Nielsen study finds 'second screen' viewing enhances TV experience...

When viewers watch a TV program with a tablet device, they tend to check their email, hunt for sports scores or seek additional information about the show or a commercial they were watching on the big screen.

A new report by Nielsen Co., released Friday, underscores what network television researchers have been preaching for more than a year: that "second screen viewing" appears to augment the TV viewing experience rather than steal away viewers.

Nielsen's State of the Media: Advertising & Audiences report found that men, when watching TV and using a tablet simultaneously, were more likely than women to look for information related to a TV program they were watching (39% versus 34%). Women were more inclined to seek information related to a television commercial (24% versus 21%).

Not surprisingly, teenagers with tablets were far more apt to visit a social media site while watching TV than were older baby boomers and seniors (62% versus 33%). 

The report also found cultural differences in TV watching and the use of digital video recorders. Nielsen said that white TV viewers use digital video recorders on a daily basis twice as much as any other group, while Asian Americans appear to spend a higher proportion of their overall TV time watching their previously recorded programs.

Adults age 25 to 54 appear to be heavily influenced by advertising. Nielsen said that demographic group was 23% more likely than the average U.S. Internet user to follow a brand through social networking sites, and 29% more likely to purchase a product online that had been featured on TV.

Finally, teenagers used a game console for eight minutes a night, on average -- more than twice as much as the general TV population.

Thank you Los Angeles Times

Have a great day ☼

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Study: California Production Incentives a Success...

The program has generated more than 20,000 jobs and $200 million in tax revenues, as well as lured productions like "Body of Proof" back to the state.

The California Film and Television Tax Credit Program, first passed in 2009, has generated $3.8 billion in economic activity statewide and created more than 20,000 jobs and over $200 million in tax revenues in two years, according to a study released Tuesday by the Calif. production incentives earmarked for '11

The program was created to stem the tide of runaway production that has accelerated over the past decade, shrinking the state's share of film and TV production activity.
"With this report we have unquestionable proof of the success of this incentive in terms of fiscal impact," says L.A. City Council member Paul Krekoian, who as a member of the state legislature was one of the original architects of the program.

"The report demonstrates for every dollar we are spending on the incentives were generating more than a dollar of state and local tax incentives," adds Krekorian. "So this is a program that is not only cost neutral, but actually generates revenue. It provides an additional $20 million in economic impact and supports over 20,000 jobs that are impacted."

The report was released at a press conference on the set of the TV show Body of Proof at the Disney studio in Burbank. That was chosen because the show actually returned to California after being shot outside the state, specifically because of the incentives offered. The program does not include any network TV series except those that are lured back to the state.
That speaks to how the incentives were first passed. It came about after years of efforts when the TV show Ugly Betty moved to New York because of their incentive program. That finally got the legislature to act, and the bill was signed into law by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who as a former actor clearly understood the need for incentives.

California Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes currently is leading the effort to extend the current program which expires in less than two years for five more years on the same terms. He says it is important to provide a level of comfort to the industry that the program will not go away and avoid any disruption. "That certainty is tremendously important," Fuentes told The Hollywood Reporter.

Although California provides $100 million a year in incentives and those can roll into future years if needed, that money is all spent very quickly each year. As a result, Fuentes says the industry has asked for an even bigger program, but that just isn't possible right now.
"Given the difficult economic times California finds itself in were hoping to continue what has worked," says Fuentes, "and ideally garner additional information and support for that expansion option at a later date. Right now we just want to keep what we've got."
California's current Governor Jerry Brown has neither endorsed the incentive extension nor said he would veto it. Brown has been under a lot of pressure to make cuts in the state budget due to economic conditions. Fuentes is hopeful that the state budget will get passed as soon as this week, and that will set the stage to do longer term planning which will include the incentive program.
"What we should be asking ourselves as Californians is not just if this program is good but what more do we need to do to remain competitive. The competition is fierce. New York would not give up its premiere industry, which is Wall Street, and California cannot give up its premiere industry which is film and television."
If anything, says Fuentes, the report doesn't include all of the impact of movies and TV. For instance, tourism is a huge industry that depends on Hollywood remaining the capital of the show business world, and none of that economic impact is even covered in the study.

This study "illustrates why 40 states around the country compete for film and television productions: because they are a proven job creator and economic stimulus," said Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. "The motion picture and television industry is overwhelmingly comprised of middle-class workers earning a living wage, and since it was enacted in 2009, California's production tax incentive has been an important driver in a challenging economy."
"There's no question that the California production incentive makes a real and measurable impact on the lives of many thousands of people - both those who work directly on film and television productions and those for whom the economic impact of such productions reverberates around the state economy," said Paris Barclay, director and first vice president of the Directors Guild of America.
"This report shows the wisdom of the legislature when the Film and Television Tax Credit was created in. This program, as shown in the report, shows that California has added thousands of jobs, and has created additional revenue through the Production Tax Credit program," said Thom Davis, Business Manager for I.A.T.S.E. Local 80. "
Here are some other highlights of the study:
• Production spending in California of productions approved for incentives between 2009 and 2011 is $1.53 billion directly and $3.8 billion in terms of total economic impact.
• That economic activity supports 20,040 jobs with labor income of $1.4 billion.
• Production oriented tax revenues, including income taxes, property taxes, social insurance taxes, sales taxes and permits and fees are estimated to be $201 million.
• Almost 92% of all goods and services purchases by the industry are sourced within the state. The value of these purchases in 2009 total more than $15.4 billion, and includes everything from employment of independent artists, writers and performers to banking, insurance and software services.
• Under the program 34 feature films have been approved which spent $758.7 million; 22-indie feature films have been approved which spent $67.8 million; six new TV series have been approved for incentives which have spent $96.9 million.
• In terms of the budget range of approved projects, the largest number fall between $20 million and $40 million which represent just over 42% of the total.
• For every $1 million in qualifying expenditures by production, it generates $3.9 million in economic output and supports 21 jobs with labor income of $1.4 million. Each $1 million of qualifying expenditures results in $207,100 in state and local taxes.

Thank you Hollywood Reporter

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The Bilingual Advantage

By CLAUDIA DREIFUS
Published: May 30, 2011

A cognitive neuroscientist, Ellen Bialystok has spent almost 40 years learning about how bilingualism sharpens the mind. Her good news: Among other benefits, the regular use of two languages appears to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease symptoms. Dr. Bialystok, 62, a distinguished research professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, was awarded a $100,000 Killam Prize last year for her contributions to social science. We spoke for two hours in a Washington hotel room in February and again, more recently, by telephone. An edited version of the two conversations follows.

Q. How did you begin studying bilingualism?

A. You know, I didn’t start trying to find out whether bilingualism was bad or good. I did my doctorate in psychology: on how children acquire language. When I finished graduate school, in 1976, there was a job shortage in Canada for Ph.D.’s. The only position I found was with a research project studying second language acquisition in school children. It wasn’t my area. But it was close enough.

As a psychologist, I brought neuroscience questions to the study, like “How does the acquisition of a second language change thought?” It was these types of questions that naturally led to the bilingualism research. The way research works is, it takes you down a road. You then follow that road.

Q. So what exactly did you find on this unexpected road?

A. As we did our research, you could see there was a big difference in the way monolingual and bilingual children processed language. We found that if you gave 5- and 6-year-olds language problems to solve, monolingual and bilingual children knew, pretty much, the same amount of language.

But on one question, there was a difference. We asked all the children if a certain illogical sentence was grammatically correct: “Apples grow on noses.” The monolingual children couldn’t answer. They’d say, “That’s silly” and they’d stall. But the bilingual children would say, in their own words, “It’s silly, but it’s grammatically correct.” The bilinguals, we found, manifested a cognitive system with the ability to attend to important information and ignore the less important.

Q. How does this work — do you understand it?

A. Yes. There’s a system in your brain, the executive control system. It’s a general manager. Its job is to keep you focused on what is relevant, while ignoring distractions. It’s what makes it possible for you to hold two different things in your mind at one time and switch between them.

If you have two languages and you use them regularly, the way the brain’s networks work is that every time you speak, both languages pop up and the executive control system has to sort through everything and attend to what’s relevant in the moment. Therefore the bilinguals use that system more, and it’s that regular use that makes that system more efficient.

Q. One of your most startling recent findings is that bilingualism helps forestall the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. How did you come to learn this?

A. We did two kinds of studies. In the first, published in 2004, we found that normally aging bilinguals had better cognitive functioning than normally aging monolinguals. Bilingual older adults performed better than monolingual older adults on executive control tasks. That was very impressive because it didn’t have to be that way. It could have turned out that everybody just lost function equally as they got older.

That evidence made us look at people who didn’t have normal cognitive function. In our next studies , we looked at the medical records of 400 Alzheimer’s patients. On average, the bilinguals showed Alzheimer’s symptoms five or six years later than those who spoke only one language. This didn’t mean that the bilinguals didn’t have Alzheimer’s. It meant that as the disease took root in their brains, they were able to continue functioning at a higher level. They could cope with the disease for longer.

Q. So high school French is useful for something other than ordering a special meal in a restaurant?

A. Sorry, no. You have to use both languages all the time. You won’t get the bilingual benefit from occasional use.

Q. One would think bilingualism might help with multitasking — does it?

A. Yes, multitasking is one of the things the executive control system handles. We wondered, “Are bilinguals better at multitasking?” So we put monolinguals and bilinguals into a driving simulator. Through headphones, we gave them extra tasks to do — as if they were driving and talking on cellphones. We then measured how much worse their driving got. Now, everybody’s driving got worse. But the bilinguals, their driving didn’t drop as much. Because adding on another task while trying to concentrate on a driving problem, that’s what bilingualism gives you — though I wouldn’t advise doing this.

Q. Has the development of new neuroimaging technologies changed your work?

A. Tremendously. It used to be that we could only see what parts of the brain lit up when our subjects performed different tasks. Now, with the new technologies, we can see how all the brain structures work in accord with each other.

In terms of monolinguals and bilinguals, the big thing that we have found is that the connections are different. So we have monolinguals solving a problem, and they use X systems, but when bilinguals solve the same problem, they use others. One of the things we’ve seen is that on certain kinds of even nonverbal tests, bilingual people are faster. Why? Well, when we look in their brains through neuroimaging, it appears like they’re using a different kind of a network that might include language centers to solve a completely nonverbal problem. Their whole brain appears to rewire because of bilingualism.

Q. Bilingualism used to be considered a negative thing — at least in the United States. Is it still?

A. Until about the 1960s, the conventional wisdom was that bilingualism was a disadvantage. Some of this was xenophobia. Thanks to science, we now know that the opposite is true.

Q. Many immigrants choose not to teach their children their native language. Is this a good thing?

A. I’m asked about this all the time. People e-mail me and say, “I’m getting married to someone from another culture, what should we do with the children?” I always say, “You’re sitting on a potential gift.”

There are two major reasons people should pass their heritage language onto children. First, it connects children to their ancestors. The second is my research: Bilingualism is good for you. It makes brains stronger. It is brain exercise.

Q. Are you bilingual?

A. Well, I have fully bilingual grandchildren because my daughter married a Frenchman. When my daughter announced her engagement to her French boyfriend, we were a little surprised. It’s always astonishing when your child announces she’s getting married. She said, “But Mom, it’ll be fine, our children will be bilingual!”

Thank you The NY Times!

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BBC: Loving Apple looks like a religion to an MRI scan

BBC: Loving Apple looks like a religion to an MRI scan
by Michael Rose (RSS feed) on May 17th 2011 at 12:30PM

Later today, BBC 3 will be airing Secrets of the Superbrands, a documentary about the relationship between consumers and the brands that shape our behavior, our desires and our lives. Series creator Alex Riley let slip an interesting tidbit in a preview post about the series:

"The Bishop of Buckingham -- who reads his Bible on an iPad -- explained to me the similarities between Apple and a religion. And when a team of neuroscientists with an MRI scanner took a look inside the brain of an Apple fanatic it seemed the bishop was on to something. The results suggested that Apple was actually stimulating the same parts of the brain as religious imagery does in people of faith."

Implying that Apple fandom equals zealotry may be attention-grabbing (and does indeed make me want to watch the program; too bad I can't use the BBC's iPlayer app here in the States), but the neurological similarity isn't surprising or particularly novel. You could almost certainly make the same observations about Red Sox fans, Twilight groupies, Van Halen lovers, Ducati collectors ... the list goes on, and whatever object of desire makes your heart pitter-patter will resonate in the neural patterns of your gray matter. Paraphrasing my colleague Chris Rawson, "This just in: the human brain is extremely susceptible to liking the things it likes to like. More details as we get them."

As to whether there's something particularly intense, sustained or worshipful about the relationship between the Apple brand and Apple owners... well, seriously now, this question is appearing on The Unofficial Apple Weblog, one of thousands of sites, magazines, conferences and less-public obsessions dedicated to all things 'i' and the company that makes them real. Do you even have to ask?

UPDATE: TUAW pal Alex Brooks from World of Apple let us know that it's his brain that's scanned on the program.

Thanks BBC and TUAW.

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Art induces a feel good sensation direct to the brain.

Brain scans reveal the power of art

Works of art can give as much joy as being head over heels in love, according to a new scientific study.
by Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter @ The Telegraph

Human guinea pigs underwent brain scans while being shown a series of 30 paintings by some of the world's greatest artists.

The artworks they considered most beautiful increased blood flow in a certain part of the brain by as much as 10 per cent – the equivalent to gazing at a loved one.

Paintings by John Constable, Ingres, the French neoclassical painter, and Guido Reni, the 17th century Italian artist, produced the most powerful 'pleasure' response in those taking part in the experiment.

Works by Hieronymus Bosch, Honore Damier and the Flemish artist Massys – the 'ugliest' art used in the experiment – led to the smallest increases in blood flow. Other paintings shown were by artists such as Monet, Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci and Cezanne.

Professor Semir Zeki, chair in neuroaesthetics at University College London, who conducted the experiment, said: "We wanted to see what happens in the brain when you look at beautiful paintings.

"What we found is when you look at art – whether it is a landscape, a still life, an abstract or a portrait – there is strong activity in that part of the brain related to pleasure.
"We put people in a scanner and showed them a series of paintings every ten seconds. We then measured the change in blood flow in one part of the brain.

"The reaction was immediate. What we found was the increase in blood flow was in proportion to how much the painting was liked.

"The blood flow increased for a beautiful painting just as it increases when you look at somebody you love. It tells us art induces a feel good sensation direct to the brain."
The test was carried out on dozens of people, who were picked at random but who had little prior knowledge of art and therefore would not be unduly influenced by current tastes and the fashionability of the artist.

The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan measured blood flow in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, part of the brain associated with pleasure and desire.
The study, which is currently being peer reviewed, is likely to be published in an academic journal later this year.

Professor Zeki added: "What we are doing is giving scientific truth to what has been known for a long time – that beautiful paintings makes us feel much better.
"But what we didn't realize until we did these studies is just how powerful the effect on the brain is."

The study is being seized upon as proof of the need for art to be made as widely available to the general public as possible.

There is currently concern in the arts world that widespread budget cuts could affect accessibility while also slashing acquisition budgets.

"I have always believed art matters so it is exciting to see some scientific evidence to support the view life is enhanced by instantaneous contact with works of art," said Dr Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund, the national fund-raising charity which has spent £24 million over the last five years helping to buy art for galleries and museums.

Last month, the organisation launched a National Art Pass giving free entry to more than 200 museums and galleries and 50 per cent off entry to major exhibitions.

The Art Fund has pledged to increase its funding by 50 per cent to £7 million a year by 2014 to make up for widespread budget cuts in the arts world.

The charity has been praised by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt for showing that "philanthropy can be about small as well as large donations".




Thanks The Telegraph!

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Industry News: A Golden Age of Foreign Films, Mostly Unseen...

January 31, 2011

A Golden Age of Foreign Films, Mostly Unseenby A. O. SCOTT
ONE of the few surprises at the Golden Globes two weeks ago — you'll be forgiven if you've already forgotten about that odd little broadcast — was the award given to "Carlos," the French director Olivier Assayas's five-hour-plus reconstruction of the life and career of the notorious terrorist of the 1970s and '80s Carlos the Jackal. The award represented a high point of cosmopolitanism at a predictably parochial event: 11 languages spoken on screen; dozens of locations across Europe and the Middle East; a polyglot cast led by a Venezuelan star, Édgar Ramírez, who has the potential to become an international sex symbol. What more could you want from a foreign film?

Except that "Carlos" was not nominated for the Golden Globe in that category (the winner was "In a Better World," from Denmark): it was made for, and first shown on, French television, a fact that also rendered it ineligible for consideration — as a foreign-language or any other kind of film — by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which announced its nominees last Tuesday. Mr. Assayas's dark-horse victory at the Globes was for best miniseries or motion picture made for television. Fair enough, given its origins. Then again, "Carlos" has encountered its American audience in the way more and more foreign films do these days: on a handful of movie screens in big cities, and on cable and video-on-demand. So its exclusion from the Oscars seems somewhat arbitrary.

But so does everything else about the way the Academy deals with movies from the rest of the world. An elaborate and mysterious winnowing process pares down the thousands of potential nominees to five. This year they are "Dogtooth" from Greece, "Incendies" from Canada, "Biutiful" from Mexico, "Outside the Law" from Algeria and "In a Better World," which might be considered the front-runner if you take the Globes as an omen.

"Dogtooth" came and went on a few American screens last spring, and "Outside the Law" had a brief run in December (and may return shortly); only "Biutiful," whose globally famous star, Javier Bardem, was nominated for best actor, is likely to be playing now at a theater near you. The others will be released in the late winter or early spring, in the hopes of realizing some kind of box office bounce. The usual pre-nomination handicapping — the canvassing of critical opinion and the weighing of popular sentiment — does not apply to these movies, which might in principle make the choices less compromised, but in practice only serves to make them more confusing.

For example, "Of Gods and Men," Xavier Beauvois's moving, humane drama about a group of French monks trying to survive and honor their faith in Algeria during a time of terror and civil war, was also snubbed by the Academy. Of course, worthy films are passed over all the time, but such puzzling and capricious neglect happens so often that it can be taken as a yearly reminder of the American film establishment's systematic marginalization and misapprehension of much of world cinema.

For some reason, the Academy insists on a one-film-per-country rule, which places a large part of the decision-making process in the hands of film industries at least as corrupt and agenda-driven as our own. Why should "Of Gods and Men" have been France's only shot? And what determines the nationality of a film in any case? Why is Rachid Bouchareb's "Outside the Law" an Algerian rather than a French film, given that its director is a French citizen and that it was made with mostly French financing and therefore within that country's extensive legal statutes governing cinematic production? And what makes "Biutiful," shot in Barcelona with a Spanish cast, a Mexican film?

My point here is not really to pick on the Academy, nor to mystify readers with effusions over movies you may never have heard of and most likely have not had an opportunity to see. My complaint, really, is about the peculiar and growing irrelevance of world cinema in American movie culture, which the Academy Awards help to perpetuate.

There are certainly examples from the last decade of subtitled films, nominated or not, that have achieved some measure of popularity: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"; "Pan's Labyrinth"; "The Lives of Others"; "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." But these successes seem more and more like outliers. A modest American box office gross of around $1 million is out of the reach of even prizewinners from Cannes and masterworks by internationally acclaimed auteurs, most of whose names remain unknown even to movie buffs. This is less a sea change than the continuation of a 30-year trend. As fashion, gaming, pop music, social media and just about everything else have combined to shrink the world and bridge gaps of culture and taste, American movie audiences seem to cling to a cautious, isolationist approach to entertainment.

And the Oscars reinforce this, frequently ignoring accessible and entertaining movies from other countries and settling on a frequently random-seeming list of finalists. Every year, the world turns its attention to Hollywood, and Hollywood remains, in keeping with long tradition, a notably welcoming place for far-flung talent. There has always been room — work, money and even a measure of glory — for British and Australian actors, intercontinental sex symbols and émigré directors seeking freedom or fortune.

Mr. Bardem, a somewhat surprising nominee for best actor this year, has already won for a supporting role in an English-language film (in 2008, for "No Country for Old Men"), and other non-Anglophone artists are occasionally vouchsafed a moment in the spotlight. Pedro Almodóvar won for best original screenplay in 2003, and Marion Cotillard took best actress honors five years later for her performance as Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose." She also won the chance to play wide-eyed, exotic, seriously underwritten love interests for Johnny Depp (in "Public Enemies") and Leonardo DiCaprio (in "Inception"). The scale of Hollywood's appetite, its unrivaled power to vacuum up ambition and artistry from around the world, is part of its legend and grandeur.

But it also casts a long shadow over the rest of the globe, which struggles for visibility. In the past (notably in France in the 1980s and early '90s) there were protests against American cultural imperialism, but those seem to have waned lately. Whether this is because our imperial hegemony has overwhelmed the possibility of even rhetorical resistance or because, on the contrary, the empire is not as mighty as it used to be, is a topic for another day. My concern here is more with cultural protectionism — the impulse not to conquer the rest of the world but rather to tune it out.

I do not want to not scold American audiences for failing to buy tickets to subtitled movies. Not today, anyway. Public indifference to (or ignorance of) films from beyond Hollywood or its "indie" provinces is routinely invoked as a reason that such films are not more widely available. And so the movies vanish into a vicious circle in which their marginal status is at once assumed and assured.

But on the outskirts of the commercial mainstream, in redoubtable art houses and on the upper reaches of the cable-TV spectrum, there is perhaps more variety and vitality than ever. Yes, it is fashionable in some circles to lament the old days when foreign directors and stars — mostly European and Japanese — were household names in many of the same households that housed best-selling French, Italian and Asian cookbooks. But in terms of volume and distinction, the last 15 years also qualify as a golden age. What has changed is the sense of cultural cachet and social currency.

This may itself be a product of superabundance. New technologies and traditions proliferate and cross-pollinate so rapidly that even a permanent resident of the international festival circuit would have trouble keeping track of it all. The list of national cinemas to watch seems to grow every year, so that even a superficial sense of the cinematic state of things can seem to require an up-to-the-minute awareness of what is happening South Korea, Serbia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Thailand and a dozen other places. New waves of creativity are cresting across Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America? Russia is experiencing perhaps the most robust surge in filmmaking since the 1960s. France, Italy and Germany refuse to be ignored.

And then there is Greece. Your hazy recollections of Zorba or Melina Mercouri (if you have them) will not be much help in making sense of Giorgos Lanthimos's "Dogtooth," a creepy, funny, elegantly shot allegory of something very weird in human nature. (Language? Power? Sex? Family?) Mr. Lanthimos is part of a generation of Greek filmmakers whose work is iconoclastic, formally daring and sometimes abrasive. These directors, in turn, are part of a loose network that spreads across much of the world, linked by the promise of festival exposure and the challenge of raising money in a worldwide climate of economic constriction.

Their work is almost invisible here, though it commands a fair amount of attention in the flourishing and contentious cinephile wing of the blogosphere. But it is nonetheless available to anyone with the curiosity and patience to navigate the new, fast-evolving cosmos of V.O.D. and streaming Web video. The Academy will sometimes take notice — more often it will not — but a whole world of movies is out there waiting to be discovered.

Thank you.


A.
www.chicas-productions.com

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Industry News: 3-D means headaches to many, yet companies push on...

January 21, 2011

3-D means headaches to many, yet companies push on
By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology NEW YORK –

From Hollywood studios to Japanese TV makers, powerful business interests are betting 3-D will be the future of entertainment, despite a major drawback: It makes millions of people uncomfortable or sick.
Optometrists say as many as one in four viewers have problems watching 3-D movies and TV, either because 3-D causes tiresome eyestrain or because the viewer has problems perceiving depth in real life. In the worst cases, 3-D makes people queasy, leaves them dizzy or gives them headaches.
Researchers have begun developing more lifelike 3-D displays that might address the problems, but they're years or even decades from being available to the masses.
That isn't deterring the entertainment industry, which is aware of the problem yet charging ahead with plans to create more movies and TV shows in 3-D. Jeff Katzenberg, CEO of Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc., calls 3-D "the greatest innovation that's happened for the movie theaters and for moviegoers since color."
Theater owners including AMC Entertainment Inc. and TV makers such as Panasonic Corp. are spending more than a billion dollars to upgrade theaters and TVs for 3-D. A handful of satellite and cable channels are already carrying 3-D programming; ESPN just announced its 3-D network will begin broadcasting 24 hours a day next month.
Yet there are already signs that consumers may not be as excited about 3-D as the entertainment and electronics industries are.
Last year, people were willing to pay an additional $3 or more per ticket for blockbuster 3-D movies such as "Avatar" and "Toy Story 3." But that didn't help the overall box office take: People spent $10.6 billion on movie tickets last year, down slightly from the year before. People went to the theater less, but spent more.
3-D TV sets were available in the U.S. for the first time last year, but shipments came in below forecasts, at just under 1.6 million for North America, according to DisplaySearch. Nevertheless, TV makers such as Samsung Electronics Co. and Panasonic are doubling down on 3-D and introduced more 3-D-capable models this month at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Those models cost more than regular ones and require glasses, just like in theaters.
Research into how today's 3-D screens affect viewers is only in its early stages. There have been no large-scale scientific studies.
A study of 115 South Koreans watching 3-D screens close up found that 3-D caused more eyestrain than 2-D. The research prompted the Korean government to recommend that viewers take a break of up to 15 minutes after an hour of 3-D viewing. But that study was based on glasses with red and green lenses rather than the ones used in theaters and with TVs.
Based on an unscientific, online survey, the American Optometric Association estimates that 25 percent of Americans have experienced headaches, blurred vision, nausea or similar problems when viewing 3-D.
TV makers do their own testing, but don't publish results. Samsung warns on its Australian website that its 3-D TVs can cause "motion sickness, perceptual after effects, disorientation, eye strain, and decreased postural stability." The last part means viewers risk losing balance and falling.
"We do not recommend watching 3-D if you are in bad physical condition, need sleep or have been drinking alcohol," the site continues.
Nintendo Co. says children aged 6 or younger shouldn't play with its upcoming 3DS handheld gaming system with 3-D technology, because it might affect vision development.
3-D screens and glasses create the illusion of depth by showing different images to each eye. That simulates the way objects that are at different distances in real life appear in slightly different places in each eye's field of view.
That's enough for most of us to perceive a scene as having depth. But our eyes also look for another depth cue in a scene: They expect to need to focus at different distances to see sharply.
More specifically, our eyes track an approaching object by turning inward, toward our noses. Bring something close enough, and we look cross-eyed. 3-D screens also elicit this response when they show something approaching the viewer.
The problem is that as the eyes turn inward, they also expect to focus closer. But a screen isn't moving closer, so the eyes have to curb their hard-wired inclination and focus back out. This mismatch between where the eyes think the focus should be and where the screen actually is forces them to work extra hard.
"That causes at least part of the discomfort and fatigue that people are experiencing," says Martin Banks, an optometry professor at University of California, Berkeley.
The problem is magnified if the screen moves close to the viewer — exactly what's happening if 3-D viewing moves from the movie theater to living rooms to game gadgets like the 3DS.
There is at least anecdotal evidence of a growing problem. David Hays, an optometrist in University Place, Wash., says patients came in after seeing "Avatar," complaining of eyestrain or the inability to see the 3-D effect. He expects to see more as the technology spreads.
Roger Phelps, an optometrist in Ojai, Calif., says viewers who suffer the most with 3-D are those who have trouble getting their eyes to converge properly in normal life.
"If you tend to get carsick easily, you might be one of those," Phelps says.
Yevgeny Koltunov, a 39-year-old New Yorker, has gone out of his way to find theaters showing 2-D versions of such movies as "Iron Man 2" and "Alice in Wonderland." His daughter, 13, also refuses to see 3-D movies.
"It doesn't look all that spectacular to me," Koltunov says. "For the most part, they give me a headache and make me dizzy, by the end."
Moviemakers do hold back on 3-D effects to minimize eyestrain. "Avatar" avoided gimmicks such as objects suddenly appearing to jut out of the screen. Filmmakers also try to make sure that the most significant part of a scene, such as the lead actor's face, appear to be at the same distance as the screen. That way, the eyes are less confused.
But this approach also limits moviemakers' creative freedom, and it doesn't solve the eyestrain problem entirely.
Banks is working on a longer-term solution. He and his team at Berkeley's Visual Space Perception Laboratory have put together 3-D "glasses" — really, a desk-bound contraption — with lenses that accomodate the eyes' natural inclination to focus at different distances. He says the setup reduces eyestrain and mental fatigue from 3-D images, though it may not eliminate them entirely.
A reporter who tried the device found it provided a very lifelike illusion of a box coming toward him on a track.
At the University of Arizona, optical sciences professor Hong Hua is working on wearable, helmet-like displays that also allow the eyes to focus at different distances.
Commercial versions of these setups are at least several years away, and even then, are more likely to be professional tools for remote surgery or industrial design rather than consumer items.
Even further away is the prospect of live holograms, which could create 3-D images that could be viewed without glasses, from all angles.
Until then, Phelps recommends sufferers sit as far back as they can in 3-D theaters. Another solution: close one eye, or put a Post-It note over it like an eye patch. That way, 3-D goes back to being 2-D.
___
AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson contributed to this report from Berkeley, Calif.

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Industry News: Study: Overpriced Tickets Could Kill Hollywood's 3D Box Office...

January 14, 2011

Study: Overpriced Tickets Could Kill Hollywood's 3D Box Office...

PricewaterhouseCoopers research shows exhibitors might have to do away with high ticket premiums consumers don't want to pay.
Avatar and standardization of the technology represented "tipping points" for the acceptance of 3D movies, but Hollywood risks killing the golden goose if it overprices tickets and overly saturates the market, according to a study released to The Hollywood Reporter.

According to the study from PricewaterhouseCoopers, there are more than 40 3D movies already scheduled for release this year and -- in what might be news to film producers -- there's no shortage of money to make them.

"So many people are keen -- sometimes too eager -- to finance 3D films," according to the report.

"This supply of funds in a globally difficult film financing environment has led to a push for the conversion of some films originally envisioned as 2D into the 3d format. This often proves ill-advised."

Nevertheless, 50%-70% of box office revenue is generated by 3D, which "has helped the entire industry to increase its revenues despite a declining number of tickets sold."

The report lists some of the movies with the most impressive percentage of opening-weekend box office revenue attributed to 3D. Step Up, for example, earned 84% of its first-weekend box office coin from 3D showings, whereas Avatar was at 80% and Final Destination: Death Trip was at 73%.

Citing a poll from BTIG Research, PWC concludes that a $5 premium per ticket is too much to expect audiences to pay for 3D. That survey indicated that 77% of Americans will not pay a premium of more than $4.

Many Americans don't want to pay any premium, and PWC suggests that exhibitors might have to do away with it entirely, some day.

"Generally speaking, the sustainability of the 3D ticket premium is questioned by some players whom we interviewed," the report says.

The report sums up the 3D phenomenon like this: "Many people are over-excited by it. The danger is that industry players risk killing a golden goose by overselling and, in some cases, overpricing the 3D experience -- and by providing too much mediocre content that doesn't do justice to the technology."

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