Zoic Studios Brings 3D Insights to New York
The L.A.-based VFX and design studio brought its big guns, including Creative Director and VFX Supervisor Les Ekker to the Crosby Hotel in SoHo for a mini-tutorial on 3D.
Zoic Studios VFX Supervisor Les Ekker Leads a 3D Primer in Manhattan
The L.A.-based visual effects and design studio brought
its big guns to the Crosby Hotel in SoHo for a
mini-tutorial on stereoscopic techniques.
By Anthony Vagnoni
The march towards wider acceptance of stereoscopic 3D production on the part of advertisers, agencies and their partners in the production, post production and VFX communities was on display in New York City last week. That's when a team of top producers, directors and VFX supervisors from Zoic Studios in Culver City, CA, presented a symposium on 3D production to an exclusive audience of agency producers and creatives and production industry artists and EPs at the Crosby Hotel in SoHo.
The event was headlined by Leslie Ekker, Zoic's Creative Director and Visual Effects Supervisor for TV Commercials, who brings an impressive resume in effects work for both entertainment and advertising projects to the studio. On hand were approximately 50 members of the agency, production and post production communities. Also on hand were Zoic's Miles Dinsmoor, Executive Producer, Design; Steve Schofield, Executive Producer/Co-Founder; Loni Peristere, Executive Creative Director/Co-Founder; and Erik Press, Executive Producer/Commercials.
Ekker has been with Zoic since 2008. Prior to that he'd worked on a roster of high-profile features and special venue projects, including early 3D work for theme parks and attractions. He spent ten years at Digital Domain before joining Zoic, where his feature credits include such films as "Apollo 13" (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award) and "Titanic." His other feature credits include such titles as "Bladerunner," "Ghost Busters," "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Adaptation." He's also worked as an effects supervisor on dozens and TV commercials.
Press kicked off the seminar by giving some facts and figures on 3D TV penetration in American households, noting that experts predict a base of 1.5 million 3D-enabled sets by the end of next year. He believes that it will be advertiser content that will help propel the technology forward on the consumer level. "We have to educate ourselves on this format and know how to make quality stereoscopic 3D content," he says about the TV commercial production and creative communities. "We need to be the trendsetters here, and we need to be at the forefront."
Ekker opened his portion of the talk by screening a piece for the Chevy Volt that Zoic Studios produced for use at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles in June to help introduce the electric vehicle to the gaming crowd. The studio initially produced the animated piece - in which the new Chevy Volt is seen in various parts and components that come together to form the new car, which then ride off on a futuristic highway suspended in space - in 2D, but felt it would lend itself well to 3D, so they re-animated in stereoscopic as an exercise.
In the process of converting it they encountered a number of unforeseen creative issues that are typical of what you can expect when working in the stereoscopic format, Ekker said. "Much of it had to do with shot design," he noted. "In some shots, the 3D effect worked great, and in others it didn't."
The Zoic presentation was shown on a projection system that used passive 3D glasses, which Ekker believes have certain advantages over the active shutter glasses that are found on some 3D-capable home TV sets. Those require the ability to read an infrared signal that the TV monitor emits in order to be fully synched with the 3D content that's being shown on the screen; getting too far away, too far to the side or having too many pairs of active shutter glasses in the room can impact the quality of the 3D signal in adverse ways.
The key to any 3D commercial job starts with the creative, Ekker noted. "Your concept basically has to be 3D friendly," he said, recommending that creatives avoid the cliché of objects projecting outward from the screen because of the challenge they present to viewers. "In order to ensure the quality of the viewer experience, the design of the shots is very important," he added. He talked about how the brain processes the perception of 3D images, and that it can take time for our mental circuitry to work around what he calls "the hierarchy of depth." Rapid succession of shots that call attention from foreground to background can be disorienting and difficult to focus on.
Ekker then went on to make a variety of points that he felt anyone in the process of planning, creating, producing or post-producing a spot in stereoscopic 3D needs to keep on their radar. Here's a quick rundown:
- Depth of field can be an issue, as in 3D it's often important that both foreground and background elements stay in focus. It might require larger lighting packages than normal, he advises, as the DP will need to ensure that he or she has adequate light to capture maximum depth of field in critical shots. "People's eyes can't 'rack focus' in 3D," he said. "It's distracting and difficult."
- Tracking of effects shots and background plates is critical. The key is checking and double checking to make sure that all photographic elements are perfectly aligned. "Correcting problems like this is more expensive in post production, and at times it's impossible," he warns. The setting up of shots can take longer, and can at times be more demanding.
- The skill of your craft people will become even more important than it is on a regular 2D shoot, Ekker suggested. DPs need to be talking to editors and effects people, and everyone needs to be on the same page. "Precision is everything when it comes to the success of stereoscopic 3D production," he noted.
- Client review and approval requires that the work be screened on a quality 3D presentation system, which can present its own problems. The incompatibility of viewing devices and the lack of clear standards or familiarity can impact the viewing experience for clients, he noted. "These are some of the awkward aspects of the early adopter phase of 3D that we're in right now," he said.
- Broadcast standards for 3D vary. Some broadcasters that are either presenting or planning to present 3D content are being particular about the quality of 3D TVCs they'll agree to broadcast, Ekker added. He's heard that one European broadcaster has said it will not run post-converted 2D to 3D TV spots, and that in some cases it will want to vet the list of vendors that have worked on the spots to ensure their quality. He likened it to the early days of colorization, wherein some films benefited from the technique, but most didn't.
Overall, Ekker can't say enough about the power of 3D to engage audiences. "It's vastly superior to 2D in so many ways," he said. "It's like inventing another color." The possibilities for using the technique to draw in viewers are numerous, and he especially noted the use of graphics and on-screen titles, as evidenced by the richness and depth seen in cinema trailers for 3D films. They will allow creatives many new options to expand on the appearance and presentation of logos, symbols, icons, type fonts, etc.
Ekker is also fascinated by what he describes as the mingling of sociological and physiological aspects of 3D content - the way the physics of watching 3D affects the emotional impact of the content, and the interaction between people watching this kind of content in group settings. "What you end up seeing is volumetric in its impact," he said about 3D content that's done right. "The images seem to have space in your space; it can be like they're really there."
In the wings are presentation technologies that do not require the use of any glasses in order for the viewer to experience a 3D effect, he said. These "free view screens" present what Ekker described as beautiful images, but are extremely fragile. They employ a thin lenticular overlay on the screen to break the images up into three-dimensional pixels, but they're exceedingly delicate and currently in use only in limited applications such as hand-held gaming devices. "Once perfected, these things will be incredible," he said.
What was the audience reaction? Overall, they seemed positively sold. Jennifer Lederman, the National Managing Director and Executive Producer at Red Car, was on hand with several of her editors to see what the Zoic experts had to say. "There's a lot of interest in stereoscopic, and we want to be ready technically when it starts to become a reality," she says. Red Car is already getting calls for post-conversion work on TV spots, she notes, adding that the creative and production communities seem ready to embrace 3D but the media buying and planning side of the business seems to be lagging behind.
Published 17 November, 2010
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