Dinesh Kamath's column on '3D films in Bollywood' that was published in Newsband

Hollywood-made 3D films do roaring business, and now Hindi films too have taken the plunge. Bollywood had lined up a slew of releases in the format.

Dangerous Ishhq, Joker, ABCD, Raaz 3 and Sher Khan were among those made with 3D technology.

Haunted has worked because it was shot in 3D. Don 2 and RA.One did not work because it was converted from 2D to 3D. These are two different things. If you shoot the entire film in 3D, it stands out.

Another problem is 3D films don’t just cost more money to produce but also demand more time. It is not easy to shoot in 3D. It takes a lot of time. One can’t block such long dates from established stars. So, for a big star cast, it is better to convert the film in 3D from 2D.

You will never see a Tom Cruise or a Brad Pitt in a 3D film as it’s time consuming. You will see 3D with non-stars like Avtaar, which had newcomers. It is so time-consuming that stars might lose their patience. Hence if one wants to shoot the film in 3D, one should try it with newcomers.

It is difficult to shoot in 3D as one can shoot only a scene a day. Acting in 3D is also difficult because it requires patience.

In the matter of 3D movies, the budget is crucial. The new technology will take time to pick up. Besides, it’s a very expensive genre to try. As far as the budget of the film is concerned, a 40 percent extra amount has to be put into small films.

Even though there have not been too many success stories so far, filmmakers claim 3D has a bright future in India. It’s altogether a different experience wearing glasses and feeling the effects. Indian film makers need people from Hollywood for help in 3D, before they can start making independent films.

Of course, 3D is here to stay. What is now an exception may well be the norm in times to come. 3D is an adornment. It enhances the subject. 3D has come as evolved. The time of throwing things at you in the name of 3D has gone, it’s become more of an immersing experience now.

As far as facilities at the theatres to screen 3D films are concerned, currently all multiplexes have two screens to show 3D films. On single screens, only those 3D films that were dubbed from English to Hindi have clicked.

Hindi films in 3D are not doing a great business. Titanic 3D will change the fate, but again that’s an English film. If we have 3D films despite increased ticket rates, we see a 20 percent increase in revenue. So the profit margin goes a little higher. Compared to Bollywood films, Hollywood films are crowd-pullers in the 3D genre because the content from the West is of superior quality.

For your information, Ra.One, Shah Rukh Khan's science fiction-fantasy film had a 3D version as well.

The second coming of three-dimensional, or 3D, cinema has begun - in Bollywood. If the success of James Cameron's Avatar in 2009 opened the floodgates of 3D films in Hollywood, the unexpected triumph of Vikram Bhatt's 3D movie Haunted has sparked off tremendous interest in the genre in India as well.

Made on a modest budget of Rs 13 crore, Haunted, which released in May this year, has already grossed around Rs 43 crore at the box office. And big production houses have taken notice. The buzz is that many Indian film makers will come up with 3D movies.

Shah Rukh Khan's film Ra.One had dazzling computer generated visual effects. It was released in two versions: the usual two-dimensional, or 2D, format, as well as in 3D. The film was shot in the conventional format.

Indian producers have also noticed how well some of the recent 3D releases from Hollywood have done in India. Avatar, the trailblazer, grossed Rs 110 crore - a record for Western films, of which 45 per cent came from the 3D version. Transformers: Dark Of The Moon and the recently released Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows have both been immensely successful.

Viacom Motion Pictures India, which distributed Trans-formers…, says almost 60 per cent of its collections so far this year came from 3D versions. Whenever both conventional and 3D versions of the same film have been released, the latter has always done better.

Industry insiders esti-mate that in the next few years Hollywood's share of movie collections in India will rise to 15 per cent from about 4.5 per cent in 2010 - thanks to its 3D fare.

Strangely, though the basic technique for making 3D films has been known for nearly a century, Haunted is only the second 3D film made in India. The first was the now-seminal Malayalam film My Dear Kuttichathan in 1984, which was later dubbed in Hindi - Chotta Chetan - and several other Indian languages. With the current renewed interest in 3D cinema, it was released again. The movie, a raging hit, earned 60 times its initial investment; yet no other filmmaker before Bhatt cared to follow in Appachan's footsteps.

Everybody finds there is money in 3D, especially after the success of Avatar.

Filmmakers claim theatres in India did not have the technology in place to screen 3D movies; theatre owners retort there were never enough 3D movies being made to warrant the investment to make their screens 3D enabled. But the Hollywood 3D bonanza of recent years has prompted a change. Film technology company UFO Moviez has developed a 3D compliant technology which has already been installed on 110 screens across the country on a revenue sharing basis.

Currently it costs roughly Rs 10 lakh to convert an existing 2D screen to 3D, say industry insiders, while to build a new 3D screen costs around Rs 30 to 35 lakh, depending on the technology adopted. The plan is to have 1,250 3D compliant screens in the next two years. All the major multiplex chains expect 3Denabled screens to grow by about 30 to 40 per cent annually. Theatre owners expect to quickly recover their investment considering that 3D films are currently generating two to three times the revenue per theatre than the conventional format. 3D today is what Dolby (surround sound system) was 10 years back, 3D gives repeat audience.

Already some Indian companies have become so adept at converting conventional films into the 3D format that Hollywood has begun outsourcing work to them. Mumbai-based post production and visual effects studio Prime Focus had just completed the conversion of Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader into the 3D format, using its own proprietary software called View D. Other films it had on hand for conversion is George Lucas's classic Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

While some Indians may have mastered the technology, filmmakers complain that there are not enough of them yet. Haunted, for instance, used a number of foreign technicians. Getting talented people with full knowledge of the 3D medium is a challenge. There are no experienced stereographers in the country. Another challenge is the film's production cost, which rises by 35 to 40 per cent if it is made in 3D without technical compromises.

Again, not all kinds of feature films are likely to work in the 3D format. The challenge lies in getting the right content visualised in 3D. The genres that will work are horror films, thrillers and action movies. These have underperformed in India so far, but will pick up with the coming of 3D.

Thus the future of 3D format is bright in India.