P3D Montreal 3-D Festival Review (Warning! Long)

[Gabriel Jacob <jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Note to Bob Wier, please reserve a digest just for this post! ;-)

RECAP

As most know, I reported about the then upcoming 3-D movie festival  that
took place from July 2 to July 18, 1999 at the Imperial Cinema here in
Montreal. Well, the 3-D movie festival is now history, it ended Sunday.
:-( This is my first free evening in over two weeks.

MISSION ACCEPTED!

When I first posted the 3-D movie schedule a few weeks ago, Andrew
Woods was kind enough to send me his review of a few years ago from
down-under! In his post to P3D, he challenged me to accept the mission
of seeing every single movie and reporting back! At that time I really
didn't think I was up to it, since that would be quite a few movies and
my experience in the 80s was less than memorable (more on this later).
Well, I'm glad to report I saw ALL the movies not once but two times,
and some even three times! I enjoyed most of them just as much (if not
more) the second and third time around.

SOME BACKGROUND

I thought my mission would be a lonely one but I met quite a few interesting
people. Wlad, another P3D member from Ottawa, even made the trek to
Montreal to catch Jaws 3-D and also see Encounters in the 3rd Dimension
at the new Imax theatre downtown (this was a few days after he attended
the Green Bay convention. He gave me a full report!). When we went to see
Jaws 3-D, I told the now familiar theatre staff, "If you think I'm nuts about
3-D, this guy (Wlad) has come all the way from Ottawa!"

I learned Francois Beaudry-Losique the director of the cinema is a big fan
of 3-D and the whole staff (from usher to projectionist) at the cinema are
avid cinemaphiles. The cinema is one of those old grand style cinemas of
another era (similar to the one in Richmond, Virginia) but not as big. There
used to be quite a few of these in Montreal and most of them have long
been converted to those small cineplex theatres. Others were demolished
or converted to other uses. This one escaped that fate and was generously
donated by Famous Players to an organization that screens lesser known
films such as foreign, and special genre films.

Before the 3-D festival they had a science fiction movie festival. Now that
the 3-D festival is over they are holding a Fant-Asia Festival. This is an
international festival of fantasy and action cinema, according to Mitch Davis
who is in charge of the international programming. He has also produced
some short films and one will be featured at that festival.

It was interesting to note, that Mitch Davis (any relation to Bill Davis?
;-) )
mentioned to me that they had just recently purchased the silver screen for
the 3-D festival. They are planning on keeping the screen as their main
screen and for future 3-D events! He told me if they didn't buy the screen
(which was interesting to note, was made of multiple strips, which wasn't
noticeable in projection) he was ready to paint one! He obviously has some
3-D blood in him, he did mention that he has a couple of 3-D alternate field
videotapes!

Sandros the organizer for the 3-D festival had scoured the Earth to find the
movies and also to get the rights to screen them. Anthony Timpson and his
brother came all the way from New Zealand with some of his prints. He has
a company called 2Brothers (what else!) that distributes, produces and
promotes films.

Kevin Carps, coordinator from Last Chance Productions in California also
brought some 3-D movies for the festival and was in town for a few days. It
was interesting talking with them and Kevin has mentioned that they are
planning on showing 3-D movies on the west coast. I asked him if he knew
Lawrence Kaufman, Ray Zone, etc., which he did!

THE 3-D MOVIES

They held to the schedule that was posted a few weeks ago except for
some minor exceptions. They didn't show, "The Bubble" due to missing the
first 15 minutes of the print and rescheduled another one due to technical
difficulties. They tried to get a copy of The Creeps but weren't succesful.
I was told it was filmed in 3-D but never shown as such, at least in a
theatre. It was interesting to note that it played on the C3D network, as
was posted on P3D very recently.

The movies they showed and projection formats were,

	POLAROID (side by side)
1) 	House of Wax 
2)	Dial M for Murder
3)	Parade of Attractions (short)
4)	Short from 1939? World's Fair (Chrysler? Car being assembled)

	POLAROID (up-down)
5)	Jaws 3-D
6)	Amityville 3-D
7)	Starchaser
8)	Metalstorm
9)	Comin' at Ya
10)	Flesh for Frankenstein
11)	Treasure of the Four Crowns
12)	Friday the 13th, Part 3
13)	Haunts of the Olde Country (short)


	ANAGLYPH 				 
14) 	Creature from the Black Lagoon
15) 	Revenge of the Creature 
16)	The Maze
17)	It Came from Outer Space
18)	Freddy's Dead

THE ANAGLYPH MOVIES

Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature, The Maze, and
It Came from Outer Space are all black and white 50s movies, originally
screened as polaroid but these were shown as anaglyphs at the festival. I
was looking forward to seeing these, since I never saw an anaglyph movie
(or at least that is what I thought, I had forgotten that I had seen Freddy's
Dead in the early 90s). I wouldn't really want to see them again. The quality
was pretty poor and this hadn't anything to do with the anaglyph process
itself. They were just bad copies. I guess they must have gone through a
few generations of copying and poor conversion, fading, and oh yeah, a few
misalignments, when they converted it to anaglyph.

Freddy's Dead anaglyph portion, which was in 3-D only for the last 10
minutes, could have been very good but the problem with that one was that
it was a color anaglyph and they were asking for trouble with the colors the
scenes had. It didn't work very well and I remembered why I had forgotten
this less than memorable 3-D movie!  

THE POLAROID MOVIES

The polarized versions of the movies were better but the first few days
wasn't fully enjoyable because of vertical misalignments in projection. I
talked to the person who organized the festival (Sandros) that first evening
but the problem continued. I don't think it was because they didn't care,
because they did but because they didn't know some basic concepts.  By
the third or fourth day I was fed up and since there wasn't alot people that I
had to trample over to get to the aisle, I got up to go see the manager.

I ran into Kevin Carps and told him the problem. He went and checked and said
I was right. He went in the projection room and fixed the problem. For the
rest of the week the projection was flawless. The movies were projected using
a single projector and single film strips. They had one projector dedicated
for the over/under and another for the side by side. They both had different
adaptors for showing the 3-D single strips.

Talking with Kevin I could tell that he was concerned that the audience always
be shown a proper 3-D projection since they wouldn't come back for more if it
wasn't a pleasent experience. I asked him before he left if there would be any
problems after he left and he said the projectionist knew what to do. The only
problem was that the next day that projectionist (Jacques, I was on a first
name basis with them by then! ;-) ) was off for a few days. 

I hoped for the best but the next day sure enough there was another
projectionist (Andre) who was at the helms! The film was misaligned, so I
went searching for the projectionist. The usher was sitting at the back and
he pointed him out. He was standing outside the projection room, checking
the movie. I told him the problem. He looked and said he didn't see anything.
I told him to take off his 3-D glasses and look at it. When he did, he said
you need the double image to get the 3-D effect! Ouch! I told him yes you
need a double image (so to speak) but not in the vertical orientation. It took
awhile to convince him (would you listen to someone coming out of an audience
telling you your business!). He said he couldn't adjust it while the audience
was watching it, since they would get dizzy. I remembered Kevin adjusting it
with no problems and told him to just do it gradually and the audience
wouldn't notice.

He went in the projection room and after a few minutes of waiting saw that if
anything, it was now slightly worse. I knocked on the door and entered and
told him it hadn't improved. I told him I would look at the projection and
tell
him how much to adjust it. So I looked at the screen and kept on telling
him, a little more, a little more, a little more, till it was right on! He
put on
his glasses and he said it was definitely much better. The next day not
being sure if he really understood or was humoring me, I was happy to see
a flawless 3-D projection for that day and the rest of the festival! :-)

This experience had taught me one thing. I firmly believe that 3-D in the 80s
(and maybe 50s) never really caught on mainly because of poor projection.
I was told that the movie studios distributed a test reel with instructions on
how to set up the projection but I think this wasn't followed, at least in the
movies I saw in the 80s. The reason I say, "I think" is because the few 3-D
movies I saw in the 80s, weren't really an enjoyable experience, till I saw my
first Imax 3-D movie. At the time I didn't know why but now I'm sure it was
simply because of misaligned projection!

While waiting for one of the polaroid movies to play, there were two women in
front of me that had the anaglyphs glasses. Most probably from another movie
that they had seen. I thought to myself it would be interesting if they would
notice any difference while watching the movie with the wrong glasses! Of
course being the nice guy that I am ;-), I told them that they had the wrong
glasses. They looked at their glasses and then to someone sitting beside them
(I guess they didn't believe me) and confirmed my comments. They went and got
the right pair and thanked me.

My job was done, or at least I thought it was. Moments later, while waiting
for the movie to start, it was getting late, I spotted another young man with
the anaglyph glasses! He was well in the front and the theatre was full by
now.
He got up briefly and I thought about getting his attention, but I wasn't
brave enough to yell out at him. After half an hour and the movie not starting
the audience started clapping. Two minutes later they darkened the lights and
started the movie! Were they waiting for applause, to start the movie!?! ;-)
In anycase, the young man in the front never got up during the movie and I
never found out if he enjoyed the movie. 

The last 10 minutes of Amityville were projected in pseudo, and I think most
of the audience didn't notice! I of course quickly flipped my glasses 180
degrees forward to view the movie properly. I told my brother (who happened
to accompany me that night) to do the same. Later upon questioning him, he
said he hadn't notice the difference!

3-D, 3-D, and more 3-D!

My favorite movies overall were, 
Metalstorm
Comin' at Ya
Flesh for Frankenstein
The Maze
Starchaser
It Came from Outer Space
House of Wax 
Dial M for Murder
Starchaser

It Came from Outer Space would have been much more enjoyable if it had been a
better anaglyph print but as it was, watching it once was enough. The others
were great. When Starchaser played, I thought to myself, "Oh no a 3-D cartoon
movie" but I was surprised at how good the 3-D and story was pretty good too!

The biggest turnout was for Friday the 13th, which had almost a full house!
It isn't my kind of movie but the 3-D was particularly well done and was one
of the few 3-D movies that I went to see a third time! It was fortunate that
I did because while I was waiting for the movie to start, a gentleman sitting
right behind us, overheard me explaining how to do 3-D to a friend. He started
to explain how the movie was filmed in 3-D and he really seemed to know what
he was talking about. I asked him how he knew all this (thinking he was
another movie buff) and he said he was the director of photography
(Gerald Feil) for that movie!!! Wow, I couldn't believe my good luck! :-)

He was with his family and we talked some more after the movie. I asked him
what he was doing here and he said that he and his wife were visiting their
daughter who is studing cinematography and is graduating soon from Concordia
University. He was passing by when he noticed the big 3-D banner outside the
theatre. He checked out the schedule when he noticed, Friday the 13th, Part
3 was playing. Since he hadn't seen it in 3-D in over 10 years and his
daughter
had never seen it (she was on the set when they filmed it but she was very 
young at the time), he took the opportunity to see it again. He said he had
a copy of the movie (which was part of his contract) but he had lend it to
some company (I forget who) which ran into some trouble and he never got
it back.

Gerald Feil came again with his lovely family to see Dial M for Murder and
House of Wax. Before the movie started for House of Wax, his wife (who had
written numerous childrens books) mentioned how when House of Wax first
played,
her parent's didn't let her see it. At that time, it was considered too scary
for 12 year olds! How times have changed! Gerald mentioned he had only seen
part of House of Wax (or was that Dial M?) for when he was preparing for
Friday the 13th, Part 3, so was looking forward to seeing the outcome.

The last day of the festival I got to talk to him more in depth and he 
mentioned how the camera they used to film the movie was a marks 3-Depix
attachment on a Arriflex movie camera. It used a bunch of prisms and mirrors
and was filmed in the over under process which yields a wider aspect ratio.
I imagine this must be very similar to the Delta? Panoramic Stereo Adaptor.

He said subsequently after filming the movie, Arriflex got out of the 3-D
business and sold all there equipment to India! That was quite a revelation
since I have a few Indian friends and am aware of the huge amount of movies
produced in what is called Bollywood, located in Bombay. He wasn't aware
of what specific movies they have produced but imagines there must have been
some 6 hours musicals! Anyone that has seen an Indian movie will know what
this is about! ;-)

I mentioned this to one of my Indian friends the next day and he was aware
that they produced some 3-D Indian movies but was short lived because it
wasn't popular with the audiance. Apparently they didn't use the one use
cardboard glasses but polaroid glasses similar to what Imax uses. The
problem was that it was the public found it wasn't hygeinic. I'm not sure
if they washed them between movies or was inacurate perception on the
publics part. This was about 10 years ago.

On the last day of the festival, after Dial M, we went out and had a
fasinating
discussion on all aspects of 3-D. I was impressed with his encyclopedic
knowledge on 3-D and cinema in general. His was involved with numerous films,
from Lord of the Flies (1963) to Savage Dawn and other genre films. Last year
he was in Brazil filming and presently he's working on a documentary for PBS.

I learned some more about the recent 3-D movies being made by the major film
companies such as The Creeps and Rock and Roll Hotel that was never completed.
After about 2 hours we had to part since he was leaving for New York the next
morning and I went and caught the last 10 minutes of Amityville, which was the
last movie of the festival. :-( Surprisingly this time it wasn't pseudo! :-)
I had a much greater time at the festival than I ever thought I would. I got
some posters of the event which will serve as a constant reminder of the fun
I had in 3D99! And if you have read this far, thanks for reading a much
longer post than I ever imagined I would write!

Gabriel, reporting from Montreal









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End of PHOTO-3D Digest 3403
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