Currently it’s reckoned that Stereo 3D films take two or three times more revenue than standard versions and sometimes it’s as high as six or seven times. For instance, 71% of My Bloody Valentine’s revenue came from 3D screens. CEO of Dreamworks, Jeffery Katzenberg, has already predicted that “moviegoers will some day own their own glasses for 3D viewing much like they own sunglasses today”.

Of course, in another year S-3D could be seen as a flash in the pan. Is it the ‘new black’- merely this season’s must-have novelty- or the new Colour- ie a major technology shift that will change the way we consume film?

The recent animation “Coraline” shows us that successful implementation of S-3D means evolving a new film grammar. DoPs who can use the intrinsic qualities of stereoscopic 3D within the palette of colour and light could well be in demand, and now’s the time to train them up.
At what stage should our Screen and Media academies and accredited Animation courses start addressing S-3D? It certainly seems to be happening in Europe.

Coraline using red screen, ©2008 Laika, Inc.

Invazion 09 (www.invazion.org) is a competition for Stereo 3D short films, now in its third year, with a jury from companies like ILM, Dreamworks, Sony.
With a top prize of a Home Cinema 3D-Stereo-Projection-System including 3D-Stereo Software it’s a major lure to student film makers and animators.

It was noticeable that out of this years seven finalists only one was from the UK. Most of the others seemed to show coursework, implying S-3D is now embedded (or at least encouraged) on courses in france and germany.

Congratulations are due to Ben Smith for “The Curse of Skull Rock” an excellent animated short even in two dimensions. Ben is from Sheffield Hallam University, and came second in the Storytelling section.

The thing about Stereo-3D is you really don’t need fancy technology. It can be home-brew. It’s not like HD or 4K, out of reach to all but the richest universities. If you’re working in standard 3D CGI, you can download S-3D drivers from NVIDIA for free. In terms of shooting film, there is plenty of literature out there. “Coraline” was mostly shot with one digital camera, which was slid across on an armature to get the Left/Right eye viewpoints separately. Ingenuity plays a big role in doing it, the rules of cinematography are still being written.

Animators in Europe are starting to experiment with S-3D. Have a look at this year’s InvaZion winner Tina Braun with her graduation film “Deconstruct” www.vimeo.com/4607984
Another earlier film that created waves in the S-3D community was “Moving Still” by artist Santiago Caicedo as far back as 2006. www.swell3d.com/2008/06/moving-still-video-by-santiago.html
For accessibility, both these films can be viewed with old school anaglyph glasses (Red/Cyan lenses). Let’s see if we can increase the number of prizewinners from our universities at next year’s competition. In fact- if there’s a groundswell of demand, I’ll organise a competition and prize myself. Let me know.