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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: My Bloody Valentine 3D - Marketing Shenanigans
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 01-18-2009 09:46 AM
LOL
This is EXACTLY Friday the 13th Part III 3-D of the 80's all over.
There was the shot of Jason shooting the speargun to the camera and onto the poor's victims eye and the shot of the eyeball with the nerves sticking out being shoved to the audience by the old guy on the road.
Also, in Flesh for Frankesntein (3D), the doctor got stabbed by a long spear that came out of the screen right to your eyes with a piece of flesh dropping out of the end ...
Obviously a movie like this is made to gross far more in 3D than 2D. The same wouldn't happen to a movie like, say, Gran Torino, which would probably gross roughly the same 2D and 3D if the price of admission was the same and it wasn't heavily promoted as a movie that "must be watched in 3D to truly enjoy it".
quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
a whole new generation of people are being exposed to digital 3-D which is much higher quality than the last round of 35mm 3-D was in the 80's.
I'm sorry, Mark, but I must totally and authoratively discredit this stament as true. The 3D of the 80's was, generally speaking, as good if not better than current digital 2K real-d (or Dolby, for that matter).
The 3D of the 80's had a similar resolution while providing (generally) a brighter picture than most of todays' 3D offerings, with the added potential advantage of being in a "scope" format (not that today's offer are not ... just that when digital is Scope resolution is further reduced).
The comparison would be:
-Resolution, color, contrast and image quality:
80's 35mm 3D: Full 35mm frame was used. Full frame release prints have a proven resolution of about 4K, so splitting it in half to each eye gave aprox. a 2K image per eye.
Digital: 2K per eye, but with increased compression, only 1K for color resolution (4:2:2), and reduced 10bits color depth (vs. film's 14bits). Also, further reduced on TI's projectors older than a few month that couldn't cope with full 2K 48fps.
Basically a tie here, with a slight benefit to 35mm over/under if the release print was carefully made (not the case in practical terms, we all know, but in theory, anyway). As I said, I'll give them both a tie in resolution.
-Light levels
80's 35mm 3D: Full frame usage meant all available projector light was used, split in half to each eye. Basically the same as a 2-perf-per-eye full light level picture. As a result, light levels were about the same as a 1.85 3-perf factor because theaters increased their lamps rectifryers (sic) to the maximun available, to compensate for the "3-perf" to "2-perf" reduction. No anamorhpic was needed, so no loss from anamorpher adapters. Basically you obtained a light level similar to 1.85 but PER EYE. The 3-D optics (linear nor circular polarized) and glasses combination, depending on the system, lost between 66% and 72% of the light. But the silver screen "added" another 50% of the light back, so basically you had a light level that usually was only 20% or so below your 2D levels.
In digital, you "flicker" the light (at 144fps) between two eye, giving each half the light. You get 50% per eye. Then, you add a 7% blanking interval to allow for the 3D adapters (RealD Zscreens or Dolby color wheel) to adjust on time, so we are down to 43%. Then, you polarize the light through the zscreen, so we lose another 57/65% (depending on your model of zscreen). So we get roughly 20% of the light level. Then the glasses take care of another 8-15%. So we end up with aprox. between 18% and 10% of the available light. Say we change the light bulb to the maximun available (i.e. 6000w) and that gives us twice the light of our average 2D lamp (i.e. 3000w). Now we are still with a light level of between 20% and 35%. We put the silver screen gain into factor and you still are at less than half your 2D light level.
Studios "time" (squeeze the gamma curve, with the LARGE potential loss of contrast) the 3D releases in digital for 3.5fl to 5.5fl light levels. Definetly WORSE without any doubts that in the 80's. Period.
-Ghosting:
80's 3D: Mostly used linear polarizers. While your head was leveled with the screen (as it "should be" if you sit upright), linear always offers between 50% and 250% better extintion ratios than circular. So for most people sitting straight and not too far off-axis with the screen, the 80's 3D had some twice-to-three times less ghosting than real-d.
Dolby wins here, though. And real-d circular means you can move your head more and be less affected by wide off-axis angles. Please, also keep in mind that 3D in the 80's also offered circular polarization as an option, but was seldom used due to increase cost and ghosting with little advantages.
I'll say it's another tie or again a slight advantage to the 80's. Real-D "must" 'ghostbust' their prints so the problem doesn't get out of hand. Ghostbusting basically means degrading the image quality and killing the contrast once again even more.
-Cost:
80's 3D only costs a few hundred or a few thousand dollars to rent or purchase a 3D lense or an adaptor. You pbbly needed a silver screen too.
Digital 3D costs an arm and a leg for both, the silver (or high gain anyway) screen, the hardware, the glasses or the royalties. We won't mention the maintenance costs. Circular glasses or Infitec Dolby's glasses are more expensive than 80's linear ... and someone is paying for them, as you know. We won't mention double stock of projection lamps (i.e. 6000w), electrical costs, or, of course, the cost of converting to digital to begin with ...
Clearly the 80's 3D wins here.
-Light uniformity.
Here is where the 80's sucked. Non-integrator (rod) illumination of the 35mm frame meant that the light level at the corners drop off considerably. Since the frame was splitted in two, the corners didn't match symetrically. As a result, the corners of the image often had a (bothersome) stereo asymetrical vignette that sucked.
Digital wins here. Even Sony's 3D over/under digital doesn't have this problem as it uses two lenses and integrated collimated illumination.
All in all I'll say digital 3D is, basically, as good as 80's 3D. Not (theoretically or necessarily) much much better nor much much worse.
It is just plain wrong to say it is (significantly) superior. Perhaps it's easier to set up (push a button) so there would be less screw-ups. But just wait 10 years when zscreens start to break-down and silver screens start to be covered with dust and you'll see good-old bad-digital presentations almost as bad as the occasional bad 35mm presentation we were seeing in the 80's.
But, in theory, both systems are pretty close in performance with digital being far more expensive.
To be fair, the reason you might be seeing Digital presentations as better than 80's is because you are seeing "state of the art" brand-new equipment installed on brand-new screens with films digitally composed for great 3D.
In the 80's, 25 years ago, you were seeing 50 year old's projectors on crappy-old silver screens with films that were shot optically at a cost (for the whole movie) of under $3m, often not even $1m. Movies today cost far more and have far better technical means, so one would expect the result to look better.
But if you install a new theater today, with good 35mm equipment, a good brand new 3-D lens and a nice new Silver screen, I can assure you it would look as good (or better) than digital at 1/3 the cost.
Wait 25 years and you'll notice how this "wonderful digital images of today" look like absolute crap compared to the "wonderful 8K digital laser images" of the 2040's.
[ 01-18-2009, 03:25 PM: Message edited by: Julio Roberto ]
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 01-19-2009 12:01 AM
Well, valentine is not having too much competition this week really. Not a lot of fresh strong openers and only 1 other strong horror film. So good timing as usual.
It should do fine. It would've done a bit better, I guess, if more 3D screens were available. But, oh well, perhaps distributors would start to realize they shouldn't nickle and dime with Virtual Print Fees and get the darned digital thing rollout over with.
We also must remember that this is a film that, for an entire new generation, would be the very first (and therefore unique) "slasher 3D experience". Tons of teens haven't even seen a life-action (proper) 3D film ever (they skipped Journey to the Center).
So this is the pinnacle of "3D" for the always profitable horror genre. For that, coming 3rd at the BO, almost tied in 4rd position, considering grosses are larger-per-attendance due to the higher ticket price ... I don't know. I expected it a bit better. Marketing was strong and the trailer did hit the mark.
Perhaps it will hold a bit for next week. Word-of-mouth should be fair, as young peeps love the 3D stuff ... A few might be watching it in 2D by mistake and going huh? and pbbly deciding to watch it a second time with (drunk) friends in 3D the following weekend.
But give the new-generation 3D-virgin public 4 or 5 3D slasher like they gave in the 80's and the novelty will wear out. Soon, number of people interested in "B" 3D movies will sink like it has happened in the past. Then the TRUE numbers for 3D "increased attendance" will show up. And they will be modest.
EDIT: Looking at the numbers, Valentine certainly didn't performed too well. It did virtually the same business as Number 4 at the box office film Notorious. But Valentine opened in 2,534 theaters while Notorious only in 1,638. Both are rated R movies.
Valentine probably opened in all the top houses, as it engaged most brand-new Digital 3D places. Notorious probably opened in much "poorer" (and cheaper) joins. In spite of Valentine's surcharge, it only made $8,642 per screen, while Notorious made $13,126. Also, one would've guessed that Valentine's demographics were widers than Notorious.
So overall, not very impressive for Valentine. Also, audiences rated Valentine better than most movies in the top ten (7 stars for Valentine, 6 for Notorious, 5 for Mall Cop). So people are enjoying Valentine, it's not like the movie suxs socks and has heavy competition.
[ 01-19-2009, 09:09 AM: Message edited by: Julio Roberto ]
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