Samsung Wednesday night pulled out the big guns in its push to market its new 3D television sets. The Black Eyed Peas gave an unannounced concert in New York's Times Square, and the event was filmed in 3D by none other thanAvatar director James Cameron. He's arguably the man who has done the most to elevate 3D to new heights.
Following the concert, Cameron sat down with USA TODAY to talk all aspects of 3D, including its potential in the home, converting Titanic to 3D, and the possible availability of Avatar3D on Blu-ray. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Question: 3D TVs are coming out around the time that Avatarhas made a splash. What was the film's impact on the 3D TV market?
Answer: Avatar is a culmination of a wave. Avatar had a part to play in (promoting 3D) and so did a number of other filmmakers, especially (DreamWorks Animation CEO) Jeffrey Katzenberg. Our role over the last five or six years has been convincing (movie theaters) to get their infrastructure in place for the films that we were creating.
Q: The infrastructure is still not quite there right?
A: We now need the second wave. We had more than enough for Avatar and more than enough for Alice In Wonderland(another new movie shown in 3D). But now you're going to have film coming upon film coming upon film.
We've demonstrated that the 3D market is an extremely lucrative market and this is not a fad, this is not something that is going to go away. It's going to be interesting because (3D) TVs are going to change things yet again. But the TVs are going to take awhile to catch up with the marketplace because there isn't enough content.
The (consumer electronics) companies have created almost the reverse problem that we had with movies. With movies, we were generating the content but the screens weren't there. With the home, we've got the screens available and people are going to buy them because they're future-proofing. If they're going to buy a 55- or 65-inch monitor they want to make a decision that they're going to feel good about three or four years from now. But right now we've got a content gap.
It can't be filled by movies, because we can't make them fast enough. So its going to have be filled by live production or near-live production.
Q: How much of the lack of 3D content is an economic issue?
A: (Producing live 3D television) is very inexpensive. Figure the cost of a production, whether a sporting event or music event, the incremental cost of shooting in 3D versus 2D is almost lost in the noise of that budget. You get a significant uptick in the cost of production when you're doing it with visual effects.
Q: Does 3D and the success of Avatar change the way movies are financed?
A: You know, everybody is an overnight expert. They think, "what was the takeaway lessons from Avatar? Oh you should make more money with 3D." They ignore the fact that we natively authored the film in 3D, and decide that what we accomplished in several years of production could be done in an eight week (post-production 3D) conversion with Clash of the Titans.
If people put bad 3D in the marketplace they're going to hold back or even threaten the emerging of 3D. People will be confused by differences in quality.
The (consumer electronics) companies need to do the same thing. They need to say, "if were going to associate ourselves with certain kinds of content, that content has to not make our (3D televisions) look bad." Because the audience doesn't know the difference -- when they put on the glasses on, they don't know if the problem is in the glasses, the TV or the actual way in which the stereo space is managed by the producers of the film.
Q: As a filmmaker, do you have to think differently about making a 3D movie because the TVs are coming out?
A: No. There are a number of myths that have been deleterious to the progress of 3D and one of them is that you generate different 3D for different size displays. If you were going to make content for something the size of an iPhone, you might want to push the stereo space a little bit more. But generally speaking you don't.
In any case, it's not possible to author a movie with one stereo space for cinema and one for a home screen.
Q: You own several 3D patents. Are you going to license them?
A: Depending on who our strategic alliances are with, we'll either put out our (intellectual property) and make it available for licensing or put it into a pool or whatever it is, or we'll be in the suing people business for a long time. We figured this stuff out empirically six or seven years ago and we patented it. If people try to do it the way we've done it on Avatar they'll get a phone call.
Q: Are there different skills in making a 3D movie compared to a 2D one?
A: Mauro Fiore won the Academy Award for cinematography for Avatar shooting in HD and stereo. He had never shot in stereo before. He had a week of testing, he figured it out, and he shot a movie and won an Academy Award. So while there is a learning curve, its not a steep or prohibitive learning curve.
Q: Do you think there will be a big variation of the quality of 3D TV sets?
A: The sets I've seen have all looked pretty good. I think the real issue is going to be getting content to the screens.
Q: Should the existing film catalog be converted to 3D?
A: If it's done well. I think it should be driven by the artist. IfStar Wars gets converted into 3D I think George (Lucas) should do it. If Terminator gets converted into 3D, I should do it.
Q: How about an older movie, such as The Wizard of Oz?
A: That gets into an interesting area. At that point the people that own the library have the right to do it, particularly if they own the rights to all media.
At least in the near term, that it won't be economically feasible to start converting old episodes of MASH to 3D because it won't look good. If you use some automated process or some cost-effective process for that type of programming its going to look like crap. It's like colorization looked like crap.
Q: How do converted films look?
A: It's never going to be as good as if you shot it in 3D, but think of it as sort of 2.8D.
Q: How long does it take?
A: They're converting Clash of the Titans in eight weeks. But I'm guessing six months to a year to do it right. We're targeting spring of 2012 for the release (of a 3D version of Titanic), which is the 100 year anniversary of the sailing of the ship.
Q: Will consumers accept 3D TV in the home?
A: I think they'll accept it. The incremental cost is not that high. People are loving 3D and seeking out the premium experience of 3D. The big question mark is the content.
Q: How is Avatar doing overseas?
A: You'd be surprised at the way it played out. In France over 50% of screens were in 3D. In Russia, it was like 60%. Some of these international markets have shot up much faster than in the domestic marketplace. We made over $100 million in Russia, 80% of that in 3D.
Q: Will people will go to the theater once there's 3D in the home?
A: There's been a pendulum swing back to the cinema. And I think 3D was a big part of it. What will really be interesting as it plays out is how much having high quality 3D in the home will being to subsequently erode that, if it does? (In a theater) you can't pause, multitask, picture-in-picture talk to your friends while the movie is playing. You're submitting to the power of the movie. As a filmmaker I want your attention.
Q: When is Avatar coming out in 3D on Blu-ray?
A: We're not officially announcing it right now but I'm hoping for fall. The wildcard is that we might be re-releasing the movie this fall. It's kind of gotten stomped out (in theaters) because of Alice in Wonderland. The word we're getting back from exhibitors is we probably left a couple of million dollars on the table as a result. The question is the appetite still going to be there after the summer glut of movies. We're going to assess that. We're talking about maybe adding in additional footage and doing something creative.
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