Thomas Jane Sees the Future of Film in 3D

The world may not quite be ready for “Hung” in 3D, the HBO series’ star Thomas Jane has become a major champion of the film format – as long as they’re done right.

Jane – who made his directorial debut with the 3D thriller “Dark Country” in 2009 – is serving the official host of the second annual 3D Film & Music Festival in Los Angeles, which celebrates multidimensional moviemaking from Sept. 22-25 by screening major studio efforts (“A Dolphin’s Tale,” “Green Lantern” and “Kung Fu Panda 2”) alongside short, indie and experimental cinema.

“The first festival was a big success, and I really believe in 3D as a viable emotive, artistic form of expressions,” Jane tells PopcornBiz. “But I'm disheartened by the amount of 2D-to-3D conversions that the studios are using to bastardize 3D. It really cuts into the audience’s appreciation of 3D, and there are a lot of 3D haters out there. I think they would be 3D lovers if they experienced 3D in the right way. So 3D Film Festival aims to bring true 3D products and an awareness to people who are interested in such a thing.”

“We really bring together so much,” Jane continues. “We've got family films, we've got 3D films out of China this year, we've got 3D films out of Korea – but these are all ‘native’ 3D that really turn people on to the spectacle and the beauty and the awe inspiring images that you get to experience in a true 3D film. There are panels that we have for the professional this year where we talk about 3D production: there's a 3D film advertising panel, a 3D independent film panel, the Future of 3D panel where we talk about where 3D has been and where we think it's going and what the dangers are and all of that.”

Jane says he thinks the future of the 3D format is both thrilling and inevitable. “Ultimately, I think we're moving into a glasses-less world where we watch 3D without glasses,” he predicts. “That's true all ready on your smaller screens, on your phone or your camera, but that's coming for your flat screen TV in the house. So the 3D Film Festival is a way of promoting the growth and the evolution of 3D in the marketplace. By promoting true 3D we hope to turn people on to the fact that there is a difference between 3D conversions that the studios pump out just to capitalize on the trend of 3D films, and the real native 3D that really looks fantastic.”

The actor traces his interest in the format back to his formative years in the 1980s. “When I was a kid there was a very short wave of 3D films and one of them was 'Coming At You,’” he recalls. “It was a cheesy film, but the 3D FX were actually really good in the theater that I saw it in. Then they did 3D science fiction films in the '80's, too, which I loved, and they did 'Jaws 3D’ – not the greatest movies, but the 3D FX were actually really solid, really good, at least the experience that I had. I've heard that they didn't play so well in some theaters, but I guess I got lucky and saw some really good 3D when I was a kid.”

It’s no surprise, then, that Jane’s looking to get a second 3D directorial effort off the ground. “I've just written a western and I'd love to shoot in 3D,” he reveals. “I don't know if it will be possible, but everything that I work on I want to shoot in 3D because I believe in the future of 3D. I believe that when I'm an old man every movie theater in the country will be in 3D, and it'll be perfectly crystal clear, glasses-less 3D on a giant movie screen. The movies that will play best were the movies that were shot in actual 3D. So I'd like to be in a second run art house movie theater like the New Beverly Cinema and watch my movies in 3D. I think I'd get a big kick out of that.”

 

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