3D Egg, Now The Chicken

Posted by Peter Parnham on Jun 18, 2010 in 3D, Tech | 0 comments

The first uptake of 3D by New Zealand production companies is most likely to be 3D cinema commercials to precede 3D features, according to Auckland post company Images & Sound.

Like many post production houses, Images & Sound have invested in 3D equipment and spent a lot of time getting themselves up to speed, knowing that at this stage there is no stereo footage to work with – aside from experiments and tests.

Still, wherever your local scene happens to be, unless there are local post houses to work with 3D material, there is no point in shooting  footage, or at least not in quality or quantity to create viable 3D television channels.

It’s that old chicken and egg.

Some post houses, in New Zealand anyway, have been in the right place at the right time to invest in 3D gear on the back of studio movies. Wellington’s Park Road Post (Avatar) and Auckland’s Digipost (Yogi Bear), for example.  

But those 3D studio features are few and far between, at any rate in this part of the world. This leaves the question of when and how the local industry will actually embrace the technology that everyone seems to be talking about now 3D capable television sets and Blu-ray players are seeping into retail stores.

According to New Zealand Herald reports even television events like the Rugby World cup will not be broadcast in 3D. 

It hasn’t stopped Images & Sound taking the plunge and investing, and now the wait for real footage begins.

This is where the cinema commercials come in. It might just be the sector to kick start 3D locally. They might be able to afford to shoot in stereo, they might be able to convince their clients of the novelty value, and they will have somewhere to show it so long as 3D movies keep coming.  

Fortunately there are some cameras that promise to bring a new level of practicality to the process of shoot stereo, and they are not far off. A pre-production stereo Panasonic camera was doing the rounds in Auckland a few days ago.  Production models are due to arrive in September.

Picture source: www.imagesandsound.co.nz