Shoot: 3D is for everyone, not just for the big boys

Dreamworks animation ceo Jeffrey Katzenberg is a firm believer that 3D is the way of the future. He told Miguel Gonzalez that 3D filmmaking is a club anyone can join.

The executive believes the financial crisis will slow down the rollout of 3D-capable screens but ‘it will not put any real damper on our plans. I’d like there to be more screens, but there are more than we need for our current plans. We know Monsters vs. Aliens will not be on 3D in every cinema in every city in every country, but 3D will soon be available to everybody.”

Audiences may have an increasingly easy access to 3D screens, but no technology can have a real impact until it’s available to everyone in the industry and, until now, 3D has been reserved for big budged animated films and SFX-driven extravaganzas such as Journey to the Centre of the Earth and James Cameron’  Avatar. Katzenberg, however, believes independent filmmakers have access to 3D tools ‘today’. “It doesn’t dramatically increase the cost of making a film; it doesn’t matter whether it’s a $1 million or a $100 million movie, the incremental cost is in the range of about 10%. Besides, it’s much less expensive to do it on a drama than it is to do it on a big, complicated special effects film.