IESB recently sat down with Charlotte Huggins, producer of the live-action 3-D feature Journey to the Center of the Earth which just had it's first screening at WonderCon. Naturally they talked about Journey, but also touched on the future of 3-D in cinema as well as what it takes to convert a 2-D film to 3-D. (like Star Wars!) See below for the Star Wars related excerpts and click here for the full interview:
"IESB: And there?s talk of going back and making 2-D movies into 3-D.
Huggins: Well, when you make a 3-D movie, you can always go back and show it in 2-D but if you make a 2-D movie, you can?t always show it in 3-D. So you make it in 3-D and you always have 2-D or 3-D options.
IESB: But isn?t there talk of going the other way? Hasn?t George Lucas talked about going back and adding 3-D to Star Wars?
Huggins: Right. They are actually talking about ? and they?ve been experimenting with ? doing a 3-D conversion. They take each optic in each frame of each scene and map that object and create the 3-D. It?s pretty impressive.
IESB: But it?s painstaking process?
Huggins: It is. It?s expensive. It?s slow. But it?s beautiful. That?s what they did on Nightmare Before Christmas. It?s amazing. They did the best 3-D conversion I?ve ever seen. They really did it carefully and it just looks beautiful. That movie wasn?t conceived for 3-D. It just has so much 3-D stuff in it that it came out beautiful. Polar Express they did the same thing. But those are movies that live in a surreal space.
IESB: Is it something that?s significantly harder to do with live-action actors?
Huggins: Yes, it?s harder and ultimately less satisfying. It?s fun and particularly if you could do Star Wars and create Star Wars in 3-D, it would blow peoples? minds. You feel like you?re there. It?s a very intimate experience. You feel like you?re in the ship with them. We?re all Star Wars fans. It?s three generations at least. You have three generations of people who would love to be on the ship with them or involved in a battle. You don?t just watch it. You experience it."