Brow Beat: Slate's Culture Blog

No Comeback for 3-D Photography

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, opening today, will likely become the fourth 3-D movie this year to gross over $50 million. The basic technology is old—and for some, including Slate's Daniel Engber, still a headache—but the genre may have finally overcome its boom-and-bust cycle of past decades.

Stereography, or 3-D photography, has had less luck. It was among the most popular photographic formats in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Each stereograph card presents two slightly different images of the same scene, which when viewed properly create an illusion of depth. In stereography's heyday, middle-class families stocked their homes with the stereographic images of lands too distant to visit. Teachers wove stereographs into lessons about history, botany, and geology. The military used the technology for aerial reconnaisance. Stereography's popularity, however, faded quickly with the advent of television and color photography after World War II. Since then, 3-D photography has largely been relegated to the plastic View-Master children's toy, also waning in popularity. Could the box-office bonanza for 3-D movies drive a stereography renaissance?

There's much to admire about the medium. Unlike 3-D movies, you can view stereographs without special glasses. In many cases, the depth enhances otherwise cluttered scenes. In the stereograph above, the woman, her stereograph viewer, her artifacts, and the fireplace get the breathing room that each image of the flat pair lacks. It's also just fun to have the scene "pop" out at you. Curious viewers can find hundreds of thousands of historical stereographs, and a smattering of contemporary albums, online. And it's pretty darn easy to make them yourself, either with a standard camera or by rigging a specialized setup for $15.

Still, it seems more likely that stereography will remain a small-time hobby, if only because there's ostensibly no money in it. Hollywood loves a good cross-promotion, but there have been few if any stereograph tie-ins to the latest 3-D films. But it's not such a far fetched idea—stereographs did begin as a mass consumer product. Pixar could drop stereo pairs promoting its next 3-D film into boxes of sugar-packed cereal or a Happy Meal. Until then, I'm happily consigned to getting my 3-D photography kicks from historical gems like this rare Abe Lincoln hairdo.

Will the 3-D Revival Go the Way of Pixar's Up?

The 3-D revival appears to be a success. With $68 million in receipts over its first weekend, Pixar's Up may become the highest-grossing 3-D film of all time. Only 11 3-D movies have ever pulled in more than $50 million over their entire runs-and five of them have come out since last fall.

The 3-D boom interests me for two reasons: First, because I've been a fan of the medium since I was a little kid; and second, because of a prediction I made in April that may soon turn out to be deeply embarrassing. In an article entitled "The Problem With 3-D: It hurts your eyes. Always has, always will," I declared that the 3-D bubble would soon burst because problems with stereo cinema technology had not been fixed. "Eventually, inevitably, perhaps unconsciously," I wrote, the eye strain 3-D movies cause will "creep off the screen and into our minds."

It may be time to start hedging my bets. I still think the future is dim for live-action 3-D movies, and I don't believe Jeffrey Katzenberg's claim that everything will soon be produced in stereo. But I now believe the revival could find lasting success ... in children's movies. Here are three possible reasons why:

1. Kids are too young to remember Jaws 3-D.
One of the problems facing the marketers of 3-D cinema is the medium's sketchy past. The last wave of 3-D films in the early 1980s comprised a run of dreadful horror and sci-fi flicks, from Friday the 13^th, Part III to Metalstorm. Hollywood has been aggressive in targeting youngsters this go-round, perhaps because kids are an audience that hasn't been tainted by 3-D's unsavory past. At least seven more animated 3-D children's movies are scheduled for release this year.

2. The 3-D effects are better in animated films.
It takes a lot figuring to get the cinematography right in a live-action 3-D film. For one thing, you have to decide how far apart to place the two cameras during shooting. (In general, the further apart they are, the more intense the illusion of depth, and the more eyestrain for viewers.) But the makers of an animated film have full control of the frame, since every pixel is generated by a computer. It may be easier to correct for imperfections in the stereo effect in computer-generated imagery—and that would in turn lead to a cleaner, more comfortable experience for viewers.

3. Kids may be less susceptible to eyestrain.
No one knows exactly why 3-D movies cause headaches, fatigue, and nausea, but the most intuitive theory has to do with what's called the convergence-accommodation disparity. In short: In order to see the 3-D special effect, you have to point your eyes at the screen while you focus them at a depth somewhere in front of the screen.