BullProof 3D – Behind The Scenes DRS Feature

Digital Revolution Studios describe themselves as a full-service stereoscopic 3D studio specialising in the production of state-of-the art 3D content, from concept and creation to distribution. Based in Los Angeles and founded by the VFX Editor of Avatar and it's Executive producer, DRS has recently completed several high profile 3D productions including 3D Safari: Africa, BullProof 3D and the International 3D Awards show, all of which premiered on America's 3Net channel.

3D Focus journalist Stefan Christou talks with DRS co-founders Gina Tanner and her husband Craig Tanner who say that smaller, light-weight 3D rigs can contribute to story-telling and lots of behind-the-scenes knowledge from BullProof 3D.

3D Focus: Let's start by talking about 3D SAFARI: AFRICA. Why is 3D a good fit for wildlife films?

Gina Tanner: I think 3D is a great fit for any kind of motion picture where the filmmaker wants to elicit an emotional response. It is really about creating a more visceral experience. Just seeing something in a flat dimension doesn't create that kind of response that you can get out of a 3D picture.

3D Focus: Can you tell me more about filming 3D SAFARI: AFRICA? What was the production process like and how did it differ from a 2D project?

Gina Tanner: The way we build our rigs and create our workflow is to do things almost the same as a 2D workflow. The production itself was almost entirely the same. It was probably about five percent different in that each rig needs a different specialty or a different type of person to use it. Every camera system and every rig has different limitations so when we are co-coordinating a crew, we need to make sure we have got those particular areas covered. Sometimes we don't even use stereographers because we don't have the time to do the setups. Our rigs are designed for simplicity. Specialised rigs would be more suited for planned shots that required set up time and breakdown.

3DFocus: How have your 3D rigs been designed for simplicity?

Gina Tanner: We don't consider ourselves rig designers or rig renters but with each one of our productions, if there is a need, we can create and engineer the rig to work for that scenario. In terms of ease of use, we have got rigs that literally one person can put together in few minutes. They can tear it apart and they can move around as if they were on a 2D shoot. 

3DFocus: What cameras do you use on those 3D rigs?

Gina Tanner: We have used Sonys, Epics and SI2Ks but our in-house system that gets used the majority of the time use Canons.

We decided Canons would be the ideal platform for us because they are easy to replace – if a bull tramples on them or it gets dropped in the middle of Africa, we can easily replace it. They are also good value for money. We have used the Canon  primarily in some of our more broadcast-quality work. We have got smaller rigs that were designed on a HD platform that we end up using on more close-ups to get a greater intimate experience. All of our time-lapse sequences are shot on Canon 7Ds.

3DFocus: Was there anything that you found worked particularly well in 3D that might not have done in 2D or vice versa?

Gina Tanner:  3D is a very immersive experience. Things that work particularly well in 3D are sports and wild animals. We are filming mixed martial arts in 3D right now and of course we have already filmed wild animals in 3D with BullProof and 3D SAFARI: AFRICA.

I even think comedy is great in 3D. If you want to elicit a better rounded, full, rich experience with your viewer, 3D really helps as a tool to bring the viewer closer and invest more emotion.

3DFocus: I noticed you worked with Wild Eyes Productions for the making of 3D SAFARI: AFRICA. Is there anything special that Wild Eyes Productions brought to the table or the savanna?

Gina Tanner: Wild Eyes Productions consist of a very talented group of people. We have worked on three projects with them; one was 3D SAFARI: AFRICA, the other was Bullproof 3D, and out of 3D SAFARI: AFRICA we've re-purposed footage for Jillian's Travels.

Wild Eyes Productions brought the idea for 3D SAFARI: AFRICA to us and we thought it was a great concept. They had originally worked with a group out in Africa so they had the connections and the contacts with the different rangers. We built the 3D rigs that they were going to be using, assembled the crew, and sent them out.

3DFocus: BullProof 3D is a series of four one-hour-long programs on the trials, tribulations and triumphs of the rodeo. That must have been a different animal when it came to the story-telling process?

Gina Tanner: BullProof was really amazing but I have to say I am not really a fan of bullfighting. The show is about the bullfighters rather than the bull riders which makes the show a little different from traditional shows that people see. It's actually about the guys who are protecting the bull riders – who were previously called rodeo clowns. This is not to be confused with European bull-fighting. No animals are harmed!

We started doing the work on BullProof 3D, and when I watched it in 2D, I wasn't really that excited about it. Right before the final cut in 3D I had to review it. I watched it and then I re-wound it and watched it again. It was really interesting and I got ‘into’ it. It was a really different experience, and I think that's what's going to happen to the general audience. I think they are going to feel like they are there. They will get more involved and they will be able to experience something that most people will never do in their lifetime.

The storytelling process on BullProof 3D was fairly simple. Again, we chose to create 3D rigs that were very simple and were able to catch the moments quickly. If you lose a shot because you have trouble setting up you can't get it back once it has happened. So being able to capture on the fly was really important, and I think a long capture time itself was really important. A small footprint was also essential because when you are in an arena and you've got two-thousand pounds of animal coming for you and the camera, you have got to be able to move quickly and leave the 3D rig if you need to. Having that small footprint really allowed us to get up-close and personal with all of this action, which meant we were able to bring a better experience to the viewer. And it really shows when you see the quality of the content.

The team we sent out pretty much joined the rodeo for seven or eight weeks. The team captured everything from filming the set-up and the breakdown, and the experience that the viewers have is going to be very similar to being part of the rodeo. The logging was done over at Wild Eyes Productions and the writers that we had were really great; we were able to create the stories out of the actual events that happened.

3DFocus: Can you command a premium for your 3D productions in comparison to your 2D productions? Is this a golden-era for 3D producers?

Gina Tanner: I don't think so at this stage. I do think it is getting better. Certainly, we have seen that as more advertisers are willing to jump in, the 3D production budgets are getting stronger. Also, the more that people are seeing that this is not just a fad, they are going to be more willing.

I think next year we are going to really be able to command a premium. There are still a lot of cold feet but it is a lot better than it was a year ago. A year ago, our clients wanted more gimmicky ‘in-your-face’ kind of things whereas now people are starting to see that 3D really can be used as a tool to create a more emotional visceral experience rather than just be used as a gimmicky thing.

3DFocus: There are some polls that show that some people do not like 3D. Is the industry forcing 3D onto people or do you think they will want it once they've seen it?

Gina Tanner: I don't really think the industry is forcing anybody to see 3D. There are so few 3D channels that are available and you have to own a 3D TV to see it. Also, when we go to the theatre we have the choice of whether to see that film in 2D or 3D most of the time.

However, many studio heads have effectively forced 3D onto the filmmaker because of the measurable dollar return theatrically. But how many people is that really affecting? Does that affect you or me? This is affecting the top of the top and all they have got to do is learn to use the tool that they've got and they will be fine. There is resistance because many don't have an understanding of the workflow yet.

We had a situation with the filming of the International 3D Society Awards show that went out on Discovery 3net. On that, we loved working with 3ality. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing negative I can say about the 3ality team – they were great. Ted Kenny brought such flavor and richness to the International 3D Society Award show. However, it was really difficult to integrate their workflow with our workflow. They would shoot it one way and we would want to post it another way so you have to expand and be a little bit of a risk taker.

Craig Tanner: There are a lot of people that are opposed to 3D and I think that is because when it was first blasted out, there were a lot of movies that quickly were converted from 2D to 3D. There was a lot of content that was more important to get it in the marketplace than to get it right, and a lot of people got a bad taste in their mouth.

But hopefully over time, with companies like Digital Revolution Studios, 3ality and other people that specialise in 3D, there will be more quality content coming into the marketplace. I think this is going to come over time where we convince the consumer that – you know what? – We’ve learned from our mistakes at the beginning and we are making it better every day.

Gina Tanner: We used Final Cut, although we have shot some of our content in 3D using CineForm. But because we were using editors that were not familiar with working in 3D we gave them some simple instruction such as the basics of what to look for and what to try to avoid. We cut everything in 2D and then conformed it into 3D replacing a few shots that did not necessarily work. For the most part, it was a straight 2D edit that was then moved it into the 3D realm.

3DFocus: How does 3D affect the story-telling process?  

Gina Tanner: When you are positioning your cameras in an environment that most people will not experience for real it is extremely important. I would say in one sense it does not affect it too much because your story is your story. A good story in 3D is great, a bad story in 3D is just a piece of bad story. We pride ourselves on every single piece that we put out to make sure that it is part of an incredibly good story. We make sure that it enhances the story. I can't really say that we have engineered story around 3D in too many regards but it is definitely an enhancement.

3DFocus: I understand you are currently involved with an IMAX feature. What 3D rigs are you using on that?

Gina Tanner: On this particular show we are looking at underwater 3D rigs, so Phantom Mirror Rigs are a great rig for something like super-slow motion. We used it on some table-top commercial applications that we had not too long ago. I think if we had a higher budget it could be perfect for the 3D mixed martial arts that we do. We have just filmed some and we shot the majority of it at 60p, but if we could shoot some of it on a Phantom Mirror Rigs and get up close for slow motion it would be amazing. But that would have to be something that was scripted because you can't get that close in those cages. That is something that is very important about 3D production; you have to plan out what rigs you are using.

3DFocus: You also have some rigs that use relatively cheap HD camcorders. How useful are these in 3D production?

Gina Tanner: On BullProof 3D we took a 3D rig out in the field that used one of the even smaller Canon cameras. It made it really easy for our steadicam operator to move it around. He didn't need to take a lot of breaks. It weighed five pounds, was full 1080p and was so much more useful than we ever expected. In fact, I wish we had sent out another rig because when you've got a small rig that's based on a small platform you are able to get in and tell stories that no-one else is going to be able to tell.

You can relay something from up close – for example, when someone is knocked off and they are getting helped out of the field you can't just pick up a 100 pound rig and zoom around and follow these guys; they are on for seven or eight seconds and the next guy is on right after that. You have got to have somebody following to see what the reactions are and whether they are injured.

These little inexpensive HD camcorders became a great tool for story-telling. Image quality may not be the same but the story overpowers the beauty and the clarity because there are shots that you may not have been able to get. Our other 3D rigs based on the Canon XF305s weigh about 30-35 pounds, but you are able to send them out in the back of a truck and you don't have to have a whole crew to break it down and assemble it on site, it's literally like a 2D shoot.

We even used the GoPro 3D cams for the mixed martial arts show that we did. We put it on one of the corner men – we tried to get the referee to use it but we couldn't get it sanctioned before the fight. The quality is not quite there but it was interesting and it was a shot that we wouldn't have gotten. When you are storytelling you just look at your different tools and decide from there what you are going to use.

3DFocus: What is the most impressive scene or technique you've ever worked on or that DRS staff have ever worked on? 

Gina Tanner: One of the hardest shots we had to do was in Jillian's travels. We had a green-screen shot where she had a green shirt and a green jungle backdrop and doing it in 2D would have been fine. However, in 3D we had all these elements that were really conflicting with the green-screen. This was a shot that was integral to the story so we figured it out and ended up doing some multi-layer composition to give the illusion of 3D. So it was almost a conversion shot and it fooled almost everybody; no-one could tell which one of those is not real 3D.

3DFocus: Nowadays, 3D filmakers are a bit more conservative with their depth budget. When you are shooting action sequences for 3D, do you follow this conservative depth budget trend? I know that in Avatar there was some talk that in the very fast cuts every other shot was actually 2D and was maybe a float or just a 2D shot. Can you reveal any of your secrets in shooting action in 3D?

Craig Tanner: Shutter speeds are important for high-action sequences and reducing your interocular settings for live action capture is important. You don't need a super wide interocular ratio if the cameras are close enough to the subjects.

The key is to keep everyone on the screen plane or behind the screen plane for high-action sequences. If you start popping everything off the screen, you are just going to make people nauseous because everybody sees 3D differently. The goal that we have here is to make sure that we keep everything pretty conservative and comfortable because any time a viewer takes off their glasses we just lost them out of our story. That's the last place we want to be.

It is the same thing for high-action. We are very conscious about what the separation is between our lenses, what the shutter speed is and our frame rates. We are experimenting with different frame rates and with BullProof 3D, there is a ton of high action 3D sequences. Almost a quarter of the show is really high-energy, high-action stuff due to the nature of what we are filming.

I had this discussion with Gina earlier that when we go out on the field to shoot season two I am not going to roll anything that is 24 frames. I am going to go to higher frame rates for everything because it provides a more pleasurable viewing experience when you don't have all that motion blur like that of a theatrical release.

3DFocus: Is there anything you can't do?

Craig Tanner: I have to say I love challenges.  We are in negotiations right now about shooting a piece for IMAX 3D which involves taking cameras underwater in places where people shouldn't go. That's a really big challenge and something I'm really excited about getting involved with. Because there are a lot of variables, there is a lot of danger. Is the equipment going to hold up? It's certainly going to be a challenge!

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