The three dimensional journey of "Immortals"

The producers of Relativity Media's "Immortals," which opened up to some better-than-expected $32 million earlier this weekend, always meant for the film to become launched in three dimensional. Once production got going ahead with Tarsem pointing it had been obvious that except for a tiny bit of footage the film could be shot on 2D and then be transformed into the stereo system medium. Cinematographer Brendan Galvin - who's also shooting Tarsem's Snow Whitened film "Mirror Mirror" - entrusted a lot of that task to some fellow d.p., David Stump, that has the loan of senior stereographer around the film. Galvin and Stump both spoken to Variety's Inside Production's Peter Caranicas concerning the convinced that went in to the shooting and conversion from the swords-and-sandals actioner.***Peter Caranicas: How lengthy perhaps you have labored with Tarsem?Brendan Galvin: Over two decades, totally on advertisements. Caranicas: Discuss the way you shot "Immortals."Galvin: We shot everything electronically around the Genesis camera system from Panavision. We shot many tests before determining whether or not to shoot real three dimensional in order to shoot 2D and perform a conversion. We wound up shooting just little area of the film on three dimensional the relaxation is really a conversion. Among the factors was how quickly Tarsem loves to work. Our schedule was very challenging when it comes to the quantity of material we needed to shoot within the time available. Many people say there is no time difference shooting three dimensional, some say there's 10% difference i'm there's a great deal of difference.Caranicas: How quickly does Tarsem work?Galvin: You will find occasions when we have done just a little of labor per day, and in other cases when he's just manic, go, go, go. I favor to utilize him when he's working faster. He will get another energy. I can not exactly explain it. Because he shoots, he puts the film together in the mind. I have never met anybody who it like him. He'll remember visual things, every shot we all do on the film, exactly. Caranicas: What's your look at conversion versus. stereo system shooting?Galvin: I have seen both negative and positive conversions and negative and positive native three dimensional shooting. Personally, after carrying this out conversion, I'd perform the same factor again. I am not to imply I wouldn't shoot three dimensional with stereo system cameras. I can tell situations where that might be a advisable to do. But about this particular film, using the elements we'd, that wasn't what you want. I do not regret your decision we made.Caranicas: That which was the intent in the start?Galvin: It had been always release a in three dimensional, then when we captured pics of in 2D we accomplished it knowing that. I believe three dimensional continues to be a medium completely in the infancy, despite the fact that it has been around for donkey's years. Individuals are still learning a great deal about what's possible and what's not. They are learning a totally new language for filmmaking. Caranicas: Where have you shoot "Immortals"?Galvin: We shot 100% in-studio in Montreal. We did plenty of greenscreen work, but we did have sets. The greenscreen was largely for set extensions. We shot for 62 days, so for around three several weeks permitting for weekends. We finished at the begining of This summer, 2010.Caranicas: How involved had you been in publish and DI?Galvin: A great deal. Because i was shooting electronically we desired to make the most of what digital can provide over film. One thing we're able to do was setup our certifying suite within the studio where i was shooting, therefore we were built with a color correction suite along with digital projection, and many nights we viewed dailies there. We did fundamental color correction around the set once we were shooting.Caranicas: Who handled the conversion?Galvin: Probably the most main reasons was to achieve the whole process supervised with a cinematographer. David Stump handled everything controlling a team of individuals. The truth that he's a d.p. was greatly beneficial, technically and esthetically. David would do some things and demonstrate to them in my experience and Tarsem. When he saw what we should loved when it comes to depth, perspective, convergence, etc., he'd then start using that. Younger crowd led some very useful ideas. The brief was this needs to be considered a very comfortable three dimensional experience. We wanted individuals to forget that they are watching three dimensional.***Peter Caranicas: Had you been a stereographer just in publish?David Stump: Yes, only in publish, I wasn't area of the photography process.Caranicas: What type of look had you been pursuing?Tree stump: Among the obligations we designed to Tarsem ended up being to provide the figures "human volume" so that they did not seem like flat card board cutouts put into space. Which type of volume is actually tough to achieve inside a conversion. We compensated additional care and attention compensated to putting things in the best place, and becoming things constructed with volume - amount of the figures and amount of the area. Which has been a achieve for many previous conversions and i believe we arrived at quite a high mark when it comes to achieving volume within this conversion.Caranicas: How did you accomplish that?Tree stump: You need to create depth maps which include roundness in faces and also the background sets. You need to do not only eliminate a wall and put it thorough. We added indentations for home windows, entrance doors, architectural features. We did a lot of depth mapping at length - I have always observed the lack of it on other conversions.Caranicas: Where have you perform the work?Stump: The lion's share visited Prime Focus. They did the majority of the operate in India. Small sections received to 3DRevolution in Pasadena and Mikros Image in France.Caranicas: Where have you spend much of your time?Stump: My team and that i spent several several weeks in Mumbai, too as with Paris, Montreal and L.A.Caranicas: Is certainly going the conversion route costly? Stump: Not necessarily. It had been most likely ultimately cheaper to transform rather than shoot native three dimensional, particularly with the amount of cameras, the quantity of technology and also the longer schedule (needed) to shoot in three dimensional. And also you might have needed to knock Tarsem lower from 60 configurations each day to twenty, with all of individuals extra supplies standing neighborhood for that fight scenesCaranicas: Did the greenscreen work result in the conversion any simpler?Stump: No, it had been yet another variable that managed to get just a little harder. To be able to correctly covert a greenscreen vfx shot you need the ultimate version from the shot done, therefore it just pressed much more of individuals shots much deeper in to the schedule - which ultimately causes it to be harder to achieve the three dimensional consistent from shot to shot and scene to scene.Caranicas: Was the colour correction done following the conversion?Stump: Within this situation, yes, since it would be a live cut - the edit wasn't locked until once i returned from my last visit to Mumbai. There have been a lot of things I needed to re-jigger new shots starting the pipeline as late as September of the year, and so i needed to engage in the colour correction process. Caranicas: What exactly is it in regards to a d.p. that best qualifies him like a stereographer?Stump: Most likely the amount of obsessive-compulsive image manipulation and control that d.p.'s can handle. The actual benefit of conversion is it provides you with is a whole lot of control you don't have in natively shot three dimensional. Should you shoot something in three dimensional and also you aren't devoted to transforming anything, and you receive a shot wrong, there isn't a great deal that you can do about this. You cannot return and say, I wish to pull the cameras closer together making mtss is a less deep scene. (All you should do is) turn to transforming the shot - discard one eye and convert another.Caranicas: Is three dimensional not going anywhere soon?Tree stump: Some predict is can last, others it will not. Within the last ten years because the creation of digital cinema everybody has turned into a prophet saying film is dead, film can last forever, three dimensional can last forever, digital won't ever become popular, digital may be the future, etc. Everyone loves to express "I said so," so individuals are making a myriad of forecasts and later on they'll pull out correct ones. Contact Peter Caranicas at peter.caranicas@variety.com