I spent a slice of my afternoon at the DreamWorks Animation campus. Turns out that the layout department is moving from one end of the campus to the other, and as I toddled down a long hall, everybody in the rooms on both sides were busily packing boxes.
"We have to be packed by three," one artist told me. "The movers are going to be moving boxes and computers and we'll be getting out of here early."
Everybody seems to move every four to six months ...
Upstairs, a group of story artists told me about James Cameron's big question and answer session in the DWA commissary:
"Cameron isn't crazy about retrofitted three dee, thinks it's not nearly as good as the real thing and derides it, comparing it to colorizing black-and-white movies. But he's going to turn Titanic into a 3-D movie."
I found out that The Croods is moving along story-wise, and that the crew figures they're going to be changing some of the lead character's body moves and language now that Nicholas Cage is cast as his voice. Up until recently they were boarding the character to scratch tracks with a deeper, more growling voice ...
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3 comments:
I know (or I think) you compress remarks by artists into a somewhat generalized form so it's not necessarily direct quotes but the spirit of the thing--but that description of James Cameron's remarks on "real" 3D vs. retro-fitted, fake 3D is pretty off.
For what's it's worth, he didn't "deride" the retrofits, he actually said that to retrofit a film shot in 2D, like Titanic, into 3D can look great, but it will simply NEVER be the film it could have been if shot 3D. Better than 2D, not as optimum as true 3D.
And I also recall he spoke of some films being ripe for it-like Titanic(which frankly it is--considering the scale of the action components) and others just tacking on post-jiggered 3D as a gimmick. He made sense and in fact he fielded every question and subject with intelligence and ease as well as a sense of humor and made gracious remarks about animated fatures. I was impressed.
Thanks for the correction.
I can only go by what somebody (remembering) tells me. But you're right. I don't stand around with a cassette recorder, so the quotes aren't exact.
And I still want to see "THe Adventures of Robin Hood" in 3-D.
Anonymous said: "Better than 2D, not as optimum as true 3D."
I disagree with James Cameron on that point, for the most part. Of course there are exceptions, but if a film wasn't intended for 3d from the get go, then chances are converting it afterwards will not make it better than the 2d version. It's like fitting a square peg into a headache-inducing round hole. All the great cinematography and blurred narrow depth of field that you have in 2d films become a real problem when you suddenly view them in 3d. Others may disagree, but in my personal experience anyway, watching a converted film is generally a less enjoyable experience than watching the original 2d film.
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