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Star Wars: Episode VII to be directed by J.J. Abrams **NON SPOILER THREAD** — Page 41

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Star Wars comes out memorial day weekend. I expect no exceptions.

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"Timed" could just mean part of the build up. A christmas release has always worked well for the mega-blockbusting LOTR and Hobbit films?

Haven't all other Star Wars films been May? If Avengers2 is May 1st then the last day of May would make sense for EpVII.

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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If I was Disney I'd put Anengers 2 well out of he way of the Juggernaut that will be Episode VII. If Star Wars is to be May? Put back Avengers to July, August. THAT would make sense.

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Nothing is a juggernaut for more than for 2 weekends anyway these days, I think Avengers and Star Wars in the same month is no big deal.

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^My thoughts exactly. Movies are very frontloaded these days. I see no reason why Disney wouldn't release these two films at different times in one month.

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You two obviously expecting much from Epiode VII. According to you it's on a par with Avengers. Oh well.

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You do realize how much the Avengers made? Now Star Wars is my favorite thing in the universe, but it's not everyone's. I'm willing to admit that, box office wise, these films are on the same level.

Also, I said films are front loaded these days. If you really think Avengers is not up to nerf herder scruff, then it'll have no problem making way for SWVII three weeks later.

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Baronlando said:

Nothing is a juggernaut for more than for 2 weekends anyway these days, I think Avengers and Star Wars in the same month is no big deal.

I agree as the days of movies in theaters for extended periods of time are pretty much over.  Each summer blockbusters gets the opening weekend to themselves, and if they open well they will get a second weekend without competition.  Usually by the 3rd weekend, moviegoers are onto their next blockbuster. 

Episode 7 will probably open the weekend before Memorial Day, and will get those 2 weekends to make most of its money, and then another blockbuster will open the first week of June and the buzz for Episode 7 will be gone no matter how good or bad it is.

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It would actually make perfect sense for Disney to open Avengers 2 and Ep7 at opposite ends of May. Last year, the big memorial day movie was Men in Black III. It'd been three weeks since The Avengers opened and it was the movie to finally knock it from the #1 spot at the weekend box office.

If Disney opens Star Wars on memorial day weekend (as damn well they should) and assuming Avengers 2 is once again the #1 movie for the three weekends preceding, they could end up enjoying six or seven weeks as king of the box office.

Oh, and on the whole "how will it be shot" debate, I think it's quite likely Abrams will shoot this thing in 2D. All four of his other movies were shot on film, in cinemascope, just as the OT was. Perhaps the "on film" part might change (they could go with Arri Alexa 4:3 cameras), although I'd think JJ would prefer actual film if it's still available next year. Disney will in all likelihood convert it to 3D to squeeze an extra hundred million out of the box office.

I don't see Hollywood's obsession with 3D blowing over anytime soon. If the vast majority of the movie-going public don't know whether or not the movie they're seeing was shot in 3D, the studios are just gonna keep on exploiting that ignorance. Even I have to admit the conversion tech has come a long way. My pre-screening of Man of Steel ended up being the 3D version (projected in real-d) and I found everything quite natural-looking. The only real drawback was the darkening caused by the polarizing filters. Also, while I didn't go see the full movie this way, the converted opening scene of JJ's own Star Trek Into Darkness (shown in front of Imax 3D screenings of The Hobbit) looked pretty natural as well.

Also, it's important to note that while converted 2D footage will never be as convincing as the actual native material, more and more of these tentpole releases are having their cgi rendered in stereo. So, there's at least something "truly" 3D that people are getting out of these converted movies.

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I think in terms of post-3D looking really bad it's getting alot better. However...

... I thought this office scene ^ in STID looked mental, with the characters appearing to exist on two different plains of reality. But mostly post-3D films are more subtle now. Most of the time you forget they are even in 3D ('til you get to a night scene and you can't see sh*t) making you wonder why you had to pay extra for it.

But a film actually shot in 3D like Dredd or Avatar can be absolutely stunning and is worth the money at the theatre.

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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I think I read an interview of Nolan where he said that if he ever makes a 3D movie it would probably be in converted 2D, because A: he can shoot scenes the way he always do (well, with 3D in mind, of course) and B: because he could better control the 3D effect during the convertion.

Usualy as an audience I prefer the thought of watching "real 3D" over "converted 2D" (and most of the time the effect IS indeed better), but from a filmaker point of view, converted 2D have some advantages that are debatable. And yes, even older movies like Jurassic Parc and Titanic got some impressive 3D convertion.

My only "problem" with 3D is the depth of field / camera focus effect. In a 3D movie the audience should focus on what they want. There should not be depth of field at all. For exemple it just looks weird when your eyes focus on something on the foreground that is all blurry. Depth of field is already a way to "simulate" 3D on movies since the beginning of cinema... So adding 3D to depth of field makes the job twice, in a way. But of course it's something that the filmakers are not okay to drop, because it's a tool to lead the eyes of the audience, it's part of the director's job AND they should also make a second version of the movie WITH depth of field for the 2D release...!

About the 3D during dark scenes: to me it really depends if you are in a theater with passive glasses or active glasses. Most of the time I found that active glasses makes the movie even more dark. I prefer passive glasses in theater (the ones that you buy once and keep with you and use again next time) I rarely found the movie too dark with them. BUT on a 3DTV, where you can choose between several lighting options, the active 3D looks much better than passive that is half the definition of active 3D, so it's not really "full HD" (even if passive 3D is usualy easier for the eyes on most people.) Anyway... that's why even if I like 3D I totaly understand people who just want to watch the fucking movie without bothering about all those technical possible troubles!

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Shooting a movie twice hasn't really been done since the early 50's, when the industry was unsure widescreen was going to catch on.

It might be too expensive a proposition today. Actors and technical people might even want to be paid more if they are essentially making two movies at once.

Glasses free 3D is being developed. Hopefully, it's not too many years away, and won't require theaters to install all new gear again.

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Where were you in '77?

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Not as cool as Blue Harvest. ;)

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Where were you in '77?

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Wow that was a cynical marketing ploy from Mickey & Co...

Also 'Blue Harvest' was a Blueberry based Oatmeal cereal that Lucas tried to launch in the 80s ;-)

^ Corporate commander is pleased.

 

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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SilverWook said:

Shooting a movie twice hasn't really been done since the early 50's,

I was more thinking of a way to turn a 3D version without depth of field into a 2D version with depth of field. Don't know if it's possible though.

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Do 3D films from the 50's have this depth of field issue? I'll have to pay more attention next time House of Wax airs on TCM.

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Where were you in '77?

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TMBTM said:

I was more thinking of a way to turn a 3D version without depth of field into a 2D version with depth of field. Don't know if it's possible though.

Actually, that is possible to do.  the 3D data definitely allows you to add depth of field to the image as it knows the distances between objects and focal points.

Though shooting without depth of field would require a really short lens and a very narrow f-stop which would make the cinematography even harder.

Also, this doesn't have the right depth of field but this video does provide an example of how high enough parallax difference between points makes much more realistic 3D in which your eyes can focus and convolute from and to different points.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak6KSyXTJWc

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SilverWook said:

Do 3D films from the 50's have this depth of field issue? I'll have to pay more attention next time House of Wax airs on TCM.

Well, depth of field in 3D is not really a problem if you just look at the movie as you usualy do with 2D movies: by looking at the clear parts and avoid the blurry parts. In other words by letting the director make the focus for you. It's just a bit bizarre to keep depth of field now that the audience can make their own "eye focus".

But as the previous poster said, it would surely be a nightmare to shoot a movie with no real depth of field anywhere. Maybe it's easier to do with CG cartoons. I tend to think that there are in fact very fiew depth of field shots in most CG cartoons and that's maybe why they look so nice in 3D. Just thinking out loud.

Oh, and to stay in the thread's subject: STAR WARS EPISODE 7, YEAH!!!

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What sucks about STID getting post-converted is that Abrams not only wanted to stick with film but also shoot some of the movie in IMAX. The studio let him do so, but they still mandated a post-conversion since they were spending so much on the movie and needed a guaranteed return on their investment. Because they were focusing their resources on the 3D, rendering the cgi in native stereo and so forth, they weren't able to render the IMAX shots at their full height. As a result, the handful of IMAX 15/70 2D prints have the IMAX shots matted down to 1.66:1, as opposed to the full 1.44 height of the frame. The Imax 15/70 3D prints of the movie apparently cropped the 1.66 image to fill up the entire screen for maximum immersion, losing information on all four sides of the o-neg.

Therein lies the propensity for tacking on the 3D. When so much of the movie is being done in the computer anyway, why not just convert the live-action stuff and be done with it? It's too bad there aren't more 15/70 theaters out there. I feel like that would've earned more respect for Abrams' intentions from the studio heads. But since his name isn't Christopher Nolan and the name of the franchise isn't Batman, I guess it was a no-brainer to make an extra four dollars per ticket from the thousands of 3D screens out there instead of settling for an extra five dollars a ticket from the only few hundred imax screens out there (which would then be an extra six dollars a ticket because it's imax 3D).

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Jaitea said:

Hmmm, Foodles?

STAR WARS EPISODE VII Set To Start Filming Next Month; Production Title Revealed

J

 Ah, Foodles Productions Ltd. I will have to look out for that name when I am at Black Park, the country park behind Pinewood Studios. Loads of filming goes on in this park and is really familiar to Hammer Film fans as it was a prime location in those days. When The Mummy Returns was being filmed there, they were Imhotep Productions. The Wolfman just had signs with TWM on them. Could the next Star Wars production hop over the fence and use the pine forest as a location ? I hope so !

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Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

So, when a movie is shot in 3D, and then "down-converted" to 2D, are areas of the frame chosen to be "blurred" to simulate the depth of field, after-the-fact?

That's what I personally would prefer. But I never saw such a thing, because every 3D movies I saw were shot as a regular 2D movies, meaning with depth of field (on both stereo pictures). A previous poster said that it should be doable to shoot a movie with no depth of field (but technicaly maybe difficult) and that it should be doable to convert it in 2D with depth of field by using the differences between the 2 stereo pictures of the 3D to recreate the blur. At least that's what I understood. the problem would be that in this case almost all the shots would be filled with depth of field effect if you can't specificaly choose what parts of the screen you want to be blurred or not, lol, brain explodes. Must go to bed.

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TMBTM said:

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

So, when a movie is shot in 3D, and then "down-converted" to 2D, are areas of the frame chosen to be "blurred" to simulate the depth of field, after-the-fact?

That's what I personally would prefer. But I never saw such a thing, because every 3D movies I saw were shot as a regular 2D movies, meaning with depth of field (on both stereo pictures). A previous poster said that it should be doable to shoot a movie with no depth of field (but technicaly maybe difficult) and that it should be doable to convert it in 2D with depth of field by using the differences between the 2 stereo pictures of the 3D to recreate the blur. At least that's what I understood. the problem would be that in this case almost all the shots would be filled with depth of field effect if you can't specificaly choose what parts of the screen you want to be blurred or not, lol, brain explodes. Must go to bed.

You use the 3D to create a depth map for one of the angles, and can then allow a lens blur tool (say in AE) to reference the depth map.  You can then adjust focal point, and strength of the blur (how shallow you want it).  you can even keyframe settings to simulate rack focus and stuff.  It's extremely simple, but does require shot-by-shot conversion.  It's like controling the camera settings after-the-fact.

The only thing to make it better would to use an algorithm specific to simulating depth of field, like field blur from photoshop cs6.

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emanswfan said:

You use the 3D to create a depth map for one of the angles, and can then allow a lens blur tool (say in AE) to reference the depth map.  You can then adjust focal point, and strength of the blur (how shallow you want it).  you can even keyframe settings to simulate rack focus and stuff.  It's extremely simple, but does require shot-by-shot conversion.  It's like controling the camera settings after-the-fact.

The only thing to make it better would to use an algorithm specific to simulating depth of field, like field blur from photoshop cs6.

Quite interresting, thanks for the details :)