Tricart - 3D Filmmaking: Techniques and Best Practices for Stereoscopic Filmmakers

A visual book for the visual artist, 3D Filmmaking: Techniques and Best Practices for Stereoscopic Filmmakers provides a comprehensive overview of the theory, language, and methods behind stereoscopic 3D filmmaking, all in one package. Celebrated 3D filmmaker Celine Tricart explores every facet of the art, from the technical to the practical, including:

3D vision

History of 3D cinema

Stereoscopic basics and techniques

How to shoot in 3D

3D VFXs, animation in 3D, and 2D to 3D conversion

Live broadcast in 3D

3D viewing and projection

3D as a storytelling tool

Screenwriting for 3D

Working with a stereographer

3D storyboarding and previz

3D postproduction

Sound design in-depth

A must-read for any 3D filmmaker, producer, writer, or technician interested in the third dimension, 3D Filmmaking covers the history of the form, defines key 3D terms and places them into context, and offers lessons on using the medium as a visual storytelling tool, creating a perfect blend of concepts, practice, and history. Full color throughout, the book also includes a pair of 3D glasses for you to view the 3D images within, and each chapter features detailed color diagrams and examples in anaglyph 3D, as well as interviews with 3D visionaries like Jean Pierre Jeunet (Director, Am9;lie, Alien 4), Chris Sanders (Director, How to Train Your Dragon, The Croods), Demetri Portelli (Stereographer, Hugo), Phil McNally (Stereoscopic Supervisor, How to Train Your Dragon, Madagascar 4), Tim Webber (VFX supervisor, Gravity), Scott Farrar (VFX supervisor, the Transformers franchise), and Victoria Alonso (Stereoscopic Supervisor, Marvel Studios).

A companion website (www.routledge.com/cw/tri-cart) features links to useful resources and footage from 3D films.

Celine Tricart is a filmmaker and stereographer. Since 2008 she has been the stereographer behind more than 20 live 3D broadcasts, commercials, and documentaries, including the first French 3D film, Behind the Walls. Celine also served as a 3D Rig Technician on the 2014 box office hits Stalingrad and Transformers: Age of Extinction.

3D Filmmaking

Techniques and Best Practices for Stereoscopic Filmmakers

Celine Tricart

Foreword by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

I wish to thank all those who helped and supported me during the writing of this book.

In particular, thank you to all the interviewees who devoted considerable time to answer my questions and review my transcripts. Your passion for 3D is incredibly inspiring.

The origin of this book was a dissertation called Making a Film in 3D (2008) that I wrote at the end of my studies at the Ecole Nationale Suprieure Louis Lumire in Paris, France. Thank you to my thesis adviser Pascal Martin, who also helped me with this book, as well as Claude Bailbl.

I would also like to thank Matthew Blute for his help and the tens of hours spent helping me to translate this book from French to English, and Buzz Hays for proofreading this version.

I also want to thank Nick Urbom for his help, as well as my 3D mentors who guided me and supported me throughout my career as a stereographer and director: Yves Pupulin, Ray Zone, and Steve Schklair.

And finally, I warmly thank Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who, despite his busy schedule, has made himself available to answer my questions and to share his vision of 3D storytelling, as well as writing the Foreword.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet

People often ask me why I decided to shoot The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet in 3D. The answer is, I think I was looking for something different. I wanted to renew myself and face new challenges.

When I was a kid, I had a stereoscope, a View-Master. Still today, I have incredible memories of it; it was like a magic window for me. With the stereoscope there was a small projector that projected in 2D and helped me take my first steps as a filmmaker: I cut the disks, changed their order, and invented new stories while recording dialogues with friends. The projector would get very hot sometimes and give off a smell; its like my Prousts madeleine today.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet

As 3D came back into fashion in recent years, I remembered this object from my childhood, and I realized that all my films could have been in 3D: Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children, Alien Resurrection, Amelie, A Very Long Engagement, and especially MicMacs with its cartoony style. Therefore I decided to shoot Spivet in 3D, and I immediately spoke about it with the writer who loved the idea. In his book, there are plenty of diagrams and drawings in the margins that we retranslated in the film by placing them in depth, without being too gimmicky. An opportunity arose to play the out-of-the-screen effects in the service of narrative, like in Amelie where it was said at the time that the special effects were in the service of the poetry of the script.

I quickly realized that low-contrast images and long lenses are not worth it in 3D. I went to see a few 3D films and I tried to assimilate all the things that I thought worked or did not work. Seeing