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editor’s note Feel-good stereo 3D By RANDI ALTMAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF raltman@postmagazine.com important ways to ensure this growth continues is to make sure the experience leaves the audience wanting to come back as opposed to wanting to toss their popcorn. Because once someone walks out queasy, it’s unlikely they’ll be back. Dennis Berardi of Toronto’s Mr. X has two stereo 3D films under his belt, and in this new and evolving world, that’s a lot. He says audience comfort level was first and foremost on the mind of the filmmakers he worked with on Resident Evil: Afterlife (as VFX supervisor) and Tron: Legacy (as one of several studios). He’s currently work- ing as VFX supe on Three Musketeers 3D. “Half the battle of stereoscopic work is mak- M ing sure you aren’t breaking some of the funda- mental rules, which make the audience experi- ence really uncomfortable.We spend a lot of times looking at bad 3D in terms of our internal takes and sometimes we can’t put our finger on why it’s so uncomfortable, so we push some- thing back and make it easier on the eyes and it plays better.” He says a lot of it is trial and error.“What we did with [director] Paul W.S.Anderson on Afterlife was we generally blocked everything on the left POST SCRIPT New business: 3D stereo conversion I By MARC LOFTUS SENIOR EDITOR mloftus@postmagazine.com nner-D is a new 3D stereo conversion studio that just completed its first job,Weinstein Company’s Piranha 3D.The studio (www.inner- d.com) managed the 35mm 2D-to-3D conver- sion process, as well as first pass color grading and finishing for the film.At press time, Inner-D was getting ready to move into space in North Hollywood, where founder Grant Boucher says they’ll be able to handle conversion on as many as four features at a time. Boucher initially founded the company with a partner, but the two split over differences on the way to best achieve a stereo conversion. The setback sent the Inner-D team back to the drawing board, where they were tasked with revamping their conversion process to achieve better results.This meant scrapping all of the work they had done on Piranha 3D to date and starting over.That was back in March, but they still managed to deliver the film in June using their Reali-D process. “We thought about it from a 3D perspec- tive,” says Boucher,“and looked at why it was not working, and why people were doing it this 2 Post • September 2010 any new feature films — 3D and live action — are being released in stereo 3D these days, and one of the most eye in monoscopic to make sure we were on the right page with our story points. Once I had a basic and creative blocking approved on the 2D level I would then do a layout in 3D and get that approved as well, and once we had that we’d then start to move into final lighting, final comp.” He likens it to a minefield.“You don’t want to get too far along before making these decisions in terms of dimensionality of a shot.We were cer- tainly surprised when we saw some of the shots on the big screen, it was a bit of a reality check, so we made sure we were getting layouts approved on the big screen with the director having input on the dimensional aspect of every shot. That added a whole level and decision and creative cycle back and forth approvals that we don’t usu- ally have in a traditional cycle.” Did they do a lot of throwing stuff at the screen in Resident Evil: Afterlife? “We weren’t very aggressive with the 3D because we didn’t want to make it uncomfortable for the audience, but there are some shots where we just went for it and threw an ax at them and you have people duck- ing.We had planes coming through frames.” He sums up by saying the 3D experience in Af- terlife is really big,“like a ride.” For more on Berardi and his work on Afterlife, see our “VFX for Films” feature on page 26. EDIT ORIAL RANDI ALTMAN Editor-in-Chief (516) 797-0884 raltman@postmagazine.com MARC LOFTUS Senior Editor (516) 376-1087 mloftus@postmagazine.com KEN MCGORRY Consulting Editor mcgorry@optonline.net CHRISTINE BUNISH Film& Video RON DICESARE Audio BOB PANK European Correspondent bob.pank@virgin.net DAN RESTUCCIO West Coast Bureau dansweb451@aol.com IAIN BLAIR Film MICHAEL VIGGIANO Art Director mviggiano@postmagazine.com AD VER TISING MARI KOHN National Sales Manager (818) 291-1153 cell: (818) 472-1491 mkohn@postmagazine.com LISA BLACK Sales Manager 877-249-7678 lisab@postmagazine.com KEITH KNOPF Production Director (818) 291-1158 CHRIS SALCIDO Account Manager (818) 291-1144 csalcido@copprints.com CUSTOMER SERVICE 620 West Elk Ave, Glendale, CA 91204 csr@postmagazine.com (800) 280 6446 opt 2 (publishing), opt 1 (subscriptions) way.They are over separating things and making some mistakes, in my opinion, in what 3D is supposed to be.” Inner-D uses off-the-shelf tools to pull off the conversion — After Effects and Nuke.They also use Assimilate’s Scratch in their stereo work- flow, but Boucher says it’s their approach as VFX experts that really makes the process work. “We used two off-the-shelf, major composit- ing packages that everyone knew how to use, and that allowed us to hire all sorts of people — visual effects, rotoscoping, compositing.” The process relies heavily on rotoscoping.“There is some proprietary plug-in stuff that we are developing to streamline the process,” he notes, “but it’s an approach and a process.” The momentum from Piranha 3D is giving the new operation a boost, and the studio is already in talks with the Weinstein Company about future work.With one film now in the can, Boucher feels confident that their Reali-D process will attract more work.“No one was going to take us 100 percent seriously until we delivered our first film.” www.postmagazine.com REPRINTS Reprints (781) 255-0625 • (818) 291-1153 LA SALES office: 620 West Elk Avenue, Glendale, California 91204 (800) 280-6446 WILLIAM R. 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