The rise and fall (and rise?) of 3-D

Current writing on 3-D tends towards the 'why won't it die?' camp, as if 3-D is some kind of horror / sci-fi monster that never dies, just lies dormant until someone finds the money to fund the inevitable sequel.

The normal riposte to such claims is that audiences are still going to see 3-D, so it must still have some level of popularity among cinemagoers.

Well, if you're anti-3-D (and agree with the likes of Mark Kermode, Roger Ebert, David Mitchell and, more recently, Edgar Wright), then this week the New York Times had some welcome stereoscopic relief for you: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/business/media/30panda.html?_r=2&ref=movies.

In one sense, it is like every article on 3-D: there is a reference to 3-D as a novelty attraction (3-D is 'gimmicky'), there is a subtle reference to the technology's (limited) links to specific blockbusters and genres (3-D is sci-fi / horror / juvenilia), and there is a reliance on U.S. box office statistics to 'prove' that 3-D is no longer a success. Specfically, here, that Pirates of the Caribbean 4 did made 47% of its money in 3-D ticket sales, while Kung Fu Panda 2 made only 45%).

Yet, if we pause and think about those numbers, they also reveal that almost 50% of cinema audiences are still watching new movies in 3-D in their first weekends on release (which is what the figures are actually counting, not full release stats). And that in itself is quite impressive because, although the ratio of 3-D ticket money is less than, say, Avatar levels, Avatar had no competition for those 3-D screens. With Pirates 4, Thor, Jung Fu Panda 2 and others all competing for a limited number of 3-D screens (3-D cinema screens still only account for a 1/3rd of screens worldwide), then the % of 3-D admissions for 1st week box office is likely to fall, film on film. (as more films enter the marketplace)

So, it may be a bit too soon to be using this as conclusive evidence that we should all jump on the '3-D is over' bandwagon.

This is particularly true as the article also reveals that the overseas market for 3-D is significantly stronger than the U.S. one - Screen Digest reported earlier this year that 3-D's continued success is likely to be fuelled by non-U.S. markets. Which is something you would hope the New York Times would remember, seeing as they published another article on 3-D a few days earlier that discussed some of those ideas: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/the-circle-of-life-3-d-movies-rated-g-through-xxx/.

Now, admittedly that's also a piece about the growth of 3-D pornography - specifically the impressive box office success of Hong Kong period drama 3-D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstacy - but it does point to the problems of using box office statistics to prove or disprove anything useful.

(3-D, pornography and representations of women is a whole other blog post that I'll try and get round to later this month)

So, it remains too early to call time on 3-D film. The figures do show a dip, and some suggest a progressive downward trajectory film-by-film - and that could be more worrying, although their cumulative take would also need to be taken into account. But most figures are only the U.S. box office. International returns (at the moment) seem to tell a different story.

And, lest we forget, this isn't a cinema-only process anymore - and (as I've said before) the expansion of 3-D TV, Blu-Ray and the 3DS may end up being the real game-changers for stereoscopic acceptance, not cinema...

(with thanks to Daithi and Michael for pointing those links out to me)

BBC's Outcasts cast out?

A couple of weeks ago, the new BBC science-fiction series Outcasts, was moved from its prime-time Monday 9pm slot to a post-10 O'Clock News slot on Sunday nights. This scheduling demotion suggests (once again) the problems of trying to launch a new SF show on British television (or, at least, one - unlike Doctor Who and Primeval - that doesn't rely on a family demographic). The assumption seemed to be that the show, an expensive co-production, just wasn't bringing in high enough audiences, and had been put out to pasture, to live out the last three weeks of its existence in the hinterlands of the schedule.

And, at one level, I can see why that decision was made. From the outset, Outcasts has been a hard show to love. In some instances, a hard show to watch, with risible dialogue, plotting, pace and scope. Yet, I find myself tuning in, week after week, and I remain unsure why that is.

I'd like to say it's simply because I'm a fan of SF, but the show seems unsure whether to embrace its generic roots. For all that this is a show about the future colonisation of the planet Carpathia (christened thus by the settlers - a reference to the RMS Carpathia, which rescued survivors from the Titanic, but also presumably to the Carpathian mountains, near Dracula's home) very little of the show seems science fiction-y. This is a future where Earth may have been destroyed, where interstellar travel, anti-matter drives, human cloning and 'quantum computers' are in existence, but DJs still play vinyl, guns fire metal projectiles known as bullets, and everyone seems to get their storage units from IKEA.

I often wonder if the show is ashamed of its SF roots. The first few episodes had the requisite visual effects of a spaceship, escape pods and things burning up on entry into the atmosphere, but its emphasis remained very much on the day-to-day soap opera stories of the humans who are already on the planet, with their Gap jeans and home-made hooch. Eliding SF might have been a deliberate aim, to attract a wider audience who are unsure about anything with the tag 'SF,' but it serves to brand the show as uncertain about its own identity. Casting Jamie Bamber ('Apollo' from the new Battlestar Galactica) for a 1-episode role seemed to be a knowing nod towards SF fans, but the rest of the cast are more known for non-genre fare in shows such as Spooks (Hermione Norris) and Ashes to Ashes (Daniel Mays). (okay Ashes to Ashes was kind of SF, but ultimately more nostalgia and fantasy-led)

(visually, the show owes a lot to both of those predecessors and to Survivors - all 3 Kudos-produced - with a fast-paced but ultimately bland mise-en-scene occasionally enlivened by the vistas afforded by its South African locations)

As the show has progressed, it has continued to avoid the visual 'trappings' of SF - but has found ways to introduce more thematic elements. Debates over science/religion have been key since episode 1, alien doppelgangers have loitered on the fringes of the story (before becoming central in episode 6), technology is both unreliable (clones went 'bad', ships burn up when entering the atmosphere) and predictably everyday (although Hermione Norris's memory scoop device has strangely vanished from the show), and there has been a continued uncertainty over identity (both around body-snatcher aliens and people with secret backgrounds - such as Cass) and trust.

Even with this, however, I'm uncertain why I continue to watch. Seven episodes in, each has been dominated by cliched and predictable storytelling - which, I'll admit, the genre has been guilty of in the past - and, at times, has felt more like a crime show than a SF one (the focus on cops Cass and Fleur - perhaps the most appealing of the recurring cast - has helped with that). Questions remain unanswered (and will likely remain that way):

1. If there are 7000 people on Carpathia, why do we only ever see about 10 or so milling around in the streets? (yes, budget is an issue, but for a story with the kind of scope this is going for, seeing the same 8 people isn't enough - it needs background characters)
2. The inhabitants have really forgotten about losing their children to a disease, and about the ACs who apparently caused it?
3. Everything on the planet happens within a half hour stroll of the city?

Yet there are hints each week that keep me coming back:
- I love the look of the colony, made up of huge metal cargo containers that have become people's homes, places of work - the spaceship squatting in the middle of the colony is also interesting, but underused - another way the show tries to ignore generic elements
- I like the relationship of Cass and Fleur, even if the dialogue is tortuous at times (the writer previously wrote for Spooks - a show I enjoy and happily defend - but the melodramatic and camp tone that works there doesn't transfer over well to this show)
- Episode 5, with the original astronaut, toyed with my ideas of what the show could do (moving beyond Fort Haven, largely ditching the clone storyline - by far the most tired elements - ignoring Hermione Norris and her annoying daughter) and seemed to be introducing a time travel element a la Lost... (although it has moved away from this in eps 6 and 7 - so maybe Fleur and Cass go back in time, have a kid, and then die on the beach in the past... except why the references to them as Adam and Eve....)

In fact, Lost might be the show that this best reminds me of. Frustrating, annoying, seemingly made up on the fly (yet with hints of an overarching narrative), about a bunch of castaways who don't get on (but are part of something bigger), with their own version of 'the Others' in the ACs, and which, despite having a whole planet/island to play with, never seems to move more than a mile from the fort/beach.

There is something here. I don't love Outcasts, but I do care for it a lot. Unfortunately, despite all this potential, the move to Sunday nights would suggest that, no matter what I think, tonight's final episode will be just that. Final.

3-D and censorship (sorry, classification)

Just wanted to recommend a blog written by my fellow UEA colleague Daithí Mac Síthigh about the BBFC's problems with classifying 2-D and 3-D versions of the same film (you can find the original blog here: http://www.lexferenda.com/17012011/3d-or-not-3d/)

It reminded me of a similar problem in the 1950s, when the Breen Office in America (and the BBFC in Britain) held meetings about the new technology, because what was apparently acceptable in 2-D might be 'highly revealing when seen in depth.' Their main issue appeared to be the representation of female figures and monstrous creatures in the 3-D films... and some of the same arguments appear to be coming round again now...

No 3-D for the Royal Wedding

The recent announcement that there would be no Sky 3-D cameras in Westminster Abbey for the royal wedding was met with absolutely no gnashing or wailing of teeth. Perhaps Sky had hoped the nation would rise up with one voice and demand to see the wedding bouquet thrown in full stereoscopic effect... but it didn't happen. There was barely a ripple of discontent, even from the most royal-loving of newspapers.

In one sense, however, it is a bit of a shame. Buckingham Palace should have reflected on their history of stereoscopic achievements:
1. Queen Victoria was one of the first stars of stereoscopic photographs (demonstrated at the Great Exhibition of 1851; Victoria was also one of the best-selling stereoscopic images through the 1860s and beyond);
2. Queen Elizabeth (the current one, so I or II, depending on whether you are Scottish or not) had her coronation filmed in 3-D, as well as a variety of 1953 visits (to the Derby for a flutter, to Edinburgh, and to the City of London) - released as Royal Review in 1953.
3. Princess Margaret had her own special 3-D glasses made for her ('American-style with gold frames, adjustable plastic nose-pads, and decorative slender ear-pieces' according to the Daily Mirror) when she went to see Kiss Me Kate in February 1954
4. The Queen's private cinema on board the royal yacht Britannia, was specially built so it could be converted to show 3-D films.

Sky may have been hoping for a similar embracing of 3-D technology in 2011, but it wasn't to be...

The past, present and future of 3-D?

3-D has been in the news a lot recently. The Polaroid spectacles are annoying; the technology is restrictive; people are tired of having things thrown off the screen at them; story should be more important than technological gimmicks; 2-D versions are just as good as 3-D; this is just a knee-jerk novelty from an increasingly desperate Hollywood film industry. The arguments are repetitively familiar, with commentators like Mark Kermode and David Mitchell lining up to kick 3-D while it’s down.

Except it’s not down. It might not even be reeling. In fact, with major 3-D media conferences in Los Angeles, Asia and London; Sky's 3-D TV channel, the release of the Nintendo 3DS, the promotion of fashionable 3-D glasses, and a new wave of 3-D films coming to cinemas, 3-D might actually be growing in availability, if not perceived popularity. So is there a disconnect here between published opinion and popular acceptance? Could it be that people actually like 3-D, and want more of it rather than less?

If we start with film, the financial box office success of Avatar, Alice in Wonderland, and Toy Story 3-D has positioned digital stereoscopic technology as the apparent saviour of cinema. Yet recent statistics suggest that 3-D may not be as popular with audiences as box office takings state, implying that the 3-D bubble is artificially afloat because of the increased ticket prices and the cost of Polaroid spectacles, with actual audience numbers for each subsequent 3-D film since Avatar slowly inching downwards. With films like Clash or Alice being ‘converted up’ from 2-D rather than being designed and filmed for 3-D, it may be that the ‘game changing’ Avatar has actually changed very little. While it is too simple to make direct comparisons with the last commercial expansion of 3-D (a convention of pieces such as this), the 1953 example of House of Wax remains tempting. The major financial success of the period (dwarfing Bwana Devil), it encouraged film companies to rapidly convert existing productions into full or partial 3-D projects, with no real awareness or understanding of, for want of a better term, the 3-D aesthetic. As we are in the eye of this particular stereoscopic hurricane, it is too early to tell if Avatar is this generation’s House of Wax or The Jazz Singer (another problematic example, as synchronised sound took five to seven years to become dominant).

The conglomerate nature of the modern media industries, however, suggests that history is unlikely to repeat itself. In the 1950s, 3-D was designed to compete with other screen technologies: in 2010, computing, the Internet, home video and television are lined up to support corporate Hollywood. The Nintendo 3DS offers 3D without glasses; Internet sites are experimenting with anaglyph and sequential field videos; 3-D Blu-Ray releases are growing; while Sky’s 3-D television service promises to introduce 6 hours of unique 3-D content a week for British audiences. Initial uptake for the latter may be slow, but Sky has the ability to play the long game (the recent figures for HD uptake across Britain are evidence of that) - and the world premiere 3-D broadcast of Avatar for Christmas will help build that domestic audience.

So, rather than stick our heads in the sand, repeat the same tired 3-D arguments, and hope 3-D fails, should we instead hope for the success of 3-D? The technology contains the potential for something new and different, something aesthetically innovative: a true development in vision, rather than its current use in adding artificial depth to standard film narratives. The true test of 3-D is whether it can add something new, beyond the layers of imagery we are currently seeing (or not seeing, depending on your preference). The hope should be that 3-D is used to experiment: the 1950s produced a series of short British films that offer more original use of stereoscopic photography than most current 3-D films put together: yet they are rarely seen outside of the National Film & Television Archive. In rediscovering films like this, we can see new routes for 3-D composition and presentation, new possibilities that extend beyond Hollywood’s past, present or future applications.

Because, ultimately, the lesson learnt from the 1950s is that if 3-D fails, viewers rarely lose out. All 3-D films, television shows and computer games are transferable to 2-D viewing. But wouldn’t it be more interesting to see what 3-D can do, than sit back and wait for it to fall into this particular historical trap?

Disagreeing with Roger Ebert about 3-D

(apologies for the gap in service - I've been finishing off my book, Science Fiction Film: A Critical Introduction - due at all good bookshops in late 2011)

I've been planning on blogging about 3-D for a while now, but could never find the best route into the debate. I recently re-read Roger Ebert's piece from Newsweek (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/30/why-i-hate-3-d-and-you-should-too.html) and thought that might be a useful jumping off point.

Unlike Ebert, I don't hate 3-D films. In fact, I first viewed Monsters vs. Aliens, Streetdance 3-D and Coraline in 3-D, and think it added something to the experience of the film: it was used sparingly as a gimmick (though the 3-D CGI cucumber in the food fight scene in Streetdance 3-D may have been a step too far) and gave, for want of a better word, depth to emotional as well as spectacular scenes (the use of spatial layering between characters in both Streetdance and Monsters vs. Aliens was effective in suggesting isolation and/or estrangement, and recalled earlier 1950s 3-D work in It Came From Outer Space and Creature From the Black Lagoon).

I don't want all my films in 3-D, and I've yet to be convinced that I need television in 3-D (my brief experience of a Sony 3-D TV did not sell me on it as a home technology - and Sky's claim to be adding 6 hours of unique 3-D content every week from September seems to be mainly limited to 3-D football and Hollywood movies) but I think it is too early to reject the technology entirely.

But then, if you read Ebert's article, he doesn't hate 3-D films either, but hates the idea of it as a 'way of life for Hollywood, where it seems to be skewing major studio output away from the kinds of films we think of as Oscar-worthy. Scorsese and Herzog make films for grown-ups. Hollywood is racing headlong toward the kiddie market.'

And here, of course, is the meat of the argument - 3-D is simply the latest technological whipping boy for a standard critical (and cultural) distinction between good movies and bad movies. To Ebert, directors make adult 'proper' filmic fare, while studios produce juvenilia that will rot your brain. This is a well-rehearsed argument that most critics fall victim to at various points, often when faced with something that they cannot reconcile with their particular worldview. Personally, I don't object to a world where there are fewer films that aim for 'Oscar-worthy' and have the loftier goal of visual and aural entertainment. I think the world would be a better place if there were more Monsters vs. Aliens and fewer Oscar-bait bio-pics...

Ebert's rant (and he's not alone) returns us to previous debates about Hollywood's cultural dominance of the 'mass' audience, and the impact of other 'new' technologies. Ebert rails against the fact that classic films didn't need 3-D, because they engaged our imagination. Yet Avatar engaged people's imaginations and produced debates around environmentalism, the Iraq war, gender issues, or the colonial mindset (Ebert does see Avatar as an exception here, but I think it inaccurate to say that all other 3-D films are mindless and cannot stimulate discussion).

But picking at the details is less important than realising that what Ebert is railing against is the 'younger Hollywood' that has lost 'the instinctive feeling for story and quality that generations of executives possessed.' This smacks of Ebert rejecting the shock of the new for the safety of the old and reliable, but with the proviso that if an established 'artist/auteur' (Scorcese, Herzog) joins in with this 3-D thing, then they might be able to wrestle something worthwhile from this base cultural form. Proper films have something to say, and don't need technical trickery to say it.

Everyone else is doomed to have spears jabbed in their faces, or have to duck to avoid CGI cucumbers.

Saying goodbye (dammit) to 24...for now, at least

It wasn’t the best of seasons (takes a lot to beat seasons 1 and 4). It wasn’t the worst of seasons (that dubious honour goes to season 6). But there was a real energy about the last few episodes that dragged it back from the edge. Watching the final two episodes was a strange experience, however, for its revelations about what the series did best, and for more than a few last frustrating reminders of when it failed gloriously.

The second last hour (2pm-3pm) was another strong entry, with Jack continuing on his one-man campaign to kill anyone involved in the conspiracy / death of Renee Walker. In many ways, this episode brought the entire eight seasons full circle, with Jack once again in the position of having a (former) U.S. president in his sniper scopes. Harking back to season 1, when Jack was blackmailed into almost assassinating (future) president Palmer, there was a brief moment where I thought he was actually going to shoot Logan...and then, obviously, the show backed away from that ledge and (in the final episode) went down a more familiar, get the electronic MacGuffin to wherever it needs to be to.

The strangest thing about the last episode (3pm-4pm) was that most of it wasn’t actually about Jack Bauer. He largely sat the episode out, either laid up in an ambulance or in the back of a kidnapper’s van, leaving a bunch of fictional politicians to tie up the final narrative loose ends. It was the series’ last chance to put another U.S. President through the ringer, as President Taylor finally remembered that (up until episode 14 or 15) she did have morals and principles. 24 has, traditionally, introduced character-shifting decisions that had little or no relevance to where the character started off, but this last minute (Jack-influenced) conversion at the UN was up there with Wayne Palmer’s presidential meltdown in season 6. Everyone in the 24-verse KNOWS that Charles Logan is a lying piece of slime, it’s not like it’s a big secret: so Alison Taylor’s decision to trust him was just the latest in a long line of 24 decisions that were necessary for dramatic purposes (and, I’ll be honest, I loved seeing Logan back and as bad as ever, so I’m willing to let them have this one) if not logical character ones.

But why was the final episode so Jack-lite? Fans knew that he wasn’t going to take out Logan and Subarov but, let’s be honest here, we also wanted the Wild Bunch psycho-revenge Jack suicidal slow-motion blaze-of-glory ending, didn’t we? (or was that just me?) Tagging on another ‘Chloe to the electronic rescue’ twist (that also failed once again to justify Cole Ortiz (Freddie Prinze Jr.)’s presence in a CTU windbreaker) felt like one final 24 cliche too many.

All that being said, however, the final moments of the last episode pulled victory from the jaws of defeat (although the less said about the last-minute rescue of Jack from more of 24’s patented dumb special forces guys the better). President Taylor did her best President Palmer (who had a similar phonecall with Bauer after helping Jack escape the authorities at the end of season 4), and then it was all down to the ultimate odd couple of Jack and Chloe. Having these two isolated, socially awkward individuals separated by distance but, as ever, connected by electronic means, reminded me that this was often the heart of 24’s drama. Jack, protecting his family one last time (until the movie). Chloe, unable to articulate herself properly and falling back on spiky retorts. I’ll admit to getting misty-eyed when Jack said he never thought it would be Chloe who’d be with him all this time. Chloe, unable to finally blurt out her feelings, falling back on technology, saying he needed to go before the authorities got there. Jack, silent, staring up at the camera, saying goodbye (although let’s not count the number of times he’s actually said goodbye in the last eight years). Chloe, shutting down the feed from the drone, so that Jack’s face pixellated, then disappeared into static.

With a proposed movie, the show was never going to have a slow-motion, Jack’s last stand, gun battle. Luckily, that pitch-perfect exchange between Jack and Chloe pulled 24 back to the quieter moments, and maybe that was the perfect way to pull the curtain over Jack Bauer’s television adventures, with him on the run, and Chloe, heartbroken and alone in a deserted CTU.