| mickyparise 16.06.2011 21:34 |
Ever since boyhood, I have been quietly fanatical about 3D photography. So I can't quite believe the technical progress that's been made over the past few years to bring us to where we are now — a moment so exciting I have to pinch myself to believe it's arrived. For the first time, 3D could actually become more than the passing fad it has been since first becoming popular in the Fifties and make the leap into everyday life. Our cinemas are full of 3D films and our electrical stores are packed with 3D TVs, which people are buying in serious numbers. We are at the tipping point. I've been obsessed with 3D photographs since a cardboard viewer with coloured lenses fell out of my Weetabix packet when I was eight, in the mid-Fifties. I loved the new world it opened up. I learned to take stereoscope pictures — a basic form of 3D — with a camera I bought from Woolworths for 12-and-a-half pence. You lined up the first picture with your left eye, then the next one with your right. Once the pictures were developed, you put them next to each other and when you looked through a stereoscopic viewer, there was a 3D image leaping out in front of you! All through the Queen years, I was passionate about 3D, meeting specialist dealers as we toured the world. Childhood fascination: 'I have loved 3D photography since i was a boy' Childhood fascination: 'I have loved 3D photography since i was a boy' By then, I'd trained my eyes to 'free view', the same focusing technique you need to see Magic Eye images. So I could rummage through photographs and instantly pick out the stereographs I wanted. A lot of people don't realise, but 3D photography has been around since 1838. I soon became an avid collector of one of its hugely-talented 19th-century pioneers, T.R. Williams. Two years ago, I co-wrote the words for a book of his beautiful stereographs, A Village Lost And Found, something I'm almost as proud of as everything we achieved with Queen. But Williams is part of 3D's past. It's future, I'm convinced, lies with film-makers, such as James Cameron (Avatar), Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3) and Robert Zemeckis (Polar Express). I vividly remember going to see Avatar and being blown away by the 3D effects. It was something I'd been waiting for my entire life. I've interviewed these guys for a Sky documentary I've been making about the history of 3D and they're so excited about its potential. We've had 3D films before, of course, with short-lived fads in the Fifties and Eighties, but this time I'm convinced the 3D effect is simply too good to throw away. Last year, I was one of the 140,000 people in this country (double the market's expectations) who bought a 3D TV — the LG passive system — and it's a great bit of kit. Of course, there's only one channel to watch, Sky 3D, but I'm loving the sport, films and wildlife documentaries. They're exquisite and the photography is stunning. But I confess I do still have doubts about 3D TV. Not that it will give people headaches or be poorly executed — those days are long gone. No, my doubts are about the way we watch television. The days when you sat in a darkened room watching in respectful silence are over. These days, people multi-task while they watch TV — chatting, tapping at their computer, reading a newspaper. You can't do any of that if you're wearing 3D glasses. But I'm convinced, given the current rate of technical progress, 3D TVs that don't require special glasses are not too far away. One of my regrets is not having 3D footage of Queen live, in all our glorious, theatrical pomp. That really would have been a spectacle. But thanks to that boyhood passion of mine, there are some really good 3D stills of the band. My next project is to make a book of these, to be sold with my special Owl stereoscopic viewer attached. Freddie in 3D... now, that's going to be quite a sight. • Brian May's Brief History Of 3D will be shown on Sky 3D on July 7. Read more: link |
| rhyeking 16.06.2011 23:03 |
Most 3D films don't look very good, save for fully or mostly CGI animated films (and even then...). Filmmakers and, remarkably, studios are reacting to the backlash of audiences at low-quality gimmick that is modern 3D. Here's a very good article featuring Roger Ebert and editor Walter Murch about the failure of modern 3D: link It's been over a year since "Avatar" was supposed to firmly establish 3D as the definitive theatre-going experience. It was huge and was hugely criticized for the story, but everyone generally agreed that it did look cool in 3D. After that, though, 3D broke down as a viable movie option. Many 2D moves were rushed into 3D post-production in order to get on the bandwagon (Heaven help us that Lucas is doing it with the Star Wars Saga as we speak) and they all looked like shit. The few CGI-heavy movies that looked okay still didn't blow enough people away and have the world saying: "Yeah, I'm never going back to 2D ever again!" 3D TVs are far from flying off the shelves. They're pricey and each pair of 3D glasses costs, what, $250? Your choices for 3D DVDs and Blu-Rays amount to little more than "Avatar" and "Monsters vs Aliens." People have invested in nice, bright widescreen plasma and LCD TVs in the last few years and are happy to watch movies at home that look really good at 32", 42" or higher. Nobody but video nerds want to bother with a new 3D TV to replace their perfectly good regular flatscreen. My prediction is that the big movie theatre chains that invested in 3D projectors and thousands of 3D glasses will continue pressuring studios to put out 3D movies in order to justify the expensive equipment, forcing studios to making crappy 3D movies. Every once in a while a good one might be made, but don't count on it. The real deciding factor will be the audiences and how long their patience holds out with this before they stop attending 3D movies altogether (sadly, I don't think it'll happen because too many think "Oh, 3D! Cool," not realizing they're watching garbage). |
| M-train 17.06.2011 14:33 |
I look forward to the day that you can put on some 3d glasses to watch a concert, and ACTUALLY BE THERE!!! Think of the possibilities. You could go to a concert, for all practical purposes live, and watch the bands as they were in their prime. It would sorta be like a first person shooter game, where you can go into a room, up the stairs, see and interact with other people, except it would be in a concert theme. With graphics getting so life like, its only a matter of time until they will be able to make a digital duplicate of a person even down to each freckle, and mole. |
| Matheusms 17.06.2011 17:03 |
"Freddie in 3D... now, that's going to be quite a sight." They even made a holographic Freddie! It's sad to hear those things, Brian should be thinking about releasing classic Queen material, not to waste time on this kind of forgettable fad. |
| queenUSA 17.06.2011 22:33 |
^ I don't believe it to be a waste of time or forgettable fad. He mentioned the movie Avatar. Imagine an avatar of Freddie for a moment. Lifesize with 3D qualities who can perform right in front of you - scream in your face if he wants, possibly blow your hair back! This would be a cool experience and a new way to bring history to life and a new way to attract more fans to music. It would not be real, but it would be neat. Now I'm here, now I'm there and now I'm in 3D too! Even see each breath. The detail would be incredible. Some day, one day it will happen. |
| The Real Wizard 18.06.2011 10:11 |
Matheusms wrote: It's sad to hear those things, Brian should be thinking about releasing classic Queen material, not to waste time on this kind of forgettable fad. ================== What is it about fans of musicians who are unable to accept when said musicians grow and do other things than music? You don't have to do the same thing for your entire life, so why shouldn't Brian May have the same right? Good on him for not resting on his laurels. He decided to branch out, and now he's a doctor of science, an inventor (that stereoscope was no small feat), and an animal rights activist. If all you want him to be is a guitarist, then that's your problem, not his.. |
| Matheusms 19.06.2011 13:22 |
I don't want him to be only a guitarist or spend his entire life only talking about Queen (as you said, what i want don't matter to him anyway) but, as a fan, i believe that there's some things left behind that deserve more attention than these experiments and i think we all agree on this. It's ok if they do, it's nice to see Brian doing what he like. My only desire is to know that they're ALSO working in other things that we're asking for years and years ... |
| mooghead 19.06.2011 13:43 |
The uptake of 3d televisions has been a lot slower than predicted, Pirates of the Carribean 2d is massively outselling 3d. I fear this is just another passing fad. |
| thomasquinn 32989 20.06.2011 06:12 |
Sir GH wrote: Matheusms wrote: It's sad to hear those things, Brian should be thinking about releasing classic Queen material, not to waste time on this kind of forgettable fad. ================== What is it about fans of musicians who are unable to accept when said musicians grow and do other things than music? You don't have to do the same thing for your entire life, so why shouldn't Brian May have the same right? Good on him for not resting on his laurels. He decided to branch out, and now he's a doctor of science, an inventor (that stereoscope was no small feat), and an animal rights activist. If all you want him to be is a guitarist, then that's your problem, not his.. ====== I don't usually think you fail to see the point, Bob, but this time you're just ranting. When someone says that they think it's a waste of time to turn 2d analog recordings into fake-3d, and Brian could spend his time on something better, this has nothing, I repeat *nothing* to do with being "a doctor of science, an inventor [...] and an animal rights activist." It pertains solely and exclusively to his working on 3d versions of 2d material. I for one happen to agree with the notion that this is a complete waste of time, and I don't in any way relate that notion to any other thing Brian might keep himself occupied with. |
| The Real Wizard 21.06.2011 09:17 |
ThomasQuinn wrote: It pertains solely and exclusively to his working on 3d versions of 2d material. =============================== Yes, which is precisely what stereo photography is - it is a method of turning 2d into 3d, something which Brian has been interested in since the 60s. So .. my core argument stands. :-) |