Why 3D doesn't work and never will. Case closed.

This is an interesting article that I found on Roger Ebert's Journal about 3D movies and their place in cinema. "The notion that we are asked to pay a premium to witness an inferior and inherently brain-confusing image is outrageous. The case is closed" Understandably, this veteran takes a narrow minded view of the 3D and it's impact as a respected editor and sound designer.

The biggest problem with 3D, though, is the "convergence/focus" issue. A couple of the other issues -- darkness and "smallness" -- are at least theoretically solvable. But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen -- say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.

But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point.

If we look at the salt shaker on the table, close to us, we focus at six feet and our eyeballs converge (tilt in) at six feet. Imagine the base of a triangle between your eyes and the apex of the triangle resting on the thing you are looking at. But then look out the window and you focus at sixty feet and converge also at sixty feet. That imaginary triangle has now "opened up" so that your lines of sight are almost -- almost -- parallel to each other.

Be Sure the check out the rest of this great article at: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/01/post_4.html