Note from interviewer Jeffrey Kauffman: Readers of my reviews of 3-D Blu-rays know I often turn to the expertise of Robert Furmanek of the 3-D Archive for technical information, something I did once again for my recent review of
Magnificent Bodyguards 3D from 88 Films, since Bob and his team were integrally involved in that release. I thought readers might be interested in getting to know Bob and his work a little better, hence this interview which Bob kindly agreed to.
JMK: Tell us a little bit about you and your interest in 3-D.
RF: I was first introduced to the wonders of stereo imagery on my fifth birthday in May of 1966. My parents gave me a Tru-Vue Magic Eyes Stereo Viewer for the Batman TV show and seeing the beautiful full color 3-D photos truly captured my imagination. In June 1975, I watched the television premiere of
Money From Home and learned just a few days later that it was originally produced in 3-D. I wanted to see it that way and so began my journey to seek out our stereoscopic film heritage.
This journey and the connection to Jerry Lewis is told in "Coming Back Home," a new documentary short from filmmaker Sean Thrunk. It's a bonus extra on the upcoming 3-D Blu-ray release of
Money from Home 3D from Kino Lorber.
JMK: Tell us about some of the challenges 3-D Archive has faced with its restorations, including
Magnificent Bodyguards.
RF: Since 2014, we have restored and preserved 71 vintage 3-D features and shorts, ranging from 1922 to 1984. Every film has a story and just when you think you've seen it all, another crazy technical challenge comes your way. 3DFA Technical Director Greg Kintz is an absolute genius and always finds a way to either correct - or greatly minimize - these problems in order to present an optimum viewing experience. It's not hyperbole; people see the films looking better now than when they were first released.
Magnificent Bodyguards 3D presented unique technical challenges as a result of severe limitations with the Super-Touch lens attachment. Vertical alignment is not consistent from foreground to background due to the design of the system. This annoying visual anomaly is baked-in throughout the entire feature so Greg had to determine the primary subject matter and adjust the vertical accordingly. But no matter where you align the left/right images, something in the shot will be out of vertical registration. We faced this same frustrating issue on
Dynasty 3D and
Revenge of the Shogun Women 3D.
JMK: What has been your most challenging restoration and why?
RF: Our most challenging restoration to date was
Money From Home. The film was photographed in Dynoptic Technicolor 3-D with six rolls of 35mm black and white negative (left and right, red/green/blue records) going through the camera for every shot. Charlotte Barker and Andrea Kalas at the Paramount Pictures Archive scanned 72 reels of original 35mm Technicolor camera negative for a total of 54,000 feet of film scanned in 4K resolution. On average, we will restore a vintage 3-D feature in three to five months, this complex and painstaking restoration was on the operating table for two and a half years. We're very proud of the result and it's certainly our Crown Jewel. I've seen every vintage 3-D restoration and in my humble opinion, it will be the best looking vintage 3-D film on Blu-ray.
JMK: How many feature length 3-D productions were there in 3-D's heyday and how many have made it to 3D Blu-ray?
RF: The Golden Age of stereoscopic cinema is widely considered to begin in November 1952 with the premiere of
Bwana Devil 3D through to March 1955 with release of
Revenge of the Creature 3D. During that period, there were fifty English language 3-D features produced domestically. To date, twenty-six of those features have been released on 3-D Blu-ray.
More information on the history of 3-D will be available in Mike Ballew's book
Close Enough to Touch.
JMK: What do you think is the future of 3-D?
RF: I believe moving forward, 3-D movies will be confined to special films which lend themselves to a more immersive cinematic experience. As the late Dan "Mr. 3-D" Symmes used to say, "3-D movies are like the circus; they're fun but would you want to go every week?"
JMK: Do you want to whet fans' appetites with any news of what you're working on?
RF: Right now, we're deeply immersed in the production of 3-D RARITIES III, the next installment in this exciting and critically acclaimed series. We had a tremendous response to our crowd funding on Kickstarter, and the campaign is still open to anyone who would like to pre-order a copy and support our work.
3-D Rarities Kickstarter Campaign
JMK: Since I assume you're dealing with X and Y axes all day, are you and your team good at math? (That's kind of a joke).
RF: Haha, you know it!