[Philip Lelyveld comment: the story is about a new Russian native-3D production company and conversion house entering the US market]
[by Oleg Nikishenkov, themoscownews.com]
A group of US and Russian businessmen have set up a venture to bring Russian 3D technologies to Hollywood.
Leonard Nebons, a consultant and private investor, together with Mike Lane, a partner in the Los Angeles-based company 4Intertainment, and Oleg Stepanov, head of Russia’s 3DTV Vision, found each other last year when then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger visited the Russian capital.
“We had a meeting with Arnold Schwarzenegger at Spaso House and told him how much Russians love his movies, and that we could reissue his movies in Russia in 3D,” Nebons told The Moscow News in an interview.
Lane, a music marketing executive who has promoted such talents as Motley Crue, Blondie, Yes, Meat Loaf and The Cranberries, also got on board. His first Russian assignment was Fox Home Entertainment’s project to promote a new DVD electronic magazine business worldwide.
Quality issue
Nebons said that Schwarzenegger’s people were initially concerned about the quality of 3D movies produced in Russia, but they were soon persuaded it was no problem. “We checked movies made here together and they discovered that 3D in Russia was as good as in Hollywood,” Nebons said.
The films and cartoons were converted into 3D by Stepanov’s company. His portfolio includes BBC’s “Turtle, The Incredible Journey” and Russia’s “Belka and Strelka: Star Dogs”.
Stepanov has been working on developing 3D in Russia for the last five years. He told The Moscow News that he was offered a job in a joint venture between cable network NTV-Plus and Panasonic, who launched the first Russian 3D TV channel, but decided to focus instead on movie-making.
Conversion the key
“All 3D channels will face the problem of content and they’ll come to companies like ours,” Stepanov said. In the future 3D TV channels will have to convert a lot of old, classic movies if they want to avoid constantly repeating content, he said.
Electronics manufacturers hope to produce some 100 million 3D TV sets worldwide in the next three years, but these plans depend on there being enough 3D content. While the current average price for a 3D TV set in Russia is about $2,000, production of a TV movie and even conversion from 2D to 3D remains incredibly expensive and it takes long time to do it, Stepanov said.
The average 2D-3D conversion cost in Hollywood varies greatly, from $20,000 to $100,000 per minute of film, depending on the technical complexity of movie scenes.
Offering a discount
Nebons and his partners claim their venture can offer a 40 per cent discount on Hollywood’s conversion rates.
The first Schwarzenegger movie expected to get the 3D treatment is his 1984 classic “The Terminator”, which is quite a complex technical challenge. Nebons, Lane and Stepanov are hoping that Russian 3D technicians will be hired to do the conversion work.
“We’ll make the 3DTV not just local, but an international company, given that software specialists from Russia already have good reputation here,” Lane said.
Jumping on the bandwagon
Russia has still a long way to go to catch up with Hollywood, where already more than 100 movies have been produced in 3D.
The biggest worldwide 3D sensation so far, James Cameron’s “Avatar”, was a smash hit in the Russian box office too, prompting Russian film companies to jump on the 3D bandwagon.
About 800 of Russia’s 1,800 cinemas are already equipped to screen 3D movies, including all new cinemas being opened, Stepanov said.
But just showing a film in 3D is no guarantee of success. Andrei Konchalovsky’s “Nutcracker”, released at the end of 2010with a $90 million budget and 3D made in Hollywood, was a flop commercially.
New artistic formats
The 3D format could also breathe new life into other artistic spheres, said Lane, potentially turning a museum into a concert hall and giving a new dimension to art galleries.
“3D will change how we look at visual arts within the next two years,” he said.
Moscow has seen some evidence of this trend already, with Yury Bashmet’s orchestra trying an experimental performance in the city last November. During the concert Russian avant-garde paintings from the Tretyakov Art Gallery were shown in 3D. Although ticket prices were set high for Moscow, at $80 to $300, the concert was completely sold out.
See the original post with more pictures here: http://themoscownews.com/bizfeature/20110314/188492672.html?referfrommn