Three-Dimensional Film: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow Elizabeth Weber
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Of late, it seems a new 3D film extravaganza packs the seats and theaters just as soon as the last one makes its way to DVD and cable, minus the third dimension. Each one seems more unusual and novel than the last, with Clash of the Titans rivaling Alice in Wonderland for special effects, which challenged the technical innovation of the record-setting Avatar. Yet, threedimensional films are not new or exceptional forms of entertainment. In fact, their resurgence upon the American film scene bears many parallels with its popularity in another era—the 1950s. Then, as now, potential moviegoers were presented with a new reason to stay at home. In the early 1950’s, that threat to Hollywood cinema was television. While that threat still exists, the internet now offers streaming media content to anybody with a computer or smart phone. In the past few years, sites like YouTube and Hulu went into the business of offering free or inexpensive entertainment, including motion picture productions, without the purchase of a theater ticket or DVD rental. In the 1950’s, 3D film offered Hollywood a way to lure audiences away from rival forms of entertainment and into theater seats. The audience, studios theorized, could not get the 3D experience anyplace other than in movie theaters—not from television, in particular. Under threat of diminished audience, this format seemed worth the higher production costs. For a time, it was, but the 3D experience carried problems and limitations that eventually dampened its popularity. Once again, studios desperate to fill seats are willing to pour money into the 3D format, which has very limited availability outside of theaters and, in the case of 3D television, requires a financial investment on the part of viewers. Will the format fare better today than it did in the past? A more in-depth analysis may illuminate this mystery. To what extent, precisely, did television threaten Hollywood? According to Michael Storper in his book The Regional World: Territorial Development in a Global Economy, in 1945, a year when television had not yet permeated American homes, the eight major studios earned 57.2 million dollars in profits (not adjusted for inflation). In 1950, when there were enough television watchers and programs to fuel the publication of TV Guide, profits fell to 38 million dollars, and profits continued to fall without seeing any increase until the mid-1960’s (Storper 88). While other factors affected industry profits, no doubt exists that fewer people were going out to see films. Writing for Time magazine, Richard Corliss states, “The number of tickets sold dropped from an all-time high of 4 billion in 1946 to about a billion a decade later” (“3D or Not 3D: That Is The Question”). In other words, cinema viewership was quartered in the same decade
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that saw the rise of television and was something that began before studio divestment (to comply with the Paramount Decree) could account for loss of profits or significant changes to the moviegoing experience. In reaction to this, studios took several steps. Foremost was spending more money to make better quality pictures, but making fewer of them. According to Storper, this meant that “short subjects and newsreels were completely eliminated from the major studio’s product range” in favor of “the spectacular” (88). Furthermore, “technical innovations were aimed at the ‘look’ of the film in an effort to make the image in motion picture superior to that of television” (Storper 88). The 1950’s therefore saw numerous technical advances, including wide-screen formats like Cinerama and quality color processes like Technicolor. Television screens, however, could always become wider, and color TV loomed on the horizon. These efforts to make moviegoing “an event rather than an everyday experience” did not necessarily offer something beyond the reach of television (Storper 88). The answer, then, was 3-D. In 1952, the film Bwana Devil promised “A Lion in Your Lap! A Lover in Your Arms!" in marketing materials. In his book Transforming the Screen, 19501959, Peter Lev says that while Arch Obeler’s writing and direction earned poor reviews, the film was “an immediate box office hit” (110). It showed the audience things it had never witnessed before, such as “interesting depth effects via wide angle close-ups,” “deep focus shots featuring objects in several planes,” and a shot wherein “a spear seems to be thrown right at the audience” (Lev 110). Audiences did not seem to mind the glasses required by Polaroid’s NaturalVision process, the inferior colorization, or having to leave home and visit the theater to witness these spectacles. With this success, “3D filmmaking was suddenly the craze in Hollywood” (Lev 110). Because Polaroid carefully controlled the distribution of glasses, and because the format required investments television stations could not afford to make, Hollywood believed 3D cinema did, and would continue to, offer something TV couldn’t. With this in mind, studios considered the rising popularity of genre films, a reflection of the segmentation of the film audience and the new youth culture. The question then became one of using genre trends in combination with the 3D format to maximize audience interest and experience.
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The next big 3D hit exemplifies the answer to that question. In 1953, House of Wax improved upon Bwana Devil with better writing, production quality, color, and sound technology (Lev 110). More importantly, it utilized the dimensionality of 3D format together with the rising horror genre, which was and is uniquely suited to the format. As Mark Jancovich explains in Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950’s, horror films were “bound up with youth cultures,” and the required glasses “emphasize the ritual aspect of the cinema experience” (169). Rather than watch TV at home, young people could gather in theaters to partake in cinematic ceremony. Beyond the youthful appeal of both horror films and 3D, “creature features” and “slasher flicks” are known for their carefully-timed scares, violent motion, and compositions that isolate victims within the frame at critical moments. All of these aspects of the horror film are enhanced through the 3D format. American youth, however, did not constitute the entire film audience. For other viewers, the names of famous stars and established directors were still a large draw. In 1954, Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, starring Grace Kelley, premiered. Released in both 3D and 2D, critics praised it for its “restraint” and “minimalism”--it was not an over-the-top spectacle film, but the work of a careful director with a reputation to uphold (Lev 112). His approach to the format was markedly different from the approach taken in 3D genre films—rather than objects popping out at the audience, Hitchcock shot movements going farther into the frame, drawing viewers deeper within the world of the film. This met the audience expectation for innovation in a Hitchcock film. Dial M for Murder was so well made, in fact, that the American Film Institute later ranked it among the top ten mystery films ever produced (“Dial M for Murder”). The format had proven itself among both mature viewers as well as young adults. Yet, by 1954, the magazine American Cinematographer asked, “Is 3D Dead?” amidst numerous complaints about the format (Lev 112). What went wrong? According to Lev, audiences took issue with polarized glasses being “uncomfortable and poorly made,” as well as quality concerns with “shaky” or “dark” images from poor projectors (112). Furthermore, for those sitting at the edges of the theater, “the 3-D illusion was reduced or absent” (Lev 112). In his book Bad Fads, Mark A. Long also describes the 3D film’s “propensity to cause headaches” (35), and in an article for Slate, Daniel Engber discusses the unnatural eye movements required while viewing 3D films, where “our eye movements seem to oscillate between their natural
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inclination and the artificial state demanded by the film,” which can cause a perception of blurriness as well as eye strain (“The Problem With 3D”). Engber also claims that “five percent to eight percent of the population is stereoblind and can't convert binocular disparity into depth information.” In other words, this segment of the audience is unable to view a 3D film as intended, and “an additional 20 to 30 percent of the population suffers from a lesser form of the deficit, which could diminish the experience of 3-D effects or make them especially uncomfortable to watch” (Engber). Because vision often degenerates or changes with age, such problems are more likely to occur in adults than in teens, making the youth market the primary audience once viewers who could not see in 3D had viewed their first film in the format and found it lacking. This is often, however, a segment of the audience with limited income, unable to buoy flagging ticket sales on its own. Then, with dwindling audiences for their 3D films, studios became less likely to hire big-name (and therefore big-paycheck) directors with artistic vision, alienating another segment of the audience. Once the market for 3D had shrunk dramatically, 2D films “often significantly out-earned their 3D counterparts” (Long 35). After that, 3D films “were only produced sporadically,” and the highest-earning 3D film between 1954 and the format’s latter-day resurgence was a pornographic film called The Stewardesses (Long 35). This combination of cheap glasses, trouble in theaters, visual problems amongst viewers, and studios pulling their money out of the format may not have rendered 3D dead, as American Cinematographer posited, but it was left a shadow of its former self. What, then, is the state of 3D today, and is that state sustainable? Through assessing the common elements between the early 1950’s 3D boom and what Engber refers to as today’s “3D bubble,” perhaps answers will emerge. The points of comparison, in fact, are many. Prominent among them is the stylistic function of the horror genre in the 1950’s and the stylistic function of perhaps the most notorious of today’s 3D blockbusters, Avatar. While it is not a monster movie or horror film per se, director James Cameron utilizes many of the trappings of the genre for his own cinematic purposes. There are strange alien creatures bursting from the screen to threaten characters and, seemingly, audience members. There is a looming villain, frenetic action, and violence occurring in ways that define the scenes in which it takes place. The “gotcha!” moments that startle audience members in their seats are heightened by the increased
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dimensionality, and the lush jungle settings create the kind of depth within the frame that the detailed tableaux of the wax museum provided in House of Wax. Furthermore, audiences in the 1950’s walked into horror and other genre films anticipating certain conventions, while today Cameron has established a set of conventions within his own oeuvre. Just as viewers of creature features expected their monster and viewers of House of Wax demanded a diabolical body count, the audience of a James Cameron film knows there will be a strong but tragic heroine and a terrible “threat from within,” according to the formula Cameron set well before the new era of 3D with films like Terminator and Titanic. Similarly, today’s studios also appeal to the segment of the audience seeking artistic direction and cinematic innovation. Though quite different from Dial M for Murder, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland fulfills the desires of the same viewers as Hitchcock’s foray into the 3D format did in its time. Hitchcock had proven himself the master of clever cameos, and he often challenged himself with difficult material, such as the extremely restricted setting in 1944’s Lifeboat. Today, Tim Burton is a director who attempts an unusual new feat in nearly every film. Alice in Wonderland’s unusual mix of animation and live action, its complicated makeup and costumes, and the challenge of adapting a familiar story in a novel and exciting way are all unsurprising elements when one considers the challenges Burton set before himself prior to today’s 3D bubble. In 2D films like Batman, Edward Scissorhands, and Nightmare Before Christmas, Tim Burton demonstrated his tireless quest for blazing new trails and telling old stories in exceptional new ways. Like Hitchcock, he also keeps a stable of big-name stars appearing in his films, with Johnny Depp as a latter-day Cary Grant and Helena Bonham-Carter serving as his Grace Kelly. The same kind of star-seekers and inquisitive viewers fill the seats to see Alice in Wonderland and waited in line for tickets to Dial M for Murder. While both Avatar and Alice in Wonderland have an intergenerational appeal, this simply reflects the different type of audience fragmentation today, compared to that of the 1950’s. There are still 3D films explicitly intended for the youth market, but since many of the genre fans of yesterday grew up to become genre fans of today, the horror film in theaters is equally likely to draw a teen or a more mature viewer. Instead, the hot new youth market consists of preteens and the parents who take them to theaters. For them, studios produce 3D films like Monsters vs. Aliens, The Jonas Brothers, and Chicken Little. Children, it seems, love the unusual experience
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of wearing the special glasses rather than finding them unpleasant, as did the teenagers of the 1950’s. Like the appeals to the youth market of yesteryear, however, these family films alienate a portion of the audience and therefore have limited potential for drawing the masses into theaters. One might consider them a bet that today’s children will not outgrow the novelty of 3D before they outgrow the family film. Alternately, one might, as Engber does, view them as a bet that increased viewing of 3D films will not damage children’s vision and frighten parents. Soon, Engber says, “small children, their vision systems still in development, could one day be digesting five or six hours of stereo entertainment per day.” Nobody knows what effect, if any, this will have on children. He does, however, cite “one published case study, from the late-1980s, of a 5-year-old child in Japan who became permanently cross-eyed” after watching a 3D film at a movie theater (Engber). If studios like Pixar and DreamWorks lose these bets, they will lose a huge investment in equipment and technology. Their parent companies (Disney and Viacom) also stand to lose the money invested in 3D family films, whose profits are intended to finance future 3D films of varying types. According to Josh Quittner in Time magazine, “Jeffrey Katzenberg, the head of DreamWorks Animation SKG, is betting the future of his studio on digital 3-D” (“3D: The Future of Movies”). In fact, “Katzenberg has repositioned DreamWorks as a 3-Danimation company” to such a degree that henceforth, “all its movies will be made, natively, in 3-D” rather than in postproduction (Quittner). This means that unlike in the 1950’s, there is no option to release these films simultaneously in 2D and 3D should audience tastes begin to shift; in the time it takes to complete production on a new 3D family film, the audience for it may have disappeared. This kind of failure in the youth market could cause studios to once again pull money out of the format and decrease production. This would mean fewer films like Avatar to lure audiences lusting for creatures leaping into the theater or craving creepy villains, and fewer opportunities for innovative directors like Tim Burton to satisfy audiences with a 3D Alice in Wonderland. As before, if audiences pull the rug out from under one section of 3D production, they may topple the entire format, for 3D production is only viable as long as it is not only profitable but extremely profitable. This is because, according to Quittner, “going 3-D adds about 15%” to the cost of making a film. While so far the bubble of today has made that cost increase
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worthwhile for studios, that has largely to do with the types of threats arrayed against the 2D film, and this is one area in which there are few similarities with threats robbing theaters of audiences in the 1950’s. One of the benefits of the format is that “3-D films are far more difficult for digitalcamera-toting moviegoers to pirate,” according to Quittner. This was not a factor in the 1950’s, but today, resistance to piracy is a major plus for studios. This particular threat, however, gains its power from the assumption that an audience exists for 3D films on the black market; otherwise, pirates would have nobody buying their bootlegs. If the theater audience for 3D dries up, so would any potential home market, leaving 2D films no more or less vulnerable to piracy than before the new 3D bubble. In some ways, then, the threat of piracy is irrelevant to the future of box office receipts. 3D is truly a solution to the problem of piracy if the majority of films are consistently produced in 3D, something audiences do not yet support, and perhaps never will. Another benefit: the same old fact that television and the internet cannot offer a bigscreen 3D experience. While television has entered the realm of 3D, this experience still requires glasses. According to Dan Fletcher of Time, “the headgear necessary to watch modern 3-D TVs remains bulky” and looks “ugly” (“Will Anyone Watch 3-D HDTV?”). Once viewers obtain the glasses, however, they may watch an increasing amount of 3D content on the internet (for example, one may now view Google Earth in 3D). Fletcher also says that the newest of the 3D televisions are “expected to cost as much as several thousand dollars.” This is prohibitively expensive for most families. Here, then, is another gamble studios and theaters are taking with such heavy investment in 3D production and technology. They wager that 3D HDTV will remain expensive, the glasses will remain more cumbersome than those required in theaters, and the internet will lag behind in offering 3D content. Once again, if studios lose this bet, it could threaten the entire 3D format. A crucial difference between television in the 1950’s and television today: the disparity between small screen and big screen technologies is much smaller. This advantage, then, may not last. Finally, the same optical issues linger despite technological advancements in the 3D format. In fact, recent innovations may worsen them. To his litany of complaints about 3D, Engber adds, “the greater the disparity between the two image tracks—that is to say, the farther
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apart the two cameras are placed during shooting—the greater the illusion of depth in the finished product.” Today’s 3D films increasingly take advantage of this fact to maximize special effects potential. This may be a plus in one way, but, “on the other hand, “ Engber says, “the more pronounced the disparity, the more difficult it is for the viewer to fuse the two perspectives into a coherent scene,” and “that could lead to double-vision, uncomfortable flickering, and—yes —eyestrain.” While the problems of shaky projectors and decreased visual depth from certain seats may no longer plague theatergoers, there are still stereo-blind viewers and people who don’t consider the increased dimensionality worth a headache. For the latter viewers, the way the new 3D films are shot makes them less, not more, appealing. Engber dispels the idea that new technology solves optical problems, citing studies that claim they are a "difficulty [that] is inherent to the medium." Engber continues on to say that “there's no reason to expect newfangled RealD technology will solve this basic problem of biomechanics.” If the benefits of 3D are no longer sufficient to stave off the unique threats to dwindling theater attendance, as they were in the 1950’s when television was far more primitive than it is today, and neither the internet nor piracy existed, what is its fate? If studios still rely too much on a youth audience to fuel production in 3D format, will the 3D phenomenon wane a second time? If there are direct parallels between the way 3D was used to draw audiences in the 1950’s and the way they use 3D today, will these appeals produce a more lasting result now? Above all, how long are audiences willing to accept eye strain and headaches in exchange for an experience that seems less and less novel as studios produce more and more 3D films? Only time will tell, but perhaps studios should consider their other options in case this 3D bubble also bursts.
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Works Cited Corliss, Richard. “3-D Or Not 3-D: That Is The Question." Time, 28 March 2009; accessed April 2010 at Time.com. Online. “Dial M for Murder.” IMBD.com. Accessed April 2010 at IMDB.com. Online. Engber, Daniel. “The Problem With 3-D.” Slate, 2 April 2009; accessed April 2010 at Slate.com. Online. Fletcher, Dan. “Will Anyone Watch 3-D HDTV?” Time, 25 September 2009; accessed April 2010 at Time.com. Online. Jancovich, Mark . Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950’s. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996. Print. Lev, Peter. Transforming the Screen, 1950-1959. Berkely: University of California Press, 2006. Print. Long, Mark A. Bad Fads (Toronto: ECW Press, 2002). Print. Quittner, Josh. “3-D:The Future of Movies.” Time, 19 March 2009; accessed April 2010 at Time.com. Online. Storper, Michael. The Regional World: Territorial Development in a Global Economy. New York: Guilford Press, 1997. Print.