Just like the rest of the world I was blown away by Avatar in 2009, I quickly started learning everything i could about Stereoscopic imaging and in mid 2011 we stuck two canon 550Ds on a plank of wood and shot a 3D test.
Then with 48hours 2013 ahead of us we started to make plans to shoot our film in 3D. from our tests in 2013 though i knew the side by side camera technique just wasn't going to cut it though, (side by side restricts the minimum distance of the subject which means nothing more than wide shots)
on location for the first shot of the day with our 3D rig and great actors.
So it was obvious we where going to need a beam splitter. Easier said than done! Over february and march of 2013 myself and a friend began building a stainless steal box with a piece of stereo 50/50 glass at its centre. this would be the foundation of the beam splitter.
The key to the set up was going to be two panasonic GH3s with identical lenses shooting at 50p (so that we could get as close to a perfect fame sync as possible, the final output would always be 25p)
With the beam splitter built we began test shooting, it was not easy because we had no way to view what we where filming in 3D, all we see was two separate 2D images on different sides of the beam splitter. however after a few tests and post production tests we felt confident that we would be able to guess our way through the set ups and put something together for 48hours.
Then just like any 48hours comp the team came together for the weekend. we where given the genre of Robot/Android/Cyborg film along with some other compulsory elements.
It was a hard shoot and in the end the challenge of shooting in 3D meant we only handed in the film in with seconds to spare. post production was rushed and the film wouldn't look or sound as good as it truly should have.
So over the next few weeks (which then turned into months and in the end a full year) we reedited the film, remastered the sound and fine tuned the 3D.
So it gives me great pleasure to finally release this film to the world, (ironically I'm writing this just days ahead of the 2014 48hours comp, (which we are just doing in 2D this year)
I'm not expecting this to do terribly well online in terms of views but I do know that there is a lack of narrative anaglyph 3D so hopefully this can find an audience there.
3D is GREAT (it really is), but I don't think I'll be shooting in 3D again without a professional beam splitter or at the minimum a way to view a shot in 3D while filming.
Everyone at our heat watching the film in 3D