Half of Transformers 3 Was NOT Shot in 3D

After much persuasion from Vince Pace and James Cameron, 3D sceptic Michael Bay decided to shoot Transformers 3: Dark Side of the Moon in “native 3D”. However, it has been revealed today that about a half of the final instalment was actually converted from 2D to 3D.

Conversion house Legend 3D, who were also responsible for the 2D – 3D conversion of The Green Lantern, Alice in Wonderland and the Shrek series, converted 77 minutes (approximately half) of Transformers 3 into 3D. Other conversion companies Prime Focus and In-Three converted smaller portions of the film.

2D to 3D conversion is an important part of the post process for every film natively shot in 3D and is one of the reasons why, aside from the lower cost which is going down for every feature, many decide to shoot in 2D and convert later.

Michael Bay has previously said that he experienced many problems during the 3D shooting of Transformers 3D.  Typical problems associated with two cameras arose such as discrepancies between each lens, reflections on the mirrors and sync issues all causing a headache for the Director. 

"Sometimes the image is broken and you've got to fix it — and sometimes it's not fixable, so you have to have conversion companies," said Bay. "It's a must. You can't keep it all native”.

Less than half of the movie was actually shot with a stereoscopic camera but the conversion was not used as a fix process for all shots. Michael Bay perefers the look of film for close-ups but 3D requires digital so most of the close up shots in Transformers 3 were converted.

Speaking to Variety.com, Legend 3D CEO Barry Sandrew said "We actually spent a year and a significant amount of R&D just preparing for 'Transformers 3,' because this is the most vfx-heavy movie that's ever been converted."

During a recent 3D training day for Skillset members at Ravensbourne College, Simon Robinson, Chief Scientist of VFX company The Foundry, showed delegates how major the differences can be between each lens using demo clips from Tron: Legacy, much of which was shot in native 3D. Rather than trying to fix the colour or alignment discrepancies between each lens it can be a simpler process to extract a left or right image from the other using systems like The Foundry's Ocula suite of tools.

Coming soon – an exclusive interview with Avatar D0P and CAMERON PACE Founder Vince Pace

For an excellent article about the Transformers 3 conversion read this Variety article.

 

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