DreamWorks: 3D movies to double data storage requirements

With a growing number of feature-length animated movies and the changeover from a 2D to a 3D format, DreamWorks Animation deployed a disk-based data archive system that reduced the time it takes artists to retrieve reference video from days to seconds.

DreamWorks Animation SKG is releasing all of its films in stereoscopic 3D, more than doubling the amount of data storage capacity required to store its movies.

The move to 3D animation also requires the company's IT shop to migrate away from tape-based storage systems to disk systems in order to keep archived films online for animators to use as references for future sequels, which is the company's mainstay.

DreamWorks recently released its first 3D animated moviem Monsters vs. Aliens, which packed its newly installed disk array from Hewlett-Packard Co. with 93TB worth of images. The company plans to release five feature films every two years. In the past, each animated film averaged less than 25TB, according to Derek Chan, head of digital operations for DreamWorks Animation.

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3-D takes a giant leap into the future

Hollywood is looking at the future through tinted plastic glasses.

My Bloody Valentine, Coraline and the Jonas Brothers concert film were just warm-up acts. The attack of the 3-D movie revival begins in earnest next Friday when Monsters vs. Aliens, the latest computer-animated funhouse from DreamWorks, is launched into theaters.

At least 12 other titles will follow this year, including such milestones as Up, Pixar's first foray in the format; Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, a rare chance to see that disaster-prone Scrat get flattened in 3-D; and Avatar, James Cameron's return to feature filmmaking after a 12-year hiatus that will attempt to do for live-action futuristic thrillers what his Titanic did for sinking ships.

If ever a digital-age update on what was once an Ike-era novelty were going to take hold — and persuade more theater operators to invest upward of $100,000 to convert to the technology — it is now, with such already anticipated titles ready to give it a real workout.

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3-dimensional strategy takes shape for marketers, TV shows

Don your helmets, err … your 3-D glasses. You'll need them for a Super Bowl weekend ad and programming blitz in three dimensions.

Procter & Gamble kicks it off Friday with a 3-D website for Crest Whitestrips Advanced Seal.

P&G joins PepsiCo and DreamWorks Animation in using the proliferating technology for a marketing stunt. During the big game, Pepsi and DreamWorks Animation will air back-to-back 3-D ads for SoBe Lifewater and DreamWorks' upcoming 3-D movie, Monsters vs. Aliens.

PepsiCo has distributed more than 130 million pairs of those goofy 3-D glasses via more than 25,000 grocery, drug and mass retail stores. Intel, a provider of 3-D technology for both the movie and the ads, paid for the production of them, which can cost up to a nickel each.

P&G's promotion is a stealth play. It's counting on site visitors to use the specs Pepsi doled out. The site shows close-ups of whitening-strip wearers kissing at KissMeIn3D.com. The point is to show that the strips can't be seen, and besides, says Heath Rudduck, executive creative director for Crest digital agency Digitas, "No one really enjoys kissing in 2-D."

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Studios using 3-D more to attract moviegoers

There are a whole mess of 3-D movies coming out this year that won't just be for the kiddies. The first 3-D movie of '09, "My Bloody Valentine," opening today, puts viewers up close and personal with an unstoppable killer whose tool of choice is a pickax.

The competition between motion picture studios and home entertainment systems is driving the increase in 3-D movies, said Steven Smith of Movie Marketplace. "Studios along with theater exhibitors are looking for ways to enhance the experience and drive people to theaters."

Both DreamWorks Animation and Pixar Studios have announced that all future feature films will be released in 3-D, said Nikki Kealalio, director of marketing for Krikorian Theaters. "Nearly all our theaters have one 3-D viewing room, so we will show these movies in both 3-D and 2-D."

Several Krikorian Theaters broadcasted the 2009 FedEx BCS National Championship game live in digital 3-D last Thursday and will broadcast the NBA All Stars game in February as well.

"We're going to be doing a lot more live sporting events," Kealalio said. "We will eventually start adding more 3-D rooms to our theaters so there will be more viewing capabilities."

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3-D goes big time in 2009; otherwise it's business as usual

As Hollywood unveils its 2009 schedule, the big trend can be summed up in one word: 3-D. The movie industry is jumping on that bandwagon like no time since 1953, the famous movie year in which virtually every major studio embraced stereoscopic technology then promptly abandoned it as a gimmick.

This time it's expected to take. DreamWorks animation boss Jeffrey Katzenberg (whose '09 3-D movie is March's "Monsters vs. Aliens") argues in a recent issue of Variety that the floodgate is now open and that digital 3-D is the wave of the future. "Eventually," he says, "I believe that all films will be shot in this remarkable medium."

What may be the year's most highly anticipated film, James Cameron's "Avatar," will be a wide 3-D release. The hugely ambitious, $200 million-plus sci-fi epic -- about a human hero "thrust into hostilities on an alien planet" -- has obsessed the "Titanic" director for more than a decade and finally will hit multiplexes on Dec. 18.

Meanwhile, Disney is releasing more than a third of its films this year in 3-D, including a Jonas Brothers concert film; the Pixar-animated "Up"; Jerry Bruckheimer's cute-guinea-pig comedy "G-Force"; a reissue of "Toy Story"; and a new version of "A Christmas Carol," with Jim Carrey as Scrooge.

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Conor Nolan finds 3D animation in Monster vs Aliens very exciting

THERE has been much debate recently about 3D and its potential growth in the UK. So when the Dreamworks' big boss Jeffrey Katzenberg invited me to see a preview of his new 3D animated movie, Monster vs Aliens, I simply could not resist, writes Conor Nolan.

3D is of course not new and has been around since the 1950s, but the advent of digital projection technology has allowed it to advance leaps and bounds.

As I sat down in the cinema I was given a pair of odd looking sunglasses to watch the latest Dreamworks animated flick and what an experience it was: I was treated to about 30 minutes worth of clips from Monster vs Aliens and it was dazzling.

You literally feel that you are in the thick of the action as it unfurls on the big screen and on several occasions I actually ducked and moved my head to avoid objects hurtling towards me.

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Katzenberg says 3D films are the future

When Jeffrey Katzenberg recently stood on stage in Las Vegas before 500 of the movie industry's most influential members and theatre owners from as far away as Australia, he looked like a general motivating his troops.

And the Hollywood studio boss' message was clear.

Digital 3D movies are the future of the industry.

"It is nothing less than the greatest innovation that has happened to all of us in the movie business since the advent of colour 70 years ago," Katzenberg, who founded the DreamWorks movie studio in 1994 with Oscar-winning director and producer Steven Spielberg and music mogul David Geffen, said during a keynote speech at Las Vegas' annual ShoWest conference.

To prove Katzenberg's point, 3D glasses were handed out to the audience and footage of DreamWork's yet to be completed digital 3D computer-animated film, Monsters vs Aliens, was shown.

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