1. Disney and Technology
3D Technology and Disney
Given the success of films such as James Cameron's Avatar (nearly $3 billion worldwide and
counting) and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland ($116 million opening weekend), 3D seems
a no-brainer business decision for movie studios. Studio executives have portrayed modern
3D technology as an evolutionary step in moviemaking, akin to sound and color. Theater
operators have also bought into the technology in a big way—some 5000 digital cinema
screens are now equipped with 3D projectors.
Yet there are already signs of a growing backlash. Innovative directors such as Christopher
Nolan (The Dark Knight) and Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) have expressed concerns about
the limitations of the technology and are making upcoming features in 2D. Studios have also
pulled back on plans to release some high-profile movies in 3D. Last October, Warner Bros.
changed course with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and decided to release it
in 2D. Plus, audiences burned by shoddy 3D postproduction conversions are voting with
their wallets, opting for less expensive 2D versions or avoiding bad productions altogether.
Directors working in the medium certainly hope that audiences care about good 3D,
because making stereoscopic movies can be a technical pain. Kosinski shot the actors
in Tron: Legacy with an updated version of the same Pace Fusion 3D rigs James Cameron
used for Avatar, outfitted with two Sony F35 cameras. "The Pace–Cameron F35 system is a
very cumbersome beast on the set," Kosinski says. "It's such a large animal. It really informs
the way you shoot." As a result, Kosinski went for longer, more static shots. Those shots,
however, produce better 3D cinematography, giving more depth to each scene.
Much of the elaborate camerawork that is routine with 2D productions is intensely difficult
with 3D, where precision is the coin of the realm. "We're really in the infancy of shooting 3D
movies correctly," says Eric Barba, visual-effects supervisor for Digital Domain, which
created the digital imagery for Tron: Legacy. "We're taking two cameras that aren't really
intended to be together and linking them with a mechanical system. Five years from now,
when they've designed a camera that just shoots stereo, this is going to seem like rubber
bands and glue."
The James Cameron and Vince Pace-created Fusion 3D camera system has a new feature
that makes it easier to shoot in challenging locations.
When the production of Disney's 3D Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides tapped
the James Cameron and Vince Pace-created Fusion 3D camera system, it used for the first
time what might be a promising development in that technology.A new, modular "x frame"
system is "going to be a part of almost every" Cameron-Pace supported 3D project going
forward, Pace, co-chairman and CEO of Cameron-Pace Group, told The Hollywood
Reporter. Going forward, that might include support for features, documentaries, episodic
TV series -- and Avatar 2and 3.

2. Simply put, x frame is about reducing the size of the system -- which is something that the
industry as a whole is working toward when 3D gear is concerned. "They had to be able to
go from studio rigs, to handheld, to Steadicam -- and had to do it in the jungle in Hawaii,"
Pace told THR. "In some places the road was about 3 feet wide. There was no way to bring in
heavy equipment on trucks. ... We had to treat this almost as a military operation, so if they
had to take equipment on a helicopter and transport it to a beach -- which they did -- they
were not restricted by a large support infrastructure.
"We concentrated on reducing the size as much as possible and increasing the mobility and
making the rig robust enough to handle that kind of environment," Pace explained, saying
that the company is now able to configure a Fusion system that in some cases might be 30-
40 percent smaller than anything it did before.
Distribution and Disney
Disney are developing a new cloud-based distribution technology. Dubbed KeyChest it is an
attempt to make legal movie downloads more appealing to consumers, in part by solving
the problems caused by the incompatible anti-piracy technologies used by various online
retailers (e.g., Apple, CinemaNow, Amazon, Microsoft and Sony) and device makers. They
also would create a way to make legal downloads more valuable by giving consumers more
options for watching the movies they buy and more assurance that their purchases won't be
rendered obsolete by changing technology.
The demonstration was impressive with the KeyChest rights locker giving purchasers near-
immediate access to their movies across multiple platforms (computer, TV, mobile phone)
and even across service providers. In one example, Disney's Arnaud Robert showed how
retailers and service providers could tap into KeyChest to share information about a
customer's purchases, making a movie bought from one available immediately through the
other's website or set-top box. In another, he showed how KeyChest could enable mobile
phones and set-tops to gain instant access to movie files copied (legally) from a newly
purchased DVD onto a PC -- without resorting to a home network.
Now for the cold water. The main effect seemed to be increasing the perceived value of
purchased movies, rather than rentals. And in an era of connected devices and on-demand
movie libraries online, I'm not convinced that consumers will be as interested in purchases
as they used to be.