Obviously, 3-D has been a familiar concept for more than 50 years, with movies such as House of Wax sending knives and the like hurtling toward audiences wearing funny cardboard eyeglasses. But the experience often left viewers with headaches.
"That 3-D was uncomfortable, and they had to keep you entertained with special effects and gimmicks," said 3ality CEO Sandy Climan. "With this 3-D, you fall into it. The experience is immersive. It blows people out of their seats."
Tonight's experiment is the culmination of five years of talks between the NFL and company executives. Katz said he was first approached by Modell's brother, John Modell, about an IMAX 3-D football movie about five years ago. That didn't happen, but the door-opener for tonight's telecast was a 3-D segment shot at the Super Bowl in February 2004 between the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers. That was followed by 3ality's feature-length concert film U2 3D.
In each case, those were films. Tonight's game, though, is a live broadcast, and with it comes the challenge of capturing a spontaneous event and allowing the audience to see it "as they see everything else in their lives," as David Modell put it.
However, there are more challenges to the eventual success of 3-D than simply capturing compelling images. If such events are shown in theaters as pay per view, the theater has to be converted from film to digital and then be enabled for 3-D. If the event is to be viewed on television, the TV must be 3-D enabled. In all cases, viewers have to wear special glasses.
Modell and Climan said that theater conversion is happening quickly and that 3-D televisions, a novelty now, will become more common next year.
The soonest that the public might see the marriage of the NFL and 3-D could be a movie presentation of the Super Bowl in February 2010. If the film is produced, its debut might coincide with the opening of the 2010 regular season.
"The question is not if but when [3-D] is accepted as a genre," said the NFL's Katz. "Sports have driven high-definition TV, and now there are people who won't even watch a sports event on [standard definition]. I think 3-D will do the same thing but to a higher degree."
