U23D (2008)

U23D (Owens, Pellington 2007) is the brainchild of an amazing group of photographers based in LA called 3ality. From what I read on Wikipedia, they are the sons of Art Modell, some dude who owned a NFL team. They decided to create an inexpensive way to shoot NFL games in a stereo format, and came up with their new process. Since the filming process was designed primarily with live events in mind, attempting to capture the energy of a live concert was a natural fit.

The film succeeds on many levels, but, due to the subject material and presentation style, it never really moves from escapist spectacle to art. Bono, the self-proclaimed savior of all manor of downtrodden peoples chose an Argentinian audience to the be subject of the film, as they are the closest to the energy he found in Ireland, and, presumable, the easiest for him to whip into a quasi-political furor. Never one to miss a chance to use a stage as a soap-box, he spends more time screaming for world peace, and (I'm not kidding) donning a headband that he had apparently drawn various religious symbols on with a magic marker, than he does just performing his music. Bono! It's pop music! Get some perspective.

The majority of the film is shot in a very straight-forward style; consisting primarily of cuts. During a few of the band's more experimental songs, the directors chose to include some overlays, and even some computer generated effects in the film's climatic song. The editing is tight, and doesn't insult the audience by sticking to tempo-based montage editing (always cutting on a beat), and plays around with the sequences. This is a smart choice considering the frenetic content of the concert footage coupled with the "3D" stereo presentation might lead some of the more faint-of-heart to start bazooka barfing.

A review of a stereo film isn't complete without mentioning the presentation. The stereo effect really is surprisingly good. The theater I saw this in (the AMC in Times Square, NYC) had a really-well tuned system and used passive polarized glasses instead of the more expensive and light reducing "shutter lenses" some IMAX theaters use. The effect was compelling and really helped imerse the audience in the concert experience. The directors smartly didn't draw attention to the "3D" element of the film, choosing to concentrate on faithfully reproducing the feel of the concert. The only issues I saw with their technique was when the footage was shot with extremely wide angle lenses. When this happened, the eye separation came out of alignment at the edges of the picture and you could see ghosting.

The audio of the film was probably the most impressive feature. IMAX uses 6 muxxed audio channels that stream from a hard drive synchronized by a pulse track on the film (when digital projectors are used I have no idea) then, in the more high-end IMAX theaters, the 6 muxxed channels are run into a spacial imager that further alters and diverts the audio. The effect is a an amazingly true-to-life mix, with multiple sound stages. Another really smart creative decision was to shelf the instruments in a live performance style, instead of compressing and doing all kinds of studio trickery, again they stayed truthful to the event they were trying to capture.

All in all, it's worth a viewing. Since most of us don't have IMAX theaters in our homes, I imagine the only way someone will see it as it was intended is to catch it in the theater before it's gone. However, if we all did have some way of playing it back in the comfort and considerably cheaper option of our home, I would easily say it's a renter.