Three movie Industry heavyweights at last week’s international CinemaCon movie convention in Las Vegas told us of the exciting new innovations in 3-D development and animation.
The frank presentation panel included Hollywood titans James Cameron, Jeffrey Katzenberg and George Lucas.
Luckily the cutting-edge technologies they spoke of are not in a galaxy far, far away—but in the very near future!
Probably the most exciting remarks came from Cameron, who told the world’s movie theater operators that his next two AVATAR sci-fi followups would incorporate newly designed 3-D technology that will bring the images for his record breaking blockbusters to an all new level of light, perception and intensity.
How and why can he make a claim like that?
Because Cameron is changing the way motion pictures have been filmed for more than 80 years.
Until now what we’ve seen on the big screen has been shot at 24 frames per second. But for AVATAR 2 and 3, Cameron is perfecting the technology to increase the camera/film speed to 48—or even 60 frames per second.
The end-results is incredible!
Perfect clarity. Or as Cameron put it, "…if 3-D puts you into the picture, the higher frame-rate takes the glass out of the window."
It also reduces an irritating effect moviegoers have often complained about—especially during 3-D presentations.
It’s called strobing and can cause moving images to blur on the screen.
None of that with Cameron’s new development. Matter of fact, a brief sample presentation of his cinematic improvements blew people away at CinemaCon.
As to the timetable for AVATAR 2, Cameron told us that he is still in the script writing stage and that he’s at least 18 months away from an actual start of production of the sequal to the highest grossing film in the history of show biz.
DREAMWORKS ANIMATION head Katzenberg told attendees that the new projected power and speed of digital chips will give his artists the ability to actually see their creative work in real time as compared to today’s process where they have to wait up to as much as 12 hours to actually view and tweak their daily creations.
He compared today’s digital process to "like almost painting blind" and that the future will mark a new era in animated storytelling.
George Lucas meanwhile slammed some of the quicky 3-D feature film conversions we’ve seen of late.
"It takes incredible time and money to do it right," he said.
Regarding his own upcoming 3-D conversion of STAR WARS he claimed that INDUSTRIAL LIGHT & MAGIC (IML) is actually spending more money on the project than they did on the original film. Big surprise since it’s 40 years later.
More CinemaCon insights in upcoming NEW JACK CITY briefs.
Sounds cool, it really does, but ya gotta have
great writers for a really great movie.
I loved Avatar, but it ain’t Casablanca.
Speed of Light
Wow, 48 or 60 frames per second. Can’t wait! Will projectors have to be updated as well?
Good Point Mark
If the film is shot at that speed I would say it would require an updated projector as well. Then my next question is how will this effect the price to view the film? Like to see improvements but are we doing so at a cost that might not be able to be met by the customer?
Time will tell one can only assume.