April 2, 2010

The Future of 3D in Cinema


Since Avatar came out and I saw it in 3D, I have been thinking more and more about what it will do to the cinema landscape in the near and distant future. It worries me that films will take 3D and run with it not for the sake of artistically exploring the 3rd dimension but because it's a cash cow and a way to make a ton of money. Some might say in response to this that huge blockbuster films have hardly innovated in any really creative ways in the past few decades and as such the same could be expected from these new "fake-3D" movies that have been recently coming out (in case you're wondering, I'm talking about movies like How to Train Your Dragon and Clash of the Titans, among others).

I'm glad that a huge blockbuster picture like Avatar was able to appeal to such a wide audience while providing the cinema world with so many new innovations on the 3D front. But I worry that its success has driven major studios like Warner Brothers, who recently mandated that all of their movies be filmed in 3D, to compromise the quality of their films for a gimmicky 3D trick that will land more people in seats at the cinema and force people to pay more money for a ticket. In my mind, if you're going to use 3D, use it in a cool, new way that serves a purpose in the film.

To this end, there's a great article over on the Enquirer website that should be read if you're interested in this sort of thing: "Are You Ready for 3-D Everything?"