Meeting report Mar 18 2008

SECTION MEETING REPORT

March 18,2008

SECTION:     HOLLYWOOD

 ATTENDANCE:  120

 LOCATION: Clarity Theater – Beverly Hills, CA.

 SPEAKERS:  (include company affiliation)                                                                                                              TOPICS:                                                                                                                                                                                 

 Lenny Lipton – RealD,                                                                                                            Stereoscopic Cinema

Steve Schklair – 3ality,

Buzz Hays – Sony Imageworks,

Robert Neumann – Disney Animation,

David Seigel – In-three.

 The Hollywood Section’s March meeting was on the subject of Stereoscopic Cinema.  We have wanted to cover this subject for a long time, but the lack of properly equipped facilities had prevented it.  Thanks to Lenny Lipton of RealD, we were given the availability of the Clarity Theater in Beverly Hills.

This theater is normally used for private and industry screenings.   It has 120 seats, and is fully equipped for 35mm and 70mm film, plus digital projection.  It also has the “silver” screen necessary for Polaroid 3D projection.

 The pre-show reception was hosted by RealD and In-three.  Most of the attendees gathered for catered pizza and salad.

 Because of the popularity of the subject, this was one of the rare times we had to ask for RSVPs to control attendance.  The number of people wanting to see the program was larger than the seating capacity, but by the time of the show it came out to be just about the size of the theater.

 The program began at 7:30pm, and was introduced by Lenny Lipton of RealD.  He gave a brief historical overview of stereoscopic movies, explaining how it was done with double projectors in the past.  The problems with that system were detailed, along with how 3D works today with a single digital projector.  The next presenter was David Siegel of In-three, who described how movies filmed for normal projection could be converted to stereoscopic.  Following him was Steve Schklir of 3ality, with a discussion of cameras used to capture this format.

 The next presenter was Buzz Hays of Sony Imageworks.  His presentation covered the responsibilities of the producer of the 3D aspect of current productions.  Last was Robert Neumann of Disney Animation, with a very informative demonstration of the use of depth in storytelling.  He had a number of examples of how differences in apparent depth could affect the dramatic effect of the film.

 All of the presenters illustrated their talks with on-screen examples, including STAR WARS III, MEET THE ROBINSONS, and BEOWULF.

The planned presentations ended at 10:00pm, and were followed by a question and answer session attended by about half of the audience.