[Richard W. Haines]

The IMAX 3-D is effective but the format itself has problems. It's difficult to impossible to shoot in.
The camera is so loud you have to post dub the sound and the camera isn't very mobile. The
film stock is special order and expensive (70mm is only used for this process now). Reel capacity
is limited so it makes narrative features very cumbersome. Of course Cameron is talking about
shooting in a digital format and adapting it to film but that doesn't look as good as shooting in film
and has it's own set of problems. I shot a 3-D movie, "Run for Cover", back in 1995 and it was
a real pain in the neck on all levels. It was a challenge and I had some fun making and showing it
but I wouldn't want to do it again. The most difficult part was setting up cinemas for 3-D and trying
to show the inexperienced staff how it works. Most theaters didn't have qualified projectionists,
just 'operators' who were very young and who's technical expertise was limited to threading up the platter and turning it on.


The bottom line is I'm a 3-D buff but I realize it still just a gimmick process only suited for certain
types of stories and has a limited appeal for a limited amount of time. Otherwise, there would've
been decades of dimensional movies rather than the three year cycles every ten years or so.
It's not going to 'save' movies in theaters nor is it new enough technology to the make the kind
of impact something like Cinerama or IMAX has in the past.