As many of you are probably aware, ShoWest is in Vegas now. I spoke by phone to Michael V. Lewis, chairman and chief executive of RealD, who was at the convention showing off upcoming movies that will use the system. Currently "Monsters vs. Aliens" is being offered using his company's version of 3-D. And, according to a press release, "3D-enabled theaters brought in over $25 million of the total box office for ... 'Monsters vs. Aliens,' which earned an estimated $58.2 million during its opening weekend, marking the biggest opening yet for RealD." 

The key thing I took away is that by using only one camera (old-school 3D, he says, used two), RealD is able to vastly improve the quality, and you wear sunglasses-type specs rather than cardboard. Lewis believes this will equal the film innovations of talkies and color.

Q: How is RealD different from traditional 3-D

Lewis: What most people think of as regular 3-D is red-and-green glasses, red-and-blue glasses — that is what you can call your grandfather's 3-D. It is like comparing the Wright brothers to the space shuttle. The old 3-D was not a very good experience. For the past 100 years we have been trying to replicate the way we see in real life, and the result has not been very good. So what we set out to do was to see if we couldn't use digital technology and 3-D science to resolve a lot of those issues that plagued the old technology. One of the things that would happen is that you would get a splitting headache after 10 or 15 minutes. That is because they were using two projectors. So we found that a we could use a single digital projector combined with 3-D technology used by NASA and the military and Fortune 500 companies. We run the frame rate at a much higher rate than traditional film. And the net result we call 3-D. You can tilt your head, and you can watch for two hours and won't get a headache.

Q: So do you still need glasses?

A: You do. But the glasses are much different. They are more akin to sunglasses. They are very lightweight and polarized glasses, and you get a very true image. The result is that you are in the movie.

Q: Why was there a need for a new 3-D?

A: I produced a couple 3-D films in Imax. The technology was challenging to use, and there were not a lot of places to show the result. Our view was that if we could solve the technology and business issues, if we could get this onto many screens, thousands of screens, maybe content producers would show up. And that is what has happened. "Monsters vs. Aliens" is the most recent. We have had 14 movies that have shown in RealD. And then we have another 40 that are in various stages of production that are on the release calendar.

Q: Do you see this being used in "Monsters vs. Aliens" sorts of films? Or do you see this being used in all types of movies, like serious dramas?

A: The latter. I believe this is a better way to see a visual image, just like color was better than black and white and sound was better than not having sound. This is a big shift in the way we view movies.

Q: So you don't see this as a gimmick for a certain number of movies but as a new industry standard?

A: Exactly. I think the gimmick question has been answered. If you look at the movies that have come out, especially recently, it is less about the old way, which is spears in your face and gags, and more about bringing an audience into the movie and making them forget they are wearing glasses. RealD makes them part of the movie and part of the characters.

(Photo: RealD)