Archive for year 2010

Within any method of creativity there are boundaries. Within film-making there are many. Technological advancements have continually broadened those boundaries allowing artists to explore avenues previously unavailable to them. Beyond the technological advancements, artists have been able to develop a language that exists beyond reality but makes complete sense to us in the cinematic world. An example would be ‘fade to black’ representing the passing of time. In reality weeks do not pass in seconds and we do not have a ‘fade to black’ to help us understand abstract ideas of temporal displacement, yet when this happens in a film, we don’t question what has happened, we don’t jump out of our seats and scream “as if!”, “this is an absurdity”, “an ungodly rape of the fourth dimension”… We merely understand that the next scene is some time after the previous one. This isn’t the only use of fading to black, it can have other meanings as well but depending of the context we are given, we understand it as if it was part of our reality.

A whole cinematic language exists and is constantly developing helping film-makers communicate complex and sometimes abstract ideas without the need to explain them in literal terms. All of this rests upon a pictorial language which is derived from our natural reactions of perception. For centuries, artists have been drawing upon human perception to inform the image making process and how it will be perceived by the viewer. A larger object is closer than a similar object that is pictured smaller, eyes are immediately drawn to a bright colour amongst a dull background, two parallel lines that appear to get closer are actually retreating into the distance and so on. Many of the reactions we have to the elements in a painting are designed to allow us to understand the world we see, but these reactions can be manipulated to assign alternative reactions to things we might not normally associate them with.

A talented image-maker can manipulate a viewers response at a subconscious level, without the viewer realising exactly why. Why are they feeling quite so sad? Or why do they feel scared? The use of light and colour can help carve the difference between a beautiful princess and an evil witch, or can be used subtly to bring attention to areas of the frame that might go unnoticed or to enhance a feeling of fear. There can sometimes be a fine line between subtly conveying an idea without distracting from the experience and patronising an audience with obvious cues to ‘look here’ or tell them ‘this is a witch, she is evil’. There are many tools in the film-makers toolbox to allow them to orchestrate feelings and responses; scale, perspective, shape, form, light, colour, composition etc.

Realism isn’t necessary to stay within the realm of reality. To create absolute realism will relinquish the ability to raise people beyond the real, into the spiritual, magical and imaginary. If trying to attain only realism with the lighting for example, the end result would most probably be flat and void of drama, the light would only exist in order for us to be able to see objects within the frame. To remain faithful to the reality of the perceived stereoscopic world would have a similar effect, it is soon accepted and becomes nothing more than a visual cue to help me understand what is in front and what is behind. What wealth does s3d  add to a film beyond a 2d film if it is only placed within a realistic stereoscopic three dimensional space? For over a century people have been viewing films projected onto a 2 dimensional plane, most people are accustomed to understanding depth through other visual cues and do not require stereo depth in order to make sense of the objects they see. In order to offer something beyond what we re already comfortable with, stereoscopy needs to be used creatively. It needs to go beyond the real and give the viewer something unique that isn’t achievable without using stereoscopy.

One unique ability that stereoscopy has is to enter a viewers space. Unfortunately this is such an obvious ability that it is sometimes used just for the sake of producing a reaction. There are only so many swords poking out of the screen that a viewer will accept before it becomes a dull cliché that carries a negative reaction. In many cases, objects that appear very close to the viewer can cause discomfort, known as ‘brain shear’, due to our eyes doing something they don’t naturally do very often, which is re-converging without re-focusing. To continually bombard people with 3d will surely nullify it’s effects and surrender the ability to accentuate strong moments with depth at all.

Anyway… I’m genuinely excited by stereoscopy. I have been for many years, but it’s only since working on a stereoscopic production that I have become more passionately involved with it. I have a burning desire to develop my understanding of stereography and the cinematic language of stereoscopy. I have many ideas on how s3d might be used creatively in storytelling, and it’s this ‘storytelling’ element of stereoscopy I am most keen to explore.