Up Close and Digital

Belgian director Ben Stassen, whose Imax 3-D film “Encounter in the Third Dimension” opens Friday, admits that initially he had a certain reluctance to working in a 3-D format.

“As a director, tackling 3-D is very intimidating,” said Stassen, a USC film school graduate. “There are no production tools. You have nothing to fall back on. No manuals, no guides and no past experience beyond the existing library of large-format films at your school. From what I could see, 3-D felt like a gimmick. It had been used, previously, as no more than a window that things pop out of, a window that the audience was always aware of.”

But that didn’t stop Stassen and his Brussels-based nWave productions from venturing into the largely unexplored territory of 3-D filmmaking with “Encounter,” a loud, high-speed roller coaster ride through the history of 3-D cinema. It stakes new ground in merging live action with state-of-the-art computer graphic imaging and by far the best use of 3-D imaging to date.

Charlotte Huggins, nWave’s Los Angeles-based president, hopes the film’s frenetic pacing, in-your-face 3-D effects, hard rock music and TV personality Elvira--you can imagine what she looks like in 3-D--will appeal to the teenage arcade crowd, making it a film they’ll want to see again and again.

This is Stassen’s first 3-D film, but not his first using the Imax format; his 2-D 1997 film “Thrill Ride: The Science of Fun” has grossed $19 million. The Sony film detailing the history of roller coasters and ride films has played in 65 Imax theaters worldwide. He’s also directed 17 ride films such as “Devil’s Mine Ride” and “Superstition” for theme parks and other venues.

Blue eyes peering through thick glasses, Stassen, 40, whose gentle, bohemian demeanor is reminiscent of an art school student, bubbles with enthusiasm in gusts of French-accented English over dinner with Huggins.

“I think what is groundbreaking in what we are doing is using existing technology in a completely new way,” he said of “Encounter.” “What we are doing is the realization of [Francis Ford] Coppola’s vision from the ‘70s when he spoke of an ‘electronic cinema.’ We are integrating post-production tools into the production process to create fully digital sets and placing live actors within those confines.”

In “Encounter” there are only two live actors, Elvira (who previously appeared in Stassen’s Iwerks ride film “Superstition”) and Stuart Pankin. He plays a giddy professor who conjures up Elvira with his new invention: the Real-O-Vision generator. And, with the help of a flying robo-assistant, Max (given voice by Pankin), and Harry Shearer’s purposely over-the-top narration, the history of 3-D cinema unfolds.

Huggins, a former TV writer who produced the visual effects for Sony’s large format “Wings of Courage,” said that “Encounter” was originally going to be a more conventional 3-D movie.

“But due to the increased demand and the fact that there are only three such 3-D rigs in existence, we simply couldn’t get the cameras,” she said. “So I started looking at 3-D as a new language for cinema. I looked for ways to use 3-D to create more of a space to bring an audience into an immerse environment in which there is no window. And the only way to do that was to go digital.”

Stassen spent a year working with a team of 14 Belgian computer graphic imaging animators who churned out 140,000 hours of digital images. He said a downside to the process, in which every detail is prefigured by the computer, is that the director finds his options for dealing with live actors are dictated by graphic elements.

“Normally directors say they ‘edit in the camera.’ Here, since every camera angle and every lens is pre-selected, it is more editing in your mind,” said Stassen. “If someone else had directed the digital portion, it would be completely paralyzing for me to go on the set and be told by the special effects advisor where to put his camera.”

Huggins said directors better get used to a new age of digital cinema. “Look at ‘Mighty Joe Young’ [an Oscar nominee for visual effects]. What is being supplied here by the digital team is no longer just effects but the star of the show.”

The computer graphics images give the film an almost other-worldly sense of clarity; everything in the film, from foreground to the most distant stretch of horizon, is in crisp focus. This heightens the sense of reality and motion. During a roller coaster scene at a recent preview, when the Jules Verne-type vehicle plummets over a cliff, audience members almost as one gasp and clutch at their armrests.

For Imax films, entertainment value is not enough; they also have to be educational to be shown at institutional theaters, like the one at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, which do the most Imax business.

“In ‘Thrill Ride’ we explained the history of ride films by creating one and taking people on a ride, not by putting equations on the blackboard,” Stassen said. “Encounter” “is even less heavy-laden with education. The way I look at it is if institutions find it within the budget to build a 3-D Imax theater, they should accept the fact that we explain how that same technology works in a fun and interesting way.”

In positioning itself for growth as an independent studio, fledgling nWave hired former Sony Pictures large-format marketing chief Mark Katz to head up its newly formed nWave distribution arm.

Scoring a coup for his first assignment, Katz has booked “Encounter” at both Edwards Imax houses, in Irvine and Ontario, on the same day the film opens at the science center.

Joseph Deamicis, who handles marketing for the science center, said he was skeptical of such an approach at first. “A couple of years ago I was right out front saying I was concerned about how commercial development would affect our market. But we have since seen that what Edwards plays in Irvine and Ontario doesn’t seem to [negatively] affect us.”

Asked about “Encounter’s” educational content, especially in light of the the center’s refusal to play director Brett Leonard’s “T-Rex 3D” due to alleged scientific inac curacies, Deamicis said the latest 3-D film fit within the museum’s mission.

“Our center is about state-of-the-art technology,” he said. “We feel ‘Encounter’ is a groundbreaking film because of its use of [computer graphics imaging]. We feel it is fun and entertaining and provides a bridge to our other programs. My goal is to get the kids to jump out of their seats and then come across the way and learn at the science center.”

A 10-minute film culled from “Encounter’ is being readied for theme parks and, in perhaps the most surprising move, nWave is also working on a black-and-white 3-D version of the film that can be shown in theaters without 3-D projection equipment.

“In the ‘50s a lot of films were made that way,” Stassen said, admitting that the idea is mostly a novelty.

Next up for nWave is a 3-D film for Discovery Channel Pictures tentatively titled “Ocean Planet” and a totally digital 3-D sci-fi feature called “Alien Adventure.”

BE THERE

“Encounter in the Third Dimension” opens Fridayat the California Science Center, Figueroa Blvd. and 39th St., Exposition Park, (213) 744-2014; Edwards Imax 3-D Theatre, Irvine Spectrum, intersection of the 5 and 405 freeways, (714) 832-4629; Edwards Imax 3-D Theatre, Ontario Stadium 22, intersection of interstates 10 and 15, (909) 476-1500.