Scale effects in the 3D movie “Up”

The other day I went to watch Disney’s 3D movie "Up". I had used 3D viewing technology before in science labs, but had never seen a 3D movie, and thought it was about time I did so.

Just as I did in the science lab, I had to wear glasses with Polaroid filters in order to see the movie in 3D. The effect was absolutely convincing, but I noticed that in several shots — especially wide panoramas — the sense of scale wasn’t quite right. It didn’t feel as if I was looking at a wide shot of waterfalls; it felt more like I was looking at a miniature. In other words, the perspective wasn’t consistent with the supposed size of the objects being portrayed, particularly when the shot involved camera movement, which immediately gives you visual cues regarding the size of the object you are moving towards.

This might be because they slightly overdid the parallax effect. If you exaggerate the parallax, the brain interprets it as being close to something small rather than far away from something big. Specifically, it sometimes felt like I was looking at a model of the waterfalls rather than full-scale waterfalls. (I don’t think this has anything to do with the fact that they weren’t real waterfalls, but I might be wrong.)

Another possible explanation for this is that the film did not have real people in it. The presence of the puppet-like characters might have interfered with the correct perception of scale.

This had no effect whatsoever on my enjoyment of the movie, but it was fascinating to notice.

Tighter shots in smaller scenes did not have this effect at all and were absolutely convincing.