It has been a busy few weeks for Danny Boyle. His latest feature, “Trance,” is released in the U.K. today, and in addition to a Leicester Square premiere last week and a lot of media commitments to promote the film’s release, Boyle was at the Empire Awards on Sunday evening to receive an outstanding contribution award while further promoting his movie.
Now a national treasure in Britain, thanks to his fantastic body of work being capped by a superlative opening ceremony at the Olympics (not ignoring his all-round good guy status), when Boyle talks people listen… and the latest thing he’s been talking about is 3D. Now, Boyle’s a digital convert, but it sounds like he hasn’t been suitably convinced by 3D technology yet, saying that he thinks it may just be a phase.
“I don’t use 3D,” he said. “I’m a spectacle wearer, so I hate going to 3D movies because you have to wear two pairs of spectacles, which makes you feel like even more of a prat. You know how everybody feels a bit of prat wearing 3D spectacles? You as a spectacle wearer feel a double prat.”
That’s not to say that Boyle doesn’t think that good work can be done with 3D, calling what Ang Lee did with “Life of Pi” “incredible,” even if he’s not sure the technology will necessarily still be widely used in a decade. “It’s a tool, you know. There are sound innovations coming actually, particularly Dolby Atmos, which are going to do something very equivalent to what 3D does. So, I don’t know if 3D will survive to be honest. I think it may be a phase,” he added.
It’s a debate that will continue to rage, but time will tell whether 3D is something that’s going to continue to be used as widely as it is now. We’d be stunned if it did just go away with so many filmmakers of note (and, of course, the studios) giving it their backing. But then again, if the audiences stop paying for it then that will be the surest way of making sure it disappears. One thing does seem certain though; we won’t be seeing “Porno” or any “Trainspotting” sequel shot in three dimensions. [The Guardian]