Reg Sanders

The first day of industry week and I had the chance to go see the 3D Workshop; Reg Sanders gave a demonstration on the history of 3D films and how they were made. I found the presentation really interesting Reg started out explaining the history of 3D filming; he explained the three ages of 3D.

 He started with the Golden age which was Hollywood in the 1950’s; with the invention of the television the theatres needed something that would give them a new edge, this saw the birth of 3D cinema. The first attempt at 3D filming saw the release of Bwana Devil and Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, these films even though they are classics the technology wasn’t good enough to support them and this led to 3D not taking off.

The second age took place between the 1970’s and 80’s this saw the release of Flesh of Frankenstein and Jaws 3D the problem they had with filming these films was using the Negative Parallax to much, this was trying to bring too much of the picture in front of the screen and this would cause headaches and leave the film with not much depth.

The third age was between 2002 and 2004, like with Jaws 3D they tried to release a third instalment to a trilogy in 3D and even though they took a massive step forward with 3D technology the film spy kids 3D just didn’t have a good enough story line to support the release. But then in 2004 the same team that directed Spy kids 3D got together and created Polar Express this film turned out to be a when 3D out preformed 2D (14-1) in commercial revenue.

Reg Sanders also explained that 3D is split into 3 parts 1/3 Biology, 1/3 Psychology and 1/3 Technology, all these things are needed to fully understand how 3D Technology works.

Stereoscopic 3D can be particularly superior to 2D in:-

·         Resolution

·         Colour Recovery

·         Size Constancy

·         Motion Portrayal

·         Naturalness

·         Full Depth Recovery of the spatial elements in the original scene.

Reg also talked to us about:-

·         Light and Shade

·         Inner Perspective/ Vanishing Point

·         2D Occlusion

·         2D Relative Size

·         Textual Gradients

·         2D Aerial Perspective

·         Proprioception

·         Motion Parallax ( Positive, Negative, Zero and Divergent)

He told us we can find all this information on Google. He also showed us a couple of trailers, you can find them on YouTube (3D truth about old masters) (3D Bud Light commercial).

I can’t say I knew much about the 3D Filming at the start of the presentation, but by the end after listening to Reg Sanders talk about it with his passion for 3D Films I must say I am looking forward to see what the future hold for the film industry.

By Corey Hatton , Level 2 student in Film and Television.