3D Meet Bob Furmanek: HTF Golden Age 3-D Consultant (4 Viewers)

[Todd J Moore]

Well, at least I'll be seeing them on the big screen in September. Though I'm more looking forward to the rarer ones like I, The Jury and The Glass Web as well as the ones I haven't seen on the big screen yet like Hondo and Dangerous Mission. Oh, it will be a wild ten days sitting in the second row of the balcony again, seven seats in. This time I may not budge from those seats at all.

Hey, Bob, I keep kidding Jack about showing Arena at the Capital sometime as that will be the only existing one from the 50s that has been shown in the past ten years that I won't have seen in some format in 3D. But your comments about Cat Women of the Moon (which I saw via the Michael Starks field sequential release same as Hannah Lee) got me wondering if Arena has suffered the same fate. What is the status of that title? I would, point in fact, like to see it in 3D some time. I don't remember it as being a particularly good (or bad) movie, but I would like to see it.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

The film is okay, but it's an odd inaugural feature for MGM in the format.

The 3-D however is quite good. I found an original left/right pair in excellent shape and it's now at the UCLA Archive.

To be honest, I don't know when it will ever get shown again. If it had been my call, it would have been part of this event, along with FLIGHT TO TANGIER and a few others.

 

[Todd J Moore]

Well, maybe you and Jack can arrange a showing at the Capital. I'd drive five hours for that.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

Sadly, I don't believe I will ever have access to that collection again.

 

[Ejanss]

Bob, do you know anything about the trailer for Albert Brooks' REAL LIFE? I saw the trailer numerous times at an art house in the 70's in the weeks before it opened and it was supposedly in 3D, but I never had glasses to prove it. It was very funny.

Why remember things when we have YouTube?

And if you ARE in that part of the country that has a pair of anaglyph glasses handy, you can see it doesn't really work.

 

[Professor Echo]

ARENA is also one I need to see and I was disappointed that it's not being included in the next fest. It's too bad that ones I missed during the first festival, ARENA, GUN FURY, HANNAH LEE, FLIGHT TO TANGIER, aren't showing up again. I've pretty much seen the rest though still have to catch REDHEADS and TAZA. Unfortunately, I will be out of town this September so will miss the festival and meeting Bob.

 

[Sam Posten]

Not sure if you 3d heads have seen this yet or not:
http://www.tested.com/art/makers/456521-making-and-editing-first-3d-color-film/

I was not aware that the famous Life photo was of an audience watching Bwana Devil.

 

[Todd J Moore]

An okay article riddled with errors. They rightly identify that the film was shown in dual projection but claim it was anaglyph with red and blue glasses (even though the Bwana Devil glasses pictured contradict that). Oy. Sometimes I can't stand reading articles about the history of 3D.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

Wow, that is embarrassingly bad. And, of course, you're not able to post comments at the moment!

If anybody can, please send them a link to this page: http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/home/top-10-3-d-myths

 

[Bob Furmanek]

Charging extra for 3-D glasses is nothing new. It was done in 1953 and it cost .10 extra then (roughly .86 in 2013 currency) but if you had your own pair, you didn't have to pay the additional charge. Try to do that today!

 

[RolandL]

About a year ago there was talk that the 2D ticket price would increase and 3D decrease so they would be the same. But have not heard anything since.

 

[Todd J Moore]

Hey Bob, got a question about The Bubble. The version that seems to be circulating now--indeed the version Rhino put out and the version you showed at Expo II--is the 94 minute version. Does the original 112 minute version even exist anymore? And if so, what are the differences between the two?

 

[Bob Furmanek]

Hey Todd,
Sorry for the delay. The cuts were made shortly after the films opening and the outs are long gone. We have a complete script and will be including that text in the Blu-ray supplements.

 

[pinknik]

Hey Todd,
Sorry for the delay. The cuts were made shortly after the films opening and the outs are long gone. We have a complete script and will be including that text in the Blu-ray supplements.

The blu-ray that's coming out . . . . . .





That's a day one sale for me, Bob. Looking forward to anything the Archive might release.

 

[pinknik]

P.S. So, now that DCP's exist of Jaws 3-D and Comin' at Ya!, do you think that bodes well for eventual blu-ray releases?

 

[Bob Furmanek]

Tell me about it. We had the misfortune of dealing with the post house from hell. Their incompetence has delayed our project for nearly 8 months.

If all goes well, this should be out in the first quarter of 2014...

 

[Bob Furmanek]

P.S. So, now that DCP's exist of Jaws 3-D and Comin' at Ya!, do you think that bodes well for eventual blu-ray releases?

Hard to say, I don't know.

Apparently, from what I've heard, the Jaws DCP is a straight transfer with no stereoscopic correction whatsoever. The convergence is all over the map and if they were to release that on Blu-ray, the response would be overwhelmingly bad.

 

[pinknik]

Hard to say, I don't know.

Apparently, from what I've heard, the Jaws DCP is a straight transfer with no stereoscopic correction whatsoever. The convergence is all over the map and if they were to release that on Blu-ray, the response would be overwhelmingly bad.

Gotcha. I have a question about the type of restoration that can be done to a 3-D movie. For a movie like Jaws 3-D, what types of shots need correction? I saw the movie in the theater in 83 and most of it looked fine to my young eyes, with the exception of some "out of screen" shots that just seemed to get too close to the lense. Is that something you can tweak in post, so that I can finally converge some of those close shots?

 

[Bob Furmanek]

There's a great deal we can do now to fix convergence issues in post.

I also thought many of the titles looked good at the time, until I revisited them years later. After screening the 1950's titles (I had left/right 35mm prints of 30 features) I screened some of the single-strip titles.

Man, those things were tearing my eyes out! It's as if they had no idea how to shoot for 3-D and were learning as they went along. COMIN AT YA was one of the worst.

JAWS 3-D is pretty hard on the eyes as well.

For anybody that owns and wants to master 3-D titles for Blu-ray, we can fix 99% of the original issues with principal photography to maximize depth and minimize eyestrain.

Our proprietary stereoscopic restoration techniques can make any 3-D film look better than it ever has before.

Contact me via [email protected].

 

[Bob Furmanek]

We're looking to restore and preserve Golden Age 3-D productions. Has anybody ever come across left/right prints of 16mm industrial films from 1953/54?

This ad is from June 1953.