UNIVERSAL ORLANDO RESORT — With “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1″ heading to Blu-ray and DVD on April 15 from Warner Home Video and the final film heading to theaters this summer, Harry Potter fans can live the magic year-round in the new Universal Studios Orlando’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter (see video below). Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is the main attraction in this new section of the Islands of Adventure park, where fans explore Hogwarts Academy on foot and then take off in a new ride. There are also a pair of rollercoasters – Dragon Challenge and Flight of the Hippogriff – and shops and a restaurant straight from the hit movies and J.K. Rowlings bestsellers.
3DHollywood.net partner John Gaudiosi of GamerLive.TV recently had an exclusive interview with Thierry Coup, Senior Vice President of Universal Creative, in which Thierry talks about why the Potter attraction designers opted to create “physical 3D” elements instead of simulated 3D, and how video games – including the Harry Potter games from Electronic Arts – influence the wizards who build today’s modern theme park marvels.

JG: In today’s 3D world — including rides like King Kong 360 3D (at Universal Studios Hollywood) — can you talk about your decision to not go the 3D route?

TC: 3D is great and of course we considered it. But in the end we decided it would be a more convincing experience if we could create physical 3D rather than media 3D. With a ride, we have the opportunity to use physical sets to create distant sightlines, like the windows of Hogwarts castle. For in-your-face moments, we have physical effects like real smoke, wind and heat that gives you an immersive sensory experience. In the end, we feel these tools enabled us to far exceed what we could have done with conventional 3D media.

JG: Does this technology you created for this ride support 3D for future attractions?

TC: Maybe. But for reasons mentioned above, we wanted to take advantage of the powerful physical tricks that ride designers have up their sleeves. They’re incredibly effective and allow our guests to become part of the most exhilarating entertainment ever created.

JG: Can you talk about how today’s video game generation of guests influences your team when creating new experiences like this?

TC: We know that video gamers want ride experiences that are more realistic and get them closer to the action. When we designed Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, we decided to film the actors from the Harry Potter films in order to bring the characters to life in the most realistic way. We’ve also designed a completely new ride system to put guests right in the middle of the excitement and chaos of Harry Potter’s life. The result is an experience beyond virtual reality which is the ultimate dream for video gamers.

JG: There have been Harry Potter games for each film. Can you talk about how this attraction has a unique way of going beyond those immersive interactive experiences?

TC: Rather than focusing on one story from a book or movie, we wanted to take the most thrilling moments from all the books and films and weave them into an unforgettable ride. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey also provides the sheer exhilaration of flying with Harry over Hogwarts – an experience that you can’t get from a video game. You feel the wind in your face as you dive down toward a bridge; you feel the heat as a dragon breathes fire on you. The simulation is so physical that your mind actually believes you’re being chased by Dementors and your soul is being sucked out of you. With a video game, it’s your imagination that makes it enjoyable. With this ride, it’s the physicality that makes you believe that it’s real.

JG: How did you work with the filmmakers on this project to have this adventure stand on its own?

TC: The ride stands on its own because we worked with J. K. Rowling to create a great story. Then, we collaborated with the cast and crew from the Harry Potter films to shoot our scenes at the same studio where they shot the movies. The filmmakers were very welcoming to us and showed us how to create the magnificent flying scenes. And we had the advantage of using the film’s art directors, Stuart Craig and Alan Gilmore, to establish the rich, creative look of the films for our ride.

<Click arrow on screen below to see 90-second behind-the-scenes video tour of Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction.>

The 2D-to-3D conversion business is booming for San Diego-based Legend3D, which recently got a late order to convert about 30-minutes of “The Green Hornet,” but a couple of the growth areas now are in Blu-ray and TV commercials.
Legend3D recently converted the first three Shrek movies for a release on Blu-ray with Samsung products, and the company has been getting requests for TV commercials, said founder and COO/CTO Barry Sandrew. Legend3D and president Rob Hummel showcased some of its test ads for the media this week.

A 60-second spot takes about a week to convert at a cost of about $100,000, Sandrew said, which is not a lot when you’re talking about $2 million spots in the Super Bowl, he noted.

But overall, TV conversion is much less forgiving than theatrical, in part because the image is much brighter. And animation is more challenging than live-action. So that made the conversion of the Shrek movies harder to begin with. Even more challenges materialized when Legend3D learned that DreamWorks Animation had saved only the 2D renders of the animation.
Those kinds of obstacles can make converting catalog titles and anything for TV as time-consuming and costly as theatrical because the process and quality control is the same for all media, Sandrew said.
The Shrek conversions, which looked as good projected on a cinema screen as any commercially released film, took about eight weeks each.

Legend3D also did the 3D conversion on many scenes in last year’s “Alice in Wonderland” from Tim Burton, created the first digital 3D commercial for movie theaters (“Skittles Transplant”), and the opening credits and interstitials for the 3D episode of “Chuck” that followed the Super Bowl a couple years ago.
Recently the company has been doing a lot of what Sandrew calls “911” work for studios on films that ran way behind in the conversion process and needed help to meet release dates, such as “The Green Hornet.” That “911” work can cost on the high side of what Sandrew says is about $30,000 – $200,000 per minute of converted film. He makes it clear that Legend3D has not been involved with any of the recent films that took a beating from the media and the industry about poor 2D-to-3D conversion.

Despite that bad rap that some theatrical conversions have taken, Sandrew and Hummel insist that conversion can be as high quality or even superior to shooting in 3D, and it always offers far more flexibility and creative freedom, and usually less expensive, they say. Conversions allow for setting convergence points to any point, whereas shooting limits you to decisions made during the filming, which may not be the settings filmmakers will he satisfied with during editing process.

Legend3D's colorized 3D version of Harold Lloyd's 1923 silent black-and-white classic, "Safety Last"

Legend3D also showed a 3D and colorized version of the iconic four-minute scene from Harold Lloyd’s 1923 silent black-and-white film “Safety First,” which will be showcased at the International 3D Society Creative Arts Awards on Feb. 9. At the awards, James Cameron will be named the 2011 recipient of the Harold Lloyd Award, which recognizes an individual’s commitment to 3D storytelling and the embodiment of Lloyd’s vision and passion for films.
“The tasteful colorization and 3D conversion that Legend3D has performed on my grandfather’s ‘Safety Last’ clip has given it new life, … for audiences old and new, preserving the magic and dignity of the original film,” said Lloyd’s granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd.

“Watching vibrant, colorful images jump off the screen in 3D from a clip that was originally released as a silent black-and-white film shot in 2D, showcases how technology and high-quality conversion can heighten an audience’s experience,” Sandrew said. “It really positions Legend3D as a leader in the conversion industry and is a personal achievement as ‘Safety Last,’ among others in the entertainment world, has always been such an influential film to me.”

About 65% of the underlying conversion process of Legend3D was derived from the Colorization process, which Sandrew invented in 1987. He then enhanced it in 2000 with advances in digital technology that semi-automated the process, and then applied that technology to develop a 2D-to-3D conversion process in 2005.

Sandrew said the demand for colorization of black-and-white films and TV shows has increased significantly, especially in Europe from where Sandrew says he has turned down about 3o orders because the profit margin isn’t as high as 3D conversion.

Legend 3D has hired hundreds of people in the San Diego area — 275 last year, with plans for another 150 by May. Including the studio he opened in India ten years ago, Sandrew’s company employs about 1,100 people.

– By Scott Hettrick