Film, Technology
The 3-D wave is not a passing fancy this time
21 February 2009
Yesterday on Science Friday, Ira Flato interviewed some high-level movie guys working in 3-D, aka stereoscopy. Said Lenny Lipton, a long-time 3-D player and the inventor of some stereoscopic technology, “I think all movies, for business reasons, will have to become stereoscopic movies … just as all movies have sound.”
There you have it. This is not a prediction for the far future, but the near future. I don’t know that actors will get left behind this time, like Norma Desmond, but it’s an interesting piece of news, and in particular the pervasive future of stereoscopy is what’s news to me.
Lipton, who also wrote the lyrics of the song Puff the Magic Dragon, might be biased. The others on the panel, director Henry Selick and executive Jim Mainard, think only half of high-profile films will become 3-D films, about 25 titles a year. By the way, Selick pushed for some sort of smell-o-vision on Coraline, but the panel agreed that’s not coming. Rather, new sound technology is the other thing on the verge of changing our movie-going experience.