Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Piranha 3D (2010)

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 08-22-2010, 04:38 PM:

Today at Regal 15 in Eugene, #9 in NEC 2K DLP and RealD XL 3D. Looked pretty good, sounded great. [thumbsup]

Seating Capacity of this house: 424
Number of empty seats for this show: 421

Well this movie is like the textbook definition of a teen horror spring break exploitation movie full of nubile young naked chicks and flesh-eating piranhas, set in the water (duh!) and with more than a little Jaws thrown in. What else do you need to know? The 3D is pretty good, much better than, say, Clash of the Titans. Is this a conversion? Well done if it is.

I approve.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 08-22-2010, 05:26 PM:

Did you just say that 3 people showed up for a first-Sunday show?

Guess nubile, naked chicks in the water aren't enough to bring out the masses in Eugene, eh???

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-22-2010, 07:19 PM:

Is there a 2D version?

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 08-22-2010, 07:44 PM:

quote: Jack Ondracek
Did you just say that 3 people showed up for a first-Sunday show?

Yep. Smallest turnout I've seen for an opening weekend performance there in a long time. This was in one of their two largest rooms.

quote: Joe Redifer
Is there a 2D version?

I don't know, but there are no 2D shows playing here at all. Only 3D.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-22-2010, 09:15 PM:

Was it "scope"? If so, it's another entry in a growing list of "scope" sequels to "flat" predecessors.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 08-22-2010, 09:41 PM:

quote: Justin B. Martin
Aspect Ratio: 2048x858 (scope)

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 08-22-2010, 09:47 PM:

It was shot in 35mm anamorphic (except for underwater shots, which were super-35) and is a conversion (but planned that way from day one, not a last-minute decision as most conversions up to this point have been).

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 08-23-2010, 12:19 AM:

Unfortunately, the theatre I saw it in was heavily cropping the scope image to barely 2.00 to 1 (if that). The masking was down somewhat from STEP-UP 3-D, but not nearly enough. This really surprised me, because the MAYA Cinemas in Bakersfield has been about dead-on accurate in all the other auditoriums I've seen scope in, even the mirror theatre of this one (one of the two biggest). oh, well. I saw it Friday at the 4:45pm show and there were maybe 8 or 9 people in the theatre. 3-D conversion was actually OK, but also seemd wrong at times. And there was a blaring scene of a high-up shot of a little girl walking on a rocky shore in which she and the rocks underneath her feet seemed to float several feet above the other rocks.

The film was a gore and boob fest with no real wit to it. A waste of time.

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 08-23-2010, 12:56 AM:

Is this considered a "sequel" or just a remake?

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 08-23-2010, 03:03 AM:

Well, nipple errect, nubile, naked chicks not withstanding, it also has Jerry O'Connell in frontal nudity -- talk about your gratuitous, in-your-face 3D effect! Phil, gimme a "hubba hubba."

Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 08-23-2010, 04:54 AM:

quote: Frank Angel
it also has Jerry O'Connell in frontal nudity

Piranha bait! [Big Grin]

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 08-23-2010, 04:57 AM:

Frank, it never shows O'Connell in full nude, unless you count..

Spoiler Alert - Click to Toggle
When they pull him out of the water with his skeleton legs, and then his CGI penis floating later on

This movie is really a movie to be enjoyed with a bunch of friends. We screened it last Tuesday night after working our shifts. It was a lot of fun and we had a great time. This movie does not go out of its way to be something its not. The director from day one said he was making a throwback horror movie and it shows. Its alot of fun, lots of hot chicks naked. Great death scenes that are so over the top. The Greco factor is the highest its ever been. The director also said that there was at least one gallon of fake blood for every person that was being attacked. It really shows in the 3rd act.

Needless to say, I really enjoyed it and will see it again. Also gotta love the "Hooper" revisit, and "Doc Brown" showing up.

A solid 4/5 [thumbsup]

A no this isn't the greatest movie this summer, it just happens to be one the most entertaining.

Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 08-23-2010, 05:00 AM:

See? [beer]

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 08-23-2010, 05:13 AM:

Oh and Joe, there are 2D prints out there. We received one to go with our Real D copy. Like mentioned above, I have to say this is how post 3D can look good. There was really only one shot where the little girls hair is in front of her face and the face is back. Overall it looked really good. Well done to the post house on this one.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 08-23-2010, 04:14 PM:

Wow. The Greco Factor. Haven't heard that one in a while. [thumbsup]

Posted by Mike Croaro (Member # 3123) on 08-24-2010, 09:43 AM:

Folks:

Saw the film last night in 2D (by choice) and enjoyed it. I find that these types of films are rarely excellent. If you can walk away feeling as thought you saw a "decent" film you got a good one.

Mike

Posted by Michael Barry (Member # 237) on 08-27-2010, 02:15 PM:

I absolutely HATED, HATED, HATED the '3D' in this. Hated it. Struggled with it - it felt like my eyes were being gouged out from my head. I literally couldn't stand it and walked out after the first reel, because I just couldn't see the movie clearly. I had to wait in the lobby because I went with friends.

Did they screw up the projection?

From now on: 3D conversion = no sale.

[fu]

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 08-27-2010, 04:34 PM:

Michael, Maybe they had the phase/eyes reversed? With RealD if you flip the lenses you'll get a really bad looking image with "depth" all out of whack. When I saw "Monster House" in RealD they had the projector set up wrong. If you flipped the glasses upside down, the image improved drastically.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 08-27-2010, 05:21 PM:

That sounds odd, Michael. It would seem wherever you saw it has an issue. Where did you go?

I've only heard 99% good things about this conversion. (The odd shot looks wrong etc.)

Posted by Michael Barry (Member # 237) on 08-27-2010, 09:51 PM:

It was in Dolby 3D, which is (so far) my favourite 3D system. This was in cinema 1 in Bondi. I've seen 3D movies in other screens there and they were excellent, but this was my first 3D screening in cinema 1.

I did notice that even though the masking went out to scope for the 3D trailers/feature, there was a significant amount of spill on the right side (I mean several feet) and also quite a bit on the left. The geometry seemed odd, too - it wasn't in the 'wrong' aspect ratio but the actors seemed vertically squished just ever so slightly. Not obviously, but just enough so that something seemed 'off'. The colour was extremely unnatural - the sky was a very greenish-blue.

I thing I normally enjoy about the Dolby system is how sharp the images are, and the way they stay sharp all the way through the entire depth of the image, right up to the bridge of your nose with virtually zero ghosting - the way it should be. However, this movie was just soft with no depth at all. The glasses converged the two images OK, but all that produced was a soft, depthless, colourless soup of an image which was an eyestrain to watch.

It's hard to know whether it was the source material or the projection that was faulty - or a combination or both - because I don't know what it's supposed to look like or how 'good' post-converted 3D is supposed to be.

I tried flipping the glasses but that didn't seem to improve things. Is it possible the installer screwed up that much for that cinema? Or did someone change a setting since then? Something seems very wrong, but until they move that movie to another house, no one will know what the problem is.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 09-04-2010, 09:15 PM:

I'm with you, Michael. The fake 3D in this sucks. This is the worst 3D I have ever seen. I didn't see Clash of the Titans, though, and I hear that was pretty bad.

The edges around just about everything were off. The girl walking behind the tall grass on the island when she was on her way to call for help looked like hell. The shot in the beginning where the camera was rolling along with a chain link fence in front of it looked like shit. People's hair was out of whack. Signs in the background that were supposed to be in the background were partially in the background and partially on the plane of the actor standing in front of them. The bubbles and waves in the water looked terrible. Splashes didn't look right. The shots that did look OK looked like view-master scenes.

If everyone here is saying that this looks really good, I don't know what to say, but to me this looks like absolute crap. And it has nothing to do with my problem watching RealD. I didn't stay for the whole thing either.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 09-05-2010, 04:45 PM:

quote: Michael Barry
there was a significant amount of spill on the right side (I mean several feet) and also quite a bit on the left.

Well, that's not going to help for starters. [uhoh]

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 09-05-2010, 06:42 PM:

Mark,

I do not know how PIRANHA was presented in 3-D at the theatre you saw the movie but what I saw was fine and I had no problems with the Real D presentation I saw at Regal's Pearl Highlands 14 a week ago. As a fan of 3-D, I know the difference between good and bad 3-D and the movie in question was just fine. Because it was filmed originally in 2-D with the intention to convert it to 3-D in post production, the 3-D effect was not deep enough in most of the scenes but some parts of the film were great. I thought the opening credits with the letters extending out from the screen looked very cool. I was not expecting to enjoy the movie very much but I found it very entertaining especially the underwater ballet done by two gorgeous women in the nude set to the Flower Duet music from Leo Delebes opera LAKME..

-Claude

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 09-12-2010, 10:19 AM:

quote: Kurt Zupin
This movie is really a movie to be enjoyed with a bunch of friends.

Right. Saw it with a bunch of college friends and that made it a lot more fun -- even the wives tolerated it, and that's saying alot for this type of film which from the get-go has "anti-wife" stamped all over it. Actually, I had no idea how we convinced them to come.

We saw it in RealD and I must say, given the wild variation on the posts here about the problems others experienced, this seems to be evidence that technically the 3D presentation quality must be difficult to maintain given the wildly differing presentations because there was absolutely NOTHING wrong with what I saw.

At our show, the 3D was prefect; I saw nothing of the problems mentioned. There were no video artifacts at all and the editing paid parituclar attention to making sure that no shot required severe convergence changes, so never was there any effort needed to get the images to coalesce. I imagine this is easier to do with conversions. And, unlike some other RealD 3D I've seen, the picture was sufficiently bright so I never had to complain in my head about it throughout the movie -- it wasn't 2D levels, but it was confortably bright.

If there can be such severe issues as others have described from theatre to theatre and across a variety of systems, then 3D is not at a level that you can confidently say any place you see it will be the same repeatable presentation. THAT, sadly, along with the surcharge, may be a terrible blow to 3D's longevity.

Oh, PS, I had no idea that this was a 2D to 3D conversion and if you had asked me after the show which I thought it was, I would have said without hesitation that it was shot 3D, it was that good. So they must be getting considerably better at it.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 09-12-2010, 07:18 PM:

quote: Frank Angel
Oh, PS, I had no idea that this was a 2D to 3D conversion and if you had asked me after the show which I thought it was, I would have said without hesitation that it was shot 3D, it was that good. So they must be getting considerably better at it.

No, they just had longer to screw around with it to get it to look better. This movie was supposed to come out a year ago. If it had it probably would have looked like crap. So the key is to plan their 2-D to 3-D conversion properly so that more time can be given to get it as close to right as possible. The only way to get it completely right is to shoot it with the 3-D cameras. Movie makers also need to remember that when they do something they want to look like it is coming out at you, don't let it dip into the frame area. It loses it's effect when that happens. Also they need to slow down the title sequences that have the letters exploding out at you. It happens so fast that the eyes don't even perceive the 3-D effect.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-12-2010, 09:04 PM:

So are conversions cheaper than just renting an extra camera/lenses and videotaping it in native 3D?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-12-2010, 10:37 PM:

I think "conversions" are a mostly a way to take a crappy movie that's already been shot and put it into 3-D in an attempt to cash in.

Hopefully within the next year enough of these bastards will have been flops that the industry decides to cut it out.

Posted by Michael Barry (Member # 237) on 09-16-2010, 12:17 PM:

Frank: I hear you about variations in 3D presentations, but at the same time, those variations are impossible since we all know that digital is perfect. [Smile]

But seriously, I think that if all of us here sat in the same screening for this movie, we would all have fairly similar opinions about the quality of the 3D. There would probably be some mild variation based on one person's lenience for converted 3D vs. someone else's absolute scale of how good 3D can be, for example, but I'm pretty sure there would be none of this polar opposite type of response we're getting here.

So...presentation consistency is a key ingredient. It has to be.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 09-18-2010, 09:43 AM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Hopefully within the next year enough of these bastards will have been flops that the industry decides to cut it out.

I dunno...I think 3D is becoming a marketing buzzword (like "digital") where the general perception is that it's automatically better than its predecessor.

My hunch is that the industry will adopt true dual-image 3D when it becomes cheaper than creating the effect it in post.

However, that doesn't mean that 2D-to-3D conversions will go away entirely. I see it becoming a gimmick reserved for re-releasing older product (like "Star Wars" for example) in a novel way.

Posted by Geena Phillips (Member # 3726) on 10-01-2010, 01:44 PM:

EDIT: D'oh! I misread the title of this read; I thought we were talking about Resident Evil 4. Oopsie.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 10-13-2010, 09:55 PM:

I saw this at Cinemark's Egyptian XD screen and Oh.. My... God! the sound was jarring, the underwater earthquake scene had a moment where I literally thought one of the ceiling braces in the auditorium had snapped. The audio 'slice' that accompanied the shot of the embryoic piranha in the egg, was ear piercing and made me jump a mile up out of my seat.

Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 09-24-2011, 07:23 AM:

quote: Mark J. Marshall
The edges around just about everything were off. The girl walking behind the tall grass on the island when she was on her way to call for help looked like hell. The shot in the beginning where the camera was rolling along with a chain link fence in front of it looked like shit. People's hair was out of whack. Signs in the background that were supposed to be in the background were partially in the background and partially on the plane of the actor standing in front of them. The bubbles and waves in the water looked terrible. Splashes didn't look right. The shots that did look OK looked like view-master scenes.

What I saw fits Mark's description. From the 3-D conversion movies I have seen, this had the greatest number of artifacts and objects at wrong depth planes.

This was not due to the projection system (Christie 2020 with Volfoni shutter glasses) because I saw CORALINE, THOR and classic 1950s stuff like DIAL M FOR MURDER and INFERNO with the same setup, and the 3-D was nothing but excellent.

Seeing actors' hair separated on different planes and infinity backgrounds jump front and back is not my idea of good 3-D. Conversion seems to work well with simple shots, but when shots are cluttered with many people, objects and background structures, there is always a kind of "heat flare" contour around the characters which doesn't not belong to any depth plane at all.

Nice to see Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Lloyd and Elisabeth Shue, but definitely not a film I'd watch again. Got tired of a million fake boobs in fake 3-D, but I have to agree agree the water ballet was hilarious. Oh and another "surprise ending". [Roll Eyes]