Director Dziamra Nizhnikovskaya in Genoa.

Cinque Terre in North West Italy.

Blasco Giurato.

Together with my colleagues in E-Motion, and a consultant with whom I have worked for many years in Europe and India - Steve Shaw - we have just finished a rather exciting series of evaluation tests for various films in 3d in the city of Genoa in Italy.

In the first case, I had met the BeloRussian director and producer of a film based on Ibsen’s theatrical play “A Doll’s House” at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.

They had described to me the idea of the film they wanted to make based on Ibsen’s play and had asked me if I could help them in providing for some locations in Italy.

The film was to be shot in 35mm film and the 77 year-old, distinguished and highly respected BeloRussian director Dziamara Nizhnikovskaya, was adamant about using film and not digital.

I met her and producer Elena Goroleva from Cinemarec together with Daniel Cooper-Kamodsky - associate producer from Maap International in the UK - several times during the Cannes film Festival and we talked more and more deeply about the technicalities of the project.

I eventually proposed stereo 3d for this film, and not just for obvious commercial aspects. I had been and still am involved in a project in the south of Italy designed to “capture and preserve” theatrical plays for future generations, and I had suggested 3d for this too; I had realized that 3d would give the audience the opportunity to watch a play from the “ideal seat” in a theatre in each moment, and to feel much more “transported” by the “physicality” of the actors on the stage as if they had been there during the actual performance, especially with highly accurate and well-engineered surround sound to boot (something that E-Motion’s partner Alberto Parodi does justice to with his cutting-edge and fully equipped nearby sound facility Logical Box).

I argued with the BeloRussians that if their film was made in 3d it would have a far more exciting visual appeal, entice younger audiences, and generate better opportunities for international sales - especially for future television sales for a repeating “Christmas” type of film as this one will prove to be.

I had noticed in last year’s Cannes that the market is already crying out for more 3d product. I argued that by shooting in 3d we would be producing two films in one go for the market - one in 3d and the other a “normal” film - so potentially sales for both versions.

I imagined that the powerful acting from such excellent Russian talent would carry across the story line in a more amplified fashion in stereo 3d.

My arguments and observations were judged to be of interest, but the logical hurdle we would have to pass was that of doing a test shoot for the director, so as to offer an evaluation of what stereo could do for the film, so that’s what we organized in Genoa - showing the beautiful locations for the film at the same time - after all, 3d really does make location shots look absolutely beautiful, and far more visually interesting than 2d can.