Bringing the Transformers to Life: The 3D Magic Behind Transformers: One
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In Transformers: One, SDFX Studios teamed up with ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) and Paramount Pictures, bringing their immersive 3D expertise to the forefront. This partnership was instrumental in delivering the film's grand scale and deeply immersive experience. Under the leadership of Stereographer Jeremy Carroll, SDFX Studios leveraged advanced 3D technology to heighten the action sequences and enhance the emotional depth of the story.

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Carroll emphasized how the collaboration with ILM gave them access to detailed FX layers and character breakouts, which were pivotal to refining the 3D effects. “We wanted to ensure that every element—from character design to environment—felt deeply immersive, while always supporting the story,” Carroll explained.

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Set against the backdrop of a divided Cybertron, the film tells the origin story of Orion Pax and D-16, who eventually rise to become Optimus Prime and Megatron. This pre-war era features a rigid caste system, with the lowest class, the Cogless, who are unable to transform, doing all the menial labor. In contrast, those with transformation cogs live more privileged, though equally challenging, lives. The Cogless miners, like Orion Pax and D-16, are at the heart of this dynamic, struggling against inequality and resource scarcity—a core driver of the film’s emotional depth.

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One of the major technical challenges for SDFX Studios was to reflect the varying scales of the characters, from the smallest Cogless miners to the towering Primes. “We had to be mindful of how characters like Orion Pax and D-16 looked relative to the larger Transformers with cogs, ensuring their scale never diminished their significance,” Carroll explained. The 3D effects were used to accentuate this difference in size, while maintaining the characters' emotional weight throughout their transformation journey. The team carefully managed the stereo effects during transformations to preserve each character’s grandeur, even in smaller forms like vehicles or animals.

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The immersive 3D wasn't reserved for action sequences alone; Carroll’s team used stereo effects to deepen the emotional resonance in key moments. “One of my favorite aspects was D-16’s transformation into Megatron,” Carroll noted. “We amplified the tension between D-16 and other characters using stereo to make the characters feel larger, their emotions more intense."

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Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel and Monica Rambeau return in Marvel Studios’ The Marvels, only in theaters November 10, 2023. More details to come!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:Mutant Mayhem presented an exciting challenge for lead stereographer Jeremy Carroll and his team at SDFX Studios when it came time to build the stereoscopic version of the movie. “It's definitely different from what we've worked on in the past,” he says. Carroll worked closely with Jeff Rowe (director with Kyler Spears) on planning how to bring the stylistic animation into the third dimension. 

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Although the film exists in at three-dimensional world and was animated with tools used for 3D graphics work, it's still grounded in a very 2D sketchbook look. Its look is something between classical 2D animation and 3D CGI. “We had to find a way to keep that special feel that the filmmakers worked so hard to create while adding the stereoscopic component,” Carroll says. “In some cases, we would push the internal details and the volumes in characters, and in others, we would lean into the 2D feel of the show by applying less depth to the 3D in those portions.” 

In fact, Carroll and Rowe realized that this varying approach to the Z-axis offered additional methods for enhancing specific story points. “There are several scenes where the turtles are down in the sewer, and we keep the 3D more conservative to help give the viewer the sense that they're confined. They're boxed in. But then, when we see them in the surface world, we enhance the depth of the space and the volume of the characters, bringing out a sense of being in the real world, out in open spaces.”

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“Camera” movement also offered clues about where to go full-on with the depth. “There are definitely moments in the film that are very 3D in the way the cameras are moving around the scene and the way the characters are moving relative to the camera,” Carroll explains. “Those moments were perfect for us to lean into the third dimension to enhance that."

 “We don't ever want the 3D to become the main character in the film,” he sums up. “We don't want our 3D to be the focus. It's always there to support the story and the filmmakers' vision. So, when we're dealing with a film with such a stylized, 2D look, there's a fine line where you can use the 3D as an enhancement and push it too far until it takes you out of the movie. That was something Jeff, my whole team, and I spent a lot of time working through. It's some of the most stylized 3D we've done to date, and I think it's a very successful example of how adding 3D can complement the intention of the 2D version of a movie without becoming a distraction.” 

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Audiences who head out to the newest adventures of Star-Lord, Rocket, Groot, and the rest of the Guardians in stereoscopic 3D know they can count on an enhanced experience. And one aspect that differentiates the 3D version of the Guardians of the Galaxy experience comes from the way outer space is presented. “That vastness can be expressed in 3D in a way it never could be in 2D,” says Lead Stereographer Jason Bomstein of SDFX Studios, which has collaborated with Marvel Studios to deliver the 3D versions of all the Guardians movies.

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In a particular section in the James Gunn-directed Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3, several characters jump from their ship to the region where Orgocorp is headquartered. Surrounding them is the pus-like substance which is part of the location’s atmosphere, bubbling and floating around them. Besides the 3D characteristics that enhances the sense of this gooey substance surrounding everybody, Bomstein explains, “we’re also introducing additional depth to really help push the feeling that space, which is the backdrop of the scene, is a lot vaster than could be represented in 2D. We can push the space very far back, making the distance actually seem more pronounced than it would even if the viewer really was there in that situation. That’s really fun!”

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The SDFX Studios teams faced a challenge working on an almost two-minute scene of along a hallway which was the scene of a major fight among numerous characters. Presented as a single take with the camera constantly moving to capture key action moments, the shot was actually comprised of three different shots stitched together. “It’s a really cool scene,” Bomstein recalls. The illusion of the single take was seamless in 2D. “For the 3D version, we needed to go through and ensure that it was equally seamless in terms of the way the 3D is interpreted from the end of one shot to the head of the next. We also had to be mindful in the stereoscopic version that a two-minute scene with so much camera movement can get to cause fatigue if the amount of depth changes as quickly and too frequently.”

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Viewer sin 3D also benefit from the effect of having the occasional element – blood spatter, a hand, or a sword, for example – reaching outside the top masking, so they appear to jump right out of the screen. “It’s just one of those added visual effects that you really can’t do in 2D,” Bomstein notes.

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The color grading for the film was done by Stefan Sonnenfeld, Sr. Colorist / CEO of company, Company 3.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,starring Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldaña and Pom Klementieff, is a Marvel Studios Film released by Walt Disney Motion Pictures. See it in theaters in 3D now.

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Marvel Studios Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is another of the many wonderful MCU features that SDFX Studios has brought into the third dimension. Overseen by stereographer Jason Bomstein, working in collaboration with the filmmakers and Marvel Studios, the movie (starring Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly reprising their Ant-Man roles) offered some fascinating challenges in the 2D-to-3D process. 

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In any 3D show, things can get tricky representing the size of characters and objects that all register as intended in 2D. Techniques to make something seem really close or far off in the frame can seem instead to be larger or smaller if the 3D isn’t handled perfectly. It’s always a factor, but since the franchise involves characters who appear to be different sizes at different times, Bomstein and the SDFX Studios team had to take extreme care to ensure that it was always clear exactly what we were seeing. 

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As with all Marvel films, the overarching directive is to use the 3D to enhance the story and not to call attention to the 3D for its own sake. Bomstein and his team always worked toward that kind of relative subtlety, only leaning into the strong 3D effects, where they enhance the action on the screen, such as when a hungry alien shoots its big snout and frightening teeth towards the Wasp attempting to devour her.

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Marvel Studios Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now playing exclusively in theaters.

Oscar-nominated Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was among the first collaborations between SDFX Studios and DreamWorks Animation. The new adventures of the beloved feline hero (voiced impeccably by Antonio Banderas) offered Stereographer Jeremy Carroll and his teams of artists a wonderful opportunity to take a hilarious and exciting movie into the third dimension. 

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Excellent animation, observes Carroll, who studied previous 3D DreamWorks movies in preparation for this project, allows for a stereoscopic version that pushes the boundaries of the possible even further than you can go in a project that is primarily live action. Decisions about how close or far a character or object appears, or the speed something can fly towards or away from the audience, is defined less by the laws of physics and more by the needs of the story and the desire to have fun with the medium.

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Dreamworks Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is now streaming exclusively on Peacock.

Marvel Studios mega-blockbuster Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was designed as a celebration of the place and the stories that have become important elements of our popular culture. But it also was made to honor the late Chadwick Boseman, star of The Black Panther, whose absence the filmmakers knew would be palpable for viewers. Stereographer Jason Bomstein worked with the filmmakers and Marvel Studios to design the approach to bringing this story into the third dimension.

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An introductory shot of the film was key to both honoring Bozeman and placing Wakanda Forever within its context in the MCU. At nearly 1800 frames (about one minute, fifteen seconds), the powerful shot was the kind that can push the 3D experience to its limits, which is just the kind of challenge Bomstein loves. Its length, its many shifting camera positions, and its inclusion of many characters’ faces – it all adds to the gravity of the shot but also introduces the possibility of distortions or parallax issues that could push the viewer out of the action. 

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Of course, Bomstein and the global team of artists were up to the job, combining the beauty and excitement of the 2D version with the awesomeness of the best stereoscopic features. 

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Marvel Studios Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is now streaming exclusively on Disney+