During the last few years, the rising popularity of 3-D movie technologies has taken the film industry by storm. After the worldwide success of movies such as Avatar, critics, professors and moviegoers alike have debated the trend — and some want to bring it into Ohio University classrooms.
OU film professor Tom Hayes is involved with an initiative that might allow 3-D movie technology to enter the OU School of Film classrooms. The project, which he describes as ongoing and having many different avenues, would make OU the first university in the state to utilize this technology, Hayes said.
“People who are in the business of educating people to work in time-based media need to bring this into their curriculum,” Hayes said, adding that it might alter the curriculum slightly. “It’s going to require the development of entirely new pedagogies in order to bring people to the place where they can utilize this within their art.”
Hayes said he knew he wanted to bring the technology into the college when he noticed that several Ohio State football games had been filmed using 3-D technology. He said the technology is moving into the mainstream.
The reprisal of 3-D movies in the theaters also represents a new frontier for film, Hayes said.
“What was once a gag is now a true third axis for motion to take place within a motion picture,” said Hayes, who said he thinks 3-D movie consumers will soon no longer need glasses. “This technology’s moving very quickly. It’s driven with a profit quota, but in the art form, there’s a lot more to it than that.”
Zac Wells, a sophomore, said he learned about 3-D movies in his History of Film class. Wells said he thinks 3-D movies are often driven by the desire for financial profits.
“I feel like it’s used by the film industry to deal with the fact that people are watching more movies at home,” said Wells, who is studying film. “The movie industry needed something big, something new to bring people back, and I think that’s what this 3-D movie thing is all about.”
Wells said he is not personally a fan of 3-D movies such as Avatar, a science fiction film led by writer/director James Cameron’s breakthrough 3-D technology that became the highest-grossing film ever in 2009.
“I just find it distracting when you’re really trying to focus on the story or the characters,” Wells said.
Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert also criticized 3-D movies on his website.
“No artist who can create these images is enhancing them in any way by adding the annoying third dimension,” Ebert wrote in his review of Tim Burton’s 3-D version of Alice in Wonderland.
National Amusements movie theaters have seen an increase in 3-D movie sales during the past few years, spokesperson Rachel Lulay wrote in an e-mail. The movie theater chain doubled the amount of its digital 3-D screens during the past year in order to account for the growing popularity.
“It all starts with the presentation, which can only be experienced on 3-D screens at movie theaters,” Lulay wrote. “The advances in digital technologies in the movie theaters continue to provide something you cannot experience in the home.”
The theaters typically charge between $3 and $4.50 extra for a 3-D ticket, Lulay wrote.
Regardless of the price, Hayes said he thinks 3-D is literally bringing movies into new dimensions.
“This thing really is creating a space for motion picture to operate, instead of a screen for it to operate on,” Hayes said. “It’s sort of the difference between flat art and sculpture.”
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