A THANKSGIVING DAY TURKEY

“As a magician I too wear a mask. A mask of illusion or the ability to make illusions seem to be reality. But then what is reality, or super reality. What surprises await you in the 3rd Dimension…”       

Harry Blackwell Jr.

Mystic Magic (1982)

Twelve years after the release of The Mask, Julian Roffman revisited both the film and the 3-D process. This time the production was called Mystic Magic and featured the magician Harry Blackwell Jr. and his wife Gay. Mystic Magic is little more the original film converted to a 3D Video Process (simply a red/blue anaglyphic conversion to videotape) that added a set of four interstitial segments; each devoting as much time instructing viewers on the set up their colour televisions for an optimal 3-D viewing as it did to the comic quips and magic of Blackwell. The mysterious hooded figures from The Mask’s dream sequences are present, as is much of the dry ice fog, but unfortunately these newly shot sequences lack the dream logic of the films original sequences and are pretty standard television “variety show” fare for the early eighties.

A 3-D setup test for audiences at home.

3-D Magic?

Mystic Magic, an embarrassing example of Julian Roffman’s directorial abilities, was likely made more for the money than the love. With the directing assignment, Roffman also sold the rights for The Mask to a Los Angeles company 3D Video Corporation operated by Dan Symmes. 3D Video Corporation had developed a method of displaying 3D on television via a full colour anaglyph conversion. Most of the fondly remembered TV broadcasts of 3D in the 80’s had been done by 3D Video Corporation. Earlier 50’s 3-D films like Gorilla at Large and Hondo --seen in the fifties in full colour dual projection—received the anaglyph television treatment in the early eighties. The system worked, but just barely. To many variables came between the master tape and what the viewers saw at home, and the results were often poor. These television versions have contributed to the erroneous belief that retro 3-D films were screened with red and blue glasses and that the current standard of 3-D is an entirely new system of showing 3-D. (In fact, the only thing new is digital film-making the theory and practice for making 3-D images haven’t changed they‘ve just been adapted to this new technology.)

It is also highly likely that this conversion of The Mask, stripped of the Mystic Magic segments, is the source of all the video versions that have been available to this day.

But seeing is believing… so I present a sample.

3D Video Corporation quickly went bankrupt as the eighties wave of 3-D came to a close but the damage had been done. When film’s like Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1995) where released they chose to incorporate anaglyph 3-D. Now just to defend Dan Symmes (a very passionate 3-D professional and historian); while his company 3D Video Corporation’s television anaglyphs have hurt 3-D’s perception in the public’s mind, he has also done much to defend its reputation, including helping to create The 3-D Film Preservation Fund and presenting two 3-D World Expos (in 2005 and 2007) which screened just about every film made in the 50’s in glorious dual projection.

Final Destination 3-D Blu-ray review

My review of The Final Destination on 3D Blu-ray is now up on the Rue morgue site. Read it here: THE FINAL DESTINATION

And if you're in Toronto this week-end check out the Festival of Fear horror convention part of Fan Expo. More info is available of the Rue Morgue site.
Festival Of Fear

Hanging Out at the Toronto International Stereoscopic 3D Conference

This was intended to be posted yesterday, but do to complications it wasn't. Here it is now:

I’ve been granted the privilege to attend the Toronto International Stereoscopic 3D Convention. Happening this week, the gathering is a stellar display of the current state of the 3D with a definite Canadian bent. So far the conference has been very densely packed with presenters and information, so this is my first chance to share my thoughts on things so far. It’s late so I’ll try to keep things brief.

A definite draw to the conference was the opening night speaker, Wim Wenders, a filmmaker whose work has left a lasting impression on me. Wenders is a filmmaker who is not afraid to explore new technical innovations. His 1999 film Buena Vista Social Club utilized digital video for a theatrical production before it became commonplace. Now he has directed the 3-D film, Pina, highlighting the dance theatre of German choreographer Pina Bausch. Taking the podium Wenders described the deeply personally project both emotionally and technically. Though it had been discussed as collaboration with Bausch for years, Wenders was reluctant to make the film until 2008 when he saw U2 3D at Cannes. It was in that moment that he realized that 3D could break the wall that he perceived between dance and film. When Bausch passed away late in pre-production Wenders needed to be persuaded by both Bausch’s son and her dance troupe to continue on with the film lest Busch’s choreography would be lost to time. The clips that were shown revealed a use of 3D that is both technically sound and artistically unique. It will take artists like Wenders to explore what 3D can become.

That was yesterday. Today was a full twelve hours of the current state of things 3D. Very briefly my highlights:

Peter Anderson, a stereographer who’s worked on numerous attraction films (T2-3D, Magic Journeys, The Muppets 4D, U2 3D) presented a simple yet effective course on Stereoscopy 101, utilizing a set of chopsticks. It’s a presentation that anyone new to the understanding of 3D should see.

A great number of footage was screened, but of particular interest to me were clips of the Russian Stereo 70mm 3D system presented by Aleksander Melkumov. The system has been around since at least the mid seventies so it is of historical interest to me. We got to see a bit of footage converted to digital projection originally shot on 65mm film and new tests of this historic 3D lens system shot on a digital camera.

Real D Chief Scientific Officer Matt Cowan gave a highly scientific demonstration of how the eyes and brain perceive colour in reduced light settings, a problem for audiences and presenters alike. His mini keynote explains some real world experiences I’ve had setting up both my 3DTV and my older based CRT field sequential system at home.

There's been so much more but I'll have to save that for later.

Out with the Old...

I hadn't planned to purchase a 3-D TV anytime soon. I had planned to wait at least until the technology becomes more commonplace.

But this Christmas, with the drop in HDTV prices, my family decided it was time to replace our 8 year old, overly large 36' CRT cabinet HDTV with something slimmer. Even then 3-D wasn't really a consideration. Along comes the Boxing Week sales and a pretty decent deal on a 3DTV package and we were there. The truth is had we waited and purchased a regular 3DTV within a few years I'd be pestering my wife to upgrade to 3-D anyway.

So it would seem that in addition to reviews on golden age and depthsploitation era 3-D film reviews, I may also be looking at newer home video releases. My first review can be found on Rue Morgue Magazine's blog here: Piranha 3D

More to come.