A Conversation with Director Ben Stassen
1) What excites you about giant screen filmmaking?
Over the last three years, exhibitors around the world have spent well over one billion dollars building giant screen 3-D theaters. By contrast, less than a dozen 3-D titles were released during the same period.
Due to the lack of adequate production tools, the creation of a large format 3-D film is truly a nightmarish undertaking. Not only is the creation of a large format 3-D film extremely complicated from a technical standpoint, it is also very challenging creatively. The creation of a large format film experience requires the development of a new language of cinema. One relates to a feature film experience intellectually and emotionally, but there is also a physical component to the giant screen experience that you cannot find in any other form of audio-visual experience. Filmmakers tackling the challenge of creating films for this new entertainment platform find themselves working in a vacuum. The large format 3-D film language has not yet been written.
This is precisely what appeals to me most in this powerful new medium. No matter what we do, there is a good chance it has never been done before. The flip side of the coin is that at this point in time, due to the inadequacy of the production technology (unmanageably huge cameras, no sync sound recording capabilities, etc.), it is practically impossible to bring a conventional dramatic story to giant 3-D theaters.
This can be a great handicap for a filmmaker trying to break away from the traditional type of educational documentary films that have characterized our industry for so many years.
Having said that, I feel that it is already possible today to provide giant screen theater patrons a unique experience, an experience that could never be duplicated in a conventional theater or on television.
2) What inspired you to make “Haunted Castle”?
The giant screen 3-D film experience enables the filmmaker to transport the audience within the filmic environment, to immerse the viewer completely into the 3-D space. With that in mind, I wanted to create a 3-D experience where the space itself was the main character of the film. The key, of course, was to design an organic environment that could expand through the story. A haunted castle seemed like a good set-up to do just that.
3) How is “Haunted Castle” thematically and technically different from other 3-D giant screen films?
The key to turning the castle into the main character of the film was to let the environment take over with as little “conventional” editorial intervention as possible. This is why I created a film that plays out in real time. There are very few cuts and the action is never condensed or expanded. There are no ellipses in the entire film. From the time we enter the Castle to our exit at the end, 40 minutes have lapsed, the exact duration of the film.
To complicate matters, I decided to create the entire film in a “point-of-view” style. After briefly introducing Johnny (the young musician who inherits the castle) at the beginning of the film, I place the viewer in Johnny’s position and we see everything through his eyes.
4) What are the advantages and disadvantages to producing a film that is
almost 100% CGI (computer generated imagery)?
The production of giant screen 3-D films is a tremendously difficult task from a technical standpoint. Until digital cameras become available to produce these films, computer generated (and manipulated) images are the only practical option available.
There are many technical advantages to using CGI as a production tool for 3-D films, but the primary benefit is that CGI enables you to create a film with infinite depth of field, where all foreground and background elements are in focus—a very useful feature for a 3-D film. Unlike traditional filmmaking techniques, where varying depths of field are part of the grammar of the medium, out of focus areas in 3-D are very distracting. Just like in real life, the viewer must be able to scan the 3-D images and perceive every part of the space as being in focus. Something that can only be achieved through the use of digital production techniques.
5) Where will the giant screen industry be in ten years?
With state-of-the-art home theaters available to consumers at an increasingly reasonable cost, the public will be more and more demanding when it comes to the out-of-home film experience.
Giant screen 3-D theaters offer viewers the type of experience that cannot be duplicated at home or even in stadium seating multiplexes. When it comes to a truly immersive 3-D experience, size does matter.
The medium is only in its infancy and our films are but a timid attempt to harness the power of the medium. It will take some time to “tame the beast,” but I am absolutely convinced that the giant screen will be the entertainment platform of the 21st century, provided that the shaky economic model strengthens in the not too distant future!