It finally happened to me: 3D sickness

By Sarah Sluis

When the house lights come down and the opening music swells, I'm normally filled with the excitement and anticipation of settling into a movie. I'm not frantically rubbing my 3D glasses and squinting, trying to figure out if there's something wrong with the image, or something wrong with me.

Yesterday I caught a screening of Sanctum 3D at the AMC at 34th Street in Manhattan, on one of the "smaller" IMAX screens. The executive producer is James Cameron, whose Avatar wowed me, so I was expecting a technically awesome 3D experience. Instead, I felt like I was rehashing the reviews I read of Clash of the Titans. It was not a pleasant experience, but, thankfully, the worst subsided (or my eyes adjusted) within the first twenty minutes.

Scratched glasses. IMAX recycles their glasses, which is a good thing in theory, but can also lead to scratches that impair viewing and lead to that manual polishing, a particularly difficult thing to do during sweater season, when a scratchy wool garment simply isn't an option for polishing. I had a couple of vertical scratches that would leak color/light upwards and downwards. If I looked offscreen at the ubiquitous EXIT lamp, for example, I would see red below and above the text, and it was the same onscreen as well. Some of the "extra" image I saw, however, wasn't because of the scratched glasses, but because of "ghosting."

As described in my article about 3D conversion companies, stereoscopic 3D can lead to ghosting in high-contrast areas. 3D involves combining a left-eye and right-eye image, and high-contrast images often leave a ghostly artifact of the separate images. This happened to me noticeably during one shot that occurred within the first five minutes. I could see a white outline to the left of the object that should have rendered completely to the right. I had the same problem with the white text on the black background, which blurred upwards and downwards--though I suspect this had more to do with the scratches in my glasses than ghosting.

Vertigo/queasiness with sweeping horizontal shots. Sanctum is a thriller set in a massive cave, and the movie opens with some sweeping aerial shots of the jungle and the cave. These gave me a fleeting sense of vertigo, and, at other points in the movie, a bit of stomach unease. Quick pans are a no-no for 3D movies, so either I was extra-sensitive to this shot or the filmmakers tried to move the camera too fast.

So what caused my bad experience? 3D problems can originate with 1) the glasses 2) the theatre's projection 3) the film not working within the limits of stereoscopic 3D 4) being part of the 5-10% (though I've heard as high as 30%) of people that just can't take 3D.

1) My glasses did feel off, and I've successfully seen films with IMAX glasses before as well as Dolby and RealD. I switched glasses with my viewing companion (they didn't bother him) and this seemed to help a bit, but it can't explain all the problems I had.

2) The theatre's projection. Hard to tell. I would have to see this movie again at another theatre in order to speculate, and I really think only an expert could identify exactly what's going on (e.g. if there are syncing issues).

3) The filmmakers. Again, this movie was executive produced by James Cameron so I would expect the technical details to be top-notch. I suspect the filmmakers may have put in some shots that they knew would be challenging to an above-average portion of the audience, but I don't want to indict them for more than that.

4) Me. I've successfully seen close to a dozen 3D movies, and I've overwhelmingly had a positive experience, with a few minor issues. I did feel like I was way too close to the screen, something I've never felt before (and I'm pretty sure I always pick a similar middle spot), and in the future I think I'll sit another five rows back out of caution. I ended up with a dull headache that lasted some time after the credits ended, along with a feeling of having to focus and concentrate way more than normal--it felt as if I had to "squint" the whole movie.

My consensus? I left more puzzled than totally turned off by 3D. Since it's hard to diagnose exactly what happened, I'll do what I can: double-check my glasses for scratches and sit an extra five rows back from the screen. I'm also newly grateful for the fact that movies release in both 2D and 3D for those that have problems with the images, because bad 3D can, literally, give you a headache.