8mm Forum: 45% May Not Be Able To Enjoy 3-D

This is topic 45% May Not Be Able To Enjoy 3-D in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on February 12, 2016, 05:05 AM:

I am currently reading "In Glorious Technicolor - A Century Of Film And How It Has Shaped Us" by Francine Stock, published by Chatto & Windus in 2011.
In the book she says :- "According to the latest figures something like 45% of the UK population has defective eyesight in one form or another. Could this mean that just under half the total number of picturegoers would not be able to appreciate stereoscopic films to the full?"
An interesting comment to ponder on.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on February 12, 2016, 05:46 AM:

I heard that with the previous two colours glasses 3D system, about a third of the population could not enjoy the effects. I don't know if this is the same with the modern systems.

Posted by Clinton Hunt (Member # 2072) on February 12, 2016, 06:21 AM:

I wear glasses and when I watch the 2 colour 3D movies I have to try and not "over watch" or else I have trouble getting the effect.
But when I watched Avatar it was easy.and the effects were great.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on February 12, 2016, 08:54 AM:

In the earlier 3D phase someone I know found out for the first time that he was blind or almost blind in one eye. When His parents asked what he thought of the film he said he couldn't tell any difference and was taken for tests.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on February 12, 2016, 09:21 AM:

We have a friend that 3D literally makes sick. When we all go to a movie we stay with 2D for her (fine by me...).

She is a nurse and has seen things that might scar you or I for life, so it's not even some "delicacy" on her part! (Never get medical people talking shop over dinner...)

-it just doesn't agree with her.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on February 12, 2016, 11:48 AM:

I've never heard of the British have inferior eyesite? That's strange. Is it something that is just part of growing up and just being British? Not being funny, just curious.

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on February 12, 2016, 01:04 PM:

It's because we never see any bloody daylight here Osi!
It's always sodding raining!
We will all be growing web feet soon [Big Grin]

Posted by Steven J Kirk (Member # 1135) on February 12, 2016, 03:34 PM:

I've read that 3D can never be really perfect for everyone because the distance between people's eyes varies. The ideal set-up can never fit everyone. I wear glasses also so again it never quite works properly. Perhaps a customisable VR type headset is the only way for it to work.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on February 13, 2016, 10:18 AM:

Steven's comment reminds me of a line in the 1955 British comedy "The Love Match" about a steam railway engine driver and his fireman.
Bill (Arthur Askey) says to his wife (Thora Hird) :-
"He'll never make an engine driver, that Wally (Glenn Melvyn), his eyes aren't far enough apart to see through the engine windows"

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on February 13, 2016, 12:59 PM:

I've wondered about that Steven (distance between eyes/pupils ect), as I'll watch a classic 3D red and blue glasses film, and while one shot will seem perfect, other shots will be totally destroyed by to "wide" (is that the way to put it?) with the effect and it's just a mess.

I am half Irish/British, that must be why. [Smile]

Posted by Ken Finch (Member # 2768) on February 14, 2016, 10:35 AM:

I cannot watch 3D films for very long without getting a headache. Its nothing to do with the distance between our eyes! This topic has been discussed and commented on previously. If 3D is so wonderful, why aren't all movies made in 3D? T.V. manufacturers are no longer pushing it. The latest "fad" is 4G and "overload" of channels. Ken Finch. [Frown]

Posted by David M. Ballew (Member # 1818) on February 15, 2016, 01:29 AM:

Those who are interested would profit from reading The Theory of Stereoscopic Transmission by Raymond Spottiswoode and Foundations of the Stereoscopic Cinema by Lenny Lipton, both available for free download as PDF files online.

It should be noted that every English-language 3-D feature from 1952 to 1955 was meant for polarized projection, not anaglyph (complementary colors). Anaglyphic transmission is always rife with ghosting, which often prevents clear, comfortable viewing even for those with perfect binocular vision.

Varying interpupillary distances in spectators is not thought to pose a serious problem when it comes to stereo fusion, so long as parallax values in a stereo movie are kept to reasonable limits. One commonly asserted view (though by no means the only view) is that homologous image points onscreen ought never be separated by more than about 65 millimeters, the average eye separation in adults. Believe it or not, this amount of parallax is quite achievable even with camera systems with wide lens separations, so long as certain other requirements are met with regard to subject distance and lens focal length. To cite one example, House of Wax (1953) is widely regarded as a visually beautiful 3-D film, but the lenses of the NaturalVision camera rig used to film it were something like 3.5 inches apart.

Some vision problems won't prevent comfortable viewing of stereoscopic imagery at all. To cite myself as a case in point, I am nearsighted, more so in my left eye than in my right, but I watch and enjoy two or three 3-D films a week. I also shoot my own stereographs.

It is obvious that many people are unable to enjoy viewing stereoscopic imagery. Some experience eyestrain, headaches and nausea. I'm not sure that any definitive explanation has been offered that covers all such cases, but there are many, many people who simply do not (or cannot) use their eyes as a tandem pair in their daily lives. Viewing stereoscopic movies compels them to exercise physiological systems that are typically nearly dormant, which causes strain and fatigue.

Incredible though it may seem, stereoscopic imagery can have a diagnostic and therapeutic value for many people, though perhaps not all. As has been mentioned above, some people learn they have deficient binocular vision when they cannot perceive the illusion of stereoscopic depth in a motion picture. Still others have had their eyesight strengthened through the use of stereoscopes and, yes, even 3-D movies.

Although it is quite clear that stereoscopic 3-D will not appeal to one hundred percent of the moviegoing public, 3-D movies have been part of the motion picture scene in one way or another since 1915. Three-D has a legitimate place in the art, the technology, and the history of movies. I hope those of you who do not prefer 3-D will still count yourselves well wishers of those of us who do. :-)

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on February 15, 2016, 05:49 AM:

I was told that the film shown at the NFt Festival of Britain exhibit of a boat trip along the Thanes was shot single camera with the boat at a constant speed. The two films printed were then shown one frame out of sync to give the stereoscopic effect. I don't know the boat speed so can't comment of the separation.
Also at a demonstration of still stereoscopy we were shown what looked like a paw print in red sand. It was Ayers Rock shot from an aeroplane with again a single camera and large separation and the eye views reversed. It seems large separation makes objects look smaller and lower bigger as our brains use our individual eye separation to help judge size as well as distance.
As had been said it is a very complicated subject.

Posted by David M. Ballew (Member # 1818) on February 15, 2016, 04:20 PM:

Brian, you are quite right that large interaxial distances can give stereo effigies the appearance of smaller scale. I did not mention this in my previous post because I did not wish to confuse the issue of interaxial distance (camera lens separation) and interocular distance (human eye separation, also known as interpupillary distance).

On the issue of the film of the River Thames, if the film in question happens to have been Royal River (1951), that was shot using two three-strip Technicolor cameras mounted side by side. The lens separation was nine inches on that behemoth! Questionnaires were circulated to the audience to gauge whether any of them perceived a difference in visual scale. Some did, others did not. Very curious.

But the strategy you mentioned-- offsetting a single lateral tracking shot to play slightly out of sync in both eyes-- has been employed successfully elsewhere. John Rupkalvis, one of the great living cinema stereographers, speaks proudly of the time he grabbed a gorgeous shot of an alpine forest vista in much this same way, and on 65 millimeter film!

One last thing I'd like to mention: Those who are interested would do well to look into the forthcoming Blu-Ray release of Gog (1954). Its restoration really qualifies as a bit of a miracle, as the only-- underscore, the only surviving left eye element is a single, faded projection print obtained from a private collector in Atlanta. My friends Bob Furmanek and Greg Kintz are the ones behind this remarkable feat of restoration. Here's a link to a fascinating short sample of the restoration work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS4ugGmU15Y

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