Yesterday the nominees for the 84th Academy Awards (Oscars) were announced. See details on this Wikipedia page. Hugo, widely regarded as the best 3D film of all times, leads with eleven nominations. But how did 3D fare overall? And did Stereoscopic (Native) 3D beat converted 2D to 3D?
Overall, 3D films received a total of 
23 nominations; Not bad considering that many critics have declared 3D for dead in year 2 “post- Avatar”. Scorsese’s masterpiece Hugo collected nominations in many categories (11). Other notable 3D nominations included Transformers and Harry Potter (3each). And six films were nominated for one Oscar each: Tintin, Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, La Luna, Pina and Rio. As always, the total number of nominations a film receives is not necessarily interesting as there are many minor categories like best original song (Rio), best makeup (Harry Potter),
best costume design (Hugo), best sound editing (Hugo and Transformers) and best sound mixing (also Hugo and Transformers). In major categories like best picture, best director, best writing, best cinematography Hugo is the only 3D nomination. Interestingly, no 3D film gathered nominations for best male or female Actor/Supporting Actor/Actress. In the technical category best visual effects 3D dominates with Hugo, Harry Potter, and Transformers competing against 2D films Real Steel and Planet of the Apes.
I am on the record as being highly critical of converted 3D films for many reasons. This year native 3D titles received 17 nominations while converted films Harry Potter and Transformers received 6.
(Note: Transformers is actually a “hybrid” 3D film with 78 minutes of converted 3D by Legend and the rest shot stereoscopically. As most of the real action (the impressive transformers/cars/fighting scenes) is converted material, we must consider the film as converted as a whole. Legend also did some conversion work for Hugo (the historic Méliès footage totalling a few minutes) by the way).
So this year, stereoscopy beats conversion 17 to 6. But what about next year? As the Hollywood studios now started to realize that there is a lot of money in 3D, they start to re-release some of their past blockbusters. In 2012 we will see major films Titanic and Star Wars as well as the new Men in Black III hit the screens. These shows will all be converted from 2D. My guess is that they will not stand a chance in next years Oscar nominations against native 3D titles like The Hobbitt, The Amazing Spiderman, Life of Pi, Madagascar 3, Ice Age, Great Gatsby, etc. But then again, stranger things have happened (let’s better not talk about the return of black&white silent cinema movies 
Torsten Hoffmann is Managing Partner at Global Media Consult and distributes a large stereoscopic 3D content portfolio globally. He writes at www.3dcontentblog.com and tweets @3dcontentblog.
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there have been many comments to my article in various forums. let me try to add a few of them here.
Your analysis probably reflects the popularity of S3D live action films versus conversion and it is very encouraging! Regarding Hugo, I think we expected from many years a S3D live action film proving that stereo can be used as a beautiful simple storytelling tool and here it is… Thanks to the young Martin Scorsese !!!
(A good live action story without blood neither horror or fantastic style and recognized by everybody, it’s wonderfull! !)
16 hours ago
2D 3D conversions do miracles but not all kind of miracles.
Shooting in native 3D means telling the history in 3D (…and I’ve seen native 3D movies which made me cry… of pain). When I get a 2D shoot to convert there are
times where one can do really amazing conversions and, in other situations, given a 2D material,
one can only create the other view to make it 3D and, it works fine, but no amazing effects appears. Just, it’s in 3D.
The other day my little daughter was shooting a video with the nice Nintendo 3DS and…. I admit I lied when I said WOW..amazing.
I can do a really closed conversion to the hipotetical native 3D shoot of Casablanca (I bet more that excepted should say it’s real 3D) but what I can’t do is changing the way my friend Humphrey walks towards the camera and stop him before his head touches the top of the frame… That’s what a director shooting 3D is free to do…
Can you tell a live 3D football/tenis/basketball match in another way than when using conventional 2D? (Be scare! Live 2D-3D indistinguible conversion for controlled scenarios is really closed… and there are many small TV which like the idea)
Finally, If a movie is shooted in 2D but considering it will be converted, I can get the same results than if shooted on native 3D.
Of course there are good quality conversions and bad quality conversions (…as there are good movies and bad movies). All what you have to do is chossing the right company to do the work.
Hope Torsten’s guess to be wrong! We’ll see it!
I admit shotting with two eyes is better than only one (no need to hire conversion services) but, think there’s a lot of people with low budget who wants to get it 3D and…
that’s my mission, to help them.
Regards. 8minutes ago.
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my reply::
Torsten Hoffmann • Thanks for your perspective, Antonio. you are absolutely right. there are very bad and cheap conversions. and very good and expensive ones (titanic costs $18m, I believe). I do think that there is a business for conversion companies and I wish them/you all the best. There will be many titles that will be converted in the next few years. However, I really hope that the production ecosystem as a whole will adapt to 3D. This will benefit the whole entertainment industry, and if good 3D content makes 3D hardware (TVs, tablets) more available to the wider public, this will also help conversion companies and their business. So I think we need to start with native productions and not the other way round.
Great post and interesting comments! I’m not sure that the artistic/commercial success lack thereof for converted 3D films correlates directly to the conversion process. I suspect that often business decisions trump the creative process to the detriment of the final product.
I’ve read (trying to remember where) that some directors working in native 3D will shoot in 2D and convert some scenes rather than shoot them in 3D for logistical and technical reasons.
I did get to screen about 25 minutes of converted Titanic and I couldn’t tell the difference. I also saw the converted Harold Lloyd “Safety First” http://bit.ly/xWyCFF and honestly I found the colorization more jarring than the 3D conversion.
I think conversion is a creative tool, and, like any other tool, in the right hands it can create something wonderful.
Torsten: Here is a very interesting perspective
- good conversions are as good/better than native
- even the great masters of the trade are using conversions (parts of Avatar)
Read more here:
http://the3d.co/2011/09/21/james-cameron-and-avatar-2d-to-3d-convert/
related:
http://www.3dfocus.co.uk/3d-news-2/3d-fans-less-likely-to-watch-films-converted-to-3d/6988
First to tell you I’ve been drying my tears when reading the conversion cost for Titanic… 18M $. There are other companies like mine which does this many times cheaper …but this depens on the software used etc… Well, that’s subject for another post.
I agree your last statement. Productions need to start with native 3D productions. But in the meantime, limitations are limitations and budget is the strongest one.
My hope is companies which makes bad conversions give up the business and then good conversions be given to consumers so everybody is happy.
We can discuss about if 3D production is cheap of expensive. My experience is productors call my door for conversions and, the reason is always the same… money.
Of couse, as time passes by, 3D production will be cheaper and cheaper and then, I’ll dedicate my time only to convert old movies and, if there comes a time where people doesn’t like old movies 3d-converted, well, I’ll look for another way to spend my time
Kind Regards.
Posted by Antonio Béjar
interesting addition to the discussion: the question of profitability…
http://the3d.co/2012/02/09/hugo-3d-a-comparison-of-stereo-v-conversion-breakeven-points/
This is also interesting: In 3D Focus’ exclusive survey among 3D professionals
http://www.3dfocus.co.uk/3d-news-2/3d-survey-results-reveal-mixed-thoughts-on-3d/7438
Do you think 3D warrants the price premium in the cinema?
783 respondents
17% voted yes
35% voted no
48% voted “Yes if shot in 3D but not if converted”
And here is Wired’s piece about the “3D Arms Race”.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-02/20/rise-of-3d-conversion?page=1
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-02/20/rise-of-3d-conversion?page=2