Me Kate(1953), the M-G-M musical with Kathryn
Grayson and Howard Keel.
In 2011, some 38 feature movies were released in
3-D, with roughly 30 scheduled for 2012. This 2011
number is made all the more significant by the pres-
ence of movies by three of cinema’s most important
directors: Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, Steven Spiel-
berg’s The Adventures of Tintin, and Francis Ford
Coppola’s Twixt. And the overall development
has been spurred by the highest grossing movie to
date—James Cameron’s Avatar(2009)—which was
released in some areas in 3-D. Its appeal throughout
history, and indeed to the youngest audiences today,
is in action, fantasy, science-fiction, horror movies,
and in the live and recorded filming of sports
events; 3-D helps increase the excitement and audi-
ence involvement in what is on the screen.
Stereoscopy is the technical name for 3-D. In
simple terms, stereoscopic cinematography creates
the illusion of actual depth in the image by making
the foreground appear to stand out in relief, distinct
from the middle and backgrounds. Although pre-
senting 3-D movies to large audiences still presents
great challenges, astonishing successes have been
made, particularly with the IMAX 3-D system
enhanced with the IMAX 3-D sound system.
The challenges facing a more stable situation in
3-D production are consumer rebellion against it,
the conversion of production and exhibition facili-
ties, and its suitability for a wider range of genres.
The history of 3-D production is one of peaks and
valleys, suggesting that it appears as a gimmick
from time to time, and then disappears when the
public is tired of it. Indeed, there is today some-
thing of a consumer rebellion against the high price
of admission tickets (in 2011, that could be from $10 to
$18 depending on the city), the bothersome glasses,
and the dimly lit screens. In the United States, this
situation is troubling, but internationally, where
movies make 70 percent of their total box-office
income, 3-D is still a new phenomenon that is so far
accepted by noncomplaining audiences. The pro-
duction of 3-D movies is hampered by a cumbersome
two-camera process, and the goal—should 3-D pro-
duction expand—is to develop a stereoscopic cam-
era that has the look and feel of a typical
production camera. Likewise, exhibition of 3-D
movies is limited by the number of screens retrofit-
ted for the process; the conversion of a nondigital
theater costs about $70,000 per screen, and due to
the unpredictable future of 3-D, financing is scarce.
Finally, there is the question of the suitability of
the process for making movies that reach a broader,
older audience, movies that tell stories that are not
wholly dependent upon action and violence, that
develop subtler moods, and that do not need to make
key moments as visually noticeable as they are in
today’s 3-D blockbusters. Looking at some of the
most successful “serious” movies of 2011—including
Black Swan, The King’s Speech, The Social Network,
True Grit, and Winter’s Bone—it’s not easy to imagine
how they might be enhanced in a 3-D format.
Even though 70 percent of U.S. opening weekend
ticket sales for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland
(2010) were for 3-D tickets and 43 percent of open-
ing weekend sales for Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows: Part 2(2011) were for 3-D tickets, it’s still an
open question whether 3-D movies are here to stay.Foreign Influences on Hollywood Films
Hollywood is under considerable pressure to make
movies that sell to foreign audiences. In 2011, for-
eign ticket sales accounted for 68 percent of the
roughly $32 billion global film market, up 10 percent
from a decade ago. Among the various ways studios
try to enhance the appeal of their movies is to col-
laborate with local producers, hire more foreign
actors in blockbusters, rewrite scripts to enhance a
story’s global appeal, and concentrate on produc-
ing the action movies that are the most successful.
American comedies in general, and romantic come-
dies in particular, don’t sell as well abroad as they
do at home. The challenge is to create movies that
audiences will actually want to watch.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra(2009), directed by
Stephen Sommers, is a good example of a movie tai-
lored to appeal to domestic and foreign audiences
alike. Initially, producers were concerned that a
movie with an American military theme might flop
overseas, especially at a time of European and
Asian opposition to the American military pres-
ence in Iraq and Afghanistan. They concentrated516 CHAPTER 11FILMMAKING TECHNOLOGIES AND PRODUCTION SYSTEMS