Scott Kirsner has written an excellent piece in the 14 Nov. 2005 issue of Hollywood Reporter on film, cinema, movies . . . and the current . . . agents of change. Read the original piece for a very indepth and well-written overview of this, that, and the other thing. Of particular interest, at least to me (although I found the entire essay worthwhile and interesting), are the comments regarding the current changes in the industry as many players begin pushing or moving towards stereoscopic presentation of true three-dimensional entertainment and what has had to happen in order for this move to occur (both in backstory of technology as well as in terms of competing media) . . .

Agents of Change . . . ‘New’ is a word that takes some getting used to in Hollywood, but it’s the risk-takers who are ensuring the future of the business. . . . “People are afraid to change,” says Mark Cuban, co-owner of 2929 Entertainment, the privately held holding company that owns Landmark Theatres and HDNet Films. “The underlying issue is (that the studios) are all public companies, and they all have quarterly numbers to hit. There’s not a reward for taking a risk.” . . . But die-hard risk-takers do exist, outside — and even within — the studio universe. They’re advocating digital cinematography, making and distributing movies in 3-D, using the Internet as a tool for collaboration, creating never-before-seen visuals and agitating to offer consumers more choices of how they can view a movie while it is still in theaters. . . . “It’s not risk-taking if you don’t have a lot of people who are scared and other people who are really excited,” says Dennis Muren, senior visual-effects supervisor at Industrial Light + Magic, who most recently worked on Paramount’s June sci-fi actioner “War of the Worlds.” “You’ve got to take a chance sometimes — and, of course, if you’re an intelligent risk-taker, you’ve got to have a backup plan.” Muren, who has led teams that have racked up eight Academy Awards in visual effects, says that a certain restlessness is essential to making sure each successive project breaks new ground. “Whenever I finish a show, I imagine the work I just did as already being obsolete,” he says. “I look at artwork and into my own imagination; I look at SIGGRAPH technical videos and things universities have tried. I want to come up with a new way of seeing.” . . . “A lot of changes in our industry have to be director-driven,” says producer Jon Landau of Lightstorm Entertainment. “They’re the visionaries.” Landau and Lightstorm principal James Cameron have spent the past four years trying to nudge “stereoscopic filmmaking” — aka 3-D — out of the novelty bin and into the mainstream. In the process, they’ve had to develop new equipment to make 3-D filmmaking more accessible. “We got together with Sony Electronics and built a state-of-the-art, 3-D, high-def rig that allows you to film a movie the same way you’d film any 2-D movie,” Landau says of the new camera, dubbed Fusion. “That’s not something you can do with Imax or another 3-D system. We wanted to make it easier.” At ShoWest earlier this year, Lightstorm presented a demo reel of 3-D content, shown on a digital projector. “That’s when I think it clicked with exhibitors,” Landau says. “They saw that it used one projector. Suddenly, the exhibitor saw that they could have something that the consumer can’t get at home and that he previously couldn’t have gotten in a cinema at this quality level.” Landau says that Cameron’s next film, Fox’s “Battle Angel,” will be released in 2-D and 3-D versions. Any significant rollout of digital 3-D, though, will require studio support. Thus far, the Walt Disney Co. has been the biggest booster, with its November release of the 3-D version of “Chicken Little” in 85 specially outfitted theaters. Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook says “Chicken Little” will help to spur a large-scale installation of digital projectors and servers into projection booths nationwide. “We were sort of a catalyst to bring all these forces together,” says Cook, mentioning Dolby Laboratories, Real D and ILM, three of Disney’s partners in the project. “This is a tangible, real way of putting it out there. It adds something special to the moviegoing experience.” . . . Schklair says that tireless evangelism is another key ingredient in making change happen: “I’ve been traveling around the world, giving speeches about 3-D for the past few years. So have people like James Cameron and George Lucas. The conservative end of the world starts hearing enough about it, and they start thinking that it’s no longer an anomaly or a one-off, that this is really happening.” . . .

Go see the original article for the full bit. The Cameron connection to upcoming 3D innovations has become cemented even as other developers begin pushing their own breakthroughs. Cameron isn’t just a face, he gets in there and develops technology for steresocopic production, sometimes the system has problems and other times he hits a home run. It will be interesting to see what else he does with his development partners. He worked with Sony to create a stereoscopic cinema rig and is even an active member of NASA’s science advisory team for the Mars Science Laboratory. More than a pretty face or a towering ego, he is an innovator and agent of change . . . risk taker extraordinaire . . . see here for more on Cameron.