I do have a question on conversions for you. When you say the process is more advanced that it was, are you talking its improved in the last year or two, or are you comparing this new 3D revolution to the past.
There are basically 3 types of conversions of real world movies. Real world to filter out all the animations because every one of these is first imaged as 2D and then converted to 3D master.
The most fundamental conversions are done as an extrusion process similar to what is used in TV sets when put in converted 2D mode. This technology has not been used for theatrical release for many years. I doubt you ever saw any of these. example El Vira productions I have a treasured copy of one here that requires special procedure to play it.
the next major improvement in real world conversions was done as a complete scene splitting to two images and then they each were distorted in a way that produced a sort of stereoscopic depth effect. This still had a short life in Hollywood as the ability to render became faster, each scene was manually tweaked to produce a stereo effect. Most of the pre 2013 conversion releases were of this substandard quality. However, the turning point in the industry was the release of Titanic 3D conversion, which won an Academy Award for the 3D conversion technology. The process still used a separation of the 2D image but as I stated before went much deeper into each image by deconstructing all the objects in the scene and rebuilding them as stereo pairs and then these stereo pairs were composited back. This process was a trade secret until the release of the film so no other film used this technology until I believe Star Trek: Into Darkness in May of 2013, and then Pacific Rim 3D rendering. The process is growing in popularity in the industry and since this is far more labor intensive with so few companies able to perform the work, there have been few using the technology. Plus it takes much longer to do a movie taking many months rather than a couple weeks for the conversion.
If you want to see the quality of the latest 3D conversion process- compare your Avengers, Green Hornet, Darkest Hour or Wrath of the Titans with Titanic, Star Trek Into Darkness, or Pacific Rim. I think you will see the improvement unless you have vision problems.
And, BTW- I was not convinced either until I watched Titanic 3D. That movie conversion convinced me, with the right technology, conversion was not only possible, it could be perfect. I only wish I could go back to shooting with a single camera in 2D then do a quality conversion, but I'm not 1000 artists with 1000 computers.
I think you can, with a good eye see the difference in native 3D shot movies and these really good new conversions as the divergences in the extreme depth ranges do not exist in the 3D rendered conversion while even in the most perfect native shot movies, some divergence will show up, especially in low budget films that are shot on a tight schedule.
Don- I'm of the opinion that basing my opinion on these reviewers comments is often ill advised. Heck I even disagreed with Guillermo Del Toro's initial opinion of doing Pacific Rim in 3D. But having seen the film now, I would agree with him that shooting that large set in 3D would have been very difficult to impossible and lack stereo quality. However, with the new process he saw in Titanic, even he was game to supervise the conversion. While I was not a big fan of the story, I felt the technical stereoscopic conversion was even better than Titanic.
Whether Gravity holds up remains to be seen. I hope to get to see it this week at the IMAX screen at World Golf Village. I'll post back with my opinion after then.
. As far as upcoming releases, there are quite a few I plan on seeing that arent conversions. Thats what I like to see being made, native 3D films.
