And I’ll leave you with a few in-depth links:
– Interview to IGN back when Titan A.E. was released

Oh, and a lot of his movies may be available on the YouTubes.

I said “may”.