Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Anaglyph 3D

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Posted by Kirk Futrell (Member # 5006) on 07-30-2012, 04:26 PM:

Does Anaglyph 3D (such as creature from the black lagoon) require a special projection lens?

Posted by Jim Henk (Member # 3628) on 07-30-2012, 04:45 PM:

No. Red/Green or Red/Blue requires no special lens. In fact, there is only one image in one frame, so there is nothing to separate short of your own eyes. The glasses simply filter out a different color for each eye. Now, comparing quality is very much another question. No matter how you slice it, anaglyph pales in comparison to over/under or side-by-side even on their worst days.

However, there are even anaglyph *DVDs* that run through any TV or projector that runs regular movies. Just the color filter glasses. I'm looking at my copy of House of Wax right now. Too bad it has unremovable Japanese subtitles.

BTW, the anaglyph of Polar Express 3D was reviewed horribly for it's 3D image by a lot of people, but projected up on an 11 foot screen, I think it actually looks *really* good. (for anaglyph, that is...)

Posted by Don Furr (Member # 1469) on 07-30-2012, 09:39 PM:

I've never seen an anaglyph movie/dvd/Blu Ray that was worth watching. They all suck. Close up anaglyph 3D doesn't work. Kirk I wouldn't waste my money especially since "Creature" is coming out on Blu Ray in polarized 3D this October. Forget anaglyph 3D.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-31-2012, 07:24 AM:

I've seen some very good black and white technical photographs. in anaglyph format. Still photographs which you look at for a minute or two seem to work better than films which you watch for an hour or two.

Many anaglyph glasses such as the ones given away with magazines etc. are also often of very poor quality. The colours are often way off, and there are lines and other marks in the surface. They often look like they've been made from coloured packaging film or something; certainly not optical filter quality material.

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 07-31-2012, 10:04 AM:

Speaking of anaglyph 3D, here is such an image created from a 1950s black & white stereo slide. One of the problems with anaglyph is that while it's the easiest kind of 3D to distribute, requiring absolutely no special equipment, because of variations in the colors of the image and the red/blue (or red/cyan, or red/green) glasses there almost ALWAYS seems to be ghosting somewhere.

I've been curious if anyone knows about this small Southern California production company, but don't want to take this thread OT. If anyone has info, please PM me. Thanks.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-31-2012, 10:46 AM:

Anaglyph=headache! Louis

Posted by Kirk Futrell (Member # 5006) on 08-01-2012, 03:49 PM:

Thank you all. We are thinking of screening an anaglyph 3D print of Creature of the Black Lagoon. I think we are going more for the novelty factor than the quality of presentation. We don't have interlocks or 3D lens and have never shown 3D here (at least not in the 10 years I've been here), so I think pretty much anything would be welcomed as fun, especially if its not something they can see at another theater. I've seen Anaglyph 3D on youtube and such so I know what we're getting into. I even had a copy of RAD RACER on Nintendo that had a 3D mode and came with cyan/red glasses!

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 08-01-2012, 04:15 PM:

If it is one of the older prints the colour has faded so much that the bluegreen eye is almost noneexistant on the print up here

Posted by Kirk Futrell (Member # 5006) on 08-01-2012, 05:25 PM:

That would be bad. Its from Universal, I'll have our programmer check the age.

Posted by Paul H. Rayton (Member # 1817) on 08-01-2012, 08:21 PM:

We ran a print of that movie ("Creature From The Black Lagoon") last October, the print source being Universal. It was print #4, and was made in 2008, so the "colors" were good, though it had some scratching here and there. (By "colors", I'm referring to the red/green imaging for the 3D, which was certainly not faded. It's a b/w movie, though, printed on to color stock to get the anaglyph separation).

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 08-02-2012, 10:19 AM:

Creature From The Black Lagoon was original released in Dual strip polarized 3D. The later anaglyph re-releases sucks.

I have been told that a polarized DCP 3D version (and 3D Bluray) is currently being prepared. If so, it would be worth waiting for.

Posted by Kirk Futrell (Member # 5006) on 10-04-2012, 09:19 AM:

For this creature from the black lagoon print, what do I tell the paper 3D glasses company when I go to order. What colors? And does it matter which eye is which color?

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 10-04-2012, 11:43 AM:

Since Universal's prints of this are from a faded negative, try to get any red/cyan glasses you can, since the filtration factor is going to be piss-poor anyway. As I recall, it's red/right eye, but double check. YES, it does make a difference... you don't want your audience watching the film in reverse stereo.

And I agree with Mitch... if you run digital and are set up for 3D, just book Universal's new DCP on it. Their shitty anaglyph will look positively ridiculous compared to it.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 10-04-2012, 01:11 PM:

quote: Paul H. Rayton
It's a b/w movie, though, printed on to color stock to get the anaglyph separation

Just curious- - when it was originally released in the
1950's, was it printed this way (on color stock) too, or
were there simply 'left' & 'right' black & white prints
that were projected through colored filters on the
port windows, as was commonly done with polarized 3D
at that time?

Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 10-05-2012, 09:54 AM:

Jim, I was working in the Universal Oklahoma City exchange when CREATURE was released. Yes, two B&W prints, one for each eye.
Much confusion with the film inspectors getting the prints mounted on 5000 ft. setup, instead of the usual 2000 ft. prints.
This enabled the theaters to run the picture with only one stop for reel changes.
After the 3D bookings played out, the prints were broken down to make two copies, remounted on to 2000 ft. reels and run in normal fashion.

Posted by Kirk Futrell (Member # 5006) on 10-05-2012, 10:12 AM:

Thanks, I would love to show the DCP, but that would mean we would have to buy a DCI compliant digital projectors first. We just just installed Dolby digital sound in one of our theatres for the first time 2 years ago, so we are a bit behind the curve. Though if we could show a Blu-Ray of it, we do have a nice non-DCI digital projector.

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 10-05-2012, 11:16 AM:

Richard is correct—all of the studio films from the '50s were done Polaroid, not anaglyph.

Kirk, I'm not sure how you might go about running the Blu-Ray in 3D without a projector that can run it that way (and if you were going to do it, you'd need a silver screen for Polaroid). Perhaps someone here will know, but is it possible to take a 3DBD and run it as an anaglyph? In my opinion, that would be much more preferable to the faded 35mm.

Posted by Don Furr (Member # 1469) on 10-05-2012, 06:48 PM:

If the anaglyph print is faded, there is no way you'll get the 3D effect with anaglyph glasses. It isn't gonna work...sorry.

Posted by Ramon Lamarca Marques (Member # 3621) on 10-06-2012, 06:07 AM:

I saw an anaglyph print in London 5 years ago and it was dreadful, probably the worst film presentation I have ever seen. The print was faded and we were left with just a dark, blurred image. It should have never been screened. The Aero Theatre will be showing the new digital 3-D restoration soon.

Posted by Mark Hajducki (Member # 1732) on 10-06-2012, 09:09 AM:

A few years ago I showed a print of The Flesh and Blood Show. It was made with a one reel 3D sequence.

For some reason best known to the BFI the (filmed as) 3D reel came as single eye black and white (the other reels were colour and not in too bad condition).

Posted by Don Furr (Member # 1469) on 10-06-2012, 01:55 PM:

That IS strange Mark. It was originally a anaglyph sequence reel but if that was an original release print it would have been totally faded and wouldn't have worked anyhow!! I guess it was just as good in B&W instead of red Eastman anaglyph.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 10-06-2012, 10:10 PM:

The dual strip 35mm print that I've seen has one eye considerably brighter than the other. I'm sure that won't be the case with the digital version or with the 3D BD, so I'm looking forward to seeing it that way.

Oh, and by the way...

quote:
Just curious- - when it was originally released in the
1950's, was it printed this way (on color stock) too, or
were there simply 'left' & 'right' black & white prints
that were projected through colored filters on the
port windows, as was commonly done with polarized 3D
at that time?

What the heck are you talking about? The filters were polarized, but not colored. Was that a mis-type?

Posted by Kirk Futrell (Member # 5006) on 10-08-2012, 10:05 AM:

quote: Jack Theakston
Kirk, I'm not sure how you might go about running the Blu-Ray in 3D without a projector that can run it that way (and if you were going to do it, you'd need a silver screen for Polaroid).

Without looking at the Blu-Ray specs, I was hoping that it might have a anaglyph 3D version on the disc or included on another disc. Then we just give out the paper glasses.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 10-08-2012, 12:13 PM:

quote: Mark J. Marshall
What the heck are you talking about? The filters were polarized, but not colored

It was poor syntax on my part that's leading to your confusion.

And I wasn't talking about polarized 3D.
I was asking about the prints themselves.

Yes, many of the 3D films of the 1950's used
polarization. But there was such a thing as
anaglyphic projection where the film was shown
through colored (but NOT polarized) filters hung
on the projection ports.

I found a set of them (colored filters) in an old theater
I worked at. I've got a picture of them here somewhere.

And I'm not sure about this, but I'm pretty sure that
it was cheaper to implement, since theaters didn't
need to go through the expense of installing a special
screen, like they needed to do for 'polarized' projection.

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 10-08-2012, 02:15 PM:

quote: Jim Cassedy
And I'm not sure about this, but I'm pretty sure that it was cheaper to implement, since theaters didn't need to go through the expense of installing a special screen, like they needed to do for 'polarized' projection.

Having seen some of the prices from that period, if you factored in the over-sized magazines, Selsyn motors, new lenses, etc., and given that most places were installing new widescreens anyway, the silver screen was not the largest part of the negative costs (which you were supposed to recoup in shows anyway). To present an inferior anaglyphic presentation (dual-strip anaglyph = very dim) would have been detrimental to a theater's box office receipts, given the number of competing theaters doing it right.

I don't doubt that some theater may have tried this at some point, but my guess is that you could probably count the number of installations like this in the U.S. on one hand.

Posted by Kirk Futrell (Member # 5006) on 10-26-2012, 02:31 PM:

I also posted the below under the topic of an in depth look at at creature from the black lagoon, in hopes no one else will make the mistake we did and print our 3D glasses wrong.:

We are about to show the anaglyph version and never got a clarification from anyone we asked which eye was red and which was cyan, so we had 600 printed with our logo with Left Eye Red/ Right Eye Cyan which is the most common way anaglyph 3d glasses are made today, according to an American Paper Optics representative. Unfortunately, the print is made for glasses to be Left Cyan / Right Red. So we will just tell everyone to fold their glasses with the logo on the inside. For what it is worth, besides the kind of ugly yellow over all color you get, and the headache the effect of the 3D looks great. So I would say this universal print is in great shape.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-05-2012, 10:24 AM:

Universal does have some good saturation color prints of CREATURE, but...and it's a big but...they are not aligment corrected as is the restored digital DCP. For this BluRay/DCP release they did align EACH frame so that the vertical as well as the horizontal misalignment of the two eyes is not corrected. Universal also has an anaglyphic print of IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, also made from old negatives that have this misalignment problem. It's all due to the fact that the O-negs had shrinkage over over time. When they strunk the anaglyphic composite in the late 70s, the negs were already 20 plus years old.

The digital release required the technicians to align each eye so there was no misalignment. Robert addresses that issue very thoroughly in the article posted below.

I ran the anaglyphic CREATURE and ICFOS prints together as a double bill in the mid-80s. The headaches and complaints after watching 3 hours of vertically misaligned 3D which causes patrons' eyes balls to go bouncing around in opposited directions up and down in their sockets made some people actually sick to their stomachs. It was a presentation nightmare. DON'T DO IT unless Universal can verify that their anaglyphic prints are struck from the corrected 4K digital masters made for the DCP/BluRay re-release. If the anaglyphic print Universal is offering is made from the OLD anaglyphic neg,forgedaboudit.