The International Testing of “Stereo-70”.

The filming in 3D “Running with bulls” (producer Chris Cary, director Aubrey Powell ) took place in the city of Pamplona (in the north of Spain) from the 5^th till the 13^th of July during the national holiday San Fermin.

While looking for a technological system to make the 3D film, the English company “San Fermin Film” had chosen for the Russian system “Stereo-70” (www.stereokino.ru). A comparatively light camera weight (8-15kg) and a huge 65-mm film negative memory capacity in relation to digital sensor maximally meet the needs of 3D film making for Giant screen (so-called IMAX). See the artical "Stereo-70" for LF Technology.

Moscow cinema equipment design bureau (MCEDB) specialists did hard work on preparing the 3D cameras and 3D lenses which had been provided by Scientific and Creative Center “STEREOKINO” and Russian Cinema and Photo Research Institute (NIKFI). The English cameramen were given a crash course on stereo parameters in real-time control.

After the finish editing from the 65-mm film stock stereo pairs are scanned with a resolution of 8K and film out on two 65-mm film negatives of the left and right images with 1570 format.

But the testing wasn’t finished yet. In association with a specialist of Vision Research Company Phirose Dala, who had arrived in Spain with a digital stereo camera Plantom-65, experimental shooting was held with the use of the 3D lens of “Srereo-70” system (F-35- mm). On this occasion MCEDB specialists had made a lens-mount for the front panel of the camera. The shooting evidenced that this tandem contained wonderful possibilities.

There was another company on the set, the Spanish D4D Ingenieria Visual S.L. (director Enrique Martines and stereograph Alfredo Gonzales). It was filming using the Rig system of two RED cameras.

Some scenes of the holiday were shot with the mobile 3D system of the HDV format. This system had been developed by NIKFI.

Thus, it was the first wide comparative testing of different formats and technological systems used for 3D film-making that took place in Spain in July, 2009.

The showing of the film trailer is expected to happen at the regular international conference of the Giant Screen Cinema Association (GSCA) that is to be held in Indianapolis (the USA) in September.

Director of the 3D digital cinema department NIKFI

Alexander Melkumov

Demo