Cameron's new SF epic may have changed the rules on a staple of cinematography...
APOLOGIES TO ALL THOSE WHOSE COMMENTS WERE LOST WHEN I HAD TO RECREATE THIS POST AFTER A DATABASE DISASTER...
Just out of pity for those (I admit we are a minority) who have tended to suffer from '3D headache' whilst watching James Cameron's Avatar, I thought I would mention how I managed to stave it off at last week's press screenings, having suffered grievously from it during the August previews at London's IMAX theatre in Waterloo.
Recent web-discussions on the issue of 'Avatar h3dache' seem to agree that the problem lies in presenting the viewer with a fairly rich 3D environment, but no opportunity to choose to focus on a part of the scene that was filmed ( or rendered) 'blurred', i.e. out-of-focus foreground elements such as leaves. Some of us seem to be fighting Avatars determination to make these choices for us, and getting our cognitive perception in a twist in the process.
In his determination to avoid criticisms of traditional 'jack-in-the-box' leveraging of 3D (wherein a director will engineer a shot so that things deliberately swing out at the viewer) Cameron seems to have compromised by shooting as much of the movie as possible with a very limited depth-of-field, in order to accentuate the 3D illusion.
On the plus side, this effective cinematographic technique, much beloved of directors such as Alan J. Pakula and Ridley Scott, is a good method of drawing our attention to a particular element in a scene.
On the negative side, we are long-since wise to directors who try and convey important information in the unfocused area of a frame, and we consequently tend to check that area out. Horror movie directors particularly enjoy the pantomimic 'it's behind you, idiot!' benefit of having their villains and monsters enter frame out-of-focus...
Likewise directors know that we are often more than curious to see what they are deliberately throwing out of focus...
In Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, this shot of Deckard in the out-of-focus area of the frame emphasises and enlarges the artificially-created 'eye reflection' that leads so many fans of the film to conclude that he is indeed a replicant. Without the exaggerated effect of the depth of field, this visual detail might not even be apparent...
So we've learned by now that even if narrow depth of field (such as in the picture above where Rachel is in focus and Deckard is not) is telling us to go one way, we ought to be checking out that blurred portion for out-of-focus information that we need.
Unless we're watching Avatar or any of the other movies that will inevitably be made with James Cameron's ground-breaking 3D cameras.
Examining unfocused areas of the frame in Avatar is literally quite a headache, and counterintuitive to our enjoyment of the 'baked and locked' 3D planes that we are being presented with. Knowing that depth-of-field is all he has to play with if he's not going to shoot rocks directly at us, Cameron doesn't hold back - he relentlessly racks focus in scene after scene.
So the trick to avoiding a headache when watching this movie is to be obedient, and concentrate on the parts of the shot that the focus tells you are 'important'. Once I understood this at the preview screenings last week, my headache began to clear up, but I was conscious too of the effort of having to 'zip over' to the next point of rapid-focus in order to keep up and preserve the 3D illusion.
I guess the next wave of 3D, perhaps in twenty or thirty years, will present 'real' planes that we can focus on at will - now that's going to be something special for your grand-kids.
In the meantime, we may have to learn how to watch 3D movies anew in the Cameron era. And cinematographers working under the system may have lost a useful dramatic tool on the altar of 3D movies.
I gratefully acknowledge the corrections of my original article text regarding the 'circle of confusion' from Chris and others. - MA
LINKS:
Is there a Witness Protection Program for Avatar haters?
Avatar: In space no-one can see you smoke
Avatar review - Martin Anderson (Fortean Times)
Comments
Headache or no, Avatar must be seen in 3D to fully appreciate the visual effects.
Many, many stereoscopic films, even in the modern era, are technically flawed, more or less. Even AVATAR shows some typical technical flaws (but thankfully, only a few). The industry is still learning the limits and opportunities in the stereoscopic medium - there is a new cinematic language in development, because many of the techniques favored in the 2-d cinema (such as the use of a short depth of field to simulate a sense of depth) are not only unnecessary in a stereoscopic presentation, they actively detract from it.
I've had two opportunities to see Avatar in the past couple of weeks, and both times enjoyed it greatly. First of all, the story is simple (not to say simplistic), endearing, and powerful. If you have a heart, it brings tears to your eyes (for emotional content, not stereoscopic pain). The character development is very good, all the more remarkable given the overwhelming challenge posed by CG characters that are right in that domain of not-quite-real-enough (but incredibly well done.. maybe indeed almost-real-enough). The action and special effects are of course amazing.
This movie is spectacular "3d" in every sense of the term. The 3d CG environments are so much better than anything that has come before! And the use of stereoscopic design/rendering/display is brilliant! The last time I was as impressed, awed by the cinema was about 1976, when Star Wars came out, or in 1970 with 2001: A Space Odyssey. The production design was beautiful, to say the least. While I love action like a guy, I have to say my favorite parts of the movie were the forest scenes, especially at night, and scenes in the heights of Home Tree or the mountains. Such beauty in depth, and so perfect for stereoscopic rendering!
Now, having said all this, I did find the stereoscopic viewing difficult at first. One of the early scenes has the marines come out of cryogenic hibernation in a long, long, tube-like room. It's a classic 3d shot with perspective lines converging to infinity, and would have been a fine introduction to the stereo perception effect. But the depth was too much! The shot had far points way beyond infinity in my theater; and my theater has a relatively small screen - about 30ft. wide at most (far points "beyond" infinity means the spacing of stereoscopic image points on screen is more than typical eye-spacing, forcing audience members to diverge their eyes; this is very unnatural and causes eyestrain. Too much of that and you get headaches. It's a technical flaw in the presentation. Fortunately, I didn't notice too much of that anywhere else in Avatar.) Early scenes also included Cameron's trademark handheld moving camera style - this kind of imagery is difficult to digest even in 2d! I remember it from his 3d Titanic, where it also caused me distress...
I took my glasses off a couple times in the first 30 minutes, just to give my eyes a rest.. I suppose Cameron thought that he should exercise the audience's eyes strongly right off the bat, so that the rest of the movie is more easily digested?? I'm not sure it was helpful.
I don't know if I simply got used to it, or if the 3d was "toned down" as the film progressed. I'm pretty sure the 3d was toned down later. I took my glasses off less and less, later in the film, as the image content became more and more suited to stereo display, and the effects were not as strong. So I have a suggestion for 3d film makers, based on my experience with Avatar: Start 3d movies with subtle and gentle 3d, and then ramp it up as needed, but only occasionally, for later scenes.
I had formulated these thoughts after my first viewing of the film. I was surprised at the length of the movie, and that I hadn't developed a headache after THREE HOURS of this film. I'm quite sure the 3d is very tolerable in most of the movie, because other 3d films, that were nowhere near as long in duration, have given me headaches or at least "eye aches". But I wanted to experiment further. For one thing, I wanted to see how much the stereoscopic 3d effect mattered to the story...
So in my second viewing of Avatar, I decided to view it flat. Last year, I had made myself some "flat" REal-D glasses (two of them, actually, by swapping lenses/filters). I used these to view Avatar a second time. I noticed right away, that I didn't like it as much... Some early scenes didn't need 3d, and you could tell those looked fine. But many scenes really needed it, really took advantage of the stereoscopic effect (scenes with a lot of spatial complexity or clutter, for example). Still I pressed on, sticking to my flat viewing mode for a good half hour or so. Finally, as Sulley becomes lost in the forest at night, I couldn't stand it anymore: there is so much more visual delight in seeing those complex scenes in 3d. I switched back to my proper 3d glasses.
But what was really interesting in this second viewing, was that by the time the film was done, I felt far less eye fatigue than the first time around. Starting the film with no 3d really helped in the long run. So I really think the early parts of the movie were the most difficult to watch, stereoscopically. Especially given the long duration of this film, starting out with minimal 3d (like was done in Coraline!) would have helped a lot.
Boris Starosta
I thought that the depth of field 3D was annoying, and it makes sense; that was part of the problem.
Just because something is out of focus doesn't mean it isn't to be seen.
As far as the movie was concerned, it was entertaining.
The special effects; mainly the faces of the Navi were the best I've ever seen, but I don't think it is as ground breaking as say, Star Wars was at its time. I think if you ask different generations, you'll get different responses to that.
There were some cringe-worthy dialog moments and the movie could have been way shorter.
Overall I would recommend it, but it certainly is very very over-hyped.
Tip: rest half an hour after the movie before you step into your car...
However, this is not unusual in good direction and Cameron is a good director. The complaint that all depths of field should be in focus is an appeal to cater to inattention - especially when you write about how 2D directors withhold that same degree of focus. Deep focus has been with us since the late 30s and used either with intelligence, or as window dressing.
Arguing that we look into the out-of-focus for plot details is right on (the director has chosen this for aesthetic reasons), but expecting that those areas should be in focus misses the psychological point. Visit the films of Josef von Sternberg to see film perfectly focused while fine detail intrudes into visual space to obscure and veil (literally) key plot points.
If Cameron falls short as a director in a 3D environment, it with his not having anything going on in the background in the first place. Hitchcock achieved this perfectly in one watershed scene in "Dial M for Murder." That scene is easily the most graphic representation of the movie (serving as poster art), and yet the least appreciated for its 3D metaphor.
Now it could be argued that film cameras naturally have a narrow depth of field based on the size of their optical plane, but Avatar was shot on Sony HD cameras (I believe), which, last I checked, still used 2/3" image sensors, so you still have to work to get a very narrow depth of field, doing things like opening your iris, and using longer lenses. Besides, almost all of the 3D effects, like the environment, are post production elements, meaning depth of field is determined by virtual camera settings and depth of field within 3D graphics programs and render engines, and aren't limited by optical limitations of the real world, which leads me to believe these were concious decisions. Without seeing a comparison of a wide depth of filed version next to the narrow depth of field version, I wouldn't be able to say which works better. Perhaps in a 3D environement, they found it necessary to create a narrow depth of field in order to keep attention on the important action, because the depth made it more difficult to know what you were supposed to be looking at. Without more to compare it to, I don't have the experience to say, but I do believe that Cameron has advanced 3D a great deal, and his past experiences have helped him develop new techniques, which has made this very watchable, and makes me look forward to his next 3D film, so I can see the results of everything they learned on this film, as it is applied to the next one. It's an exciting time, and I think 3D is finally starting to come into it's own. I do believe that with new techniques and technologies, especially techniques though; that watching stereoscopic films will become a very positive experience in the near future.
thanks guys,
sal midolo
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