The Future of 3D.

It's not news that 3D (or better stereoscopic) film is making a return to cinemas (of course it's been a mainstay of Imax for nearly a decade). However it is hotting up and starting to make roads into the feature film mainstream beyond CG animation projects.

A three good articles to read:

From Variety Online, this interview with James Cameron, who has made a number of 3D films (the two undersea documentaries on HD for Imax and the Terminator2: 3D ride for Universal studios) talks about the challenges and opportunities of 3D (or stereo as he prefers to call it) while he is shooting his first 3D feature film. Cameron is at the very top end of the filmmaking spectrum, commercially and technologically. Almost every feature film he's made from Terminator 2 on has been the biggest budget movie to date. This latest project , Avatar, STARTS with a budget of $195m (and I don't think Cameron has brought a movie in on budget since Aliens!)

Second. two articles on Lower budget production. Also from Variety online: The Mortician (a British film) and Dark Country have single figure million dollar budgets and are thriller/horror films, genres more traditionally have been associated with gimmicks like 3D. An interesting quote from the article: "For 3-D evangelists, this is both good news and bad. Good news: There is growing acceptance of the digital 3-D format. Bad news: The arrival of low-budget 3-D indies could undermine efforts to position 3-D as a premium format that can command higher ticket prices." There is another article here, from Showreel Magazine specifically on the making of Dark Country (which is also using the new RED ONE cameras). Dark Country is interesting as it is specifically the sort of situation Cameron discusses in his article, of low budget character centered drama by a first time director, previously an actor ratherthan someone from aVFX or technical backgroud, that stands is contrast to Cameron's own position as a filmmaker with a huge budget and resources as well as a phenomenal understand of the technical processes of film production.