Master of all he sees, King James, stopped by G4’s Attack of the Show for their hipply named segment “Gadget Pr0n” to show off his bad-ass 3D camera. I don’t have the venomous hate for Cameron that a lot of cineasts do, but I do find him fairly unlikable to listen to talk about, well, most anything. So watching Jimbo fart around with a 3D camera while Kevin Pereira sucks up to him (which I don’t blame him for; Cameron is a big get as a guest) sounds like a shit way to begin the day. Yet I found myself quite interested in the tech on display here. Gadget Pr0n is aptly named, it would seem. And Cameron knows his tech.
G4’s cheat-sheet on the camera:
• This camera is called a mini beam splitter rig and is set up inverted to be hand-held.
• This rig was specifically created for the movie from two Sony cameras.
• Unlike most 3D cameras, the Pace doesn’t use two side by side cameras for 3D effects.
• Instead, it uses two cameras on the top and bottom to recreate how the 3D space will look on screen.
• This technology is known as “fusion 3D.”
• The beam splitter allows the two lenses to merge inside each other as the top camera can move side to side to change the interocular distance or change angles to control the convergence.
• It’s a silent and fast 9 axis motion control system.
• The rig weighs 28 lbs.
• The two cameras must be finely calibrated in order to be doing the same thing at the exact same time.
Looking at Cameron sling this thing around, I don’t know why so many filmmakers are opting for horrible post-conversion – using the camera’s unwieldy size as their reasoning. It
looks easy enough to wield to me. Or… is Cameron truly a superior
being?!