Not long after Clash of the Titans hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, the film-it-in-3D guru had done a U-turn and announced that his epic 1997 drama, Titanic, was to be given a 3D polish for a cinema release in 2012. Perhaps anyone still doubtful as to the merits of 2D-3D conversion should look no further than James Cameron himself. It's then that they'll have to consider whether the cost of the 2D-3D process can be covered by 3D Blu-ray sales alone.
Of course, there's a limit to how many films studios would be happy to re-release in cinemas (they'll have to find a space in the schedule, for a start), so many of the titles that we'd like to see brought back to life in the new format may not get the chance. Only a fool would bet against Return of the Jedi 3D making a killing at the box office. If you can create a new cinema version of a much-loved film for around $5m, it won't have to do that well at the multiplex to make a profit. It's easy to see from an economic point of view why 2D-3D conversions are attractive to studios. We were shown the same sequence processed in a number of different ways: one where there was an exaggerated sense of things coming out of the screen one where it was much more subtle one where all the depth was in the background others where separate objects were placed nearer or further away from each other at varying degrees and more. What's incredibly neat is that the level of depth can be adjusted to suit the wishes of the director. Essentially, each frame is analysed and separate parts of the image isolated depending on where they sit on the Z-axis – then, alternate frames are generated with a different composition to provide the information for the right eye. Thomson also explained how the complex software works in tandem with human engineers, and that work is done on a frame-by-frame basis. And by and large he did.ģD clips from a diverse collection of cinema faves (everything from massive Summer blockbusters to low-budget horrors) all seemed high quality, with an enjoyable, believable sense of depth added to the proceedings. Thompson came to HCC armed with a disc full of upconverted demo sequences to prove his point. He's adamant that, when done properly, 2D-3D conversion has a future. The importance of time and attention to detail is something echoed by Jon Thompson, former Home Cinema Choice columnist and head of UK operations at Reliance MediaWorks, a global end-to-end movie services company that has set up one of the world's leading 2D-3D authoring houses (as well as doing remarkable restoration work in the traditional 2D environment, but that's another story…).
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