In deciding whether to buy one of the new, ludicrously cool 3-D TVs — some of which won’t even require special glasses — ask yourself a serious question: Do you like your entertainment in front of you, inside your body or all around you?
People who are drawn to plays, movies and TV sports generally prefer to keep their diversions at some distance. These are traditional “viewers.” We sit in relative shade or even theater darkness while our entertainment is brightly lit or backlit.
By contrast, people who like food, perfume and music in headphones like entertainment in them — in their mouths, noses and ears. They are cultural “consumers” and generally take their pleasures in low restaurant lighting.
By further contrast, people who like architecture, video games, music in speakers and, most recently, 3-D media seek to be surrounded and included in the action. They like a diverse, changing light scheme, like those in cathedrals, theme parks and dance clubs. In marketing lingo, these people are “experiencers.”
The case for 3-D is often framed as a case for realism: 3-D seems truer to life than flat 2-D. On that logic, 3-D is part of an aesthetic evolution that has included the shift from medieval fixed-point perspective to illusionism in Renaissance painting. This makes sense. Two-dimensional art always needs devices that allow it to more convincingly suggest a third dimension. Why should movies and TV be any different? Even though 3-D technology, so far, is largely associated with children’s movies, ’50s kitsch and novelty for its own sake (“Up,” anyone?), there’s no reason it is intrinsically childlike.
But there’s a psychological component to the case for 3-D, too. “Depth” is not just geometry, another line on the cube. We have strong emotional attachments to depth. Art without any effect of depth can seem heartless or superficial. The relative absence of shadows and other visual depth cues from soap-opera and game-show sets and the use of fill lighting to erase wrinkles build a monochrome palette that suggests that daytime TV lacks moral heft and consequence. By contrast, shows like HBO’s “Big Love” and AMC’s “Breaking Bad” are loaded with depth cues, including marked contrasts of light and shadow. No wonder these shows strike us as profound.
For a sense of how deep 3-D might be one day, consider the latest 3-D film and TV projects, like the ones by Jed Weintrob’s Arena Films 3D. These are not thrill-a-minute blockbusters for the roller-coaster set. They’re documentaries and independent fiction films. As Weintrob told me by e-mail, “Most people assume that 3-D works best for ‘big’ event films, concerts and IMAX-style documentaries, but I have actually found that some of the most gorgeous 3-D imagery has been in ‘small’ dramatic scenes and intimate moments in the real world.”
Earlier this month, I saw some of Arena’s work in postproduction in Los Angeles. Editing broadcast- quality high-def 3-D involves synching up two digital “reels” — painstakingly shot by the company’s proprietary camera systems — and adjusting the convergence of the two images to heighten the 3-D effect. Achieving this near-convergence ensures that, when seen through glasses on a new 3-D TV, the image appears beautiful and not nauseating.
The film I saw is an hourlong episode of “Experience 3D,” which will appear later this year on 3net, a new 3-D channel to be introduced by Discovery Communications, Sony and IMAX. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The episode documents, among other things, a voyage on the Clearwater, a boat built by Pete Seeger as a replica of a 19th-century sloop, up the Hudson River. Without the glasses, the image looks like one you would see drunk. With the glasses, the ship comes into brilliant relief — but the sparkling river is the real showpiece. The Hudson looks as it must look to sailors on calm days: a highway so supportive and broad and horizontal you think you could walk on it. In 3-D, a river does not look like an extension of the sky the way it often does in movies and watercolors; it looks like an extension of the earth, with which it shares a plane. A revelation.
I found James Cameron’s “Avatar” in 3-D enlightening — partly for the filmmaking and partly for the vertigo. It turns out I’m among those who have problems seeing 3-D movies; we’re 5 to 10 percent of the general population, according to Marc Lambooij, a graduate student at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. My 3-D “problem” registered to me as mild motion sickness, which didn’t let up until the closing credits.
But the technology has improved even since “Avatar” and smaller subjects on smaller screens seem to be easier on the eyes of people made nauseated by oversize 3-D. If you can get access to the new 3-D channel and someone’s 3-D TV set, try to catch “Experience 3D,” even if you find the glasses an inconvenience. And only then should you make a decision about 3-D TV. Seen on a good screen, with good glasses, this film will make you appreciate physical space in a whole new way. That’s entertainment.
The original post is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/magazine/23FOB-medium-t.html