Raise your glasses

Steve Pratt puts on the special glasses and watches the films that are coming straight at you SITTING in the cinema in the past.

few months, I’ve had dogs leap at me, been attacked with a pickaxe and even had someone spit mouthwash over me. This is the wonderful world of 3D, coming to a screen near you as film-makers attempt to create a viewing experience you can’t have anywhere else.

A 3D television set is being developed too, but it can’t possibly beat the feeling of sitting with hundreds of other 3D-bespectacled people dodging objects as they apparently come hurtling straight out of the screen.

This revitalised extra dimension in cinemagoing is, according to Dreamworks chief Jeffrey Katzenberg “nothing less than the greatest innovation that has happened for all of us in the movie business since the advent of colour 70 years ago”.

Others agree with him, judging by the increasing number of 3D movies set for release this year, as more and more cinemas are equipped to show them.

First time round, 3D was one of several gimmicks – others included Smell-O-Vision and Sensurround – used to combat the arrival of television. But the cardboard glasses with one green lens and one red made the experience uncomfortable and unsatisfactory. Developments in digital technology and glasses that sit neatly on the face of those already wearing specs mean that 21st Century 3D is a much better bet.

Katzenberg emphasises the improvement on the old system. “The digital projection puts a perfect image on the screen. There is no ghosting, no eye strain and no nausea,” he says.

Early film pioneers such as William Friest- Greene experimented with three-dimensional moving images, then, in 1922, the first 3D feature film, The Power Of Love, was released in black and white. Experiments with 3D colour began in Germany and Italy in the Thirties.

Hollywood used it in its fight against competition from TV with more than 40 features produced in 3D in the early Fifties. Most used the illusion of objects such as flaming arrows, runaway trains and bouncing boulders coming straight at the audience. It was a gimmick, pure and simple.

First on screen, in 1952, was Bwana Devil with a promise of “a lion in your lap”, a reference to the moment a snarling animal appeared to leap out of the screen. The process was mainly employed on horror films, including House Of Wax and Creature From The Black Lagoon, and action adventures.

There was the occasional foray into sex films, such as the 1972 British offering, Three Dimensions Of Greta. The 1954 film, The French Line, featured Jane Russell in 3D with the poster tagline, “She’ll knock both your eyes out”. Alfred Hitchcock was the only director of note to use 3D – in his thriller Dial M For Murder – but the film was released in a “flat” version.

There have been occasional attempts to revive the format. Jaws 3D, Friday The 13th Part Three 3D and Amityville 3D used the gimmick to give fresh blood to franchises in need of perking up.

This time round, film-makers are determined to use 3D intelligently, treating it as a natural part of the story, rather than throwing objects at the audience every five minutes to show how what they can do.

Conrad Vernon, who directed the animated Monster V Aliens, says: “We wanted to make sure we weren’t shaping the movie around the 3D, but using it to enhance the storytelling. We said we wouldn’t be gimmicky – we’re not going to stick things out at people and take people out of the story because of the 3D.”

Katzenberg knows that “people think of those cheesy old glasses and rinky-dink special effects of reaching out into the audience” when 3D is mentioned. “That kind of movie-making is a theme park attraction more than it is movies or storytelling,” he says.

More and more cinemas are being equipped with 3D projectors as the digital age makes it easier to make and screen these films. Teesside Showcase, Middlesbrough Cineworld, York Vue and Wallsend Silverlink UCI are all equipped to show 3D movies in this region.

TELEVISION is trying to get in on the act, as broadcasters seek ways to beam 3D images into our homes. You’ll need a special television and a large bank balance, with a set that works with glasses costing £2,500, and one that shouldn’t need them £7,500.

With more than a dozen films scheduled for release in 3D this year and many more in production, there won’t be a shortage. Both Disney and Dreamworks are making all future animations in 3D, as well as converting old titles.

Coraline, released this week, is the first stopmotion animation to use the process.

Eagerly awaited for December is James Cameron’s Avatar. This $200m fantasy epic is his first directorial effort since Titanic 12 years ago. He’s keeping details under wraps, although has called it “the single most complex piece of film-making ever made”.

Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg are making their Tintin trilogy in the third dimension.

The big guns are embracing 3D, giving it the seal of approval, as Tim Burton directs Alice In Wonderland with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, while Robert Zemeckis follows Beowolf with a new version of A Christmas Carol, starring Jim Carrey as Scrooge.

“Everything’s better in 3D. Everything,” says Cameron. It’s yet to be seen whether audiences will follow him so enthusiastically into the third dimension.