Battle: Los Angeles

I got my first glimpse of Battle: Los Angeles weeks before it's release. That simple 30 second tease had me hooked. I looked at my wife and said, "We have to see that movie."

 The Super Bowl trailer that had me hooked.

3D: Does it have a place or is it doomed?

Before you read what I've written below, read this article. I don't agree with everything written there (mostly the evolution language), but the science is solid. For an in depth look at various types of 3D technology, check out this Wikipedia entry. Though, I will briefly sum up some of that information here.

I've seen a total of three 3D movies: The Nightmare Before Christmas, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and Toy Story 3. The first two were post production conversions, Toy Story 3 was actually designed and rendered in 3D. Consequently, Toy Story 3 looked the best of the three.

My experience with 3D has been mostly negative, but I blame the post production 3D on that. Most 3D is done in post. I don't understand the science behind it. What I do know is that during production, the film will be shot just like any other film: in 2D. Once all the footage is shot, the post production team will then run the digital product through a program that will convert the file from a 2D movie to a 3D movie. Because of this, motion blur and other negative effects of movement are made even more noticeable. The film looks darker, the screen looks smaller (thanks to the glasses), and the frame rate suffers (it now takes two frames to display what it used to take one frame to do).

Critical View

I wrote this for and posted this on my personal blog, which you can find a link to on the left. After having written it, I decided that it also had a place here, as well.

I read reviews. I read reviews written by critics. I read reviews written by friends. For a while, I even considered writing my own reviews. I decided against this for a few reasons but only one really sticks out. I don't want to experience everything in life with a critical eye or ear.

Sometime while I was in college I began to lose something. That something was the ability to just enjoy a work. My audio class taught me not to just listen to music but to break it down piece by piece and analyze it. My video classes taught me to pay attention to things like framing and art direction. The skills I had learned from those classes began to spill into other aspects of my life, mainly the way I experience a video game.