Kicking off a session on creative storytelling at the DCS, Sony Pictures Imageworks’ 3D VFX supervisor Rob Engle related that 3D is a “new medium that requires us to think differently.”

Key parameters include:
–overall depth
–subject placement in depth
–screen edges
–traditional 2D composition
–editorial pacing
–depth transitions

Coming off “Avatar,” Chuck Comisky recommended that filmmakers start a 3D production by defining a genre. For “Avatar,” he said: “Our goals were twofold—not to tire the audience out; and within 10-15 minutes, we wanted the audience to settle into the movie, accept the environment; and get into the story.”

Phil Streather of UK-based 3D production company PLF suggested that an underexplored area of 3D storytelling is just in front of the screen, as well as how far filmmakers can push positive parallax.