Tag Archives: 3D

Facebook Puts Content First with 3D Photos

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Facebook created a stir recently when TechCrunch reported that the world’s largest social network is working on the development of augmented reality (AR) glasses. In 2017, Mark Zuckerberg had suggested that the creation of AR eyewear was on the horizon. In late October Facebook’s head of augmented reality Ficus Kirkpatrick seemingly confirmed the development of AR eyewear in a conversation with TechCrunch’s Josh Constine:

“Yeah! Well of course we’re working on it,” Facebook’s head of augmented reality Ficus Kirkpatrick told me when I asked him at TechCrunch’s AR/VR event in LA if Facebook was building AR glasses. “We are building hardware products. We’re going forward on this . . . We want to see those glasses come into reality, and I think we want to play our part in helping to bring them there.”

But for my money, Facebook’s launch of 3D photos is the far more exciting development.

3D for Real

I used to think 3D was a joke. I cringed at every 3D movie I’d ever seen with the exception of Avatar. Wearing ridiculous glasses to see Captain Jack Sparrow mug and stumble his way through the high seas felt like an extreme form of torture. I never took 3D ViewMaster photos very seriously. And I thought those 3D photo crystals of babies and smiling couples locked in an embrace looked flat-out creepy.

But then along came Facebook 3D photos. Boy, they changed my mind in an instant.

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Feeling the Pull of Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity”

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gravity-movie-poster-closeup

I knew Gravity was something special when my Facebook wall exploded with awe-struck mini-critiques from my friends (especially my Baby Boomer friends) the night the movie opened. Alfonso Cuarón’s meditation on life and death in space went on to enjoy the highest-grossing opening October weekend of any movie and an amazing 98-percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (the kind of overwhelming critical approval that is generally reserved for Pixar’s best movies, such as Toy Story 3).

Within two weekends, Gravity has racked up $123 million in the United States and (for once) has given audiences a reason to shell out more money to see a 3D film. And before all is said and done, Gravity may very well rescue the science fiction genre from the clutches of the young male audience. Here are three major lessons of Gravity‘s success (warning: plot spoilers ahead):

Audiences Reward Risk Taking

Americans are equal opportunity movie goers: we’ll turn out in droves for Adam Sandler, schlock, but we’ll also reward ambitious movies that take risks and challenge us, too.  Gravity does a number of things that challenge our expectations of the sci-fi genre.  It’s not action packed. The entire movie takes place in essentially one location. One of the major stars dies Continue reading →

All hail Imax

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As an avid movie goer, I applaud the recent financial success of Imax — the company that offers movies on giant screens with overwhelming sound. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, within the past two years, box office sales for movies shown on Imax screens have more than tripled, and Imax says it will have 600 screens in operation by the end of 2011, up from 266 in 2005.

Why the growth? Because Imax fulfills a promise that 3D technology still struggles to deliver: make movies on the big screen more fun and immersive.

To me, 3D amounts to gilding a lilly. I don’t miss 3D when I see the same movie with and without it. Toy Story 3 comes to mind. Pixar technology is already stunning in 2D; the animation humanizes Woody and Buzz Light year. 3D on top of Pixar technology is like putting flashy hubcaps on a well designed Mercedes.

But Imax elevates two essential elements of the movie going experience — sight and sound — to a completely different level, something “immersive and massive” in the words of director J.J. Abrams. The world that James Cameron created for Avatar becomes otherwordly when experienced on an Imax screen that is 72 feet wide and 53 feet high, with uncompressed sound delivered in six channels.

The Rolling Stones are something more than a legendary rock band entertaining you from behind a celluloid screen when you see Mick Jagger and Keith Richards light up the Beacon Theatre in the Imax version of the concert film Shine a Light — they are a larger-than-life legendary rock band pulling you into an experience of their creation.

Perhaps 3D represents the long-term future of movies. If so, I hope 3D can become something more than tarted-up special effects and uncomfortable glasses that make you feel like a nerd when you wear them. Fortunately, the financial success of Imax suggests that massive screens and enhanced sound will be part of that future, too.

And that’s something I’m willing to pay extra for — ironically an affirmation of what movies on the big screen were supposed to have been all along until the advent of theaters with screens the size of postage stamps: an experience full of wonder that you cannot get at home.