July 26, 2010
Using the Panasonic AG-3DA1 to
capture the picturesque Smoky Mountains for 3 Cities in 3D.
By
John Merli
Even people who have spent much of their lives in
the picturesque Smoky Mountains will tell you they’ve never seen their
surroundings quite like this before. While 2D HD probably would have
done justice to the many natural and man-made attractions of Gatlinburg,
Sevierville and Pigeon Forge in Tennessee, capturing it in stereoscopic
3D brings an added dimension to subject matter in more ways than one. 
Now in
postproduction after a spring shooting schedule, the idea and principle
photography for the documentary 3 Cities in 3D throughout the
Smoky Mountain region was conceived and shot by veteran HD
cinematographer Randall Dark
(above). Other principals for the marketing tool include locally based Cinemarr Entertainment
of Sevierville, and CineForm,
a software integrator and post house based in Solana Beach, Calif.
The
3D tourism production is earmarked for an initial airing on Wealth TV, a
six-year old network based in San Diego that’s been struggling to grow
its cable carriage. Although Dark set up one of the nation’s first HD
production houses and continues to run his own shop — Randall Dark
Productions in Austin, Texas — this was his first major 3D project. He
said his biggest challenge was simply defining what the look and feel of
the documentary should be.
“A knee-jerk reaction would have been
to punch through that ‘fourth wall’ and do the familiar one-trick pony
effect. But 3D needs to be more than objects floating in front of your
television,” Dark said. “The animation studios have proven for years —
and recently [Avatar] director James Cameron did, too — that a
willing suspension of disbelief can happen in 3D and your audience can
have a cathartic response to the storytelling. So I want the effect to
be a pay-off, not just a trick.” 
Dark said
he’s always been driven to create video content using cutting-edge
technology — which explained his early passion for the then-emerging
medium of HD a couple of decades ago. But 3D technology for its part, is
hardly new. “Since 3D has been around for many years, I thought there
was nothing new I could bring to the party. The latest pioneers of 3D
were already creating very cool content and had established successful
workflows. But then I saw Panasonic's version of [the computer-generated
Pixar movie] ‘Wall-e.’ The idea that a 3D camera could be really
portable and truly user-friendly greatly appealed to me.”
Dark
had worked with Shane Marr, the head of Cinemarr Entertainment, on a PSA
featuring Dolly Parton (whose Dollywood theme park is located in Pigeon
Forge). So Dark successfully pitched the 3D documentary to Wealth TV.
Marr said while seeking out a dual-lens 3D HD camera suitable for
occasionally arduous field work, they selected the Panasonic
AG-3DA1.
“This camera made post [production] much easier
because there’s no need to sync anything up,” Marr said. “Image files
aligned perfectly, once the footage was loaded into the computer. Marr
said in post-production, he’s using Cineform’s Neo3D to mux left- and
right-eye views in order to make any convergence tweaks necessary to
highlight something in particular special. The CineForm software also is
being used for color correction. “Once that's complete, we import the
files into [the editing platform] to start the cut.”
Yet neither
Marr nor Dark is exactly tossing HD aside for the challenges and
artistic allure of 3D. “The AG-3DA1 is like shooting two projects at
once,” Marr said. “You're shooting both 3D and two ‘2D HD’ views
simultaneously — that is to say, the left- and right-eye views. It
reminds me of something an old instructor of mine use to say. ‘Shoot as
much as you can. You can always take away, but you can't add.’ So I say
shoot in 3D and even if you only use the 2D version, you’ll have the
option of going back to the 3D version later,” Marr said. (Using just
the Left- Eye version of a stereoscopic 3D shoot usually produces
acceptable HD 2D content.)
Introduced by Panasonic last April at NAB, the AG-3DA1 will become available by late August. Panasonic’s Jan Crittenden Livingston, the new camera’s product manager, envisions the compact unit as “broader-basing” the world of 3D to far more users. “We have reduced the cost of entry with the price point, along with making the technical wherewithal easier to work with in comparison to what is normally required for dealing with 3D stereography. For 3D, this camera will impact and expand accessibility to a good number of television and production projects.” Crittenden said. Still, Crittenden cautions, there are some 3D-centric idiosyncrasies that have to be considered when shooting. “This little [6.5 lb.] camera requires the stereographer to pay attentions to two things, one being the parallax aberrations or anomalies, caused by objects being too close to the camera and creating visual distortions. So operators have to take steps to avoid it. The second issue to pay close attention to are possible framing violations or edge violations, where, for example, some object enters the frame and at first can be seen by only one eye, left or right. That and other anomalies can be very disturbing in a number of ways—with your brain and your eyes telling you two different things,” Crittenden said.
Although not all 3D projects are shot and post-produced in the same way — Crittenden said she recalled from watching a panel discussion that approximately 23 different cinema projector configurations were necessitated for screening Avatar in 3D in the US. 3D content can be edited in 2D (HD) as independent Left Eye, then a final “conform” for the Right Eye in 3D is created at the end of post. But since the 3 Cities in 3D project used CineForm’s Neo3D software in post-production, content can be viewed in 3D during the editing process.
According
to CineForm CEO David Taylor, “This edit technique allows the
elimination of 3D ‘conform’ entirely and the ability to handle prints
directly from the editing timeline to electronic 3D distribution or
projection files.” 3 Cities in 3D is now in the midst of being
editing in real time with full frame-rate playback to external 3D
monitors. Taylor said his software firm’s key Neo3D application (dubbed
“First Light”) can work in tandem with Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final
Cut Pro, and Avid Media Composer.
“We’re within a day’s drive of
two-thirds of the U.S. population and we’re very much a tourist
destination,” said Lori McMahan Moore, executive director of the Smoky
Mountain Tourist Development Council. “So from our perspective, it’s
completely marketing. So far I’ve seen maybe a minute of the 3D footage
and I was absolutely blown away. So much of 3D is simply depth
perception — not objects coming out at you off the screen. It was truly
amazing,” Moore said.
| COMMENTS (2) | | 08/13/2010 | | Oh, man, read the specs. AG-3DA1 records 2 FULL HD streams sepaately, have double full optics etc |
| | 07/28/2010 | | The AG-3DA1 is basically the HMC150 with a stereo adapter. Likewise, the new consumer SDT750 is the SD700 with a stereo adapter. The SD700/TM700 cost less than $1K, the SDT will cost $1.4K MSRP. The difference for the stereo adapter is less than $1K. On the other hand the HMC150 is $4K MSRP, while the 3DA1 is $21K MSRP. What does the stereo adapter for the 3DA1 pack for additional $20K? |
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