3-D Revolution: The History of Modern Stereoscopic Cinema

Chapter 18: Speeding into 3-D

NASCAR: A Stereoscopic Speedway in Large Format It’s challenging enough to photograph large-format 3-D, even when the subjects are standing still. But it is considerably more difficult when the subjects of the stereoscopic cinematography are traveling at speeds over 160 miles per hour. This was just one of the challenges director Simon Wincer and his film crew faced when photographing NASCAR 3D at various locations throughout 2003. The groundbreaking IMAX 3-D film, set against the popular American spectator sport and opening in spring 2004, was distributed exclusively to IMAX theaters by Warner Bros. Pictures and IMAX, and it marked Warner Bros.’s first entry into the large-format 3-D field. Narrated by Golden Globe Award–winning actor Kiefer Sutherland, star of the Fox television drama 24, NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience was produced under the auspices of NASCAR, NASCAR Digital Entertainment , and IMAX Corporation. “With IMAX putting you in the driver’s seat at a series of NASCAR races, you feel the speed of the cars and the thunder of the engines,” said Sutherland. “This film lends itself perfectly to IMAX technology.”1 To put the audience in the driver’s seat, IMAX hired director Simon Wincer, who had recently completed the 2-D large-format film The Young Black Stallion (2003) and is noted for the television miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989) and the 35mm features Phar Lap (1983) and Free Willy (1993). The cinematographer on the project was James Neihouse, a largeformat and 3-D veteran who has photographed Space Station 3D (2002), Speeding into 3-D 18 218 3-D Revolution Michael Jordan to the Max (2000), and The Dream Is Alive (1985), among many other large-format films. Getting the Filming on Track After Neihouse shot some initial test footage with the twin-strip IMAX Solido 3-D camera in 2002 in Richmond, Virginia, Wincer was brought on board. “I was contacted early in January, 2003,” said Wincer, “and three weeks later I was at the Daytona 500, shooting. You know, the 500 is the defining spectacle for NASCAR. It is the Superbowl for racing, and it happens to be the first race of the season as opposed to the last.”2 Wincer found the Daytona 500 filming experience invaluable. “We did our pre-production after we had shot that one race,” said Wincer. “It was great because it was a learning experience. And we found out what we could and couldn’t do at the track. It gets pretty frenetic out there and in the garages during the races. We knew what we were going to be facing for the rest of the shoot.” Neihouse agreed. “The experience gave us a clue as to what we were going to be up against,” he said. “We had time to think about what we were going to do when we did it for real. As a result, we didn’t have any surprises . It went really smooth. And we used a whole bunch of stuff from the very first test shoots in the film.”3 Outrunning the Revenue Agents “After the Daytona experience, I had to sit down and write the film,” said Wincer. “I wanted to address the history of this sport very quickly and succinctly. And I thought the only way to do that was to deal with the roots of the sport which lie in ‘moonshining.’ “The moonshine stills were located deep in the hills and ridges of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky mountains. The mountaineers made moonshine liquor to help pay the bills. The roads were rough. So the moonshiners became expert at building cars to outrun the revenue agents on these lethal roads with all sorts of tricks under the hood of the car, special springs and suspension. “NASCAR really grew out of all that. Drivers would get together at all these small dirt tracks that used to litter the South and race their cars. And of course the moonshiners were the best at it because of the cars they built to outrun the revenue agents.” Speeding into 3-D 219 “We spent three days filming the main part of the moonshine chase with drivers up in the mountains in Morganton, North Carolina,” said Neihouse, chuckling over his efforts to film the action for 3-D. “It was a lot of fun to play with these cars and get ’em running at us and sideways...