"Hugo" & Scorsese Win Big at International 3D Society Awards

Tim here. Martin Scorsese walked away with the Harold Lloyd Filmmaker Award when the International 3D Society honored him and his 3D masterpiece Hugo at the 3D Creative Arts Awards held at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Hugo received three awards, Best Live Action 3D Feature, Best Stereography (Live Action), and Best 3D Moment of the Year. Scorsese also spoke about the restoration of classic 3D movies for Blu-Ray, which was met with thunderous applause.

"My favorites are the old ones," Scorsese said. "There are so many. To see the films at home (on 3D Blu-ray) is going to be really remarkable. And to see them in their original form … seeing Dial M for Murder in 3D, in particular, is an entirely different experience."

Animation also was huge at the awards ceremony as The Adventures of Tintin and Puss in Boots walked away with Best Animated 3D Feature and Best Stereography (Animated) respectively. Chris Miller, director of Puss in Boots said, "(3D) is on the verge of being recognized as a great contributor to cinematic storytelling — and that is what it is. When we added it into any sequence in the film, it was about ‘how can we best (use 3D) to tell the story."

Wim Wenders' Pina received the Jury Prize for Excellence from the Society, and additional Lumiere statuettes were awarded to The Lion King for Best 2D-to-3D Conversion, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams for Best 3D Documentary.

Winners in television include 3net’s Fields of Valor: Civil War, for entertainment programming; Sony Japan’s Ayumi Hamasaki: Arena Tour, for a live event; and BSkyB’s Champions League Final, in live sports.

Sony Corporation of America was honored with the Sir Charles Wheatstone Award for education at its Sony 3D Technology Center in Culver City.

Additional Award winners included:
3D Short Motion Picture/Narrative: "The Foundling" (RSA Films)
Electronic Broadcast Media (Television) – Ad/Commercial: "Best Buy 3D"
Electronic Broadcast Media (Television) – Short: "Foster the People - Don’t Stop" (Digital Revolution Studios)
Special Attraction – "King Kong 360 3D" (Universal Studios Hollywood)
3D Videogame – Portable: "Street Fighter IV" (Capcom)
3D Videogame – Console: "Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception" (Naughty Dog-Sony Computer Electronics)
3D Videogame – PC: "Batman: Arkham City" (Warner Brothers)

International "Jury Prizes" were presented to:
Beijing Film Academy (China) – "The Light of Shanghai Expo"
KT Skylife (Korea) – "3D Microspace"
NHK (Japan) – "The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami"
Nippon Television (Japan) – "3D Baseball Live"
Sony (Japan) – "Final Fantasy"
Bandai (Japan) – "Hipura"
Fuji Television (Japan) – "Tokyo Control"

The Society’s television partner, 3net, plans to air a one-hour special, "Your World in 3D,” highlighting nominated works and red carpet interviews from the ceremony.

Congratulations to all involved!

WATCH: Werner Herzog's CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS Trailer #2!

Filmmaking at it's best! When a movie can deliver emotional and intellectual connections to moments of man's history that are not often dwelt upon it is truly a gift to the world. Werner Herzog's CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS will be remembered and treasured as such.

I invite you to watch the second trailer for the film and imagine what it must have been like to not only see these cave drawings, but what it must have been like to DRAW them in the first place. What inspired them?

Here is the synopsis:
CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS, a breathtaking new 3D documentary from the incomparable Werner Herzog (ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, GRIZZLY MAN) follows an exclusive expedition into the nearly inaccessible Chauvet Cave in France, home to the most ancient visual art known to have been created by man. A hit at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS is an unforgettable cinematic experience that provides a unique glimpse of pristine artwork dating back to human hands over 30,000 years ago — almost twice as old as any previous discovery.

Werner Herzog is a wizard at conjuring unforgettable visions. Now he brings us the earliest known visions of mankind: the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc cave art of southern France, created more than thirty thousand years ago. By comparison, the famous cave art of Lascaux is roughly half as old. Since Chauvet’s discovery in 1994, access has been extremely restricted due to concerns that overexposure, even to human breath, could damage the priceless drawings. Only a small number of researchers have ever seen the art in person.

Herzog gained extraordinary permission to film the caves using lights that emit no heat. But Herzog being Herzog, this is no simple act of documentation. He initially resisted shooting in 3D, then embraced the process, and now it’s hard to imagine the film any other way. The 3D format proves essential in communicating the contoured surfaces on which the charcoal figures are drawn. Beyond the walls, Herzog uses 3D to render the cave’s stalagmites like a crystal cathedral and to capture stunning aerial shots of the nearby Pont-d’Arc natural bridge. His probing questions for the cave specialists also plunge deep; for instance: “What constitutes humanness?”

Enjoy!

Must Watch: Trailer For Werner Herzog's CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS

Finally the trailer emerges for Werner Herzog's CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS stereoscopic 3D documentary! Herzog is a world renowned filmmaker who is a favorite of many critics including Roger Ebert.

The titular cave is none other than France's Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc. Here is what the Toronto International Film Festival had to say about documentary (via /Film):

Werner Herzog is a wizard at conjuring unforgettable visions. Now he brings us the earliest known visions of mankind: the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc cave art of southern France, created more than thirty thousand years ago. By comparison, the famous cave art of Lascaux is roughly half as old. Since Chauvet’s discovery in 1994, access has been extremely restricted due to concerns that overexposure, even to human breath, could damage the priceless drawings. Only a small number of researchers have ever seen the art in person.

Herzog gained extraordinary permission to film the caves using lights that emit no heat. But Herzog being Herzog, this is no simple act of documentation. He initially resisted shooting in 3D, then embraced the process, and now it’s hard to imagine the film any other way. The 3D format proves essential in communicating the contoured surfaces on which the charcoal figures are drawn. Beyond the walls, Herzog uses 3D to render the cave’s stalagmites like a crystal cathedral and to capture stunning aerial shots of the nearby Pont-d’Arc natural bridge. His probing questions for the cave specialists also plunge deep; for instance: “What constitutes humanness?”

Enjoy!!



SO looking forward to this one!!

Reviews Of Werner Herzog’s CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS Starting To Come In...

Werner Herzog’s CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 3D recently and this is the first review I have seen about it. The review comes from indieWire and it speaks rather boldly about the movie and where the reviewer thought Herzog was going with it at various times.

Here is part of the review:
“Cave of Forgotten Dreams” takes a fascinating 3-D journey into the inner sanctum of heretofore undocumented cave paintings in the south of France. Destined to delight Herzog fans for its offbeat ruminations on the evolution of creativity, the movie also derives ample philosophical weight from the sheer beauty and inherent mystery of the subject at hand. Guiding the audience with his typical voiceover narration, Herzog delves into “one of the greatest discoveries in the history of human culture,” the etchings on the walls of the 1,300-foot Chauvet Cave, presumably home to the oldest paintings in the world. Owned by the French government and restricted to a handful of experts, the cave remains as mysterious as the history of its contents.

Herzog naturally plays up the enigma at hand with epic grandeur, occasionally overdoing it but usually hitting the mark. Introducing the setting with a majestic crane shot (particularly immersive in 3-D), his camera soars above the cave and surveys the desolate landscape. Unleashing cosmic observations about “the abyss of time” and the like, Herzog ventures into the darkness with his small team, carefully illuminating the 35,000-year-old artwork within. The profoundly magical aura of the footage ranges from charcoal etchings of animals in motion (“almost like a form of proto-cinema”) to hints of attempts at self-portraiture (“as if the human soul was awakened within them”).

...And yet, given the unprecedented nature of the project, Herzog’s filmmaking efforts are tightly controlled and closer to conventions of the form than his other recent non-fiction ventures. He sticks to the practical goal of exposing the art, and concludes by dedicating the movie to the cave’s discoverers. Apparently, plans are underway to open a replica of the cave for the general public, but Herzog beats them to the punch by putting this natural museum on the big screen.

Be sure to read the whole review right here.

Thanks for the heads up Joanna! Great to see this very respected and influential director enjoying and employing 3D for his many, many fans...