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See Also: 3D computer graphics stereoscopy In film, the term ''3-D'' (or '''''3D''''') is used to describe any visual presentation system that attempts to maintain or recreate the third dimension, the Illusion of depth as seen by the viewer. The basic principle involves taking two Pictures , either still or moving, with Camera s positioned side by side, and with identical technical characteristics. When viewed in such a way that each eye sees only the image taken on the same side as itself, the viewer's Visual Cortex will interpret the pair of images as a single three- Dimensional image. See Stereoscopy for a more detailed description. TECHNIQUES There are several ways to create projected 3-D images. In the context of many computer games, 3D Computer Graphics refer to being composed of objects in a virtual 3-D world, not that they can be viewed in 3-D. For a stereoscopic 3-D game at least two pictures, one for each eye, are needed. HISTORY Early history Although it is unconfirmed, possibly the first publicly shown 3-D movie short (lasting approximately one minute) was made by the Brothers Lumiére in 1903 ('' L'Arrivée Du Train ''), showing the arrival of a train in a railway station. It was presented at the World's Fair of 1903 in Paris . It could only be viewed by one person at a time on a modified Stereoscope , as a proper screening-process to divide the left and right pictures for viewing had not been invented. In the late 1930s, this footage was reshot. Also unconfirmed is the first screening of 3-D Motion Pictures for a paying audience. This event possibly took place on June 10 , 1915 , when '' Jim, The Penman '' was shown at the ''Astor Theatre'' in New York City . It starred John Mason and Marie Doro . Also on the same program were some scenes from rural America and the Niagara Falls . If these were in fact in 3-D, both were also the first 3-D movies in which the audience had to wear anaglyph spectacles. The first confirmed 3-D feature was ''The Power of Love'', which premiered at the Ambassador Hotel Theater in Los Angeles, CA on September 27 , 1922 . The camera rig was a product of its producer, Harry K. Fairall, and was projected in dual-strip in the red/green anaglyph format. Whether Fairall used colored filters on the projection ports or whether he used Tinted prints is unknown, but it is the first documented instance of dual-strip projection. During the last few weeks in December of 1922, William Van Doren Kelley premiered the first in his series of "Plasticon" shorts entitled, ''Movies of the Future''. Kelley was primarily a producer of color films, and his red and green, two-tone color system was used to print his anaglyph stereoscopic films. In early 1923, he premiered the second Plasticon, stereoscopic views of Washington D.C. . Both of these were shown at the Rivoli Theater in New York, NY. During this period, Laurens Hammond and William F. Cassidy unveiled their "Teleview" system. Teleview was the earliest alternate-frame sequencing form of projection. Through the use of two interlocked projectors, alternating frames were projected at the same time in rapid succession. Synchronized viewers attached to the arm-rests of the seats in the theater open and closed at the same time. The only known theater to have installed this system was the Selwyn Theater in New York. Although several shorts were produced with this system, the only feature projected in it was ''Radio-Mania'' on December 27 , 1922. In 1923, Frederick Eugene Ives and Jacob Leventhal released their first stereoscopic film entitled, ''Plastigrams'', which was released through as the "Stereoscopic Series". In 1936, Leventhal and John Norling were hired based on their test footage to film MGM's ''Audioscopiks'' series. The prints were by Technicolor in the red/green anaglyph format, and were narrated by Pete Smith. The first film, ''Audioscopiks'' premiered January 11, 1936 and ''The New Audioscopiks'' premiered January 15, 1938. ''Audioscopiks'' was nominated for the Academy Award For Short Film - Novelty in 1936. With the success of the two Audioscopiks films, MGM produced one more short in anaglyph 3-D, another Pete Smith Specialty called ''Third Dimensional Murder''. Unlike its predecessors, this short was shot with a studio-built camera rig. Prints were by Technicolor in red/blue anaglyph. The short is notable for being the first live-action appearance of the Frankenstein Monster as conceived by Jack Pierce for Universal Studios outside of their company. While many of these films were printed by color systems, it should be noted that none of them were actually in color, and the use of the color printing was only to achieve an anaglyph effect. Introduction of Polaroid 3-D While attending Harvard University in 1932, Edwin H. Land formulated sheet plastic that polarized light. While his original intention was to create a filter for reducing glare from car headlights, Land did not underestimate the usage of his newly dubbed Polaroid filters in stereoscopic presentations. In January 1936, Land gave the first demonstration of Polaroid filters in conjunction with 3-D photography at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . The reaction was enthustiastic, and he followed it up with an installation at the New York Museum of Science. It is unknown what film was run for audiences with this installation. Using Polaroid filters meant an entirely new set-up, however. Two prints, each carrying either the right or left eye, had to be synced up in projection using an external motor. Furthermore, polarized light would not register on a matte white screen, and only a screen made of silver or reflective material would correctly reflect the separate images. Later that year, the first polaroid 3-D feature, ''Nozze Vagabonde'' appeared in Italy. The first color polaroid 3-D feature, ''Zum Greifen Nah'' premiered in Germany the following year. John Norling also shot ''In Tune With Tomorrow'' (aka ''Motor Rhythm''), the first 3-D film both shot in color and projected using Polaroid filters in the US. This short premiered at the 1939 New York World's Fair and was created specifically for the Chrysler Motor Pavillion. In it, a full 1939 Chrysler Plymouth is magically put together, set to music. Another early short that utilized the Polaroid 3-D process was 1940's ''Magic Movies: Thrills For You'' produced by the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. for the Golden Gate Exposition. This film is considered lost. The "Golden Era" of 3-D What aficionados consider the "golden era" of 3-D began in 1952 with the release of the first color stereoscopic feature, '' Bwana Devil '', produced, written and directed by Arch Oboler . The film was shot in ''Natural Vision'', a process that was co-created and controlled by M.L. Gunzberg. Gunzberg, who built the rig with his brother, Julian, and two other associates, shopped it without success to various studios before Oboler used it for this feature, which went into production with the title, ''The Lions of Gulu.'' The film stars Robert Stack , Barbara Britton and Nigel Bruce . As with practically all of the features made during this boom, ''Bwana Devil'' was projected dual-strip, with polaroid filters. During the 1950s, the familiar disposable, anaglyph Glasses made of cardboard were mainly used for comic books, two shorts by Dan Sonny Productions, and three shorts produced by Lippert Productions. One should note, however, that even the Lippert shorts were available in the dual-strip format alternatively. Because the features utilized two projectors, a capacity limit of film being loaded onto each projector (about 6000 feet) meant that an intermission was necessary for every movie. Quite often, intermission points were written into the script of the film at a major plot point. During Christmas of 1952, producer Sol Lesser quickly premiered the dual-strip showcase called ''Stereo Techniques'' in Chicago. Lesser acquired the rights to five dual strip shorts. Two of them, ''Now is the Time (to Put On Your Glasses)'' and ''Around is Around'', were produced for the National Film Board Of Canada and the remaining three were produced in Britain for Festival Of Britain by Raymond Spottiswoode. These were ''A Solid Explanation'', ''Royal River'', and ''The Black Swan''. James Mage was also an early pioneer in the 3-D craze. Using his 16mm 3-D Bolex system, he premiered his ''Triorama'' program on February 10, 1953 with his four shorts: ''Sunday In Stereo'', ''Indian Summer'', ''American Life'', and ''This is Bolex Stereo''. This show is considered lost Also lost is the Lippert Productions short, ''A Day in the Country'', narrated by Joe Besser . Based on reviews, this film was made up mostly of test footage. Unlike all of the other Lippert shorts, which were available in both dual-strip and anaglyph, this production was released anaglyph only. April of 1953 saw two groundbreaking features in 3-D: Columbia's ''Man In the Dark'' and Warner Bros. '' House Of Wax '', the first 3-D feature with Stereophonic Sound . ''House of Wax'', outside of Cinerama, was the first time many American audiences heard recorded stereophonic sound. It was also the film that typecast Vincent Price as a horror star as well as the "King of 3-D" after becoming the actor to appear in the most 3-D features (the others were ''The Mad Magician'', ''Dangerous Mission'', and ''Son of Sinbad''). The success of these two films proved that major studios now had a method of getting moviegoers back into theaters and away from television sets, which were causing a steady decline in attendance. The Walt Disney Studios waded into 3-D with its May 28 , 1953 release of ''Melody'', which accompanied the first 3-D western, Columbia's ''Fort Ti'' at its Los Angeles opening. It was later shown at Disneyland 's Fantasyland Theater, and appears on the '' Fantasia 2000 '' DVD . , Jan. 1954), one of the comic books and other spin-offs of the '50s 3D craze.]] Universal-International released their first 3-D feature on May 27 , 1953 , '' It Came From Outer Space '', with stereophonic sound. Following that was Paramount's first feature, ''Sangaree'' with Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl . Columbia released two 3-D shorts with the Three Stooges in 1953: ''Spooks'' and ''Pardon My Backfire''. John Ireland , Joanne Dru and Macdonald Carey starred in the color Jack Broder production, ''Hannah Lee'', which premiered June 19 , 1953 . Another famous entry in the golden era of 3-D was the 3 Dimensional Pictures production of '' Robot Monster ''. The film was allegedly scribed in an hour by screenwriter Wyott Ordung and filmed in a period of two weeks on a shoestring budget. Despite these shortcomings and the fact that the crew had no previous experience with the newly-built camera rig, luck was on the cinematographer's side, as many find the 3-D photography in the film is well shot and aligned. ''Robot Monster'' also has a notable score by then up-and-coming composer, Leonard Bernstein . The film was released June 24 , 1953 and went out with the short ''Stardust in Your Eyes'', which starred nightclub comedian, Slick Slavin. Fox produced their only 3-D feature, ''Inferno'', starring Rhonda Fleming . Fleming, who also starred in ''Those Redheads from Seatte'', and ''Jivaro'', shares the spot for being the actress to appear in the most 3-D features with Patricia Medina, who starred in ''Sangaree'', ''Phantom of the Rue Morgue'' and ''Drums of Tahiti''. The first decline in the theatrical 3-D craze started in the late summer/early fall of 1953. The factors for this decline were:
Because projection booth operators were at many times careless, even at preview screenings of 3-D films, trade and newspaper critics claimed that certain films were "hard on the eyes." Sol Lesser attempted to follow up ''Stereo Techniques'' with a new showcase, this time, five shorts that he himself produced. The project was to be called ''The 3-D Follies'' and was to be distributed by RKO. Unfortunately, because of financial difficulties and the growing disinterest in 3-D, Lesser cancelled the project in late 1953, making it the first 3-D film to be aborted in production. Two of the three shorts were shot were ''Carmenesque'', a burlesque dance number starring Lili St. Cyr and ''Fun in the Sun'', a daytime sport short directed by famed set designer/director William Cameron Menzies , who also directed in the 3-D feature, ''The Maze'' for Allied Artists. Although it was more expensive to install, the major competing realism process was Anamorphic Widescreen , first utilized by Fox with Cinemascope and its September premiere in '' The Robe ''. Anamorphic widescreen features needed only a single print, so synchronization was not an issue. Cinerama was also a competitor from the start and had better quality control than 3-D because it was owned by one company that focussed on quality control. However, most of the 3-D features past the summer of 1953 were released in the flat Widescreen formats with a range of 1.66:1 to 2:1. There was no single instance of combining Cinemascope widescreen with 3-D stereo until the boom had dissipated in the early 60s, with a film called ''September Storm'', and even then, that was a blow-up from a flat (non-anamorphic) camera-rig. ''September Storm'' also went out with the last dual-strip short, ''Space Attack'', which was actually shot in 1954 under the title, ''The Adventures of Sam Space.'' In December 1953, 3-D made a comeback, with the release of several important 3-D films, including MGM's musical '' and Kathryn Grayson as the leads, supported by Ann Miller , Keenan Wynn , Bobby Van , James Whitmore , Kurt Kasznar and Tommy Rall . Several other features that helped put 3-D back on the map that month were the John Wayne feature '' Hondo '' (distributed by Warner Bros.), Paramount's ''Money From Home'' with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis , and Columbia's ''Miss Sadie Thompson'' with Rita Hayworth . Paramount also released the cartoon short, ''Boo Moon'' with Casper, The Friendly Ghost . A string of successful 3-D movies followed the second wave. Some highlights are:
The 3-D boom's final decline was in the late spring of 1954, for the same reasons as the previous lull, as well as the further success of widescreen formats. Even though Polaroid had created a well-designed "Tell-Tale Filter Kit" for the purpose of recognizing and adjusting out of sync and phase 3-D, the craze had died down, and exhibitors still felt uncomfortable with the system. The last 3-D feature to be released in that format during the "Golden era" was ''Revenge of the Creature'', on February 23 , 1955 . 3-D's Revival Stereoscopic films largely remained dormant for the first part of the 1960s , with those that were released usually being anaglyph exploitation films. One film of notoriety was the Beaver-Champion/ Warner Bros. production, ''The Mask''(1961). The film was shot in 2-D, but to enhance the bizarre qualities of the dream-world that is induced when the main character puts on a cursed tribal mask, the film went to anaglyph 3-D. These scenes were printed by Technicolor on their first run in red/green anaglyph. The true second wave of 3-D cinema began, however, with the same producer who started the craze of the '50s. Using a new technology called ''Space-Vision 3D'', stereoscopic films were printed with two images on top of one another in a single academy ratio frame on a single strip, and needed only one projector fitted with a special lens. This so-called "over and under" technique eliminated the need for dual projector set-ups, and produced widescreen polaroid 3-D images. Arch Oboler once again had the vision for the system that no one else would touch, and put it to use on his film entitled ''The Bubble'', which starred Michael Cole , Deborah Walley , and Johnny Desmond . Similar to ''Bwana Devil'', the critics panned ''The Bubble'', but audiences flocked to see it, and it became financially sound enough to promote the use of the system to other studios, particularly independents, who did not have the money for expensive dual-strip prints of their productions. In 1970, Stereovision developed a different single-strip format, which printed two images squeezed side-by-side and used an anamorphic lens to widen the pictures through polaroid filters. Louis K. Sher (Sherpix) and Stereovision released the softcore sex comedy The Stewardesses (self-rated X, but later re-rated R by the MPAA). The film cost 100,000 USD to produce, but earned $27 million ($110 million in constant-2006 dollars) in fewer than 800 theaters. It was later released in 70mm 3D. Some 36 films world-wide were made with Stereovision over 25 years, using either a widescreen (above-below) or the anamorphic (side by side) format or 70mm 3D. In 2003, James Cameron's "Ghosts of the Abyss" was released as the first full-length 3-D IMAX feature filmed with the Reality Camera System. This camera system used the latest HDTV video cameras, not film and was built for Cameron for his requirements. The same camera system was used to film "Spy Kids 3D: Game Over" (2003), "Aliens of the Deep" IMAX (2005) and "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3D" (2005). Modern 3-D Formats In the early 1980s , IMAX (Large format-sideways running, 70mm) began offering non-fiction films in 3-D, and fiction starting with the 45-minute '' Wings Of Courage '' (1995), by director Jean-Jacques Annaud , about the author and pilot Antoine De Saint-Exupéry . In Nov. 2004, '' Polar Express '' was released as the first full-length 3-D IMAX 90 minute animation feature. It was released in over 3550 theaters in 2D, and only 62 IMAX locations. The return from those few 3D theaters was about 25% of the total. The 3-D version earned about 14 times as much per screen than the 2D version. This has prompted a greatly intensified interest in 3-D and 3-D presentation of animated films. In November 2005, Walt Disney Studio Entertainment released Chicken Little , in the new digital 3-D format known as REAL-D , utilizing one digital projector alternating clockwise and counterclockwise polarized images at 144 frames per second. Glasses are worn that diffuse each circular polarization for one of the eyes so that a 3-D effect is achieved. The use of Circular Polarization improves on the older technique of Linear Polarization in that there is no ghosting or leakage. Following the successful financial gross of the film, further animation films in 3-D have been announced as in production and to be ready by December 2006 in both the IMAX 3-D film format as well as Digital 3-D. Disney also announced that they hope to have 750 Digital 3-D installations in place for their fall 2006 3-D release, Meet the Robinsons. The 3D technology currently used worldwide is based on the methods and inventions of Félix Bodrossy , who did not patent his methods, as these are still considered the most up-to-date. ( Source in Hungarian , reference in Dutch ) NEW DEVELOPMENTS New technologies are coming that will allow current 2-D films to be remastered into 3-D using proprietary procedures. George Lucas has announced that he will re-release his '' Star Wars '' films in 3-D based on a conversion process from the company In-Three . James Cameron (''Titanic'') will shoot his new film ''Battle Angel'' 2007 in digital 3-D. Filming will use HDTV cameras and the Fusion Camera System . The following animation films are scheduled for upcoming release: "Monster House" "The Ant Bully" and "Happy Feet". These are all animation based and will either release in digital in a few hundred theaters along with a 2D release or in IMAX 3D along with regular 2D 35mm. Both digital and IMAX are quite costly ways of showing 3D. Another approach being proposed is the upgrading of existing 35mm to show 3D with a six perf pull-down in the projector. Advocates of this, CINE 160 3D, point to 10 to 1 cost savings and proven results with film. (The film image is 1.6 times the conventional frame size.) In late 2005 Steven Spielberg told the press he was involved in patenting a 3-D cinema system that does not need glasses, and is based on plasma screens. A computer splits each film-frame, and then projects the two split images onto the screen at differing angles, to be picked up by tiny angled ridges on the screen. (Spielberg is co-producer of the film "Monster House".) Even episodic TV series are embracing 3-D, as an episode of NBCs '' Medium '' hit the home HD screens in anaglyph 3-D on November 21, 2005. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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