Techno-impresarios like Lewis have been trying to push 3D movie beyond

Newfangledness virtually since the beginning of cinema see box.But there's good reason to believe that today's audience will 3D as a quaility that's essential to any blockbuster,like color and sound,even if it does require those retro glasses.Making a 3D movie involves filming an image from two perspectives.one representing the left eye,the other the right.When synchromized and watch through glasses that allow each eye to see only its own movie,the two films create an illusion of depth,Until recently,perfect synchronization was nearly impossible,and prodution and exhibition were cumbersome.Digitization has eliminated many of the flaws of old 3D movies-like nausea and headaches brought on by poor synching-and has motivated studios to push the format on exhibitors and filmmarkers.It's a important part of our business going forward.Says Alan Bergman,president of Walt Diseny Studios,which will release an animated canine-superhero movie,Bolt,in the 3D in the U.S. this November,as well as all its future Pixar films.


Studios have plenty of reasons to back the format.Screening in 3D create an experience that audiences can't get on sofa-or private.At least not yet.The 3D capable home entertainment systems widely available in three to five years won't replicate theaters either,because giant screen size is key to creating the sense of depth.The first batch of film released in both regular format and 3D made nearly three times as much money in the U.S. on 3D screens,thanks to higher demand and ticket prices 3D movies cost $1 to $5 more.However,only about 1000 U.S. screens are currently equipped to show digital 3D movies,not nearly enough to fuel a blockbuster like the Dark knight,which opened in America on more than 9000 screens.By 2010,industry analysts expect more than 7000 digital 3D screens in the U.S.. To persuade more cinema owners to make the switch,studios are relying on an early crop of films to show the medium's potential.



The new pioneers Today's digital 3D directors are flaunting what they've got,which is the power to make a bodily,almost primarl impact on audiences.You react to a film intellectually with your head and emotionally with your heart,say Ben Stassen,director of fly me to the moon,a tale of three tween-age houseflies who hitch a ride on Apollo II. But in a 3D film,you have a very strong physical component,you can actually make your audience duck.When Stassen's houseflies buzz over a field,it's like riding in a bug-size roller coaster,weaving between giant blades of grass.Playing to those expectations,Journey to the Center of the earth director Eric Brevig booby-trapped his movie with zooming yo-yos,flying fish and skittering bugs.I felt I had to do things I wouldn't do if I were making the same film in five years,say Brevig,whose experience creating films for theme-park rides reveals itself here.People putting on 3D glasses or paying a little extra to see a movie in 3D at this point in cinema are expecting to have things blatantly launched into the audience.But in a scene in which incandescent birds appear to flutter out of the screen,Brevig shows 3D's subtler potential,the effect transplants viewers from their theater seats to the lush core of Jules Verne's earth.



Such transporting moments make it tempting to imagine what directors outside the action and animation genres might do with 3D.Would the Parisian courtesans in Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Royge.cancan off the screen?Could the leaves of Terrence Malick's Edenic New World brush our cheeks?3D can be intimate,scary,claustrophobic,expansive,says Charlotte Huggins,who produced both Journey to the center of the earth and fly me to the moon,sp far,most of 3D movie makers agree on one criterion.If the movie takes you somewhere that you dream about going to and probably aren't going to get to,it belongs in 3D,says Gerg Foster,president of IMAX filmed entertainment,which transfers regular-format movies like polar expressinto 3D and is rolling out a new digital 3D system this year.On the other hand,says Foster,If someone decides they want to do my dinner with Andre in 3D,it's not for us.It's estimated that 3D increases a film's below the line production costs 25-30 %,and for some actors,the notion of wrinkles and love handles in 3D adds considerable anxiety.Then,too.At this point only a small niche of Hollywood has the technical know-how for the process.What worries some 3D trailblazer is that studios might see the format as a way to punch up a mediocre story.That shortcut may work for a while,but eventually the hope is that 3D will become just another weapon in a filmmarker's arsenal,as useful and unremarkable as the color yellow.