P3D Re: My first stereo show - strange reactions

[Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 
>From: Keith Wilson writes:
>
>I gave my first public stereo show last night, at the local (non-stereo)
>photographic club of which I'm a member.  I found the reactions from the
>audience to be quite interesting and, maybe, a little surprising.

****  Congrats on what sounds like a lot of fun!

>.................
>The first guy had some nice material, but almost all of it was, I felt,
>rather gimmicky.  There was always some object ( a plant, street sign etc.)
>very large in the immediate foreground, with the main scene behind it. 
>About 30% of his slides had stuff coming through the window, sometimes by
>quite a long way.  I found several of these slides difficult to view, and
>there were concerted groans from the audience at various points.

*****  Relative to a few things, maybe the first guy wasn't all that far off
the mark. Obviously his understanding of stereo and images in general
included the idea of foreground content. Perhaps he will learn some
variations in the technique, or perhaps that's the effect he wanted. As to
coming through the window, that's good or bad relative to other factors.
Perhaps his images would look ideal on a computer monitor with LCS glasses,
while images that don't come through the window are plagued with excessive
ghosting.


>
>My approach to stereo is, I think, slightly more subtle.  Sure, I'll
>include a good foreground object ......  Only one of my slides last
>night had objects coming through the window, and I very nearly decided not
>to include that.
>
>But, what was the reaction from the audience?  Essentially that the first
>guy's slides were "real stereo", and that mine were just OK, but certainly
>not as exciting and interesting as the first batch.  These comments
>related, I think, to the stereoscopic presentation rather than the subject
>matter.

****  Noel Archambault from IMAX told me that such reactions are very common
in general audiences for stereo and that's part of why IMAX uses the system
that they do. My opinion is they need a more careful balance of these
factors to reduce headaches and eye strain, but still deliver plenty of
depth punch.

What I wonder is, will this trend in audiences modify with the dawning of 3D
movies as the rule rather than as rare exceptions?

I notice in sharing stereo images on a small scale, that those less familiar
with stereo images seem to need some exageration to become aware of the
effect itself. The smaller depth factors, though present aren't noticed.
This can be remedied happily by an abundance of more stereo movies and
stereo entertainment... :-)

>.............
>One more interesting point.  Everyone in the audience of about thirty
>people was a photographic enthusiast, but not one of them expressed an
>interest in trying stereo for themselves, even though I made the offer of
>providing further information and assistance.  In fact, I talked
>individually to several members who were looking at my Realist etc., and
>the almost universal comment was that stereo was not worth the trouble.  
>(Bear in mind that these guys will spend days in their darkrooms producing
>material for club competitions!)

****  *Trouble* must be a relative term. Trouble relative to what? This
might relate to more general patterns such as fear of the unknown, feeling
busy enough with the known, and an identification with the known while the
unknown seems alien somehow. Ever try teaching driving to an adult who has
never driven? It's quite an experience! Then there is the understanding of
what any learning curve involves...

The best solution is either they like it enough to see their own
possibilities and develop their own motivation, or you show them something
so exciting that they can't resist wanting to learn, or you give them new
sophisticated tools so the learning curve aspect disappears. Motivation is
the key and everybody gets it differently and at different speeds.

>
>One guy said that he'd tried stereo once, and found it to be far too
>limiting.  I couldn't persuade him to expand on this, other than to say
>that stereo stopped him from doing a lot of the things he wanted to do. 
>(Photographically speaking, of course!)

******  That's funny! I say that about 2D!!!  ;-)

>
>Clearly, I'm not going to make many converts at my club, so I guess I can
>wave good-bye to my dream of a stereo category in our competitions!  What
>am I doing wrong, guys?
>....

******  Absolutely nothing! Just keep doing your own thing anyway... They
will know who to turn to when the light inside their head suddenly lights up.

Larry Berlin

Email: lberlin@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.sonic.net/~lberlin/
http://3dzine.simplenet.com/


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