CARMICHAEL PICTURE AND SOUND and stereographer carl hernz
BRING HOLLYWOOD’S FIRST 3D MOTION PICTURE TO LIFE!
It was an era with no CGI to create crowds or enormous settings or a way to create the illusion of an epic save to actually film an epic and to employ a cast of thousands. That time offered no computer animation techniques available to convert the human face into something otherworldly, and thus to offer a distortion of the face one had to literally and painfully distort the countenance.
While the most avid fan or expert of the silent film, The Phantom of the Opera,
would be immediately keen to these and many other facts about this horror
classic, a literally new dimension filled with unexpected surprises has just
opened up. Filming each and every scene with two movie cameras, a customary
technique in the silent film era, The Phantom of the Opera was unintentionally
shot in 3D. Making this discovery in 2010, filmmaker and author Carl Hernz
went to work on matching the stereoscopic views accidentally created by this
fortunate mechanical setup.
Astonishing and unexpected views of a world where movie sets offer no paintings to make rooms look larger, where a tomb-encassed canal literally stretches out into a dark and no-longer-visible distance, and where creating layer-upon-layer detail in set and design was not a technique reserved for 3D movie making. A treasure of eye-candy delights leap out toward and then draws the soul into a silver screen realm far richer than words could ever describe. Early previews of some of the scenes caused gasps and even cheers to rise as eyes saw into a world preserved in 3D for almost 100 years after having been originally filmed. As one of these first viewers explains: "It's so amazing because today all we have are special effects made by lifeless computers, but this 3D world is real." --MORE
It was an era with no CGI to create crowds or enormous settings or a way to create the illusion of an epic save to actually film an epic and to employ a cast of thousands. That time offered no computer animation techniques available to convert the human face into something otherworldly, and thus to offer a distortion of the face one had to literally and painfully distort the countenance.
While the most avid fan or expert of the silent film, The Phantom of the Opera,
would be immediately keen to these and many other facts about this horror
classic, a literally new dimension filled with unexpected surprises has just
opened up. Filming each and every scene with two movie cameras, a customary
technique in the silent film era, The Phantom of the Opera was unintentionally
shot in 3D. Making this discovery in 2010, filmmaker and author Carl Hernz
went to work on matching the stereoscopic views accidentally created by this
fortunate mechanical setup.
Astonishing and unexpected views of a world where movie sets offer no paintings to make rooms look larger, where a tomb-encassed canal literally stretches out into a dark and no-longer-visible distance, and where creating layer-upon-layer detail in set and design was not a technique reserved for 3D movie making. A treasure of eye-candy delights leap out toward and then draws the soul into a silver screen realm far richer than words could ever describe. Early previews of some of the scenes caused gasps and even cheers to rise as eyes saw into a world preserved in 3D for almost 100 years after having been originally filmed. As one of these first viewers explains: "It's so amazing because today all we have are special effects made by lifeless computers, but this 3D world is real." --MORE
The unintentional stereoscopic (3D) camera setup reveals details not fully realized till now. For example, archways and tunnels of the underground realm of the opera house set are real unlike the set designs of today that take shortcuts to fool the eyes in 2D.
The finished film showcases the original tiniting and the Technicolor and hand-painted sequences. Above, an added sense of space adds to the experience after the Phantom is unmasked.
