▲ Junior Reporter Byun Bo Kyung (13, Division of International Studies)
When The Wizard of Oz was first released in 1939 in all its Technicolor glory, those accustomed to black-and-white films denounced the trend, claiming that color films gave them headaches. Nowadays, the trend of making 3D movies is meeting with similar criticism—so is all the negativity toward 3D movies merely characteristic of a transition period, or are 3D movies really all that bad?

The success of Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful earlier this year shows that people are still very much interested in the “World of Oz.” The film grossed 500 million dollars worldwide, making it the third biggest hit of the first half of the year, following Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel. Thus, there is no doubt that the release of the The Wizard of Oz in 3D, commemorating the 75th anniversary of its original release, will also be a head-turner. 

But will it really be worth it? Converting a 2D movie to 3D costs up to 100,000 dollars per minute—and for what? A smaller, darker, more headache-inducing image that rarely adds to enhancing the cinematic experience unless done exactly right. Of course, reaching this level of “exactly right” is proving to be extremely difficult. There are two ways to produce a 3D film. The first is to shoot the movie specifically designed for 3D, with specially designed cameras and sequences in mind. The other way is to convert originally 2D movies into 3D—and it is from here that all the
problems arise.

To begin with, 3D conversions reduce screen intensity. The 3D movies achieve their effect by shooting two distinct images for the left and right eye using the light output of a single projector. This means that even in the most ideal case, each eye only gets half as much of the projector lamp’s intensity as in a normal 2D projection. The problem gets worse when movie theaters opt out of using the more expensive projectors specifically tailor-made for 3D. Without the higher light output to compensate for the loss of intensity, each eye gets an intensity as low as seven percent of what it would see in a normal movie. It’s no wonder why 3D movies are always so dark and murky.

Also, 3D films induce headaches and nausea. This is because of the “vergence-accommodation conflict.” A person looking at the world through two eyes makes two responses. The brain focuses the eyes so that both converge on the point of interest (vergence) and focuses the lense within the eye to sharpen the image on the retina (accommodation). So a faulty mis-convergence and misaccommodation between the brain and the eyes results in the viewer seeing double, blurry images.
   
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In the real world, the distance to which a person has to converge and accommodate are the same because people are usually looking at and focusing on the same object. But when it comes to watching movies, producers cannot be exactly sure where on the screen the viewer’s eyes will be looking. And because most 3D movie screens still have trouble balancing vergence and accommodation, they force viewer’s brains to make adjustments that they are not comfortable making. Such a strain on the brain produces a migraine and mild nausea.

Of course, there are movies that did a spanking good job at 3D. Avatar, the multibillion dollar success of which started the flurry of 3D movie-making, is the epitome of a movie in which 3D actually adds to the cinematic experience. But the catch is, Avatar was originally shot with 3D conversion in mind. Also, its 3D element was but one of the many factors that made it successful. After Toy Story, for example, a lame succession of computer-graphics (CG) movies followed because everybody thought the success of the film lay in CG and not the great characters and heartwarming plotline.

To take it from James Cameron himself, “converting a 2D to a 3D movie was not the key element in the success of Avatar. They’re expecting the same result, when in fact they will probably work against the adoption of 3D because they’ll be putting out an inferior product.” 2D to 3D conversion is certainly not the yellow brick road to the future of cinematography.
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