As cinematography has evolved, people have sought ways to capture the world as it appears to us in reality. And while attempts at stereoscopic imaging were made as early as the 20th century, the first public film was shown in Los Angeles on September 27, 1922. It was a picture called The Power of Love. The film was shown with two film projectors from two positive films in a red-green spectacle called “anaglyph”. The film itself was in black and white. The projector with the green filter showed a picture slightly offset relative to the projector with the red filter. The visitors wore special glasses made of cardboard with two filters of red and green film so that each eye could see only the desired picture. This creates a semblance of a three-dimensional image. But by the 70’s of last century, the mass shooting of stereoscopic films has been suspended.
Today, to shoot three-dimensional images, two cameras are used at once, which are placed close enough to each other and at the same height. Both cameras are shot simultaneously, thereby creating a three-dimensional image.
A revolution in the film industry has revived interest in creating three-dimensional movies, and Dolby Laboratories and RealD have introduced their own technologies under the brands Dolby 3D and RealD-Cinema. The latter is currently the most widespread, as it works on the basis of polarization method, according to which the picture is shown by the projector alternately, with each frame using light waves of different polarization of the light stream. Special polarization glasses contain filters which pass certain light waves, allowing each eye to receive images with different information which forms the basis of a 3D image. The viewer receives a full-color picture, and shades of red and blue, as was the case with the outdated anaglyph format. On big screens, especially IMAX-3D, movies in this format create an ineffable depth of immersion.
Computer technology in recent decades has taken the film industry to a whole new level. Today it’s not just explosive special effects in action movies, but also significant savings in the design of the pavilions, sets, transportation costs and even the cast. The software giants have not only created everything necessary to reveal the unlimited talent and imagination of graphic animators Hollywood, but also allowed to surprise the audience incredible realism. And it can be unequivocally stated that as long as technology develops, with the release of each new blockbuster or disaster movie visiting the cinema will become more and more interesting.
