3D and I

[rheasilvia]

Full disclosure: I've only seen a single movie in 3D (Avengers), and the only reason I did was because there was no non-3D version showing. After having finally dipped my reluctant toe into the three-dimensional CGI pool, I have to say: I certainly hope the fad for showing big-budget action movies in 3D dies down soon.

I did not find that the 3D effect added anything to my viewing experience, and did find it detracted from it in several ways.

• I wear glasses. It's a bother and a distraction to balance two sets of glasses on your nose. The friend who watched the movie with me also wears glasses. She said it hurt her nose to wear both sets. For half of the movie, she held the 3D glasses in place just above the bridge of her nose; then, she constructed a glasses-holding device with a tissue.


• The 3D effect did not always work for me. In some scenes, rather than a real 3D effect, things seemed to be arranged in several flat layers behind each other, like in a puppet theater (i.e., scenery painted on flat boards pulled to and fro at several levels of the stage).


• I felt like I had to keep looking straight ahead with my head in one position, because the effect only worked at a certain angle. Maybe because of this, the image sometimes blurred for me when I looked back and forth.


• In some scenes, I felt distracted by the odd choice of foreground object popping out at me – in Avengers, I remember being irritated, distracted and (later) amused by a pointlessly emphasized metal strut in one scene, and several equally senseless ears of grain in another.


• Even when the object popping out at me in the foreground was relevant to the scene as a whole, I found it distracting. I couldn't focus on the entire scene with things so scattered.


• There were some brutal changes in focus where the picture went from "background completely blurred out" to "foreground completely blurred out", or the other way around. Whether or not this had to do with the 3D technology, it was very annoying. I can choose what I look at myself, thank you; I don't want to be led by having everything except for one thing on screen being completely blurred.

So, what do you think about 3D?

Comments

[carose59]

Until last week there are two things I would have been able to say about 3D: In the 80's I saw Creature From the Black Lagoon in 3D and took off my 3D glasses halfway through because they annoyed me so much. And Stephen King said that if he ever made enough money, he'd have a pair of prescription 3D glasses made. I hope he did, I like him. *g*

But last week I read a very interesting post about it (from a link on Joseph Gordon-Levitt's tumblr). http://rcjohnso.tumblr.com/post/24693276556/some-thoughts-on-3d

Personally, I have no need for movies to be "more realistic or whatever they're supposed to be because they're 3D. If the story isn't enough to pull me in and keep me, stuff flying off the screen at me isn't going to keep me.

And, of course, I'm a glasses-wearer. I really wonder if the movie people realize how many people wear glasses and/or have eye problems that make the whole proposition impractical and/or painful.

[rheasilvia]

Oh god, I remember the 80s 3D glasses - now that was pure dorkdom.

Personally, I have no need for movies to be "more realistic or whatever they're supposed to be because they're 3D. If the story isn't enough to pull me in and keep me, stuff flying off the screen at me isn't going to keep me.

YES. This exactly. I'm absolutely the same.

That's an interesting essay... and I see his point, the vision that filmmakers are reaching for in 3D is very interesting. But the current 3D technology is not much closer to achieving it than the 80s version was, IMO, and there's no use hyping this specific technology as something that it patently is not.

I really wonder if the movie people realize how many people wear glasses and/or have eye problems that make the whole proposition impractical and/or painful.

I suspect this is the kind of consideration that is handwaved in meetings where everyone is all gung-ho about the great new technology. Those few people with glasses, tsk, they can just get out their contact lenses. What, you mean there are people who don't have contact lenses? No way!