Professor Ali Kazimi in the Faculty of Fine Arts' Department of Film, part of the recently-funded 3D FLIC research project, spoke to the Toronto Star March 29 about the future of 3D cinema:

In the movie industry, Avatar has proven to major film studios and producers that the technology has the ability to generate significant profit, said Ali Kazimi, a professor at York University’s film studies program.

“One of the things Avatar has done has opened the floodgates for 3-D production to be taken seriously. Given that (filmmaking) is an industry and it is driven by the bottom line, producers and studios have seen the economic potential of 3-D and that’s been a huge impetus for the excitement and surge right across the industry today, from manufacturers to theatrical distributors,” Kazimi said.

. . .

Kazimi said the attraction of 3-D is the “immersive” experience that the audience receives.

“I draw an analogy to sound, where if you listen to music on a mono speaker and then on a good set of stereo speakers and then surround (sound), as you go up that chain, the experience becomes more all-enveloping and immersive. Stereoscopic 3-D cinema is attempting to do the same thing through the visual experience,” Kazimi said.

Kazimi, who is also a filmmaker, said mainstream filmmakers are already embracing the new technology.

But, he noted, storytelling remains the key to great films and 3-D is just another tool for filmmakers.

“Storytelling still remains the fundamental key of the experience. I think people will get very tired of having a dimensional experience very quickly. We experience cinema as a collective storytelling experience and that remains regardless of whether it’s black and white, colour or 3-D; it’s storytelling that we all connect to.”

The complete article is available of The Star's Web site.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.