Phantom of the Opera (1925) Never in 3D

[UFAlien]

Oh dear. Forget Clash of the Titans or The Last Airbender. It would appear the worst 3D post-conversion is coming out this September... and it's a conversion of a film from 1925!

Lon Chaney's classic Phantom of the Opera is being released on DVD by Terror Inc. The DVD, entitled the Angel of Music Edition, will be available online only, and includes a dubbed soundtrack with the intention of making the movie more akin to a "talkie". It will also include a 3D conversion of the film in anaglyph format.

There's no word on who did the conversion, but it clearly wasn't a professional job... take a look at the advance screenshots here.

It would appear that instead of rotoscoping or even using a depth map, whoever was in charge of the conversion merely selected and moved huge portions of the frame to the left or right with no regard for realistic depth. This is especially evident in the third shot - all the women on the right of the frame are placed on a single pane of depth, along with a large rectangular section of the background immediately surrounding them! These are apparently real screenshots from the DVD and not work-in-progress images... what a way to butcher a classic.

[Tom Hiddleston]

That ugly crap would give me such a headache.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by UFAlien

Lon Chaney's classic Phantom of the Opera is being released on DVD by Terror Inc..

A division of Weaselly Bargain-Basement PD-Vultures, Ltd.

and includes a dubbed soundtrack with the intention of making the movie more akin to a "talkie".

(Okay, now they're just doin' it to p*ss us off...)

[presidentevil3d]

Anyone got this

[the13thman]

Originally Posted by presidentevil3d

Anyone got this

With no posts for over seven years in this thread, it's safe to say it never came out.

[Joe D.]

Stay with the great, original silent version with all it's glory and Technicolor sequence.

[wildbill722]

Yes, it's out there. In SBS.

[Interdimensional]

Ther are 2 different versions. The one referenced in the original post, which looks very crude and most likely a waste of time.

The other version was compiled from actual native dual camera footage. As some will be aware, the original film was shot with two cameras in parallel. This means that when they can be synched up, you get a true stereoscopic 3D image. This was done so they'd have two negatives to work from when duplicating the film. There isn't any evidence that it was ever intended to be a 3D movie, but parts of it do seem to work particularly well.

The guy working on this seems to have never released it, and I am unclear how far he got with it. He ran into some trouble online where there was some confusion about what had been said supposedly led to harassment, and that seems to have been the end of it.

There are some clips he posted which I thought were quite promising and worked better than expected. I would have liked to have seen the rest of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w24T...ature=youtu.be

[Zivouhr]

Thanks Interdimensional. In that clip, there are noticeable 3D layers at times, and for one guy to convert it, that would be impressive.

[Smaugone]

"He had no nose"
"How did he smell?"
"Awful"
Sorry for the interruption.
Related- anyone remember the VHS release of 'The Phantom of the Opera ' that Rick Wakeman had written a soundtrack for? It was kinda disappointing.

[Tonppa]

From IMDB:

In 2012 it was determined that an "accidental 3-D" version of the film existed. From an examination of various prints of the film, it was discovered that most - if not all - of the original film was shot using two cameras placed side-by-side. This was most likely done to create simultaneous master and safety/domestic and foreign negatives of the film. However, when synched together and anaglyph color-tinted, the spatial distance between the two simultaneous film strips translates into an effective 3-D film. Under the working title of LA FANTOME 3D, a fund-raising effort is under way to locate and restore (create) a full "accidental 3-D" version of the film.

[the13thman]

Shame the restoration seems to have stalled, this would have been interesting.

[UFAlien]

Looking at the Youtube clip it seems like it wouldn't have worked very well. Predictably the separation is far too wide and the cameras are badly out of phase.

[Robert Furmanek]

Correct, it would be very hard to watch for any length of time. There is very severe phasing issues between shutters and the camera separation is much too great.

[Interdimensional]

that's all to be expected, given the nature of the project. What is similarly to its detriment is that the source quality is so variable. There's a lot of distortion and detail loss in some scenes, so the shape and form is not always as dimensionally described as it might have been.

The shutter-phase issues are most noticeable in the fast movements of the dancers, but I enjoyed the depth of the sets in those scenes. Slower scenes with multiple figures are more effective, particularly the scene where the girl says 'it was enormous'. There is a sense of miniaturisation from the presumed wide camera placement, and occasional problems with framing elements in the foreground, but I don't find this a major issue in these scenes.

Supposedly this got as far as a rough workprint assembling 3/4 of the film stereoscopically, which is apparently as much footage as exists from both cameras; the rest of the film would be flat.

[Joe D.]

The two parallel cameras were most likely not for 3D.

It was common practice during the silent era to have two cameras shooting at the same time, the camermen standing next to each other. There would then be two negatives of the same picture to work with. One would be used for U.S. print. The other would be for the foreign print and the multiple copies with different language intertitles. If you ever come across a foreign version, one will notice scenes at a slightly different angle compared to the U.S. counterpart.

That was more likely the intent for the parallel cameras.

[Robert Furmanek]

Correct, this was never planned for 3-D.

[Interdimensional]

Originally Posted by Joe D.

The two parallel cameras were most likely not for 3D.

It was common practice during the silent era to have two cameras shooting at the same time, the camermen standing next to each other. There would then be two negatives of the same picture to work with. One would be used for U.S. print. The other would be for the foreign print and the multiple copies with different language intertitles. If you ever come across a foreign version, one will notice scenes at a slightly different angle compared to the U.S. counterpart.

That was more likely the intent for the parallel cameras.

That's what I'd heard. I wonder was there greater generation loss with early film stock or how the practice came to be.

...You may have seen this Charlie Chaplin example:

Chaplin 3D - YouTube

Between the wide interaxial separation and the inaccurate framerate, it gives an amusingly toylike feel to the scene. As with other examples, the characters come apart slightly during fast motion, but the set remains solidly dimensional.

[Joe D.]

Originally Posted by Interdimensional

That's what I'd heard. I wonder was there greater generation loss with early film stock or how the practice came to be.

...You may have seen this Charlie Chaplin example:

Chaplin 3D - YouTube

Between the wide interaxial separation and the inaccurate framerate, it gives an amusingly toylike feel to the scene. As with other examples, the characters come apart slightly during fast motion, but the set remains solidly dimensional.

Hi interdimensional,

They used nitrate film stock which was highly flammable. But yhe practice of two negatives had little to do with film preservation. Though fires destroyed a great many studio inventories, many discarded silent films or did not take the proper steps to keep them safe.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...orever/355775/

[reaper232]

I know this the filming of this in 3D wasn't intentional but idc, This is another movie that just like Night Of The Living Dead has been in the public domain for years this movie is not that sacred either come on Aipop or Variety Film somebody convert this to 3D.