Well, the RAID I’ve officially been calling “Archive Drive 02” is now ‘Officially’ dead. Un-recoverable by reasonable means.
A ‘Clean Room Recovery’ isn’t an option at the price of $3500, so that’s it. Put a fork in it. Moving on.
After running thru everything that was on the RAID, the only thing we really lost is the camera footage for “Oral Servitude 3 in 3D”. It means there’s no possibility for a ‘Side-by-Side’ Version for 3D Televisions. It’s NOT the end of the World.
“OS3” was shot as a test to see if we could do it. The entire way, we were testing camera set ups and post production techniques. I built the rigs by hand with hardware store stuff and I did the post production based entirely on theory and research. From the beginning, “OS3” was never intended to be anything other than an Anaglyphic (Red/Blue) Version on DVD.
If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you know even the DVD version was a struggle to get out. As a two disc set, with 3D glasses included, it was a pretty ambitious release for a “No Name Studio” like Maddy G and it was going to be an expensive package to get made, thus it was going to have to be sold at a higher price point to the stores.
With all these things working against us, the folks at Pulse Distribution decided to manufacture 500 units of “OS3” rather than the 1,000 units that are typically made of our new releases. Pulse is obviously hedging their bets, but we all agreed it’s best for everyone to be conservative with the release.
“OS3” hit the streets January 31st and we had shipped 261 Units in Pre-Orders. Meaning, these are the number of copies the smart store’s ordered in advance so they had it on the shelves on release day.
By the end of February, we shipped another 237 units.
So there you go. We already need a bigger boat.
While there’s no doubt that Marie Madison fans responded to the movie, the success of “OS3 in 3D” probably is more of an indicator of the demand for 3D content from the consumers than anything else. It’s sort of why we made one in 3D. The fans kept asking for it, so did it.
All of that being said, “OS3” was still a test project and we’ve learned so much more since. We’ve shot a bunch more stuff in 3D since and I’ve refined the post production process so that our future productions will be available on 3D Blu-Ray for your 3D Televisions as well as ‘Anaglyph’ which Hollywood is now calling “Classic 3D”.
Thankfully they named it, because “Anaglyph” is a word that's just never going to catch on. “Classic 3D” means you watch it with Red / Blue glasses. Hollywood likes to use Green / Magenta glasses, but the process is the same, and it’s still “Classic” or “Anaglyph”.
The kind of 3D you see at the Movie Theater under the name
“Real D 3D” or “Digital 3D” or “IMAX 3D” it’s all essentially the same thing, with each “eye” of the illusion projected at a different angle than the other, requiring the use of “Polarized” Glasses. If you’re some kind of 3D Geek, know that I’m over simplifying here.
The ‘Home Theater 3D’ or the new 3D Televisions that require what’s called “Active” 3D Glasses. Instead of filtering out a color range (like the ‘Red/Blue’ glasses), ‘Active’ 3D Glasses use an infrared beam to rapidly flicker each eye ‘open’ and ‘close’. These types of 3D glasses are often called “Shutter” Glasses.
Regardless of how you watch 3D, the production of 3D video still requires 2 separate images to be captured (one for each eye). Some lower cost options do it with a special camera lens that separates the image. Pretty much everything else is some form of proprietary camera rig.
That’s a sketch of what my new one will (hopefully) look like. It’s being built by Third Party Productions and will mount 2 HD Camera’s side by side on basically a ‘Fig-Rig’ with a Zoom H1 mounted up top to capture sound.
I’ll be able to start shooting with it in a couple of weeks.
I’ve said before, this technology isn’t new. In fact, William Castle shot the original “13 Ghosts” in 1956 with less technology than I have on my desk right now.
But for a lot of people, it’s still fun as shit. This new resurgence in ‘3D’ has made people excited about movies again and that’s good for everyone. I’m excited to be a part of it.
- Mark
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