Ray Zone - 3diy: 3D Moviemaking on an Indy Budget

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Emerging digital toolsets are driving a wave of independent production of stereoscopic motion pictures. New 3D movies in every conceivable genre, from documentaries and avant-garde experiments to dramatic and humorous narratives, are being made by fiercely individual filmmakers all around the world. In their hands, the 3D film is evolving a new visual grammar for the motion picture screen.

On August 18, 2009, a stereoscopic showcase of short films was presented by the LA 3D Club at the Downtown Independent Theater in conjunction with the Downtown Film Festival of Los Angeles. The program was a stereoscopic showcase of short 3D motion pictures that had been curated by John Hart of the Stereo Club of Southern California; it featured award-winning entries from the six international 3D movie contests that had been held by the LA 3D Club Movie Division.

In this book, the makers of most of those 3D films talk about the toolsets they used to make them and their motivations for doing so. There are additional 3D filmmakers and inventors included who also display or discuss a wide array of strategies and tools for independent stereoscopic moviemaking. The 3D productions themselves run the gamut from film to digital and live action to CG or a mix of many elements. The primary consideration for inclusion in the book was actual production, from start to finish, of an original work as a 3D movie. Though a great variety of both old and new 3D filmmaking tools are discussed, what doesn't change in the process are the fundamental parameters for stereoscopic imaging and display. By examining the unique tools and strategies of these 3D filmmakers, it becomes evident that all of them are dealing with the fundamental challenge of creating what Lenny Lipton has called the binocular symmetries of stereoscopic cinema, which means creating two movies that are different only in respect to horizontal disparity. This concept will be discussed in greater detail later in the book.

Home movie machinery came into the home as early as 1897 in Great Britain, and still stereophotography had become a relatively popular practice by that time. In 1923, Kodak introduced their 16mm Cine-Kodak camera and projector, tripod, and screen at a price of $335. 3D moviemaking in the home, however, was very much a do-it-yourself (DIY) affair at this time.

In 1936, an ophthalmologist from Glendale, California, named Orrie E. Ghrist assembled a pair of 8mm cameras and projectors for 3D shooting; he subsequently wrote about them for Movie Makers Magazine. Ghrist interlocked the cameras on a custom twin-bar of his design and created a link between two projectors to make them run in sync. By the 1940s, Ghrist had interlocked a pair of 16mm movie cameras for 3D shooting.