Vince Pace

March 5, 2012 World Screen

 

This interview originally appeared in the MIPCOM 2011 issue of World Screen.
 
Vince Pace and James Cameron have been working together since the filming of The Abyss. Their shared passion for underwater production segued into a quest for ways of harnessing 3D technology and making it user-friendly enough for Cameron to film Avatar. In fact, the two developed the fusion 3D camera system to Cameron’s exacting specifications. Earlier this year, they formed the Cameron Pace Group (CPG), a company that specializes in 3D production. Pace talks to World Screen about this evolving technology, which is revolutionizing the movie industry.
 
WS: The technology is constantly evolving, but at this point what are the best ways of using 3D?
PACE: There’s a lot going on when we’re shooting a 3D film, but the key is seeing it much like a calculator. When you plug in the numbers, the answer is always correct. You’re not into the electronics of the calculator, you’re into the result. So the concept of the fusion system has always been driven by the end result, which is to entertain, as opposed to the mathematics of it all. That is what separated us from the rest of the filmmaking community. Everybody wanted to have the formula that was correct: here’s how you do it, this is the math that you apply to it and this is the dimension that you get from it. But Jim’s perspective of good 3D was that it should become a part of the end product….
 
A lot of times I’ll tell people it’s very much like the ingredient of salt to a chef. When used correctly you don’t even know it’s there; when used incorrectly—it doesn’t matter if you use lobster or filet mignon—all you comment on is the salt. So the key for us is, what is the end result when we’ve added this ingredient called 3D? If we’ve enhanced the flavor of filmmaking we’ve done our job…. Ours is a different philosophy than saying, here are two cameras, when used together and when driven at the same rate we’re going to extract a 3D product. We’re much more interested in a pleasing experience for the viewer.
 
WS: How did Avatar influence the acceptance of 3D among filmmakers?
PACE: We’re trying to trail-blaze here, but [it’s been a slow process]. Before Avatar, major manufacturers were saying to me, “We really don’t think 3D is going to be successful.” With the release of Avatar, they did a 180-degree turn and said, “3D is our future.” And that’s not a solution either. You can’t, all of a sudden, state to the public that 3D is here. We still had a little ways to go, as was demonstrated by some of the display systems and the rush to convert films to 3D and so forth. But the good news is, I think we’re through some of that. For instance, Transformers: Dark of the Moon was a good film for us. People received the 3D well and they enjoyed the experience. We worked with a director, Michael Bay, who had serious concerns about the 3D process and how it impacted him as a filmmaker. We were able to meet those demands and make the product look cool. I’ve done that with Martin Scorsese, I’ve done that with Ang Lee. It really is a rewarding experience when you take people that are so creative and so involved in the process and give them the tools they need to express that creativity in this medium. We promote the live-action 3D natural form of filmmaking because we feel that’s truest to form. We just need to make it more cost effective and more conducive to the filmmakers’ experience, and that’s the path that CPG is on.
 
WS: I’ve read that Avatar was a seven-year process of learning how to shoot in 3D.
PACE: I would say it took us about three to four years of learning [the technology] and then another four years to do Avatar. The primary [goal] was to let Jim be a filmmaker, not to create a technology barrier. When we realized [the 3D system] was small enough, mobile enough, high resolution enough to meet the demands of a cinematographer, that gave him the confidence that he could go back to being a good director and make a film.
 
WS: That must have involved tremendous vision.
PACE: It does. Jim has that capacity for dialoguing on a component level, whether it’s science, electronics, physics—it’s a little bit of da Vinci, Newton and Rembrandt all rolled in one. He can dance on all the different subjects, but his greatest gift is his ability to envision what could be happening in the future. He pushed towards that, especially as it relates to entertainment.
 
WS: What are CPG’s other activities?
PACE: We do the business of 3D here. We are servicing films in the 3D community today. This is a business for us, we don’t think it’s going away, we think it’s maturing and growing, and we want to be involved in that growth. We have a dual goal: one is to maintain the momentum of 3D, move it forward and take advantage of the here-and-now solutions, and two, we have a design and resource team that is working on where entertainment will be three to five years from now.