Most sci-fi aficionados will probably know Judge Dredd from the 1995 movie of the same name directed by Danny Cannon and starring Sylvester Stallone, Diane Lane, Rob Schneider, Armand Assante and Max von Sydow. The character of Judge Dredd however has its roots in the weekly British comic book 2000 AD, where he appeared as long ago as 1977.
The 2011 remake of Judge Dredd, titled Dredd, is the first ever stereoscopic 3D film shot on location in Africa and it wrapped at the Cape Town Film Studios in Faure at the end of February.
Starring Karl Urban (Star Trek) and directed by Peter Travis (Vantage Point) from a script by Alex Garland (28 Days Later), Dredd was shot entirely in 3D and was the first production to use the newly completed and much vaunted Cape Town studio complex.
Local company Questek Advanced Technologies, which designs and installs visualisation solutions, played a part in the production by installing a Barco Digital Cinema Projector DCP 2K 20B and Xpand 3D system with 40 active X101 glasses at the studio.
Questek’s George van Gils explains: “In this particular instance the installation was for the 3D production of Dredd at the Cape Town Film Studios. The system was used to check the dailies and the grading on site. As this was all in 3D it was important to check the registration and other critical features of the stereoscopic images.
“Because this installation was essentially to check critical elements of the picture as well as the convergence of the images it was extremely important to ensure that the projector was 100% aligned.’
Obvious choice
Barco’s DP100 2K Digital Cinema Projector is a high-quality reference standard within the industry and its market leadership in post-production for colour grading and Academy screenings for the most discriminating audiences in the motion picture industry made it the obvious choice.
The DP100 advanced “Communicator Software’ allows easy projector setup and functionality in both 2D and 3D applications, as well as sophisticated 2D and 3D “macro-control’ for easy one-button operation, preferred by leading exhibitors.
3D glasses
X101 glasses are professional quality, easy-to-use glasses for 3D cinema, part of the the XpanD 3D cinema glasses system for creating stereoscopic images based on active glasses technology. With this technology there are two slightly different versions of the same image – the right and left eye versions – are shown on the screen sequentially and the active glasses separate these two images by blocking each eye using liquid crystal shutters.
The human brain then combines these images and creates the illusion of a third dimension to a viewer. The glasses must be synchronised with the image presented on the screen which is done via IR link.
The synchronisation signal is fed from a digital projector to XpanD system which generates IR pulses to be received and recognised by the glasses. This approach enables best performance, including no crosstalk, wide viewing angle and immunity to head tilt.
“We commenced the installation in November 2010,’ say van Gils “and it was in full operation from then until the end of February this year.’
Dredd is scheduled for release in 2012.
