Imagine, if you dare, 20 million couch potatoes rooted to their seats, all wearing the same logo-enhanced cardboard glasses while enjoying their favorite shows.
American audiences are being asked once again to don 3-D eyepieces – this time in the privacy of their own homes – to further popular culture and network ratings.
To add a new dimension to May sweeps, ABC and NBC have decided, sparing no expense, to produce comedies that offer an optical alternative to entrenched viewing habits.
Sure, we’ve been led down this 3-D road before. As novelties go, however, it appears to be one diversion that rarely fails to capture our fancy.
“There’s a large, vocal community out there that likes to watch objects come out of their TVs,” observes Dan Symmes, president of ION 3, which provided technical support — and millions of eyeglasses — to the networks for their sweeps stunts.
“The public likes 3-D. Every broadcast we’ve ever done worldwide has gone through the ceiling, ratings-wise.”
Not that Symmes expects to see the effect used on a regular basis in TV or films anytime soon. Even this self-proclaimed “Wizard of 3-D” has a tough time imagining a special-effects version of, say, “ER” or “Chicago Hope.”
Still, he is delighted NBC has decided to add 3-D to the season finale of “Third Rock From the Sun,” and that ABC will use the visual gag to link nine of its comedy shows. “For me, it was like working for both the North and South during the Civil War.”
In fact, Symmes’ Civil War analogy wasn’t too far off the mark. As it turns out, the competing networks decided to go ahead with their projects, knowing the 3-D processes they employed would require their audiences to use incompatible viewing devices.
That’s right. One pair of glasses won’t work with the other network’s programs.
ABC’s “3-D Week” will run Tuesday through Friday, with a special sneak preview during its T.G.I.F. lineup Friday night. The participating shows include “Home Improvement,” “Spin City,” “Coach,” “The Drew Carey Show,” “Ellen,” “Family Matters,” “Step by Step,” “Sabrina” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”
The network chose to use the traditional anaglyph 3-D technique, in which objects appear to emerge from the screen toward the viewer. The glasses, available at Wendy’s restaurants, have lenses that match the color encoding (red and cyan) as processed through ION 3’s Natural Vision.
NBC decided to try a less-familiar technique, the Pulfrich process, for its “Must See 3-D” event, a special hourlong “Third Rock From the Sun.” This process provides greater depth of field and more kinetic activity, but no floating objects.
While the glasses — which filter dark and light images — are needed to fully appreciate the “Third Rock’s” 3-D effects, no portion of the show will appear out of synch if viewed with the naked eye. (Glasses are available at Little Caesar’s outlets and by purchasing Barq’s root beer.)
The 3-D segments on ABC’s programs, however, will not be as clear — although, according to Michael Becker, ABC’s director of comedy programming: “The blur factor has been reduced significantly.”
“You won’t have any problem viewing it without the glasses,” he added. “The gags are all funny, and they’re still going to be funny without the glasses.”
Becker said the producers of the individual series were given a great deal of freedom to create the elements they thought would work best within the framework of their shows.
The producers of “Home Improvement” actually had toyed with the idea of using 3-D before the theme-week concept was initiated. Until recently, however, the technology didn’t meet their standards.
In Tuesday’s episode, the stars of “Tool Time” will attempt to build a picnic table as lumber, drills, tape measures and even a hot dog appear to float into viewers’ living rooms.
A plot-forwarding device
To shoot the dream sequences for its special May 18 episode of “Third Rock From the Sun,” NBC enlisted director Phil Joanou (“U2: Rattle and Hum,” “State of Grace”). He was given full use of 24 sets on two sound stages, as well as extensive post-production and computer-graphics facilities.
On one recent day, the show’s cast and crew were gathered at the Huntington Gardens Mansion in Pasadena, where co-star Kristen Johnston was filming a hot tango with Wayne Knight. Her dream sequence pays homage to Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” with the actress doing a dead-on impersonation of Anita Ekberg.
To make full use of the Pulfrich technique, Joanou must keep the camera moving along with the actors in a carefully choreographed pas de deux.
“It’s a whole different look from what ABC is doing, which requires a stereo-camera setup,” said Joanou between shots on an Italianate porch. “We’re using a single, straight Panavision camera and a system in which the camera moves in a right-to-left direction with a lot of foreground, or in a clockwise direction, around an actor.
“You’ve got to have a depth-of-field to get the 3-D to happen. When it works, it really looks as if you’re on a set.”
It’s an optical illusion, added Joanou. “The camera moves in a right-to-left motion, but the objects in the recorded image enter the left eye first and right eye second,” he said.
“The dark lens on the glasses creates a delay to the brain, therefore causing the foreground to jump away from the background, as if your brain is out of synch. It causes a sense of parallax, which in 2-D you don’t have.”
Terry Turner — co-creator of the series — is sitting on another nearby porch, studying his video monitor among ancient Roman busts and sarcophagi. He can’t help contain his amusement as the leggy Johnston, in a dress slit nearly to her waist, puts a leg lock on her on-screen boyfriend.
“Phil Joanou’s doing these incredibly insane things with each segment,” Turner said, making notes on a script. “We didn’t want this to be just a gimmick. We decided to incorporate the 3-D and special-effects segments to enhance the plot, which involves the characters’ nightmares.
“It’s the first time they’ve ever had dreams, and, as a result, it throws them into a complete quandary. The 3-D is being used as a plot-forwarding device.”
For instance, John Lithgow’s sequence seems to have been inspired by one of Terry Gilliam’s futuristic techno-nightmares, a la the film “Brazil.” In it, the High Commander imagines he might lose Dr. Albright (Jane Curtin) to a faraway fellowship program, but not before he is tortured into admitting he’s an alien.
The scene takes up just four minutes of time, but it was shot on seven sets, all designed and built specifically for this episode.
No one on the set seems concerned that ABC will beat the NBC out of the gate.
And NBC executives don’t know if they should cheer for ABC to succeed or not. Certainly, they hope audiences won’t be turned off by ABC’s effort, and thus shun the 3-D process entirely.
“If people see the ABC shows and are disappointed, they might not think 3-D is any good,” acknowledged John Miller, NBC’s executive vice president of advertising and special programming.
Far-reaching experiment
“Third Rock From the Sun” seemed like a perfect choice for NBC’s special-effects experiment. Already so far off the wall that a little 3-D might seem normal, the show became an unexpected hit after NBC grabbed it away from ABC and made it a midseason replacement in January 1996.
It was moved from Tuesdays to Sundays, to the dismay of its producers, and has performed well. The 3-D idea derived, in part, from the network’s desire last summer to “shine some light” on the show.
Symmes, of course, is ecstatic about all the attention being paid to 3-D. Last week, he flew to Indonesia, where his company has produced 12 half-hour sitcoms for the country’s fledgling television industry.
“3-D has always been treated as a novelty here, so it’s still pretty grim for me,” he said. “The sitcoms we did for Indonesian television are what convinced `Third Rock’ this was usable for a Hollywood production.
“Prior to this, people thought it was too difficult to do. We were able to prove them quite wrong.”
Now, if Symmes only can get audiences to put on the right glasses.
