Get Tangled up in hair-raising 3D

MANILA, Philippines - Thanks to the wonders of modern technology and the superior quality of Disney Digital 3D, audiences around the globe will get a chance to enjoy the fun and excitement of Rapunzel and Flynn Rider’s wild adventure in Disney’s Tangled in a totally immersive way.

For Robert Neuman, the film’s stereoscopic supervisor, Tangled presented many exciting opportunities for great 3D effects and marked the latest step in the evolution of 3D filmmaking at Disney. He and his team were involved from the earliest stages of layout and worked closely with the directors and various technical departments (lighting, effects, etc.) to take maximum advantage of the process.

“One of the reasons that Tangled lent itself so perfectly to 3D filmmaking is that hair can be very effective in this medium,” says Neuman. “You feel the separation of the strands of hair and the volume. And there are some fun 3D moments where Rapunzel’s hair is lowered down from the tower. The directors wanted to have a dynamic angle on the shot and have the hair either going straight away from the camera or straight towards it. They really embraced the 3D process and worked hard to create compositions that would work well dimensionally.

“This film represents that latest evolution for 3D here at Disney,” continues Neuman. “We’re using depth more artistically than ever before, and we’re not as concerned with the literal transcription of depth between camera and projector as we are the interpretation of it.”

For Tangled, Neuman and his team made extensive use of an innovative technique known as multi-rigging. Disney has been the first to use this process that basically takes a more theatrical approach to adding 3D by using multiple pairs of cameras with varying inter-axial distances within a scene. Scenes are divided into various groups of elements, based upon their distance to the camera.

Opening tomorrow, Feb. 2, in Digital IMAX 3D (SM North EDSA and SM Cebu), Digital 3D and regular format, Tangled is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International.