Ridley Scott: "I'll Never Work Without 3D Again"
Earlier today, Comic Con audiences got their first look at Ridley Scott's Prometheus and the director himself showed up, via satellie from Iceland, to join in the fun. Part of the news is that Scott is, in fact, shooting Prometheus in 3D and to that point he made the following shocking statement.
I'll never work without 3D again, even for small dialogue scenes.
Is the man behind Blade Runner, Gladiator and Alien really leaving two dimensions behind? How is he using 3D in Prometheus? And what does his screenwriter Damon Lindelof think about it? Read Scott's full quote and more after the jump.
Here's what Scott said during the panel.
3D has been a wonderful exercise but I was brought up as a camera operator so its really about lensing and all that kind of stuff. So with the help I've had from a wonderful cameraman and his technical team its been, for me, a pretty straight forward ride. That said I'll never work without 3D again, even for small dialogue scenes. I love the whole process. 3D opens up the universe of even a small dialogue scene so I've been very impressed with that.
To add that that, earlier in the day at the Prometheus press conference, co-screenwriter Damon Lindelof – who found himself as the mouthpiece for the movie since Scott was still shooting in Iceland – described a bit more about Scott's choice and how Prometheus is doing things a little different:
When Ridley decided to film in 3D, he understood [lighting] was going to be one of the profound challenges and I think one of the things that was important to him was, in terms of the constructions of the sets, that the movie was shot on sound stages in Pinewood. Just these humongous, expansive sets. Everything is built. If you're building a ship, he just built the ship.....I've never been on the set of a movie that's actually shooting 3D before. Anytime you walk into video village there are essentially five massive video screens. You walk in, get a pair of glasses and you can see the shot and suddenly you understood, even on the production design level – the movie was designed by this guy Arthur Max who did Fight Club – 'Oh my god, they actually designed this movie for 3D.' Ridley is a shot maker. He makes beautiful art. So the idea of going in post and putting things in there digitally is not going to happen in this movie. Therefore, I feel any movie that's going to be in 3D has to answer the question, 'Can you justify this being in 3D? Why should it be in 3D?' I think the answer to that question for Prometheus is it creates a very immersive environment. The idea that you're in sometimes very confined spaces, sometimes very wide open spaces. But the only way to trick your brain into feeling you're in the movie, going through these experiences with these characters, is that the 3D helps bring you into that immersive environment and just based on what ive seen so far I think probably one the most visionary and visual directors in the world is finally using this medium, I think its going to be pretty special.
Do you agree? And do you think Scott will stand by that word?