[By Wailin Wong, Chicago Breaking Business.com]

A group of students from Chicago’s Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy, a two-year digital media vocational school in the Loop, will be showing off 3D short films at the Tribeca Film Festival later this month as part of a new partnership with LG Electronics USA.

Like other manufacturers of 3D televisions and accessories, LG is eager to drive adoption of 3D from movie theaters to living rooms. One piece of the equation is greater availability of 3D content, which so far has mostly been limited to children’s films and James Cameron’s blockbuster “Avatar.”

Tribeca, the New York-based production company and institute behind the film festival, took a 50 percent interest in Flashpoint last year. LG is a major sponsor of the festival, which will celebrate its 10th year when it kicks off on April 20. LG spokesman John Taylor said the partnership with Flashpoint is the first of its kind for the electronics company.

Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed, but Taylor said LG provided 3D TV sets and glasses for the school, as well as funding to support production of the student films. The Flashpoint projects will be shown on LG screens installed throughout the festival, and several students will also be attending the festival and participating in events. The LG glasses, which are on the market, are similar to the ones worn in movie theaters. LG developed the glasses to be more lightweight and comfortable than the active shutter glasses made by other manufacturers of 3D products.

The emergence of 3D “is as revolutionary as when sound was introduced to cinema,” Flashpoint Dean Paula Froehle said at a Tuesday event at the school to announce the partnership. “It’s so prevalent that it has to be considered.”

One project involved 3D animation, with students making a short film where a swarm of moving colored globules came together to form the LG logo. Another project was led by Froehle, who took a small group of students to French Lick, Ind. in March to capture 3D footage of the Flying Wallendas, a famous high-wire and stunt performing group. Froehle has been following the Wallendas for seven years as part of a documentary project. The students worked with a professional film crew, shooting footage on 3D cameras. They were able to watch the footage on monitors that displayed the 3D image in real-time.

“It was such a complex rig,” said Brian Zwiener, 23, who is studying cinematography. “Once we had it set up and looked at it in the monitor, the effect was really cool.”

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[BusinessWire]

In what promises to be the 3D event of the season, Disney and XPAND 3D today announced a collaboration to show the World Premiere of Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides at Disneyland on the evening of May 7^th. The film, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, directed by Rob Marshall and starring Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane at the head of a star-studded cast, will debut at a charity screening for the Boys & Girls Club of America in eye-popping active 3D by way of XPAND 3D’s new INFINITY Large Screen System.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides captures all the fun, adventure and humor that ignited the franchise as Johnny Depp returns to his role of Captain Jack Sparrow in an action-packed adventure. When Jack crosses paths with a woman of his past (Penelope Cruz), he’s not sure if it’s love — or if she’s a ruthless con artist who’s using him to find the fabled Fountain of Youth. When she forces him aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship of the formidable pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane), Jack finds himself on an unexpected adventure in which he doesn’t know whom to fear more: Blackbeard or Angelica, with whom he shares a mysterious past.

Through a special arrangement, XPAND 3D will provide all guests with a pair of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN branded XPAND X103 Universal 3D glasses. XPAND 3D active glasses can be used at home with 3D televisions, with 3D-enabled projectors, with 3D-capable laptops and in all XPAND 3D cinemas across the US and throughout the world. The X103 active 3D glasses utilize a fast-switching, liquid crystal cell, know as “pi-cell”–the fastest 3D glasses in the world.

Commenting on the announcement, XPAND 3D Chief Executive Officer Maria Costeira noted: “The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise continues to be one of the world’s most captivating, enduring and commercially successful franchises in the entertainment business. We are very pleased to be involved in the premiere not least because of the great cause it is supporting but also because a film of this caliber requires the launch platform that XPAND active 3D technology uniquely provides. We congratulate Disney and the cast and crew on what is another great chapter in the Pirates of the Caribbeanstory.”

Echoing this sentiment, Lylle Breier, SVP Worldwide Special Events, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, said, “Pirates of the Caribbean in 3D is a new dimension in storytelling. We are pleased to collaborate with XPAND 3D to provide the World Premiere audience with a remarkably captivating movie experience using this highly advanced, deeply immersive technology.”

Using a patented controller, XPAND Infinity can support almost any screen size, shape and surface. Whether the screen is 300 feet or 30 feet wide, flat, curved, dome-shaped or even Cinerama format, XPAND Infinity will transform the theater into the finest 3D environment. An unlimited number of Infinity systems can be linked together to operate as a large-scale system.

For more information on XPAND 3D please visit www.xpand.me.