Steel_Wind
Legend
Every now and then, a movie comes along that changes the rules in terms of how to show a good story or craft a new style in film to show the near infinite combinations of human emotion upon the silver screen.
That movie is not Beowulf.
But far less frequently - once a generation - a movie comes along which changes how movies are conceived, funded, written, designed, directed and made.
Make no mistake - that movie is Beowulf. Beowulf is a line in the sand; a before and after film in terms of the technical science of cinematography.
Do not be confused by reviewers, who seem to feel the need to rise up and defend traditional 2D principal photography; those reviewers are reacting as if they have seen a rough beast, slouching down the road to Bethlehem. And while they seem to believe it is their duty to stop this beast from being born - it is far too late for that.
This genie escaped from the bottle long ago. We have seen wisps of it appear here and there . Some reviewers misidentify it, believing they saw it in Terminator 2; that they watched with a dawning sense of realization in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy that something was on the verge of happening.
And those reviewers misunderstand the importance of what is being showcased in Beowulf and believe that they have seen it before in the ill-fated Polar Express, in the better received "300" and hinted at in several blockbusters featuring IMAX 3D segments in the past years.
They are all wrong; because you have never seen any movie like Beowulf before in your life.
That is not because Beowulf is a mo-cap movie which uses digital actors. That is not the watershed behind the film. It is because Beowulf is a completely 3D film. Unlike the IMAX blockbusters over the past few years, shot to be normal movies with 15 or 20 minutes of 3D thrown in as a novelty sweetener, Beowulf has been constructed from the ground up to be a movie depicted entirely in 3D. From the opening scenes to the last, the 3D version of Beowulf pops off of the screen in a jaw dropping tour de force of digital stereoscopic effects. What is on display in Beowulf is no mere novelty. It is a fundamentally different way of funding, storyboarding, shooting, producing and even marketing a film.
And that is the fundamental difference. That is why this movie is a watershed in cinema history.
Movies like Spiderman 3, Superman Returns or the last Harry Potter film have all had 3d effects added to the movie by independent CGI studios (most of them in Toronto, doing effects for IMAX 3D). The fundamental difference is that up until now, CGI studios have worked in parallel to the final post-production efforts in L.A. aimed at polishing the main traditional 2D cut of a movie. There is a good reason for this parallel approach, as 3D stereoscopic technique is inherently expensive and - above all - time consuming.
With the tight production schedules of blockbusters prior to Beowulf, there simply has been no time to add 3D effects to the entire film. And Hollywood has until now seen no compelling reason to plan and budget their films in order to **make that time**.
Instead, we get 3D teasers scenes here and there in a film like Superman Returns, and then typically a main sequence of perhaps 12-15 minutes of 3D frames are added, usually near the end action climax of a film. For those of us who did not see Superman Returns in 3D (that would be 98% of us) it wasn't as if we were missing out on the "real" version of the film - and no studio ever marketed the film as if we were.
Mark your calendar, because the acceptability of that approach to blockbuster film-making died on the weekend of November 16, 2007. Yes, you will see a few more incarnations of the limited 3D blockbuster in the next 12- 24 months - mainly as those movies are already in production and it is too late to change the budget. But that will be the end of that.
Because once you see Beowulf in 3D, you will not watch a mere 12-15 minute 3D sequence added to another movie and accept it as a "real" 3D movie. We have been shown in Beowulf a true 3D film for the first time - it's the real deal. And that experience is not one which young male popcorn eaters are going to ever forget.
And it is young filmgoers, especially young males, who set the trend in Hollywood.
It is the 3D technology behind Beowulf which Hollywood believes will allow it to maintain a qualitatively superior edge to the product it delivers in theatres. After all, we live in the days of the Internet, miniature hand cameras, DivX downloads; even HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs shown on 1080p HDTV equipped home cinemas all compete with the big screen at the local cinema. But none of those formats competes with the 3D technology used to show a movie like Beowulf.
The music industry was not able to evolve their product in the face of the digital .mp3 and pervasive piracy. The recording industry is now a shadow of its former self as a consequence and it will never return to its grandeur of a decade ago. Indeed, there is every good reason to doubt that it will survive at all in the long-term. Some have predicted that the same thing will happen to Hollywood.
Don't you take that bet. Sony music has tasted defeat once; their film division isn't about to let it happen again. Sony believes the technology used to show Beowulf in 3D will provide to the big screen a technological edge that no hand cam or even a high quality DivX rip of a promotional screener will be able to equal. Sony is at the vanguard of the Hollywood pack which aims to offer a product and experience that no home theatre can equal - and no hand cam or computer can easily pirate.
And these eyes which feasted on Beowulf this evening can only nod in agreement. Chalk me up as a convert; a true believer.
3D is here to stay. It is no fad and it is no gimmick.
Within five years, no significant Hollywood action movie and certainly no blockbuster - not a single one - will be conceived, written, shot, directed , edited or produced without two stereoscopic eyes firmly fixed on the 3D component of the film.
There is before Beowulf - and there is after.
That movie is not Beowulf.
But far less frequently - once a generation - a movie comes along which changes how movies are conceived, funded, written, designed, directed and made.
Make no mistake - that movie is Beowulf. Beowulf is a line in the sand; a before and after film in terms of the technical science of cinematography.
Do not be confused by reviewers, who seem to feel the need to rise up and defend traditional 2D principal photography; those reviewers are reacting as if they have seen a rough beast, slouching down the road to Bethlehem. And while they seem to believe it is their duty to stop this beast from being born - it is far too late for that.
This genie escaped from the bottle long ago. We have seen wisps of it appear here and there . Some reviewers misidentify it, believing they saw it in Terminator 2; that they watched with a dawning sense of realization in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy that something was on the verge of happening.
And those reviewers misunderstand the importance of what is being showcased in Beowulf and believe that they have seen it before in the ill-fated Polar Express, in the better received "300" and hinted at in several blockbusters featuring IMAX 3D segments in the past years.
They are all wrong; because you have never seen any movie like Beowulf before in your life.
That is not because Beowulf is a mo-cap movie which uses digital actors. That is not the watershed behind the film. It is because Beowulf is a completely 3D film. Unlike the IMAX blockbusters over the past few years, shot to be normal movies with 15 or 20 minutes of 3D thrown in as a novelty sweetener, Beowulf has been constructed from the ground up to be a movie depicted entirely in 3D. From the opening scenes to the last, the 3D version of Beowulf pops off of the screen in a jaw dropping tour de force of digital stereoscopic effects. What is on display in Beowulf is no mere novelty. It is a fundamentally different way of funding, storyboarding, shooting, producing and even marketing a film.
And that is the fundamental difference. That is why this movie is a watershed in cinema history.
Movies like Spiderman 3, Superman Returns or the last Harry Potter film have all had 3d effects added to the movie by independent CGI studios (most of them in Toronto, doing effects for IMAX 3D). The fundamental difference is that up until now, CGI studios have worked in parallel to the final post-production efforts in L.A. aimed at polishing the main traditional 2D cut of a movie. There is a good reason for this parallel approach, as 3D stereoscopic technique is inherently expensive and - above all - time consuming.
With the tight production schedules of blockbusters prior to Beowulf, there simply has been no time to add 3D effects to the entire film. And Hollywood has until now seen no compelling reason to plan and budget their films in order to **make that time**.
Instead, we get 3D teasers scenes here and there in a film like Superman Returns, and then typically a main sequence of perhaps 12-15 minutes of 3D frames are added, usually near the end action climax of a film. For those of us who did not see Superman Returns in 3D (that would be 98% of us) it wasn't as if we were missing out on the "real" version of the film - and no studio ever marketed the film as if we were.
Mark your calendar, because the acceptability of that approach to blockbuster film-making died on the weekend of November 16, 2007. Yes, you will see a few more incarnations of the limited 3D blockbuster in the next 12- 24 months - mainly as those movies are already in production and it is too late to change the budget. But that will be the end of that.
Because once you see Beowulf in 3D, you will not watch a mere 12-15 minute 3D sequence added to another movie and accept it as a "real" 3D movie. We have been shown in Beowulf a true 3D film for the first time - it's the real deal. And that experience is not one which young male popcorn eaters are going to ever forget.
And it is young filmgoers, especially young males, who set the trend in Hollywood.
It is the 3D technology behind Beowulf which Hollywood believes will allow it to maintain a qualitatively superior edge to the product it delivers in theatres. After all, we live in the days of the Internet, miniature hand cameras, DivX downloads; even HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs shown on 1080p HDTV equipped home cinemas all compete with the big screen at the local cinema. But none of those formats competes with the 3D technology used to show a movie like Beowulf.
The music industry was not able to evolve their product in the face of the digital .mp3 and pervasive piracy. The recording industry is now a shadow of its former self as a consequence and it will never return to its grandeur of a decade ago. Indeed, there is every good reason to doubt that it will survive at all in the long-term. Some have predicted that the same thing will happen to Hollywood.
Don't you take that bet. Sony music has tasted defeat once; their film division isn't about to let it happen again. Sony believes the technology used to show Beowulf in 3D will provide to the big screen a technological edge that no hand cam or even a high quality DivX rip of a promotional screener will be able to equal. Sony is at the vanguard of the Hollywood pack which aims to offer a product and experience that no home theatre can equal - and no hand cam or computer can easily pirate.
And these eyes which feasted on Beowulf this evening can only nod in agreement. Chalk me up as a convert; a true believer.
3D is here to stay. It is no fad and it is no gimmick.
Within five years, no significant Hollywood action movie and certainly no blockbuster - not a single one - will be conceived, written, shot, directed , edited or produced without two stereoscopic eyes firmly fixed on the 3D component of the film.
There is before Beowulf - and there is after.
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