Stereo conversion enables 3D-movie success
Moscow, Russia (February 28, 2014)—Following the Stalingrad IMAX 3D movie, a new star is rising in Eastern European 3D cinema: Viy 3D, released in late January in Russia and Ukraine. Its domestic Russian box-office for the opening weekend exceeded $17 million—the all-time record for a Russian movie. Rentrak ranked the Viy 3D box-office results as number five internationally for that week. In three weeks, the movie collected more than $32 million domestically, despite an estimated budget of $26 million. These box-office figures beat the recent records of Stalingrad.
Viy 3D is a “dark fantasy” action film based on the classic horror story Viy by famous Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. It follows the mystical adventure of English cartographer Jonathan Green (played by Jason Flemyng) in a godforsaken village somewhere in Ukraine during the early eighteenth century.
The movie was shot in stereo and is advertised as “native 3D,” but stereo conversion played a major role in production. Why did it happen and was possible at all? The truth is that production of the movie lasted several years. More than 20 minutes of the original footage was filmed in 2D. Because of the unavailability of props and the actors’ busy schedules, there was no realistic way to reshoot the existing 2D material in stereo. Thus, stereo conversion [Keep reading…]
Source:yuvsoft.com