Step Into Another Dimension with 'G-Force'

The mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer is one of the driving forces behind the new live-action/animation 3-D hybrid film, G-Force, which will hit theaters on July 24 in Disney Digital 3-D. After all of the countless blockbusters to his name, this new film is Bruckheimer's first foray into 3-D and, as Bruckheimer mentioned in his opening remarks of a press conference on the Sony lot last month, the film itself had quite an unusual beginning.

"(Director) Hoyt (Yeatman) came to me about three years ago and told me this story about his six-year-old son that came home with a guinea pig," Bruckheimer said. "He said, 'Hey Dad, wouldn't it be cool if these guys were special forces and could do all these wild things?' A light bulb went off in Hoyt's head and he started working on a story and had these artists come in and draw up all these characters. What we have today is what his son pitched us four years ago, and we've created some things here that I don't think anybody's ever seen. I think there is more 3-D in this movie than any other movie made."

Since this is a 3-D movie how will that work for the DVD?
Rob Engle: I would argue that there are actually conceptually three releases of this movie. There's the traditional 2-D release. The other two releases are the left and right eye of the 3-D release. We could take the 3-D version of the film and put it in IMAX. It's one of those things we did at Imageworks in 2007 with Beowulf. We produced a 3-D version that was for released for digital projection for small scale theaters as well as IMAX theaters. I think it was the first time they had done that.

You originally starting shooting this movie in 2-D and then half way through decided to do 3-D. Is there anything that gets lost during that conversion?
Hoyt Yeatman: The studio and Jerry from the very beginning wanted to do it in 3-D. We did tests and it was only after having done them that it was outrageously expensive and just technically not possible. We just couldn't do it. I thought about it, the problem. I wanted to do it, but I just couldn't figure it out. So as we starting shooting I realized there were ways that we could... But to answer your question about to feeling if we've lost something - I think the answer is no. We have so much more control. To me the technology needs to shift. We've seen a lot of animated full length rendered CG characters now. We've seen very few live-action 3-D movies and the reason is it's almost impossible to shoot them very easily and make a good 3-D movie that way. There needs to be a quantum leap in the technology.

Do you think 3-D will ever be possible for people to enjoy at home?
Rob Engle: 3-D in the home is actually already possible to some extent. There are steps that are out there. What's missing right now are standards in delivering 3-D to the home. There's a lot of interest in the consumer electronics area and Blu-ray for example - all these people are looking to see how to bring quality 3-D experience -- not the red/blue, but a real quality 3-D experience -- into the home. It's only a matter of time. I imagine in three years you'll see it. Maybe less.

By Brian Gallagher, MovieWeb