A Quick Post On 3-D.

I ended my Toy Story 3 review with a quick little sentence: "Oh, and the 3-D does absolutely nothing." A friend of mine posted a comment, leaving a link to Mark Kermode's blog in which he reads out a letter he received from the "3-D Guy" as Kermode calls him, who oversaw the 3-D conversion on Toy Story 3. The long and the short of it is that Kermode had said that he forgot he was watching a 3-D film while he watched Toy Story 3. He meant that he forgot it because he was so engrossed in the story and characters. The 3-D guy argues that, you don't notice the 3-D in the same way that you don't notice most of the music, the camera's focal length and the million other things that go into the making of a film, all of which operate on your subconscious to create a mood, evoke an emotion or help tell the story. Pixar's goal with 3-D is to have one or two "wow" moments but overall the 3-D should help create a mood, evoke an emotion or help tell the story. It's an interesting idea, particularly to a 3-D sceptic.

My feeling on 3-D is this. Watching a bad film, the 3-D helps because it's a distraction, it's something to take your mind off wretched characters, dreadful stories or whatever else is wrong with the film. Watching a good film in 3-D, the 3-D doesn't really add anything because the experience is satisfying as it is. This viewpoint clearly emphasises story above everything else and if the story is intact and the narrative working as it should, then 3-D is exposed as the sideshow it really is. But is it possible that 3-D can work as subtly as the other technical elements of the film? Several directors have pointed out that the very phrase "3-D" is something of a misnomer because every film you have ever watched has created depth of image in its many frames. Could Citizen Kane for example use depth to any greater degree? Taking this as truth, I don't think I really buy the idea that 3-D in its newest incarnation is another story-telling technique because depth of frame (or indeed lack thereof) has always been a story-telling technique. That Pixar emphasis story and characters is well documented and clearly evident in their films and I have no doubt that their brief with 3-D conversion is exactly as the chap who contacted Mark Kermode described it. I simply can't get over the fact that it is a gimick, a way of selling tickets at higher prices and a way for studios to think they're combating piracy.

I will get around to writing my Inception piece but one of the things that film demonstrates is that a film can enter the zeitgeist, create a conversation AND make a tonne of money without forcing people to put on the glasses and watch it in the third dimension. The fact that films have done that since their creation seems to have been forgotten. Give people a reason to go to the cinema and they will go. Give people a compelling story, a hook, a concept, interesting ideas, on top of a visual experience, and they will go. People want to be part of something and if that something is a sporting event, Live Aid, a demonstration at Trafalgar Square or that film that everyone is talking about, they will do what they have to to be part of it. Sure there will be those who think that downloading is enough, everyone hates the queues, the popcorn crunchers, the mobile phone talkers but films are shared experiences and, even though you don't have much control over who you're sharing it with, people still want that feeling of being in it together, of walking into the daylight chatting with whoever they're with about what they've just seen as everyone around them does likewise. I have no intention of ever sitting through a Twilight film but even these films attract their audiences because people want to see those characters.

This is what cinema at its best is. And it doesn't take the 3-D fad to accomplish it. So sorry Mr 3-D guy. I've nothing but admiration and respect for the work you do and it must be said that the 3-D on Toy Story 3 is very impressive; none of your hastily and shoddily done conversions to make a quick buck here. I think I can say with relative certainty that the reason I forgot about the 3-D was not because it blended in with the rest of the film making process, it's because the story and its characters were working so well. 3-D is here to stay. That much is certain. Equally certain for me is the fact that cinema, like literature, like theatre, like television comedy and drama, tells stories. And it's the stories that make me feel like what I'm watching is real, that what I'm watching matters , that the people I'm watching it happen to are real and that it all has consequences. It's the stories that achieve this. Not the artificiality of making me think the space it's happening in is all around me.

Thanks to Jon for leaving a comment and posting the link to Mr Kermode's blog.