Films in 3-D: Part 2 (1981-2022) | Episode 9

3D_part2

Adam: Well, welcome back. Welcome 

Charlotte: back week two of our look into all things 3d. Well, not all. Thanks. Just movies. 

Adam: Our dynamic exciting

Adam: episode two. 

Charlotte: Hey, don't set the bar too high. . 

Adam: Hey, we did talk about a lot of stuff coming right at your 

Charlotte: face. Well, we ended with the film coming at you last week, 

Adam: which I thought was a good way to end it, you know? Yeah. I mean, when you're talking about 

Charlotte: 3d, it left me wanting more. 

Adam: Well, you get a lot more in the next one we're talking about.

Charlotte: Yeah. So if you haven't checked out part one, I highly recommend you go and you listen to that one. First, we are telling the story in chronological order, starting with the 1950s wave of 3d, 

Charlotte: we ended in 1981 and we're gonna pick up right where we left off and take it to the two thousands.

Adam: 

Adam: Modern times don't leave because this episode is gonna be right in your lap. 

Charlotte: That sounds weird. I don't think you should say that. Not right in your lap. You could just take that so many different ways. It's true. 

Adam: This episode's coming right out of the speakers and into your home a little better.

Adam: That's 

Charlotte: just kind of creepy. Well, 

Adam: 3d is a little creepy because it's so invasive. , we're knocking down the door and we're coming in. Whether you want us to, or not in 3d. 

Charlotte: Oh, it's an all out eye assault. I feel like that's the outtake reel right there, right there. That's 

Adam: why I was just letting you go. Yeah.

Adam: Okay. Anyway do we have an oh no, no, we didn't say so. Stay tuned or whatever. Yeah. 

Charlotte: So stay tuned.

Charlotte: Cue the 

Adam: music.

Adam: All right, Charlotte. So 1981 coming at you, coming at you, it was the pinnacle 3d at the time, as far as the gimmicky 3d, they literally came at you. Yeah. 

Charlotte: It's the perfectly named film because it refers to the gimmick. , that has nothing to do with the plot at all. 

Adam: No, I mean, the, it was a Western mm-hmm, a spaghetti Western, so yeah.

Adam: So how can you top coming at you? 

Charlotte: Well, I'll tell you how you can top it with treasure of the four crowns. That movie is like coming at you on steroids. 

Adam: Well, it's the same team, same producers, same star. Yeah. Tony Anthony's Beck, Fernando Baldy directing it's two years later. It's 1983. This is the height of the eighties.

Adam: Boom. In 

Charlotte: 3d. Yes, it is. He. Friday the 13th 3d jaws 3d Friday, the 13th three part three 3d. Yes. 

Adam: I think it was jaws. 3d. 

Charlotte: Yeah. It was jaws 3d. Was it Friday the 13th part three part three 3d. Yeah. In 3d. , I just wanna make sure I have the official title. 

Adam: Right. I mean, I don't know that that's the official title.

Adam: I don't think the D is in the title. It's probably 13 part three D

Adam: So anyway, Fernando Baldy, how does he top himself? 

Charlotte: I mean, I just told you treasure of the fuller freaking crowns, which is a total Raiders of the lost arc rip off and glorious for it. Adam, can you hit us with that tagline? 

Adam: Oh yes. I would love to.

Adam: Treasure of the four crowns, 1983, directed by Ferando Baldy, T R T 97 minutes. Perfect. Tagline share the ultimate modern adventure, but isn't there a better one. I think I had it written down. Yeah, it's kinda lame.

Adam: Hmm. Just read the synopsis.

Adam: Okay. Synopsis, a group of adventurers are gathering together to retrieve some mystical gems, which are in the possession of a deadly cult. Yeah. That is the only way you can describe that. And that is, I think the complete plot of this film. Oh, 

Charlotte: that is not the only way you can describe that film.

Charlotte: You can almost describe the 3d in this film as being obnoxious. 

Adam: Yeah, absolutely. Well, because when something shoots you in the eye in this, it shoots you in the eye, like five times mm-hmm at different speeds, the same shot over and over and over again. And the time the fifth one happened, you're like, just stop please.

Charlotte: Yeah. I remember covering my face because it was just too much. 

Adam: Yeah. This movie beats you senseless with that in your face 3d. 

Charlotte: So the first 20 something minutes of this film are completely dialogue free. Yes. True. And. Very similar to Raiders going into some kind of cave.

Adam: Yes, JT striker is rating a tomb. , 

Charlotte: this is so much of a rip off or homage to Raiders. There's even the ball scene where he is running away from a giant ball . But it's on fire. Oh yeah. 

Adam: It's way cooler. Cause not only, there's not one ball.

Adam: There's there two. Yeah. There's two, there's two and they're on 

Charlotte: fire and they're on fire and he's running from the flaming balls. just two flaming 

Adam: balls. 

Charlotte: So some of the things that are thrown in your face in this film include knives and these are things that happen over and over again. It's beers, darts, bones, jeweled, daggers, balls of fire, laser beams, boulders ropes, attack dogs. Bats shards of stained glass, a set of dishes, a large kettle, a stove, a corpse, a Python, snake, and empty glove birds, real and artificial arrows, unidentified glowing objects shot from guns, keys, letter openers, several human heads, skeletons, large sections of an exploding castle.

Charlotte: One bottle of booze and assorted spoons. Yes. All of that in your face. Usually multiple times. 

Adam: Yeah. Now, knowing all that, how can you not say that this is the most awesome 3d movie 

Charlotte: ever made. This is the most 3d movie ever made

Adam: it's yeah, it does not shy away from any of that kind of gimmickry that we talked about in the last one. Yeah. And that's what makes 

Charlotte: it so fun. It's so unabashedly, 3d. 

Adam: Well in this one, the plot takes a backseat to the actual gimmicks. So they, they don't really even need a reason or a setup for anything.

Adam: No shit just starts happening. It does. It's just random, I remember after that first 20 minutes, I looked at you and I was like, what did I say?

Charlotte: What the happened. No, no, no, no. I have your exact quote because I thought it was so funny. And so apt, none of that made sense, but it was fucking sweet.

Charlotte: it was, that was at the 20 minute mark. 

Adam: It was so sweet. , things started coming to life. 

Charlotte: Yeah. Again, this is the whole 20 minute opening montage of him going in this cave or tunnel or whatever, to try to steal something. And that's when all hell breaks loose, and everything starts coming at you.

Charlotte: literally coming at you. It does over and over and over and over and over and over. 

Adam: Yeah, starts off like Raiders of lost a and then you find out that he is getting these crowns.

Charlotte: Well, it's called the treasure of the four crowns 

Adam: yet.

Adam: There are only three crowns in the film. Yeah, there are. They explain that away though in a exposition 

Charlotte: scene, but they say that one was destroyed. 

Adam: Yeah. So there's only three of the four 

Charlotte: crowns. They should have spoiler alert by the end, found the one that was supposed to be destroyed.

Charlotte: That would've been the only interesting thing, but no. Yeah. 

Adam: I, I think that they were like, We 

Charlotte: only had the budget to make three. 

Adam: Yeah. If we use another crown, that means that we're gonna have to get rid of the snake that flies at the screen. Yeah. Yeah. We can't do that. Yeah. I gotta keep that snake.

Adam: So let's cut that fourth crown. We'll get that snake back in 

Charlotte: I hated that snake coming at you 

Adam: it makes no sense because it comes out of a statue randomly. It does no reason. 

Charlotte: Yeah. This is one. You have to see if you can in 3d. I don't know what it would be like in 2d. You'd still be able to see that they're obviously putting stuff right at the camera, but it wouldn't be as obnoxious or as fun 

Adam: or as fun.

Adam: Like you wouldn't be screaming. No, no more 

Charlotte: stop. Yeah. I highly suggest watching it with another person too. Oh yeah, because the first 20 minutes are crazy and then there's plot in the middle and this really long scene where they're climbing across the ceiling to get to the other two crowns.

Charlotte: Yeah, that goes on and on. I mean, 

Adam: that's like the entire final act of the film. They 

Charlotte: just, they keep going. They keep going across the ceiling. But then finally when they get to the crowns and the last, what, 15 minutes of the film are just bat shit crazy. Yeah. 

Adam: Just stuff exploding and lasers out the jewel fires coming out.

Adam: Yeah. He's got flame throwers in his hands. All of a sudden that are 

Charlotte: from the jewels. Oh. And his head spins around. Yes. Randomly like the says his head just starts spinning around probably 50 times. I'm not kidding. And then he is fine. They never really address that. 

Adam: No. Hey dude, your head, you know, do you feel it okay afterwards?

Charlotte: I mean, he doesn't even look like his neck sore. No, , it's just. It has to be seen to be believed. And there's one guy whose face sort of explodes or like the skin is coming off of. I think what they 

Adam: going for is that in scene and Raiders, when they open the arc mm-hmm and everybody looks into it and, be locks, , face explodes.

Adam: And then one of the other guys face melts. Anyway, I think they were going for something like that, but it was done on the cannon budget. So it was this real slow motion crumbling thing that makes no sense that they keep cutting away from and then cutting back to, but it's kind of awesome. Oh yeah.

Adam: Cuz the chunks fly in your face. 

Charlotte: Yeah. Someone's face is sort of melting and it's flying 

Adam: right at you. Yeah. If you've ever wondered what chunks of someone's face kind of feels like coming at you. this is the movie to 

Charlotte: see. I hope no one actually already knows that feeling. 

Adam: Remember that scene in the cabin when he touches the stone thing for the first time, and then everything just starts going nuts. There's a ghost or some spirit that's released mm-hmm the lights go down and everything just starts exploding for no reason.

Adam: And he is freaking out. So 

Charlotte: do we have any back stories on this one? 

Adam: Anything that we, well, yes. So, 

Charlotte: so hit us with a, a tail. 

Adam: Yeah. This is the, the so can picked this up for distribution, but I think it was independently funded from Italian sources. But Canon was the one that released it here in America, which is kind.

Adam: but before they even released this film, they were so confident that it was gonna be a gigantic hit because of coming at you. They announced a third movie in the trilogy that Tony Anthony trilogy with for Anand Baldy. And it was called escape from beyond. And they took out a full page ad, come in in a year, escape from beyond with, it was just like text on a background.

Adam: And you just wonder what that movie would be , how do you top treasurer of the four crowns? 

Charlotte: Maybe that's why I never came out. They just couldn't figure out how to top it. 

Adam: Yeah. They just mic dropped with this one and they're just like peace. 

Charlotte: This was Tony Anthony's last foray in front of the camera. 

Adam: Yeah. I think he produced a few things afterwards. Mm-hmm worked behind the camera, but this was it for him. Yeah. 

Charlotte: Yeah. He jumped behind the scenes full time.

Charlotte: What do you have love to prove after treasure the, for crowns? 

Adam: You've reached the ultimate of obnoxious things flying in people's faces and which was the goal, which was absolutely the goal. And what makes this movie so much fun to watch mm-hmm in, in 3d that's that's pretty much all I have for like the behind the scenes type stuff. This movie was a massive failure at the box office when it came out so unfortunate. But not necessarily due to the fact that it was not a good film. It was more because the interest in 3d at the time was waning.

Adam: It was the latter part of 1983, the end of the 3d cycle, the 1980s, 

Charlotte: boom, IMDB trivia says the film was originally to be followed by another Tony Anthony 3d film named, seeing is believing a space opera. Oh, 

Adam: really? I have escape from beyond. And that's from Austin Schick's book, who is the king of cannon. 

Charlotte: I believe that over IMDB trivia written by who knows who?

Charlotte: Yeah, actually 

Adam: it would say. yeah. cuz he actually had a picture of the ad as well in there.

Adam: Yeah. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a whole lot about this film. No.

Adam: Oh. It was touted as being shot in supervision. Oh. Or wonder vision or wonder vision. Yeah. Which were made up words. There is no such thing. It's was shot using the marks three Dix converter, which was the same one that they used for Friday the 13th part three. You know, it's funny too, is that supervision and wonder vision were on different posters so depending on the poster you saw, it said either supervision or wonder.

Adam: Which is such a cannon thing to do. At some point, they just were like, oh, supervision. Isn't good enough. It's got to be wonder vision, you know? And so they changed them all. . 

Charlotte: So it wasn't filmed in Optima 3d? 

Adam: No, I think Optima 3d is way more expensive version of this. I think that was like the, the nice version. 

Charlotte: Well, you know, what was filmed in Optima 3d? What would 

Adam: that be? Charlotte, 

Charlotte: the man who wasn't there from 1983, not the Cohen brothers movie.

Charlotte: Oh yeah. The original with Steve. Guttenberg 

Adam: the Guttenberg film. 

Charlotte: Yes. The Guttenberg film. Charlotte, please tell us about which I'm gonna talk 

Adam: about. Yeah. Please tell us a little bit about the man who wasn't there.

Adam: Well, 

Charlotte: I will start off with the synopsis of this one. And I'm starting with the synopsis first man who wasn't there 1983 directed by Bruce Malmo, T R T 111 minutes. A little long for this kind of movie. I agree 

Adam: This movie feels a little long while watching it.

Charlotte: Go ahead. Sorry. Synopsis. A minor diplomat functionary stumbles upon a formula for invisibility and the bizarre tagline being invisible gets you into SP rings, diplomatic circles and the girls' locker room. So eighties. 

Adam: So creepy that they would advertise that well, 

Charlotte: because in this case it's a grown man going into a young girl's locker room , and not just a locker room girls academy, right? Like a shower room, you 

Adam: know, as you're apt to do when you're 

Charlotte: invisible and in an eighties film and hygiene and Sue. 

Charlotte: The big problem with this one is that it really doesn't know what it wants to be,

Adam: but in that said, shower scene, this is a fun little fact. You get bring Stevens Michelle Bauer and Lanae Quigley. Those were the three major scream Queens from the eighties. Oh yeah. Yeah. All in that one. All in that one scene, they were in the shower scene. 

Charlotte: Weird. Yeah.

Charlotte: So this film was shot with the 3d system called the Optima three, which was developed by bill Balki, who I'll come back to in a second. This film in particular was shot on a standard pan vision camera that was equipped with an Optima three lens housing. And that contained two lenses that were, about two and a half inches apart, which is the same distance that the average human eyes are apart.

Charlotte: like natural vision They were trying to replicate. The same kind of thing. So there was a regular camera shot on techno scope, which means that it shot on regular 35 millimeter film. But instead of using four perfs, it used two perfs.

Charlotte: And we went into this last time and perfs are the Sprocket holes in film. So just imagine you have one frame of film. Now you have two images there on top and bottom. 

Adam: So basically you're BI dissecting it, splitting it in half. Right? Exactly. So, so one eye goes on 

Charlotte: top and one eye goes on bottom, correct?

Charlotte: You're using half the amount of film you normally would for a 3d film, which is gonna take twice as much film so you're saving money. Yep. So you're saving money that. 

Charlotte: So that was used on a lot of westerns and low budget horror movies between the 1960s to 1980s 

Adam: ones that weren't 3d, correct? Yes. As a way to save money. Yep. It 

Charlotte: was a cost saving thing. One of the major drawbacks for techno scope is that your frame is a lot smaller.

Charlotte: Think about it like 16 millimeter, the quality, when you blow it up, isn't gonna be as good. It's the same with techno scope. You blow that up and it gets really, really grainy. So if you've watched some of the old spaghetti westerns or some of these 3d films from the eighties, which a lot of them use techno scope, and you wondered why is this so grainy?

Charlotte: Possibly that's why. Yeah. 

Adam: That makes 

Charlotte: sense. Yeah. Yeah. So the Optima system, the lens was developed by this guy named bill Bakowski. So I looked him up and I could not find much information on him, but he did direct a few films. Those films named dial P for pleasure. Portraits of pleasure, Betty baby. So that's where the kind of films you directed. Don't know if anybody's seen any of those that I haven't personally, but interesting that he worked on this film.

Charlotte: I don't know what the connection is and I wish I knew more. 

Adam: They sound like fine films to me. 

Charlotte: Yeah. back to the man who wasn't there. I worked on this film a while back. 2d version. Unfortunately, didn't have the budget to do the 3d at the time.

Charlotte: So the crazy thing about this film is that usually you have a film and it has, let's say six reels, right? And each reel is, you know, its own thing. Sometimes you have what we call B negatives. So you'll have real one a and real one B, and they do that. So if you've ever watched a film and you've seen it dissolve into the next picture, what this is the a and the B one is the beginning of the dissolve, you know, the end of the picture and the other is the start of the next scene.

Charlotte: So you can recreate those dissolves digitally or photo chemically back in the day. What this does, it allows you to have a better quality instead of having to make a copy of that film dissolving from one scene into the next scene. Usually in the negative, you'd have a copy 

Adam: of that.

Adam: Right. So you'll often see a degradation in the quality of the film. Yeah. So if you ever watch it whenever there's an optical dissolve. 

Charlotte: Yeah. If you watch an old movie watch, whenever the scene fades from one into the next, when it does a cross dissolve, and sometimes you can see where the optical cuts in they'll do it just for the fades.

Charlotte: So all of a sudden, when it starts fading, it gets really grainy or just bad looking mm-hmm . But a lot of times it does it at the head of the shot. So if you're ever watching and all of a sudden. It looks really grainy and then it fades into the next one. Yeah. That's an optical pretty easy to spot once, you know what you're looking for.

Adam: And it happens at every dissolve. So it happens often throughout 

Charlotte: films. So yeah. 

Adam: The we're watching one where the actual shot was two and a half minutes. Yeah. We're like, 

Charlotte: wow, this sucks. Yeah. When working on a film and you get to one of those built in opticals, sometimes it just looks so bad and you just start yelling.

Charlotte: Cut, cut. Cut. Cuz you wanted to switch to the next scene. So it'll get out of that optical. Yeah, it'll look nice again especially when you're on original negative, that's when you really notice it. Well, and that's 

Adam: the unfortunate thing is that there's no way to go back and make that look any better because it's baked 

Charlotte: in, unless you have those two separate, like we have with the, a, like an a 

Adam: and a B.

Adam: Yeah. Cause then you can make a beautiful, 

Charlotte: perfect itself. Yep. Because it's the, it's both sides. It's it's great. So they redo that nowadays. They do it digital. so this film was an AB negative, but also because it had special effects that they shot separately on a 65 millimeter camera. It had a C and a D for a couple of the reels.

Charlotte: Not all of it. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So what these were, were, these were the effects shots. So, you know, these are 

Adam: the things that would be flying out at you, 

Charlotte: right? Yeah, exactly. So any kind of the effects works. They had those on a separate a and B kind of reel, but they called 'em C and D. Right. So it was the effects shots that will fade in or out or whatever.

Charlotte: It was the strangest thing. I'd never worked on anything with a C and a D reel before. 

Adam: And that, that you call those things objects, right? Yeah. In, 

Charlotte: in 3d. Yeah. So fortunately it was like this, because that film also techno scope was super grainy. And

Charlotte: It was such a beast to work on because it's techno scope. It's 3d. And then it has these, a, B, C, and D reels,

Charlotte: For techno scope because you've got such a small image.

Charlotte: Usually when you're framing a film, you would sort of frame out a little bit of the top and a little bit of the bottom of the image in the frame. And that's to get rid of the splice marks and that's just to keep everything in frame. Well, in a techno scope, you can't really do that because your image is so small.

Charlotte: So you're taking up as much space as you can. So splice marks things are getting spliced into the image. So to get around that what they do at every splice at the head and the tail of the splice, you know, where they tape 'em together, they duplicate a frame. So. The point of that is so that you can remove those.

Charlotte: You remove those two frames on either side so that you don't get that splice mark. So for this film, at every single cut. I Had to remove those frames on each side of every cut of the film. Wow. Then it was an, a, B, C, D negative mm-hmm . So they had to find, the one part of a dissolve and then match that with the next dissolve and match that with the next and then add the effects layers. And I didn't even get to the 3d part, but imagine after that, adding the 3d into it. So it was a real beast. So anytime you wonder why something isn't out in 3d things can get really complicated and be very costly.

Charlotte: Before you even start, all of these problems are just more correction, right? Color, correction, your cleanup, anything like that. So this one was a real beast. I hope someday that it comes out in 3d 3d archive. If you're listening or somebody you wanna write to the 3d archive and say, Hey, get this one out.

Adam: Yeah, if anybody can do it, Bob can, honestly, 

Charlotte: though, it's not really a great film and I don't wanna trash movies 

Adam: that's another thing I really like about the work that 3d archive does is don't care if it's a good or bad film, they just want it.

Adam: If it was shot in 3d, they want it to be available in 3d for people to see. Yeah. 

Charlotte: Well, and that's the way you should approach archiving things. You shouldn't take your personal opinions. Right? For example, if you come across some inappropriate content that maybe was acceptable back in the day, , that kind of makes you uncomfortable to work on that sort of thing.

Charlotte: But, 

Adam: but that's you bringing today's standards into something 

Charlotte: that wasn't like that. Yeah. So does that mean it's not worth saving? You should save everything. It should be documented, you know, you should save everything that you can.

Adam: Yeah. Especially those things that are uncomfortable or socially unacceptable. Yeah. Those things need to be there for people to see so that you can say, wow, I can't believe that we've come this far. Yeah. 

Charlotte: So there's a funny story about the filming of the man who wasn't there , This film is shot half in Washington, half in Hollywood. and it For pre-production a book was created, which the crew nicknamed Bruce's Bible after the director, Bruce Malouth and it contained a bunch of sketches that had been done around Washington DC. So they went around and they were sketching, not only the monuments, but they were also putting down sort of measurements for things that they needed to recreate.

Charlotte: Well, this around suspicions of the us government. Oh wow. And they thought, what is this? You guys are not doing something good. Yeah. They thought they were spies. Huh? Yeah. So the director actually had to appeal to a Congressman and assure all these CIA agents that the production team posed no threat.

Charlotte: Even though they got the, okay, they continued to get followed and looked at by all the capital city police. Oh, that's pretty funny. 

Adam: That would be very suspicious though. People taking 

Charlotte: measurements. Yeah. So they had federal agents following them around afterwards and they were discouraging them from taking pictures of interiors and stuff like 

Adam: that.

Adam: Wow. That's very much like the movie. Yeah. 

Charlotte: In a way. Yeah, 

Adam: I guess.

Adam: Well, I mean, that's why Steve Gutenberg's on the run. Yeah. 

Charlotte: This film did not receive good reviews when it was released. Well, that's shocking. The LA times called it a pimple on the face of film history. That was kind. Of them 

Charlotte: roger Ebert had a pretty funny review too. He gave it one and a half stars and I've gotta read this first paragraph. I might have to read the first two paragraphs it's so scathing. I feel bad for it, but this movie was 

Adam: not a fan of Steve Guttenberg though. Back in the day. I remember reading a lot of his reviews.

Charlotte: Okay. Per Roger Ebert. This is a dead movie. I don't know exactly when it passed away, but I think it was dead by the time they started filming it. And it may have died even earlier back when somebody brought the notion of filming a comic thriller in 3d, since comedy requires our close attention and sympathy.

Charlotte: Since 3d is the most alienating movie gimmick since television, they were dead then and there, the man who wasn't. There is arguably the worst movie from a major studio this year, better movies have been shelved.

Charlotte: This movie is so close to nothing that it's a minor miracle that it was actually released. Not in recent memory has a movie, even a bad movie, offered less for your money. There are even shots where actors seem to be standing around waiting for something to happen. 

Adam: Ouch. wow. Not only does he hate Steve Gutenberg, but he hates 3d.

Charlotte: Yeah. He goes on to say it doesn't even really exploit the 3d gimmickry. There are a couple of knives hurled at the screen. And a couple of hilariously in convincing shots in which actors fall towards the camera. And that's that?

Charlotte: Hmm. 

Adam: Oh, Hey, let's talk about the wires. 

Charlotte: Yeah. They used a lot of wires and pulley to make things float like a, a coffee mug or a pencil. But my favorite scene has to be when the love interest is making out with the invisible Steve Guttenberg and people are watching from another building.

Charlotte: There's all these old men who have this club and they're in one building across the street from. Steve Guttenberg yeah. It's like a 

Adam: per club. Yeah. Yeah, 

Charlotte: it's their astronomy club, so they all get on their telescopes and they look for something interesting in the next building.

Charlotte: Well, they find invisible, Steve Guttenberg and his lady friend, and she's pantomiming kissing him and then dancing with him. And it's the funniest thing it's so awkward. I mean, the actress did the best she could with that, but it's so funny seeing 

Adam: it's kind of a no win situation, 

Charlotte: really seeing somebody make out with an invisible person yeah, it's great. It's probably the best scene in the movie. Yeah, probably is. Yeah. Anyhow, Manny, wasn't there man, who wasn't 

Adam: there 3d N 3d 

Charlotte: on the Optim max three

Charlotte: made by a. Guy from the San Fernando valley. What else he shot in 3d. 

Adam: judging by those titles. those fine films that he directed all right. Shall we talk about the end of the eighties? Boom. Yes, we should. What do you got? It's often attributed to one film. 

Charlotte: Uhoh hopefully it's not the man.

Charlotte: It wasn't the man who 

Adam: wasn't there. Oh, woo. It was space hunter adventures in the forbidden zone. What even is that also in 1983? Well, directed by Lamont Johnson, T R T 90 minutes. So what they have on here is actually not the tagline for the film. This is a pre-credit crawl that would come up on foreign releases to explain what the movie was about. Journey with Wolf and Nicki and inter stellar adventure, and a young rebel on a mission to rescue three stranded women from a planet.

Adam: No one has warned them about because no one has ever returned. So that is what they have on here as the tagline, but that had to show before the film so that people could understand what was happening here. , 

Charlotte: it's almost like a warning, but not 

Adam: pretty much. And then this is the synopsis. Three women make an emergency landing on a planet plagued with a fatal disease, but are captured by dictator overdog played by Michael Ironside, by the way, .

Adam: Adventure of Wolf goes there to rescue them and meets Nikki. The only earthling left from a medical expedition combining their talents. They try to rescue the women and that's your plot. This star is a very young Molly Ringwald and one of her first starring roles. And Michael Ironside has overdog the bad guy, of course, with that voice.

Adam: And Ernie Hudson is also in this film. Wow. And it was produced by Ivan Wrightman and Dan Cark. So funnily, Lamont Johnson was the director. He was actually the second director on the film, 

Adam: the first director, John Lele was fired only two weeks into production. Why they didn't say they weren't happy with it. I have a quote. Yes. Why was he fired Charlotte? 

Charlotte: Well, he co-wrote the original screenplay and he was dismissed two weeks into production for delivering and I quote no usable footage.

Adam: wow. Yeah, no usable footage. So yes, this is really interesting. They actually shut the film down. And they hired this other guy, Lamont Johnson, and while it was shut down, they decided to make it 3d at some point they were just like, you know what, Columbia, we need 2 million more dollars for this movie.

Adam: and we're gonna make it 3d now, so they tossed out the script that they had. Mm-hmm completely and went into production one week after Lamont Johnson was hired and without a finished script at all. So this script was being written on onset each day.

Adam: They would get what they were gonna shoot for the day. And none of the actors knew what was gonna happen in the film at all. So can you imagine being an actor and trying to put together an arc or some sort of emotional grounding or anything to play a scene and not knowing what the scene was that came before it, yeah, that, that's how this one worked.

Adam: So the producers looked at all the 3d movies that were coming out and they realized that they were all just low budget, horror movies. So they saw an opportunity. They were like, wow, let's make a sci-fi epic in 3d. No, one's seen one of those. So they were like, here's an even better idea. We'll piggyback it on star wars, star wars return of the Jedi was coming out and they're like, we'll tap into that. Sci-fi fever. And we'll make tons of money on this film. So they slated the movie to come out one week before star wars. One week before star wars ran through every other movie for the rest of the summer star wars was the movie of the summer.

Adam: And nothing else made a lot of money that summer because it kind of rolled over everybody. So this movie came out, it made $7 million it's opening weekend and potentially could have made more because it was a major release by Columbia in 3d. So it had the gimmick. but they decided to really sit one week before star 

Charlotte: wars.

Charlotte: Well, they moved it up because of jaws 3d. So that was coming out in July. They originally had this one scheduled for June and they bumped it up. So it could come out in may, in may. So it would be well before. Right. They were just looking at the 3d releases, apparently.

Charlotte: Whoops, 

Adam: Who doesn't predict that star wars was going to rule the summer.

Adam: So anyway 14.4 million budget all in and made 16.5 million at the box office. And I know that most people would go well, it made money. Well, that's not actually making money. 16.5 million at the box office. You have to understand. there is a share that the studio gets. So in the first week of release a studio 

Adam: it's weighted. They get 70% in the first week. So 70% of ticket sales they get in the first week. And then I think that's actually the first two weeks. And then after that, it starts to go down. So ultimately what the algorithm works out to is about 50% of box office you share with the theaters. So if it made 16.5, it actually only made about eight and a half for the 

Charlotte: studio, for the studio.

Charlotte: And then you've got the cost, how much it costs to make. 

Adam: So 14.4 million, and then you, that's not even counting advertising. So this movie did not make any money. Studio accounting is. Well, and then you apply overhead to that too. So, you know, it's just, yeah, it's, it's very expensive to make a movie, but ultimately, yeah, so the movie didn't make any money.

Adam: Jaws also was underperformed and that pretty much killed the summer that killed, that killed 3d. They were like, that's it, you know, we're not gonna invest money in this 3d gimmick if it's not gonna return for us.

Adam: So of coming at you kicked it off in 1981 and short 18 months later 3d died again. 

Charlotte: So why didn't jaws 3d 

Adam: save it because it got rolled over by star wars, star wars, star wars was huge and they should have known that. Never heard of it.

Adam: They should have known that because empire was huge empire played for two years in the theaters.

Adam: So anyway, that's the death of the eighties. Boom. In 3d. But like Charlotte said in the first part of this 3d never actually went away. No, it 

never 

Charlotte: really goes away. There's always independent or you could even count all those documentaries and things that are shot in 

Adam: 3d. Yeah. That's that's basically what made 3d stay alive was all those IMAX stocks.

Charlotte: Yeah. In the nineties, they made money. You did not hear a lot about 3d. I don't, unless you went to IMAX. Right. Talking about this final wave that we're gonna talk about. I think the first one I saw was buy kids 3d. That might have been one of the earlier ones too.

Charlotte: Yeah, that was 2003. 

Adam: Yep. And they were taking a stab that was a really low budget film mm-hmm but that was Rodriguez because those IMAX movies were making so much money. Mm-hmm 

Adam: so I remember going to see this movie in 1998, called T-Rex back to the Kius. It was. Short film. Was that IMAX, right? Yeah. That was produced for IMAX. I think I saw that too. Yeah. And the guy that directed lawnmower, man, Brett Leonard, what directed that film, which was the, the reason I actually went to go see it.

Adam: Oh, that's fine. I, well, I just 

Charlotte: went cause it was 

Adam: dinosaurs. It was dinosaurs. 3d was dinosaurs. Dinosaurs

Charlotte: yeah. So 3d never really goes away. It kind of hangs out in the background, but it had another boom in the early to mid two thousands. 

Adam: Yeah. Like 2009 is kind of the start. It's not really the start. I mean, there were movies before that, 

Charlotte: polar express, be Wolf, remember?

Charlotte: Yeah. That's was really into 3d. Yeah. There were a lot of. A lot of animated films that were coming out. 

Adam: I don't really consider those true 3d though. Cuz 

Charlotte: they're well, they boomed the interest. Yeah. In 3d, I think. But 2000 nines, when the live action stuff really started coming out. Yeah. 

Adam: And you know why studios saw that you could charge a premium for 3d?

Adam: So they're like, oh, we need to start producing 3d movies cuz we can charge more up front for them. Mm-hmm and recoup faster on their films. So 2009 we got my bloody Valentine 3d mm-hmm final destination,

Adam: yeah. 2009 Harold did the movie that kind of changed what everybody thought about 3d was avatar in December. Yep. Avatar took the 3d and showed what you could do with it. Like took it beyond what anybody else had done with it. And so that kicked off a whole new boom studios were interested because of the incentive for upcharging for it.

Adam: Mm-hmm and then 2010, what did we get? Tron 

Charlotte: came out Tron legacy. , jackass three. 

Adam: I mean, that's the third one 3d. Yeah. That's the third one also saw 

Charlotte: 3d. That's the third one. gotta love those three cools in 3d. 

Adam: Yeah, but you, you can see they're being a little more playful with them cuz you're getting kids movies, you're getting sci-fi movies, you're getting dance, movies, genres, other than just horror films.

Adam: Mm-hmm 

Charlotte: lots 

Adam: of animated films in 3d animated. We kind of ruled the 3d space for a really long time. 

Charlotte: So I think one of the major grapes that a lot of people had with this wave of 3d were all the different formats. There was real D there was expand. Did Doby have one? Doby had one 

Adam: too. Yep. those were the three major ones. Yeah, expand and Doby were active 

Charlotte: shutter glasses. Right. So those were a lot bigger, a lot heavier 

Adam: and always yielded a darker picture.

Adam: Because you were going through multiple levels of polarity. So the image was always much darker and those which was a major complaint because like in the fifties they were having exhibition issues again with it, because if you pushed your bulb brighter, that meant your lifespan for your bulb would go down.

Adam: And so all these multiplexes wouldn't . Actually project them in the required brightness levels, they would just do it at regular 

Charlotte: levels. Yeah. I remember those being 

Adam: really dark because those bulbs are very, very expensive. So mm-hmm they were like, we're not gonna do that. And so those movies sometimes when you would go see 'em would be very dark 

Charlotte: and those glosses were massively uncomfortable.

Charlotte: Oh yes. They 

Adam: were really happy. Well Dobies were better than expands. Expands were the heaviest cuz they were that kind of really rubberized. Yeah. I mean every time we would go and see something and expand, we would go, oh God, expand. 

Charlotte: Yeah. I would end up sort of holding them up on my nose a little bit.

Charlotte: Yeah. 

Adam: About the hour point you would have to kind of give your nose rest cuz it, yeah, it would 

Charlotte: really dig in. Yeah. And if I wasn't wearing my contacts that day and I happened to be wearing glasses, I absolutely did not want to go to an expand movie cuz over glasses, those just did not work. They were too big.

Adam: And they were formed weird. Like Oakleys they were kind of wraparound. Yeah, they were. Yeah. So they didn't leave any room for your 

Charlotte: glasses? No. Yeah. Yeah. Real D wasn't as bad. I preferred seeing no 

Adam: real D was a different format completely. The glasses were passive for real D but there was a, another piece of glass that you had to put in front of the projector mm-hmm , which was the, the active aspect of it.

Adam: Right. Which so again, they were sometimes a little dim because of that dark, polarized piece of glass, but 

Charlotte: nothing like 

Adam: expand. No, those were much more cuz that was multiple levels of, , barriers, polarized barriers. 

Charlotte: Yeah. So I know it wasn't just us that didn't like those glasses and we also didn't like having to pay however much more, it was to see the 3d and we would always check.

Charlotte: Is the movie, was it shot in 3d or was it converted? 

Adam: At a certain point studios and this happened while I was working at a studio with one of the films that we had, we. Saw the 3d craze. And we knew that you could charge a premium if a movie was in 3d.

Adam: So we started looking at all of our films as conversions. And when we converted our first film, we saw that the returns were great on it because of, the upcharge. So at that point, the studio was like, well, we're not shooting in native 3d ever again. Is it cheaper to convert it?

Adam: Yeah. Cost is way less to convert it afterwards. And so we'll just convert everything. And people quickly got burned out on that they smartened up really fast because they were like, well, why am I gonna go see this in 3d?

Adam: This is, is not a 3d movie. Not all things are meant for 3d. 

Charlotte: Again, that's what ultimately kills 3d is when it's treated like it's not a gimmick, right. It's a gimmick. We go to it because we wanna see stuff coming at you. We don't wanna go and just see depth. Maybe some people do. I mean, that's what avatar was really.

Charlotte: And it looked great because of it. Wasn't a big fan of the film, but the 3d looked incredible, but you know, that's kind of special case. Yeah. 

Adam: But I think that was a special case in that the, the artistry that went along with that 3d and the world that was created with that 3d. 

Charlotte: Yeah. And it was shot in 3d.

Charlotte: He was shot 

Adam: in 3d for 3d. By 3d and then a lot of movies too, at that time they were shooting in 2d for 3d though, for 

Charlotte: 3d conversion. So right. Or they would have the hybrid ones that were shot half in 3d, right. Half in 2d. 

Adam: Oh, that was, yeah, that was interesting. Like that Superman movie that what's his face directed Brian singer.

Adam: Yes. What was which Superman was that? I don't know, but I remember us going to see that in 3d, where at the end you on Krypton, you put on the glasses. 

Charlotte: When he flies for the first time. Oh, is that what it was? Yeah, I think so. Okay. And then the Harry Potter movie that had that last sequence 

Adam: shot in 3d, that was amazing.

Charlotte: That was so good in where they were in that big hall that had all those. 

Adam: Dreams 

Charlotte: with memories. Memories. Yeah. Oh man. It's been so long. 

Charlotte: That was such a good use of 

Adam: 3d now. Oh man. The 3d battle was so amazing in that. Yeah. It was really, really good.

Adam: I do. 

Charlotte: Like when films are only partly in 3d and that was only a short window of time when you had those that didn't really hang out. 

Adam: No, I think there were testing. 

Charlotte: I like that because your eyes don't get fatigued. It's fun for a little bit.

Adam: Yeah. And it really augments the film. I remember walking away from that Harry Potter film going this. It was awesome. Yeah. The way that they realized that magic at the end was very, very cool.

Adam: I was not a huge Harry Potter person. but that movie made me a Harry Potter person, because I was really excited for the next one after 

Charlotte: that. And you took the Harry Potter house test and you ended up in what house? 

Adam: Hufflepuff I didn't wanna be a Huff puff. Yeah. You were so upset about that.

Adam: Yeah, I did not wanna be a Hufflepuff. 

Charlotte: Hey, we can't all be in slither and 

Adam: so unfair, which is cooler than 

Charlotte: you. Yeah. Apparently more sinister and on that note 

Adam: so ultimately the death of this current wave, I mean stuff you could still see stuff in 3d, but not everything is 3d anymore.

Adam: Was the fact that they were converting everything into 3d and it lost that special aspect. 

Charlotte: So here's a question. When do you think the next wave of 3d will be? There was the 1950s wave the 1980s, 30 years apart. Mm-hmm 30 years later. So is it 2040?

Charlotte: Yeah, we predicting it right now. 

Adam: Yeah. We will be podcasting in 2040 when the next one 

Charlotte: happens. Although the way technology is changing, that might be half that who knows. 

Adam: Although, could be, I have a feeling that our, the next 3d wave will be again at home. 

Charlotte: I think it'll be more VR related. 

Adam: Yes. It'll be more interactive.

Adam: Yeah. 

Charlotte: It'll have to be. I think that that's where it's gonna go. You'll be able to be in the movie. 

Adam: Yeah. That's a good 30 years away for sure. Until that's realized in a good way. Yeah. But then you're not telling a linear story at that point. If you can interact with it, you're not choose your own story.

Adam: Yeah. But that's not a movie. 

Charlotte: You acting, you could be in there, 

Adam: Jimmy Stewart at that point. It's you're fundamentally changing the idea of what a movie is. That's more of a game at that point. If you can change the outcome of the film by something that you do, then it's not a passive experience anymore.

Adam: Well, wasn't there one 

Charlotte: film William castle had a gimmick where people chose the ending right. Of the 

Adam: film. So was that, it was kinda like when clue first came out, remember, well, it had the, 

Charlotte: it had multiple different endings. I love multiple different when people said that multiple 

Adam: different mul you know, multiple endings.

Adam: Yeah. 

Charlotte: I have three or four, 

Adam: I think it's four, right? Yeah. And initially when it was released, they sent them randomly out. 

Charlotte: I know, I think that's so brilliant. So. 

Adam: Hasn't been done now. They cut 'em all together in the home video version. So, but that was kind of a choose your own a type thing, but still passive.

Adam: It's not like you're nothing you did change the outcome of the problem. No, I know. 

Charlotte: All right, we're getting way off topic and we should really wrap 

Adam: this one up. All right. Can we say more concisely? Why the last wave ended then? Did we 

Charlotte: say it? You sound like you have something to say?

Charlotte: No, no, no. 

Adam: I just think we need to say it more. I don't know, like 

Charlotte: final, well, I think this last round of 3d sort of fell out of fashion because you had competing technologies with 3d expand real D Doby. There was also home video stuff going on. There was 3d at. But then before, you know, it, there was HDR and there was 4k televisions and it's just a lot of stuff at once.

Charlotte: So 

Adam: yeah. Ultimately 3d at home was the best way to watch it though. Cuz you weren't, your experience was always the same 3d at home was always the same. It was the ideal experience. 

Charlotte: you mean as far as brightness you 

Adam: were, yeah. You weren't reliant on the technology, working at the theater or the projectionist doing it 

Charlotte: correctly.

Charlotte: Well, I'll tell you why, because your TV is lit from within, right. You're not projecting and on something. So you're not losing that. So it's naturally brighter. Mm-hmm 

Adam: and your glasses are even when they're active shutter, they're not like the big heavy. Nope. So it's much more manageable at home. Super light.

Adam: I think the major obstacle for home adoption though was the fact that. People didn't understand that you needed a 3d disc, a 3d player and a 3d television with 3d glasses. 

Charlotte: Just which if you had an amplifier one that could pass 3d 3d, correct. 

Adam: I think that was the real obstacle there. It should have been adopted more freely, .

Adam: But again, it's a whole process, even you and I don't watch 3d that often at home because well we gotta, play the disc and put the glasses on or, maybe we'll just watch something else, you know? 

Charlotte: Well, the other prayer problem too, is that the HDR televisions don't support 3d, which I do not understand.

Charlotte: Maybe it has something to do with the refresh rate has 

Adam: to, I, I don't know. I don't know the answer 

Charlotte: to, I don't know if somebody knows. Yeah. Let us know. So we actually kept our old TV and put it in the bedroom. We have a gigantic. 65 inch inch TV in this 3d tiny little bedroom. Yep. That we watch 3d on, on occasion.

Charlotte: Yep. Every once in a while. Yep. let's go watch a 3d 

Adam: film. So yeah. Anyway, well, this was fun. I really enjoy talking about 3d. I love 3d. Yeah. Yeah. 

Charlotte: I thought it was gonna be kinda lame, but we ended up having so much to say we had to split it into two. Well, 

Adam: and I studied more about what the actual formats mm-hmm were and how they were shot the technology 

Charlotte: behind them.

Charlotte: Yeah. The only one I really knew about was the Optima three, just because you had just worked with it. I had just worked with it. Yeah. , 

Adam: so that was kind of fun, just like diving deeper into it and then honestly trying to analyze why these fads went away.

Adam: Mm-hmm like what was the reasons behind them? 

Charlotte: There's always one reason that somebody comes up with for why it came back again. The eighties, it was a home video. Yeah. Craze in the 2010s. It was the HD at home, the blue rays. That's right. When we had HD and Blueray competing, then 3d came out.

Charlotte: So is that 

Adam: yeah, last one. Wasn't as kind of a sharp, a fall off, it kind of just faded away. Yeah. And we just saw movie in 3d, not that long ago, so. 

Charlotte: Yeah. I can't remember what it was though. Neither, neither do I should check letter box, which we have a perf damaged letter box.

Charlotte: We haven't really mentioned that. Yeah. We're have you 

Adam: been keeping up with that? I haven't actually the last couple I haven't done. I need to go back and do those. You do sounds like a perfect thing to do at night in New York. 

Charlotte: Yeah, but you probably won't. All right. So thanks for joining us again. On perf damage, talking about 3d films, hope we haven't bored you to tears.

Adam: no way everybody loves 3d. 

Charlotte: No, no. Remember we had a whole discussion in the last episode, some people cannot see 3d and we did a little research into why that is. Pretty 

Adam: interesting. Yeah, that was that was one of the more interesting things that we found out. Yeah. That was something I had no clue about.

Adam: Yeah. 

Charlotte: I didn't either until I chat with my coworker and then it all made sense. All of our friends that say they can't see 3d all had this similar issue, wanna know more, check out, check out part one, check part one, 3d part one. Thanks for hanging out. If you wanna get ahold of us, you can send us an email.

Charlotte: We are perf damage podcast at Gmail. Totally forgot what our podcast was called for a second. There we're also on Twitter. You can send us a message at perf damage. Thanks for hanging out. If you got ideas or things you want us to talk about questions about film restoration or what the heck is this that we just said, or, or 

Adam: 3d movies also check out our letter box account.

Adam: Which Adam is gonna update. Yep. You can see every film mentioned in every episode on there's a list for each 

Charlotte: episode. The username is perf damage. 

Adam: Perf damage. Yeah. Look is up. All right, until next time. Thanks. Thanks for joining us here on perfed damage.