3-D Revolution: The History of Modern Stereoscopic Cinema

Chapter 32: Cute and Fuzzy Dinosaurs

Cute and Fuzzy Dinosaurs 32 Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs The third installment in a series of computer-generated prehistoric adventures , Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, released July 1, 2009, was the first 3-D movie produced for stereoscopic digital cinemas by 20th Century Fox. Directed by Carlos Saldanha and Michael Thurmeir and featuring the voice talents of John Leguizamo, Ray Romano, and Queen Latifah, Ice Age 3 continued the frenetic antics of Scrat, the prehistoric squirrel, and his tussles over an acorn with his furry paramour, Scratte. When Romano’s Manny the wooly mammoth and his mate, Ellie (Latifah), are about to give birth to a minimammoth, Sid the Sloth (Leguizamo) is motivated to start a family of his own. After falling into a deep cave and stumbling on three dinosaur eggs, Sid gets his wish. Soon he is caring for three baby T. rex dinosaurs, but he is soon snatched up into the jaws of the babies’ mother, and with the three offspring, he is carried home to a verdant tropical landscape thundering with throngs of dinosaurs. Numerous stereoscopic technical directors were listed among the visual effects end credits. They had produced a 3-D movie that was easy to look at over the hour-and-thirty-four-minute running time, yet had moments of highly dramatic depth. A consistent stereoscopic virtue, and one that is facilitated by the versatility of computer-generated imaging technology , is the continually changing and dynamically variable interocular values through the film. Sometimes with panoramic vistas the interocular values seemed to assume hyperstereo dimensions, and the spacious depth, with the puppet 362 3-D Revolution theater effects, were perfectly suitable for the narrative moments on-screen. At other times, the depth would quiet down, but at all times, the visual space in the z-axis was dynamic and continuously changing. This made Ice Age 3 refreshing to watch in stereo. Perhaps in anticipation of its December release of Avatar in 3-D, Fox had began its own tussle with exhibitors over who picks up the costs of the 3-D glasses at the theaters exhibiting stereo. The circular polarizing plastic 3-D glasses supplied by RealD had in the past cost the studios seventy-five cents to $1 per moviegoer. Fox picked up the tab for the glasses for Ice Age 3, but, as noted by Ben Fritz and Richard Verrier in a June 2009 article in the Los Angeles Times, “With nearly 50 3-D movies due out in the next two years, the issue of who will pay for 3-D glasses is hardly settled. Fox is expected to keep pressuring theaters to pick up the tab and push for them to reuse the glasses.” An Interview with Jayme Wilkinson At Blue Sky Studios, Jayme Wilkinson was the stereoscopic supervisor for Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Wilkinson used a computer software tool set for the feature to be produced in both 2-D and 3-D. Released July 1, 2009, by 20th Century Fox, Ice Age 3, driven largely by the 3-D version, had grossed a worldwide total box office by October 2009 of $886 million and was the second highest-grossing film of 2009. The Second Annual 3-D Summit in Hollywood, held on September 16 and 17, 2009, provided an opportunity for me to sit down with Wilkinson on September 17 in Hollywood, California, and discuss some of the stereoscopic techniques used to produce this extremely successful 3-D feature . Wilkinson was knowledgeable about the sophisticated techniques used in contemporary production of computer-generated 3-D movies and spoke articulately about their use. Zone: Could you tell me a little about your background in 3-D and what you did with stereography before Ice Age 3? Wilkinson: I’ve been in the computer graphics industry since 1988. I went to Cleveland Institute of Art, got my bachelor in fine arts, and when I graduated, a little company from Marin County came by and showed one of their pieces of hardware to us. That was actually Pixar, and they brought up the Pixar Rendersafe Loader and gave us a demonstration. I looked at this Cute and Fuzzy Dinosaurs 363 thing and thought, “Oh my gosh, you can do so much with this!” So I went back to school to learn computer science because I thought the computer was going to be...