Hollywood movie sound editor Walter Murch outlined a number of 3D’s downfalls reports the Seatle PI. He states that there are fundamental, biological reasons why 3D movies — though today’s hot film technology — just don’t work for our brains and why they never will.

First off, 3D movies appear a bit darker (about an F-stop, for you photographers out there) than their 2D cousins, Murch said, and horizontal movements cause more noticeable strobing or jerkiness around the edges of objects. Writing to film reviewer Roger Ebert, who posted the e-mail on his Chicago Sun-Times blog, Murch writes:

The biggest problem with 3D, though, is the “convergence/focus” issue. A couple of the other issues — darkness and “smallness” — are at least theoretically solvable. But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen — say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.

But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed (sic) and converged at the same point.


We can do this. 3D films would not work if we couldn’t. But it is like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, difficult. So the “CPU” of our perceptual brain has to work extra hard, which is why after 20 minutes or so many people get headaches. They are doing something that 600 million years of evolution never prepared them for. This is a deep problem, which no amount of technical tweaking can fix. Nothing will fix it short of producing true “holographic” images.

A recent survey by the American Optometric Association found that 3D movies make as many as one in four people sick or uncomfortable. Headaches, blurred vision and nausea are common issues. It is no wonder why movie makers are now starting to speak their minds about 3D. Surely there will be more to come.




About Oscar Winner Murch: Walter Murch has three Academy Awards: one for mixing sound in “Apocalypse Now,” and one each for sound editing and sound mixing in “The English Patient.” More on Murch on IMDB here.