2D to 3D Converted Movies:

“Have you seen what’s happening out there…have you even bothered to look?”. One of the more memorable quotes from the recently released Clash of the Titans. It’s sad that at least to me, the movie itself is going to be un-memorable.

I will not know how this movie ended as I chose to walk out of the cinema a little after the battle with the scorpions, being assaulted by the bad (to put it politely) 3D conversion.  The movie studio wins this round as I did pay the ticket price for the 3D version. I don’t think they will however, make me go back to watch another 2D to 3D conversion of this calibre.

What may have been a good movie, had it been released only in 2D, seems to be a typical fly-by-night operation to cash in the 3D craze with little regard to audiences well-being while insulting the intelligence of others who have tasted good 3D. We are not even talking about connoisseurs of stereoscopic 3D who can identify pseudo-3D when they see it.

This begs the question…

2D to 3D conversions good enough?

So how and why are 2D movies converted to 3D? Almost a year ago I had written a document showing some of the short comings of the process on two movies that were converted at that time – GForce 3D and Harry Potter (the first 13 minutes). That document goes into some detail of what the caveats are and can be seen online here or downloaded here.

Rather then debating the pros and cons of the process let’s take a look at what movie makers who are true to the medium of stereoscopic 3D have to say. It is not my intention to be labelled a James Cameron “fan boy” and I have even questioned the converge-on-focus style of his 3D movies, but one has to give credit where credit is due. The reason he can command such budgets as awarded for Avatar, is because he stuck to his principles and passion for doing something, and doing it right.

What James Cameron thinks of 2D to 3D Conversions:

Dead Giveaways in 2D to 3D Converted movies:

Alice in Wonderland:

• So much horrid and un-necessary blur due to shooting with 2D in mind and using lenses for 2D cinematography – Hurting people’s eyes who try in vain to fuse blurry scenery
• “Flat” depth in almost 70% of the movie
• First blatantly obvious sign that this is a 2d to 3D conversion – Big Tree mapped onto a “globe” primitive polygon on the main grounds after Alice and her mother/aunt arrive at the palace for her engagement
• Crowd at the palace abruptly gets “flat” in the the background during the engagement proposal? Depth map gradient ran out?
• Beautiful white roses.. all out of focus in the foreground
• Fringing artefacts on hair locks of Alice after main battle at the end

Clash of the Titans:

• The entire movie has “extrusion” artifacts. This exhibits itself along the edges of the main characters. An example… in the scene of Andromeda saying that famous quote, the people behind her seem to be attached and “grow” from her shoulders.
• To make a stronger point – Most scenes are like Freddy morphing out of the bedroom walls in the new upcoming A Nightmare on Elm Street.
• Sam Worthington walking in the forest has grass and leaves “attached” to him as though it were some poor unintentional attempt at camouflage.
• Horrid pseudo-3D on some scenes. Possibly the artifacts of taking a scene, de-saturating it and then using the grayscale image as a “depth map”. Pseudo stereo can be seen right from the beginning in the universe scenes and later in the night scenes with firelight.
• The casket being raised with the dead mother and the baby in the beginning, blissfully ping pongs between flat 2D and bad converted 3D. The baby itself has a flattened out arm.

This pattern of bad conversion flows throughout the movie, which made me leave after the scorpion fight scene.
Another example (from a different 2d to 3d conversion outfit that shows similar “extrusion artifacts” is here. Look at the edges of the Palm tree on the right and the bush/hedges outline on the lower left.

The Need for good Stereographers:

Stereographers, and the good ones…are a rare breed of professionals. The distinct lack of them is evident just from looking at the current crop of 3D movies out in cinemas. There are exceptions – The Stereographer on How to Train your Dragon is one such example. This professional stereographer, needs to be auctioned to the highest paying studio if they care about doing a 3D movie right.

If audiences compare two recent movies that featured “riding dragons”, namely AVATAR and How To Train Your Dragon, it’s plain to see who excelled at producing a more immersive experience for the audiences. The flight sequences in How to train your Dragon were leagues ahead in stereoscopic mastery of “depth budget” than the flight scenes of riding the bird/dragon like creatures in Avatar.  This experienced use of supervising the depth budget combined with excellent camera framing in 3D made those scenes a pleasure to watch in HTTYD. There was enough time to appreciate the vistas in this movie as compared to the flattish 3D and lack of time given to audiences to appreciate the CGI in Avatar.

CGI movies (cameras) make for better stereoscopic 3D than live action, we all know that to be true… But a good stereographer even on a 2D to 3D Conversion, will at least save the movie and recommend the best approach to tackle an already shot 2D movie. The sooner that Cinematographers and Studios realize that 3D is more than just a tool and is in-fact a MEDIUM and gateway to story telling, the better.

In the immortal words of Andromeda, Perseus and the other Cinema Ticket paying mortals…”One day…somebody’s going to have to make a stand…One day.. someone’s gonna have to say “enough”.