Dismissing the format confuses bad use with no use

The argument

The second argument for this position is about how the question has been judged. Much of what audiences have seen in stereoscopic presentation was not photographed that way; it was converted afterwards, by separating a flat image into planes that the original composition never anticipated. Proponents argue that conversions of this kind produce exactly the complaints the format is dismissed for: figures that look like cut-outs, a dim picture, depth that draws attention to itself in quiet moments and disappears when it would matter. The format is then blamed for the results of a cost-saving step taken after the film was finished. Proponents argue that the distinction shows up in practice. Where a film is shot with two lenses, lit for the light the filtering will take away, and staged with the planes in mind, the complaints change character: the depth is unobtrusive, dark scenes remain legible, and viewers describe the sense of a space rather than of a trick. The difference, on this account, is not subtle, and it tracks a production decision rather than anything about human vision. What follows is that the case against the format is really a case against a business practice. If the question is whether stereoscopic presentation adds anything, proponents say, it has to be asked of work that was made for it and of audiences who were shown it well projected. Concluding from retrofitted releases and dim projection that the technique is unnecessary is, on this view, like concluding from a poor copy that a film was badly shot.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics answer that a technique has to be judged by what it actually delivers, and that for most of its history the format has delivered conversions, surcharges and dim projection. A defence which holds only for carefully made and carefully projected exceptions concedes the practical case. They add that the premise cuts both ways: if depth photographed properly becomes unobtrusive, then the viewer has paid extra for something they do not notice, which is close to the opposing conclusion. Critics also note that the readiness of studios to convert films cheaply is itself evidence about how much the depth was thought to matter, including by the people selling it.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] That much release work is converted says nothing about the value of the format and only reports how studios chose to supply it. [Rejecting P2] Dimness and eyestrain are reported of films photographed in the format too, so those complaints cannot be assigned wholly to conversion. [Rejecting P3] If the well-made version is the unobtrusive one, the premise concedes that what the viewer paid extra for is something they do not consciously register. [Rejecting C] At most it follows that the format has often been used badly, not that it is necessary when used well.