A group of students from Chicago’s Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy, a two-year digital media vocational school in the Loop, will be showing off 3D short films at the Tribeca Film Festival later this month as part of a new partnership with LG Electronics USA.
Like other manufacturers of 3D televisions and accessories, LG is eager to drive adoption of 3D from movie theaters to living rooms. One piece of the equation is greater availability of 3D content, which so far has mostly been limited to children’s films and James Cameron’s blockbuster “Avatar.”
Tribeca, the New York-based production company and institute behind the film festival, took a 50 percent interest in Flashpoint last year. LG is a major sponsor of the festival, which will celebrate its 10th year when it kicks off on April 20. LG spokesman John Taylor said the partnership with Flashpoint is the first of its kind for the electronics company.
Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed, but Taylor said LG provided 3D TV sets and glasses for the school, as well as funding to support production of the student films. The Flashpoint projects will be shown on LG screens installed throughout the festival, and several students will also be attending the festival and participating in events. The LG glasses, which are on the market, are similar to the ones worn in movie theaters. LG developed the glasses to be more lightweight and comfortable than the active shutter glasses made by other manufacturers of 3D products.
The emergence of 3D “is as revolutionary as when sound was introduced to cinema,” Flashpoint Dean Paula Froehle said at a Tuesday event at the school to announce the partnership. “It’s so prevalent that it has to be considered.”
One project involved 3D animation, with students making a short film where a swarm of moving colored globules came together to form the LG logo. Another project was led by Froehle, who took a small group of students to French Lick, Ind. in March to capture 3D footage of the Flying Wallendas, a famous high-wire and stunt performing group. Froehle has been following the Wallendas for seven years as part of a documentary project. The students worked with a professional film crew, shooting footage on 3D cameras. They were able to watch the footage on monitors that displayed the 3D image in real-time.
“It was such a complex rig,” said Brian Zwiener, 23, who is studying cinematography. “Once we had it set up and looked at it in the monitor, the effect was really cool.”
