Tintin Movies in 3-D

The Times has an article on the digital 3-D technology that the Tintin Movies may be shot in.

The new digital 3-D technology is different. Images are captured in much the same way – two cameras film the same shot – but they are projected differently. The old way was to project the two films from the separate projectors simultaneously, so that, through the glasses, each eye would see a different set of moving images. The brain would merge these stereoscopic pictures, giving the illusion of 3-D depth.

To see the film in 3-d the audience has to wear polarized glasses and the cinema has to be especially equipped the projector and a special screen. Wikipedia has a good article on the technology: Real D Cinema.

The technique that Real D uses is similar to the traditional method of 3-D imaging using polarized glasses. The traditional method works by projecting two differently polarized images onto the same screen, which are then filtered by polarized glasses worn by the audience. This type of 3-D imaging requires two projectors. Real-D however uses a single projector that alternately projects the left-eye frame and right-eye frame, and appropriately polarizes these frames using a liquid-crystal screen placed in front of the projector lens. The polarized glasses make sure each eye sees only “its own” picture. The very high framerate, which is 72fps per eye, makes sure the image looks continuous. In Real D Cinema, each frame is projected three times to reduce flicker, as the source video is usually 24fps. The result is a 3-D picture that seems to extend behind and in front of the screen itself.

I’m not sure I like the idea of Tintin in 3-D. Its gimmicky and in previous 3-d films, its adds nothing to the film. In fact its normally a distraction to film makers who get obsessed with having things jump out of the screen. On the plus side, as Tintin will be CGI, its a relatively simple process to create a standard 2-d version and a special 3-d version. This might help the directors stay focused on making a good film and not an technological experiment.