HD For Indies

Today was a good one - James Cameron got us rolling with some great, passionate discussion about why 3D movies matter.

As usual, here's my raw notes:

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NAB Digital Cinema Summit 2006, Day Two Notes: james Cameron keynote
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KEYNOTE: JAMES CAMERON ON DIGITAL 3D

James Cameron is giving the keynote

Elizabeth Monk Daley is the dean at the University of Southern California Cinema/Television

(she's introducing Cameron)

talking about Cameron - he comes at it from the perspective of making better films.
-born Ottawa
-came to LA in 71 to study physics at Fullerton College, machinist and truck driver
-in 78 decided to bea filmmaker, hired by Roger Corman
-worked for corman as VFX artist and designer, quickly went on to do his own films
-Terminator in 84 from his own script
-wrote and directed The Abyss, T2, True Lies, and Titanic in 97, (highest grossing movie in history, $1.8B in ticket sales), 14 Academy Awards, pleased that he's going for 3D

this is Cameron:

Human beings don't like change - if it ain't broke don't fix it. Our business may not be broke, but it could use some fixing. Falling box office and day & date release causes concern, how to get people back to theaters.

Can d-cinema provide the magic to do that? For me, yes. Digital is an enabling tech for 3D. Digital has a sound biz model for why it should be done. Those reasons are not why he's excited about it - for me, it's about 3D.

My vision is that it might be the most important part of d-cinema.

46 3d movies released from 52-55, then it died out completely. in next 25 years, only 3 titles. Why? People were fascinated by the stereo experience, but got turned off by crude cameras, producing stereo that created a lot of eyestrain even under the best projection conditions. The projection was dark and prone to error in the field. If it was 2 perfs out, the L&R eyes were reversed and you'd need years of therapy to recover. Plus, most of these movies sucked and you wouldn't have gone to see them without 3D.

The new 3d digital cameras have dynamic interocular and convergence, capable of producing perfect stereo images with no eyestrain. It's been solved. And the new 2K d-cimena projectors are a godsend. There's no point in making great 3d with no place to show.

the only difference between digital nd 35mm is one thing: Frame Rate. The reason you can show it on a single projector is because digital can do high frame rates (over 100fps) whereas film cameras are good for 24, maybe a bit more if you goose it.

Digital allows a triple flash per eye per frame (see yesterdays notes) - you're getting images at 144 fps but the brain is fooled into seeing the images simultaneously even though you're really seeing them sequentially. Digital can do something 35mm CANNOT DO. This is different from color, res/image steadiness/etc., this is binary. They just can't do it. Can you project 3d w/35mm projector? You can, but you're back to the 50's for the 3D tech.

Ghosts of the Abyss had over/under 35mm projecgtion in 50 theaters. it wasa nightmare process, dark murky pictures, really a non-starter. Anaglyphic is worse. For bright, stable, lucid 3d, you need digital projection.

6 ydars ago started down a path to shoot digital 3D.

Dissatisfied with the big bulky stuff at the time. Back then, plan was to shoot digitgal and blow it up to imax. Partway in, had an epiphany: the new digital projectors could be made to run 3d and didn't cost $2.5M apiece, so could be THOUSANDS of them. If the whole d-cinema conversion hapened, could be TENS of thousands of 3d projectors, not a few dozen. This was a glorious dream....that no one else shared.

got on horn with Doug Darrow of TI's DLP program, been working with them towards the goal of digital projector tech that is 3d capable. At first they thought of me as an intriguing annoynace, but after banging away that this was the one thing that their projectors could do that 3d couldn't, they got interested after d-cinema stalled (good as film?, doing tests, etc.) there wasn't a strong enough driver to do it. There wasn't a strong enough marketing hook to the public. No scratches, versatility, stable, etc. it'll save studios a boatload of money over time, but the average person is not going to line up around the block if Fox is going to have a strong quarterly profit. But 3D, he told Doug, changes alll that - now you have a very specific and marketable system to install in the near term, the benefits to be harversted by exhibitors and studios, but now something to intrigue the public's imagination, a differentiator for ttheaters, and a catalyst for d-cinema. It might turn out that he could be right - no scientist would take two data points to make a solid decsion (we usually use less data to make decisions in our business).

Polar Express 3D made history in 3d world. $121M on 2d screens. On 68 3d screens grossed $68M. 25% gross form 2% of the theaters. Lots of big films have been blown up to Imax. None of them have shown such a difference between Imax and regular screns. The difference? Feature length 3D that was sought out and paid extra for.

It didn't prove that success would translate to DIGITAL 3D. October '05, there were 43 digital screens, 14 were running 2K, none were running 3D. D-cinema had stalled for years due to chicken and egg conundrum. Chicken came first (chicken little). Disney installed 84 2K 3d installs. 6x more than before. 83 screens made 12.9M dollars. Average gross was 54K/screen. Average was $162K/screen for 3D theaters- vastly outweighs costs of doing 3D. (got figures from

3d sold out first and most often, overflow helped the 2d screens. 3D had stronger legs, ran as long as 13 weeks. 2% of the theaters did 10% of the gross in north america. that's a similar pattern to polar express but on a different platform. The commonality - feature length 3d. Confirmed audiences will seek out and pay extra for 3d, give good word of mouth, and the costs are outweighed significantly by the increased upside. Opinion dynmaics poll of 900 us addults - 12% (39M americams) would go to movies more often if they were feature length 3d films. Isn't that what we want? People to go more often? among 18-29 year olds, 29%. Some said it would depend onthe film. 14% would poay 2-3 dollars more.

The numbers don't seem that high - 50% have never seen a 3d movie, so that is the opinion based on PAST experience with 3d, which is a pretty sordid history. How mahy of these have seen digital 3d on a hollywood blockbuster? Very few. There is a predisposition to want to see 3D. The numbers will go higher once more folks see it.

We know people want it, will actively seek it out, and pay more for it.

This all needs to be driven by content, not format. Not about finding good scripts for 3D films, be like finding scripts for finding good color movies in the 50s - like when color was new, it was used onthe A - list pictures. 3D should be thought of as that kind of enhancement. Don't put a turbo on a sewing machine, put it on a sports car. Put 3d on a top tier market, and market on the merits of the movie, at the end of the trailer or tv spot, you say "In 3d at selected theaters" - if you sell movie as ultimate 3d experience, people will feel like they are settling for less in a 2d theater. Most folks will still see the movie in 2d rather than 3d for the next several years.

Make 3d the upselll/upside. Give consumers credit for seeking it out, and it is value add.

So where's this 3d content coming from? 3 ways to make 3d movies:
1.) Shoot a live movie with stereoscopic
2.) make a cg movie
3.) can dimensionalize a movie shot in 2d and make it 3d

how he sees it:

1.) Live action movies - he's been shooting live action, digital 3d for the lasat 5 years, all he's done - shot steadicam, hundreds of hours of handheld, helicopter, you name it. Nothing you can do in 2d you can't do in 3D. New cameras are mostly more sophisticated than cmaeras of the past, but are now electronic so are able to see it live and make changes, not bake in mistakes you can't undo later. Can do perfect stereo that produces no eyestrain. Camera package costs more, close to double, (2 of everything), factor in post and VFX have added 5-15% of the cost of the movvie. Put can gross 30-40% more. he's decided to shoot Battle Angel, Project 880, (new line and walden Journey to Center of Earth in 3D, first live action 3d to market on digital screens, about 800 screens is their goal). a number of other projects he can't talk about

2.) CG area - Zemeckis is doing Beowolf in motion cpature 3d. He says this is the only way Zemeckis wants to do it. Aas long as you want to do it in 3d, it is ridiculously easy to do to do 2 virtual cmaeras. Twice the rendering, but easy. It is the low hanging fruit in the 3D market for a few extra million dollars. Disney's Meet The Robinsons is being made in 3d from scratch. 3d and CG goes together likes peas and carrots. Chicken Little was dimensionalied at the last minute at higher cost than dual rendering from the get-go.

3.) Dimensionalization - was skeptical at first, but did some tests with InThree and "I did a real 180" when he saw it.

He's seriously looking at doing Titanic in 3d, looking at doing T2 as well, maybe some of the others if the costs come down. Peter Jackson, is looking at doing LoTR and King Kong in 3D.

Lucas is actively planning doing the Star Wars films. IT is technically feasible but very expeinsive. It is cheaper to shoot 3D rather than to shoot 2D and dimensionalize. It should be thought of converting the top earners of all time. Raiders of the Lost Ark would be really cool. He supports it because it'll create content to show on 3d, and the exhibitors need to know there will be a steady stream.

Bono on glasses - "This is not a problem, this is a marketing opportunity."

There's two kinds of glasses - active and passive. Active shutters open and closed 96 times a second, has a battery and a motor. New ones are light, in large volume they'll cost maybe $25 apiece. Need to get'em back and run'em through a dishwasher and it is a pain in the ass. The big advantage is that you don't need a special screen, and can use existing screen. For theater owner, i fyou want to move from big to small auditorium in week 3, is no big deal since can just move the glasses.

Passive - put an LCD filter over projector lens, install a silver screen. Glasses are cheap, under $1, can be given away, if you're cheap you can collect'em and use'em again. All the Bono marketing possibilities are there - Ray Bans or Oakleys. NEw systems use circular polarization and it won't mess up the picture. The only real negative is the cost of the silvered screens. They cost in the same general range as the active glasses. Lots of grumbling about silver screen is no good for 2D - THAT IS WRONG. Somebody will diagree, but that's what he uses. Nattering nabobs of negativity nattering on about change. But I'm not too biased on that. : )

whatever biz model works best is fine - otherwise you're splitting hairs.

Both systems work fine with a single projector. Every 2K projector out there can potentially be a 3D projector. And we're talking about eventually converting ALL projectors over time. The upgrade form 2D to 3d once the projector is in place can be made overnight. Can make decision downstream.

Anaglyphic 3d "we need to stamp out this unholy practice" - People are tempted to using this to release films on 35mm using this. Nobody over the age of 10 thinks this 3D looks good. Anaglyphic releases could cause a setback to the industry by giving new 3D viewers a BAD experience. 3d as a market is only as good as the brand association we build over the next few years. "Remember - red blue BAD!"

Where is all this 3D stuff going? Do I think all movies 3d in 10 years? No. Isn't like the pervasive changes of sound and color. In a few years, studios will ask about how many of the annual 4 or 5 of the tentpole movies should be 3D? Hopes it will be driven by filmmakers wanting to do it because it is cool, because they will want to create their own stereo aesthetic, like a new set of colors to play with it. The major animated 3D releases will, as a rule, come out in 3D. Timeless classics will be

Will it be a fad that blooms and dies like 3d in the 50s? No - a fundamentally diferent class of movies, the must-see major releases from the major filmmakers. Ina addition to making the movies you'd see anyway, in some theaters in vivid glorious digital 3d, and the quality will be perfect - no reason for it not to be, no crossed eyes and headaches and grumbling - fundamentally different from anything that has com ebefore. Dismissing it as a fad is not possible, but it isn't logical to dismiss it. How big can this thing get? As long as incremental cost is less than the incremental box office it creates, it'll be vialbe indefinitely. We have to get projection infrastructure into place, once you have the titles availble, and the teathers are avilable, it'll drive the economics and it'll improve over time as you have more theaters, which will encourage more movies, which will feed back to make more moviemakers to shoot in 3D, etc., is his theory. His theories so far are working on the timeline he thought.

Another fundamental difference - digital projectors can show live feeds that represent another biz opporunity. The digital 3D cmaeras can shoot live 3d that is hard to distinguish from human vision - what if you could use this installed base of digital 3d theaters to take place in live events across the world, the immediacy and power of that...."think about what you could charge..." : )

The home market - those who say you can't play it at home misses the point. You'll be able to pirate major release movies and it'll be viewable at home is happening. But you won't be able to watch it in 3d. You won't be able to pirate it in 3d, and even if you could, nothing to watch it on at home!

"We're so scared of piracy we're ready to pimp out our mothers" with day and date

if you have a successful 3d movie, people will buy the 2d version to watch it at home.

Eventually, it'll be possible to watch this stuff at home if there's another market, and it'll create a market for your film

If they buy your movie in 2d, later the 3d version will come out and they'll buy that movie again..."Am I evil for liking that idea so much?"

Even without 3d, including all the squabbling that the studios do, the wave is coming, 3D can ride the d-cinema wave, and even help drive the wave, giving people a tangible near term reason for wanting the projectors. We're passed the point where the fear of change outweighs the fear of NOT changing. He's not making movies for people to watch on cellphones. And he doesn't want day and date to erode the grand experience of theatrical cinema experience.

"We're in a fight for survival here" - maybe we just need to fight back harder, not wither away and die - d-cinema can do that, do that for a number of reasons, d-cinema is a catalyst for 3d, and it'll get people off their butts and bac in theaters where they belong."

gonna run a clip of 10 or 11 minutes from Show West that made some buzz for the digital 3d concept. Compilation of 3D from a number of different sources, that'll work from a bunch of sources. All CG, hybrid live/3d, straight live action production. Starts out with some stuff from T2 3D that was shot on film. All kinds of stuff. That'll take us into the panel discussion.

(wathced a demo of a lot of stuff - looks GOOD, but want to see what can REALLY be done with Cameron shooting some first rate action stuff - Battle Angel!)
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and that led into a round table discussion, I'll post those notes in a moment. Sorry for all the typos in this, was typing as fast as I could....

-mike