Testing 3D’s drama potential

Broadcast

David Walliams’ comic novel receives the 3D treatment as the BBC explores the drama genre as part of its two-year experiment with the technology.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/in-depth/testing-3ds-drama-potential/5049262.article

The BBC’s two-year quest to examine aspects of 3D production and distribution across genres has taken in live events, studio shows and CGI, and is in the process of tackling natural history.

Casting around for a suitable scripted property, head of 3D Kim Shillinglaw alighted on the adaptation of David Walliams’ comic novel Mr Stink, commissioned by BBC1 controller Danny Cohen.

“With all of our projects, we are exploring shooting 2D and 3D simultaneously, and we wanted to understand what this would mean in a drama context,” Shillinglaw explains.

“Mr Stink looked appealing partly because of the broad family target audience, and also because aspects of the script seemed to lend themselves to interesting 3D treatment.”

Adapted by Walliams with Simon Nye, the 60-minute single, produced by BBC in-house, tells the story of a lonely young girl who befriends a local tramp and invites him to hide out in her family’s garden shed.

“We felt 3D would be effective in helping to convey the heightened reality of a world seen from a child’s point of view,” says line producer Francis Gilson. “In particular, the aspect of Mr Stink’s smell could be rendered as a physical thing, like a mist, which we felt would be creatively interesting.”

He adds: “The idea was never to use 3D for the sake of it but as a technique to enhance the story and the characters. But it also makes this project feel more of an event.”

The BBC tapped the experience of stereographer Vision3 and facility Onsight to provide editorial and technical support. Stereographer Adam Sculthorp helped first-time 3D director Declan Lowney (Father Ted, Little Britain, Moone Boy) and director of photography Philipp Blaubach plan shot composition.

This included suggestions to shoot close-ups of actor Harish Patel’s craggy face and to dress Mr Stink (Hugh Bonneville) in tweed and wool costumes, since 3D is felt to enhance an appreciation of texture.

Scenes were designed with fewer cuts and greater camera movement than normal, while care was taken to avoid traditional over-the-shoulder conversation shots where the foreground object can be disconcerting to a viewer in 3D.

By and large, though, the script, direction and production design were altered little to cater for stereo, with the 2D version produced from the lefteye 3D master with no separate edit.

Where 3D had the biggest impact was on time. Four days were added to the schedule, which included two weeks on location in Hemel Hempstead/Uxbridge and two weeks of nteriors at 3 Mills Studios.

“There is a time premium to 3D that can be alleviated to a certain extent by preparation,” says Shillinglaw.

“One focus of the BBC tests is to find the sweet position of pulling something off creatively for minimum uplift in cost.”shoot used a 10,000 sq ft stage at 3Mills that was recently employed by Tim Burton for his animated feature Frankenweenie.

Although Red Epics mounted on a single Atom rig were selected because of their light weight and size - the Reds also providing a 5K master - on-set 3D paraphernalia, including cabled recording and monitoring equipment, can increase set-up times.

In particular, Gilson reports that changing prime lenses took up to 45 minutes, although the production mostly used zooms to avoid this. A stereo assistant and stereographer were additional to the regular camera crew.

Saving time “Occasionally, we used two cameras [rigs] for coverage and to speed up the shooting process,” says Gilson.

“Since Nell Tiger Free was in every scene and licensing hours for child actors are tight, we were concerned not to lose time by having to change lenses.

“For the most part, there was no problem, although one sequence on the upper deck of a bus was a challenge, not just to fit the rig inside, but also to keep the camera physically moving during the scene.

“There is also more time required in post for the 3D version to undergo a depth grade, but we allowed for this.” The BBC has no plans yet to shoot a scripted series in 3D.

“It’s too big a commitment and we wouldn’t see proportionately greater learning than from a single,” says Shillinglaw. Gilson says the jury is out on whether 3D can feasibly be used on future comedy productions.

“The turnaround speed required for sitcoms would mitigate against shooting 3D at this stage,” he says. “I’m not sure most sitcoms would benefit from it. The bottom line is whether 3D would make them funnier, and I’m not sure.”

Mr Stink was filmed at 3Mills, edited on Avid at Onsight and finished on Mistika, with VFX by Prime Focus. It will TX on BBC1 and BBC HD (in 3D) in December.