3D is a tricky innovation, and it’s still in the phase where the way it’s used in some movies looks horrendous. Of course it’s a way for studios to get people to the theaters instead of waiting for DVD/Blu-Ray/On Demand options, and has the added benefit of allowing ticket prices to be arbitrarily higher (a pair of plastic glasses does not actually cost $4). When people shell out this extra dough at the theater and see a movie that looks like a pop-up book, they have a right to be annoyed. But that’s not the case with this one.
In most 3D movies that are shot in 2D and three-dimensionally layered in post-production, it’s noticeable. It looks like there’s essentially three layers at best in the image, the foreground sticks out from the background, and that’s it. The way we normally view objects is that each one has its own depth, its own layer. I can’t get a conclusive answer as to whether Life of Pi was shot in 3D (I was under the impression that it was), but what matters most is that when I was watching it, I couldn’t tell. To me, it looked the way the animals in Born to Be Wild looked—each object having its own depth, resulting in multiple, even countless layers in the image. This is how you create authentic-looking depth rather than something akin to cardboard cutouts which actually accentuates flatness—and therefore, hopefully others take note and execute 3D photography in this way from now on.
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