Posts Tagged Franklin Londin

Yesterday evening, Culver City, California’s Zoic Studios hosted an exclusive salon event, featuring an open discussion of the history of, and trends in 3D entertainment;  plus an exhibition of stereoscopic (3D) art.

Leslie Ekker, Zoic’s commercial creative director, hosted the informal, free-of-charge event, which attracted about 60 entertainment industry professionals.

Electronic stereoscopy pioneer Lenny Lipton discussed the history of stereoscopy in film. Lipton is recognized as the father of the electronic stereoscopic display industry, having invented many of the current state-of-the-art 3D technologies.

Johnathan Banta, Digital Supervisor at Sassoon Film Design, discussed the conversion of 2D moving images to 3D. His most recent work includes the films The Brothers Bloom, Quarantine, Milk and Public Enemies.

Digital effects animator Franklin Londin spoke about new autostereoscopic displays, which do not require the polarized or anaglyph (red and blue) glasses formerly necessary for 3D. Londin brought to the event his brand new digital stereo camera from Fuji, soon-to-be-available om the US, accompanied by a stereo picture frame.

Londin also brought a collection of his amazing sculptures, integrating 3D photographs displayed through illuminated viewers.

A number of 3D books and stereoscopes were on hand, for attendees to attempt to ruin their vision trying out.

Ray Zone, film historian, author, artist and stereoscopy pioneer (the “3D King of Hollywood”), explained the functioning of a 1950s-era 3D slide projector. Franklin Londin used the projector to show stereo slides from his collection.

Zoic provided food and wine for the participants. Based on the success of this first attempt, the VFX and digital production firm intends to host future salons, although no specific plans have been announced.

Learn more: Zoic Studios; stereoscopy and anaglyph images on Wikipedia; a biography of Lenny Lipton (he invented Puff the Magic Dragon!); Johnathan R. Banta on IMDB; Franklin Londin’s 3D display art; Ray Zone’s web site (wear your red & blue glasses); UPDATE: read this story on Computer Graphics World.