After the blockbuster hit Avatar, 3-D movies are all the rage in Hollywood. But 3-D’s no longer the playground of big studios.
3-D photography and video are catching on among shutterbugs and independent filmmakers. These intrepid experimenters are rigging up cameras and using software tricks to produce short films, home videos, note cards and photos that seem almost Harry Potter-esque in the way the subjects wave and pop out of the page.
“What you are finding in the DIY community is that there’s a lot of experimentation with the language of 3-D and what it can do,” says Eric Kurland, a 3-D photography enthusiast who’s also the vice president of the Stereo Club of Southern California. “The studios are primarily focusing on children’s movies, or flagship tent-pole action movies, but we are doing a lot more.”
Kurland and other 3-D photography enthusiasts will be giving a how-to presentation at the fifth annual Maker Faire Bay Area, which will be held Saturday and Sunday, May 22 and 23, in San Mateo, California. The annual event, put on by O’Reilly Media, is a celebration of DIY culture, arts and crafts, and will likely draw more than 70,000 attendees, organizers say. Kurland and other 3-D enthusiasts will be showing a home-brewed stereoscopic camera, displays, 3-D video and photos.
The 3-D format is making a big comeback this year. Hollywood has been flooding theaters with 3-D movies such as Avatar, Up, Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans. 3-D TVs were one of the biggest stars of the Consumer Electronics Show this year. Almost every major TV maker including Sony, LG, Panasonic and Mitsubishi plans to offer big screen 3-D TVs this year. TV channels such as ESPN and Discovery have promised 3-D channels that will begin broadcasting early next year.
But it’s amateur content that could be the real catalyst for 3-D’s popularity. In a sign that homemade 3-D videos could soon be ready to hit mainstream, YouTube has started offering a 3-D display option.
“Personal content could be a very under-appreciated part of driving 3-D technology ,” says Kuk Yi, managing partner for the venture capital arm of Best Buy. “Being able to see your own content in 3-D has a strong emotional pull.”
Yi says the most impressive 3-D demo he’s seen so far used two jury-rigged cameras that shot a clip of someone having coffee.
“It was more impactful for me than all the sports 3-D demos,” he says.
There’s not a whole lot of professional hardware available for home 3-D enthusiasts. Major electronics makers are peddling cameras to Hollywood or professional cinematographers, and there aren’t a lot of ready-to-use options for ordinary folks who want to make 3-D imagery.
“I don’t think anyone’s caught on to doing something like a Flip for 3-D,” says Yi. “It’s a market right for innovation and disruption.”
Last year, Fuji released the first 3-D point-and-shoot digital camera, a $600 gadget that’s still mostly available in Japan.
But for DIYers, the lack of off-the-shelf equipment is a call to action.
MacGyvering 3-D Cameras
Videos and photos shot in 3-D trick our brain to perceive depth. Our eyes are about three inches apart, which means each eye sees a slightly different perspective of the same scene. The brain takes images from both eyes and uses the difference between them to calculate distances, creating a sense of depth.
To make a 3-D image, you need to rig two cameras together so each shoots the same scene from a slightly different perspective. Then, you use software and 3-D glasses to look at the images on your screen, recreating the visual field created by the two cameras.
For those willing to experiment, everything from two iPod Nanos or two Flip camcorders hooked together can become a 3-D camera rig. Kurland used off-the-shelf hardware and parts scavenged from other camera mounts to build a rig for himself.
“I have a flash mounting bar that lets me attach two cameras and vary the distance between the two cameras,” he says.
You don’t necessarily need a two-camera rig, says Barry Rothstein, who’s written four books on the art of 3-D photography and sells 3-D notecards. With a single camera, he says, you have to first take the left-eye picture and then slide the camera about 2.5 inches to the right for the right-eye picture. There are limitations to the technique: It works best with a tripod, and still life shots are pretty much all you can do, since you need a subject that will hold still while you move the camera.
The magic of 3-D lies in the post-production.
A freeware program called Stereo Movie Maker has become the de facto software for 3-D enthusiasts. The software works only with PCs but it can correct alignments so the two photos of a frame are perfectly positioned.
Watching 3-D photos or video is possible with the classic red-cyan glasses. YouTube’s 3-D player also offers options compatible with different types of glasses, depending on what kind of display you’re using.
“I love 3-D photography because it is fascinating and when you get a really good image, it gives you much more than a regular photo,” says Rothstein. “The response I get from people to 3-D photos is remarkable.”
Rothstein says he’s shot photos of a family dog for a special Christmas card and helped create wedding invites based on a 3-D photo.
It’s a sign that 3-D isn’t a fringe movement anymore, say Rothstein and Kurland.
“It used to be that 3-D was something people remembered but didn’t think that much about, but in the last year there’s just been a big change,” says Kurland. “There’s a new respect for the DIY community of 3-D photographers that we weren’t seeing before.”
If you want to check out the creations of the burgeoning DIY 3-D community, check out Rothstein’s 3-D digital photos site. Or join the Yahoo 3-D group to see videos and find answers to questions.
To find out more about how to make your own 3-D movies, look for the Digital Stereoscopic 3-D pavilion at the Expo Hall 216 at Maker Faire this year.
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Photo: (Archie McPhee Seattle/Flickr)
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