June 26th, 2011
How Do 3D Movies Work Compared to How they Used To?
For adults, there are many technological advances that seem to make little sense, including 3D movies. This phenomenon has swept the nation and will continue to be developed and fine-tuned until we are living inside these movies. Until then, however, it can help to understand how these movies work their magic. Here we will talk about how these movies are able to do these things to our brains.
For starters, let’s talk about how 3D movies used to be done. The trick was that the people making them knew how our brains naturally want to make depth out of different images. For instance, if you look at something far away with both eyes, you can tell that there is space in between you and it. If you close one eye, you may still know that object is far away, but will have a harder time perceiving the amount of distance away that it is.
There are many ways that this aspect of our brains has been used in the entertainment industry. Maybe you have seen or heard of the exhibits at theme parks where a child can walk into a room and suddenly they look like a giant. This is a trick of perspective- your brain sees the room, assumes it is normal size and then judges the child to be very tall since they are well above the door. The magic of 3D movies uses similar tricks.
In the old days, 3D movies used to be made by showing you two different films at once with slightly different angles to each other. Your brain did the math and figured out that there must be some depth there in order for those angles to coexist. These older 3D movies also used the fact that red film over your eye will cancel out red colors and similar for blue, which led to those glasses we know so well as 3D glasses.
Currently, the red and blue is not as necessary. This is because we have learned to harness the power of polarization. Polarization allows the movie makers to give you glasses that each cancel out a particular wavelength which corresponds to how the movie is shot. This means that your brain can work its natural magic without having to rely on the red and blue. It also means we can have wonderful things like 3D Blu Ray movies .
The red and blue idea with 3D movies led to some problems because the colors in the movies could not be as versatile and you were never getting a fully realistic version of the film. By using polarization, movies are able to be shot with normal colors and still allow you to have the amazing experience of witnessing 3D movies.
What’s next? 3D TV without glasses ? You tell me! The possibilities are endless because people are working around the clock to come out with the newest and most exhilarating technology. This works out well for all of us movie goers because we can enjoy the benefits, all we have to do is wear some glasses, for now.