[BY NICK DAGER, IndieFilm3D]

The first International Real 3D Contents Technologies Forum opened May 12 in Seoul with great fanfare. Hosted by the Korea Creative Content Agency and organized by the Korea Real 3D Contents Producers Association, this forum was held for two days in Seoul and Busan. Many leading manufacturers and 3D experts from America and China were present along with 300 distinguished guests to see the flow of the 3D market as well as its technological development.

Pictured, left to right, Xiaolin Yan, chairman of C3D; Kim Tae-sub, chairman of KDC Group; Christopher Crescitelli, founder of 3DFF.

Before the forum opened, Kim Tae-sub, chairman of KDC and the Korea Real 3D Contents Producers Association delivered a keynote speech. Chairman Kim said, “3D is not new anymore and there are some obstacles to overcome with 3D. In order to develop the industry, I personally think standardization of 3D is needed the most, along with creative storytelling and human respected technologies.” He said that with the integrated standard, Korea, China and America should work together to develop the 3D industry and it is very meaningful that Korea leads the first international solidarity.

Christopher Crescitelli, founder of the 3D Film and Interactive Festival and CEO of the Dream Factory Studio said, “We are here to mandate that you create only high quality and entertaining 3D content that can be enjoyed by all markets and people around the globe.” He continued by saying, “This forum will feature informative and inspirational discussions and explorations into this amazing new 3D industry, which aims to continue its pattern of growth and prosperity for everyone involved in its successful delivery and execution to all platforms.”

Xiaolin Yan, chairman of China 3D Industry Association said, ” Korea, China, and America needs to work closely for 3D content technologies, and he also wished that the forum be crowned with complete success with the 3D content technologies in Korea.”

Meanwhile, the kick off ceremony for Global Real 3D Association carried on. This international solidarity is composed of three countries, Korea, China and America and those three countries are expected to work closely for sharing technical information and establishing a standard in 3D.  Later on, about eight other nations such as, Japan, Germany, and England are expected to join the Global Real 3D Association.

Prominent speakers at the forum included Alex Cho, vice chairman of the Korea Real 3D Contents Producers Association, Hu Bo, president of Shandong Miracle Pictures Canada Longevity Intl. Enterprise Group, Paul Taylor, stereoscopic producer and David Franks, stereographer of Stereo D.

Cho talked about the manufacturing technology and trends of stereoscopic 3D content. He explained all the basic information about producing 3D content and related technology trends. Vice president Cho said, “The standardization on 3D content is urgently needed.” He also strongly suggested that existing filmmakers and writers are required to learn about 3D production technologies for 3D content development.

President Hu Bo, stressed the cooperation between Korea, China and America. “Korea has wonderful hardware, China has a big market, and America, Hollywood has contents. We need to work together for 3D content development.” He continued, “I think Korea has a bright future ahead in 3D content development.” He also suggested to Korea that to produce creative content in many different languages is the key for Korea to develop its 3D industry.

Taylor talked about Overview of 3D Production. The question that people frequently ask to him is “Do you think 3D is going to stick around this time?” His answer is not surprisingly, yes. For so long, 3D was a very lonely business as it comes and goes. However, he thinks it will be different this time due to the financial commitment, which we didn’t have before. “3D should resonate with images and storytelling to create a powerful and immersive feeling unlike any audiences have ever experienced before,” he concluded.

Lastly, Franks had a presentation about stereo 3D editing and post-production. “I don’t personally think every content will be produced in 3D but, 3D will offer lots of variety and fun to audiences.” He also said that delivering the image realistically and comfortably to the viewers is the key in 3D post-production. For better work, production, editing, visual effects, depth balancing and mastering for deliverables are things to care about.

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[by John Merli, Digital Content Producer]

[Story submitted by Rob Scott]

The writing was on the wall — or rather, drawings and artifacts were on the walls of the historic caves of southern France — in the latest project from acclaimed documentarian Werner Herzog. The first major documentary shot in 3D, Cave of Forgotten Dreamspremiered in theaters in 30 U.S. markets in early May. It will eventually air on The History Channel.

The inspiration for the documentary stems from an article published in The New Yorker that caught the eye of the film’s producer, Erik Nelson, who, with Herzog, took advantage of unprecedented French government-sanctioned access to the renowned Chauvet-Pont-de-d’Arc cave art discovered in 1994 and dating back some 32,000 years.

“I immediately thought it would be a good subject for a Werner Herzog film,” Nelson says, “without knowing anything about Werner’s interest in the subject, and was later surprised to discover his similar passion for cave art.” As it turns out, in an aura of serendipity, Herzog himself vividly recalls first seeing cave art, in a book in a storefront window as a child. After more than half a year of working odd jobs, he saved up enough money to buy the book with a picture of a horse from the Lascaux caves on it.

Thus, the award-winning documentarian of such acclaimed films asThe Wrath of God, Grizzly Man and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans required little coaxing to pursue Cave as his next cinematic mission — after all, the Chauvet Cave contains some of the oldest examples of human art ever discovered — but deciding how to capture it was entirely another matter.

Herzog had never been a big fan of three-dimensional imaging — and, generally speaking, still isn’t. But for this project, producer Nelson thought differently. “I felt this subject really demanded the use of 3D,” he says. “It was more a question of, How could we possibly produce it without using 3D? We’re taking the audience into a very limited space where normally they cannot go themselves, and so it was mandatory for me that we take them there as effectively as possible.”

Nelson wound up taking Herzog to the movies to see the James Cameron 3D blockbuster Avatar, and while Herzog did not become a big fan of the sci-fi adventure itself, Nelson says the filmmaker did recognize the added value that the 3D process could bring to certain rare projects.

Difficult Shoot Environment
Because of the physically restrictive shooting environment and a list of protocols the crew had promised to follow — which forbid typical heat emissions from heavy lighting, for example, and greatly restricted shooting hours — Herzog, cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger and the rest of the crew had their work cut out for them.

“The first time we entered the cave, we had to shoot right away. There was no scouting beforehand,” Zeitlinger explains. “Werner Herzog was the only one from the crew who had seen the cave, a few months earlier. We carried this clumsy mirror rig that had proven itself over several commercials in studio conditions, but after a few meters from the entrance to the cave, we decided to leave it behind because it was not possible to squeeze it into the narrow tunnel.” The smallest cameras available that could provide 2K resolution were Silicon Imaging SI-2K units, he says.

“Since we had only a few hours for the whole film to shoot, we had to shoot no matter what,” says Zeitlinger. “Werner said, ‘Take gaffer tape, some glue or something, [and] put the cameras side by side and let’s go.’ But after a moment Werner handed me two [Manfrotto] Magic Arms. I ripped the cameras out of the mirror rig and fixed them side by side on the Magic Arms. Ten minutes later we started to shoot the secret paintings of the cave. I shot from the hip without a viewfinder. We skipped the complicated alignment of the 3D cameras and fixed it later, at night, with the help of CineForm.”

The 3D aspect required other makeshift solutions. “We found a local [blacksmith] who milled an aluminum bar with several holes and slots so we could mount the cameras at least at the same horizontal level side by side,” says Zeitlinger. “The angulations and the intraocular distance could be [adjusted] easily and quickly by loosening one of the screws before every shot. I was flexible for every distance and every focal length, and very quickly got the feeling for the right adjustment without any complicated formulas and calculations. The next day we mounted two GoPro cameras on the new bar, [but] no frame lock was possible,” Zeitlinger says.

In order to get the side-by-side lenses closer, Zeitlinger turned one of the cameras upside down. Later, he says, they discovered the cameras used rolling shutters, which caused deformed objects in panning shots and other movements. Also, the motion artifacts were different in the left- and right-eye shots. “So we called on Kaspar Kallas of DigitalSputnik in Estonia to try to solve that problem with a software solution. In the end, they dealt with the moving objects manually in every frame,” Zeitlinger says.

Skybot to the Rescue
Some of the most impressive shots in the documentary, which were mistaken by some film reviewers as “soaring crane shots,” were the result of the latest generation of “skybot,” courtesy of Jonathan Watts at British Technical Films. “We had almost finished building the skybot prototype — a flying hexacopter camera platform — at the beginning of the shoot in France. And since it might be useful, it went in the van with the rest of the kit,” Watts says. “The idea was to design and build a small and highly stable radio-controlled flying machine around a camera, rather than trying to stick a camera on something that could fly.”

The result, says Watts, was a three-armed hexacopter giving a 120-degree view between the arms — with no blades above the camera lens to flicker shadows across the lens. Chris Watts, Jonathan’s son, mounted a pair of GoPro cameras on the skybot with a bent piece of aluminum and some industrial-strength Velcro, and gave it a go. “Although the results were not completely clean due to the crude mount, the images were very different from anything anyone was expecting,” says the elder Watts. The film opens and closes with skybot footage.

“3D is challenging at times, without trying to do it inside a dark hole in a cliff somewhere in France,” Watts says.

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