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  • Movie-goers watch the 3-D movie "Cane Toads: The Conquest" on Thursday in Lars Hockstad Auditorium at Central Grade School during the Traverse City Film Festival. Record-Eagle/Keith King

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  • 3-D technician Mike Babb, of Grand Rapids, explains 3-D technology and equipment on Thursday in Lars Hockstad Auditorium. Record-Eagle/Keith King

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July 30, 2010

3-D techs keep movies on cutting edge

BY SHERI McWHIRTER smcwhirter@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — The lights went down in the Lars Hockstad Auditorium and hundreds of movie-goers wearing 3-D glasses laughed together at the first image of a big, fat cane toad.

Without the special $20 glasses, the image appears blurry on the screen with no added three-dimensional depth. That's why the work of 3-D technician Mike Babb and the Traverse City Film Festival's technical director Chapin Cutler is so important.

"You are trying to simulate what the eyes normally see," Babb said, while crowds gathered outside for the festival's first 3-D screening of the documentary "Cane Toads: The Conquest."

It is the first independent 3-D film ever made and focuses on the South American cane toad's journey across Australia, originally introduced to control the greyback cane beetle.

And the festival isn't using common 3-D technology to tell the story, but high-end digital audio and projection that moves 144 images per second past the viewers' eyes. It's a $100,000 system on the cutting edge of digital 3-D technology.

"If it's done right, you can forget you're in a 3-D world and get sucked into the film," Babb said.

It takes high speed images, color correction — also called wavelength multiplexing — along with two offset projected images to create the 3-D experience, Babb said.

But 3-D technology shouldn't be used just for the sake of using it, said Cutler, who also works as technical director for film festivals around the world, including the well-known Sundance Film Festival.

"If it's used simply as a gimmick or doesn't enhance the movie and the movie-going experience, it's just bilking the public," Cutler said.

That's not the case with the festival's two 3-D films, including "U2 3D," he said.

Todd Vipond waited outside the auditorium with his wife, Nadine, and son Ben, 10, tickets in hand. The Traverse City family wanted to see what 3-D technology the festival had in store.

"I'm looking for a quality 3-D experience that reflects what the film festival represents: community, quality and artistic integrity," Vipond said.

Inside, eight-year-old Patrick Byrne, of Traverse City, sat next to his mother and twirled his 3-D glasses, anxious for the movie to begin.

"It's going to be cool. Toads and frogs are my favorite. There's lots in my yard," Patrick said.

Festival founder Michael Moore introduced the film and director Mark Lewis, who flew 30 hours from Australia to be in Traverse City. Moore said the two 3-D films at the festival this year were chosen because of the "crazy good" way the technology is used, not simply because the technology exists.

Lewis said he used 3-D in the film because it suits the subject matter.

"Cane Toads: The Conquest" will screen again today at 6 p.m., while "U2 3D" will screen Saturday at 6 p.m., both at Lars Hockstad Auditorium. The former is sold out, though tickets remain available for the concert film.

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