Sony’s thriller aiming for summer release
3-D cinematography has always held the potential for delivering to audiences a more realistic, story-telling experience. This promise has been largely unfulfilled due to the physical constraints of traditional dual-camera cinema rigs, which limit the creative direction of any given shot. Director Thomas Jane and cinematographer Geoff Boyle, of the 3-D film noir thriller Dark Country were able to overcome these obstacles through a new highly mobile 3-D Steadicam-based rig made possible by the Silicon Imaging SI-2K stereo camera system. Rather than succumbing to the limitations of past 3-D systems, the SI-2K stereo rigs enabled a new dynamic story-telling style, transforming the possibilities for live action 3-D content creation.
Thomas Jane and Geoff Boyle had been exposed to the Silicon Imaging camera technology during their recent sci-fi action feature film Mutant Chronicles and were already keen on shooting with SI-2K. Sony Pictures hired 3D specialists, Max Penner and Tim Thomas of ParadiseFX to help bring the feature to life. They had just completed developing a 9-camera 360-degree rig using the Silicon Imaging cameras and were able to design a stereo beam splitter rig into a MK-V-AR Steadicam with variable interocular control and another rig with fixed interocular for hand-held shooting. The Steadicam-AR rig was used to perform dynamic tracking shots with auto-leveling, moving the cameras from a high mode of 8-feet to ground level in one second.
“The physical size of the Silicon Imaging 3D rigs completely redefine the scope and potential of 3D cinematography,” says director of photography Geoff Boyle. “The true revolution is in the visual language and stylistic choices which can now be utilized, with shots that have never been seen in a 3D movie before. Had we used any other camera system, there would have been nothing new to see – it would have looked like any other 3D film shot in the past 50 years. To bring a thriller car-chase movie like Dark Country to life, we simply couldn’t make those compromises.”
“Dark Country is a film that I wanted to express in a manner that remains true to the stylistic choices of film noir, while delivering an immersive reality and visceral experience that only the next generation of 3D cinematography could provide,” says Dark Country director-actor Thomas Jane. “Every medium brings a life of it’s own to the story-telling process, and with Dark Country, I wanted audiences to be there, to be in the car with the characters, and make the story their own with a heightened sense of physical contact never experienced before. The mobility and physical expression we were able to achieve with the Silicon Imaging camera rigs truly transformed my personal vision into a living and breathing visual reality.”
At NAB 2008, Silicon Imaging will be demonstrating a technology preview of the industry’s first integrated 3D stereoscopic digital cinema camera system. It will enable filmmakers to view, adjust and shoot in-context of a live 3D stereoscopic effect through an intuitive camera control interface complete with metadata capture, visualization and recording.
“Thomas Jane has set the new standard for live action Stereo 3D production with Dark Country,” says Ari Presler, CEO of Silicon Imaging. “Today, a great deal of time in 3D production is spent focused on shooting and editing two of everything and trying to determine if the camera setup will result in the desired stereo effect. Our next-generation 3D systems will give cinematographers an unprecedented level of visualization and post workflow control while hiding the complexity of on-set operation. It will show exactly how the 3D shot will look as it’s being captured.”
Dark Country 3-D is currently scheduled for summer release.
Source: Silicon Imaging
