Name: Why 3D Movies Are Not Immersive
Uploaded: 2026-01-19T17:07:30.000Z
Duration: 7 min 58 s
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Adverbs of manner

It's been a long time since I've seen a 3D movie.

13 years, actually, since Avatar 1 in 2009.

Sitting there in the theater watching blue people do stuff, I was suddenly reminded of something that I realized 13 years ago.

The 3D was an obstacle to my immersion in the story, which is a problem, because the whole selling point of 3D in film is that it's supposed to carry you further into the action on screen.

So here are four reasons why it does the reverse.

Reason number one, the focus convergence issue.

This is actually something that this little baby covered on the channel 11 years ago ago.

The basic problem is when we look at an object, our eyes change the shape of their lens to focus at the distance of that object.

Think of it as a plane moving toward and away from the eyes, depending on what you're looking at.

But to facilitate our depth perception, our two eyes also converge on that object, rotating slightly inwards to create a triangle drawn by the object and each eye.

Now, for all of human history, the focus distance and the convergence point were in the same place.

But 3D movies complicate that, because the focus distance is fixed at the theater screen, say 60ft away from you, and

doesn't change while the convergence point is moving back and forth with the 3D image.

This separation between focus and convergence takes your brain a little extra time to compensate, which over a 2, 3 movie, can cause headaches or eye fatigue.

Regular 2D movies are projected at 16 foot lamberts, which are units of luminance.

3D movies are significantly dimmer than this, and

that has to do with those special glasses that you wear.

Basically, 3D movies project two different images onto the screen, and

each lens of the glasses is polarized to see just one of those images blocking out the other.

The brain puts the two images back together, and in doing so, creates the illusion of depth.

The problem is that each eye only gets half the full image, and

so the brightness of the movie is effectively halved as well.

Then the lenses themselves being filters, cut the light even more, and

3D movies get projected at only around 3.55 foot lamberts, at which point we start to lose color perception.

So filmmakers have to do special color grades to compensate.

Some great theaters can push it a little bit brighter, but the vast majority can't, and

As Christopher Nolan said on an Experiential level, I find the dimness of the image extremely alienating.

Reason number three, 3D, makes three theater screens look smaller.

I saw Avatar 2 on a nice big screen at my local theater.

I was sitting middle row, center seat, ready to be engulfed in the world of Pandora.

Then I put my 3D glasses on and the screen instantly shrank.

Well, it almost seemed like the size of my TV at home.

Legendary film editor Walter Murch described having the same reaction to 3D in a letter to Roger Eber.

Somehow the glasses gather in the image, even on a huge IMAX screen, and

make it seem half the scope of the same image when looked at without the glasses.

After doing a lot of research, I'm still not entirely sure why this happens.

But the lack of bigness, the characters that sometimes look miniaturized, like they're in a tilt shift image, diminishes the scale and scope and decreases the immersion.

It didn't feel like I was in Pandora, but watching it through a window in the distance.

Reason number four 3D forces you to look only at what's in focus.

Now, this is an example of something I didn't realize I missed until it was gone.

Cameras like our eyes have what's called depth of field, that plane of distance from the lens within which objects are in focus.

If the depth of field is sufficiently deep, the whole image can be in focus.

If it's shallow, only a small plane will be in focus, and

the stuff in front of and behind that plane will blur.

Cinematographers use shallow depth of field for aesthetic reasons, but

also to direct our attention to something in the frame.

When depth of field is deep, you're invited to scan and analyze and admire the whole image, not just the main action, but

you can also do this when depth of field is shallower.

Just because something's out of focus doesn't mean you can't tell what it is or shouldn't look at it.

Taking in the whole composition, choosing what to look at in the frame and when is part of what makes the viewing experience immersive.

Watching Avatar, when I tried to scan the frame, I noticed that what was out of focus wasn't just blurry, but

dizzying, uncomfortable to look at for more than a second.

Because my eyes were trying to focus the blur.

This woozy discomfort effectively traps you inside the depth of field, letting you appreciate only a fraction of the frame.

And with each new shot, you need to take a couple of milliseconds to find the critical focus.

And it's not always automatically obvious.

I found this extremely distracting and constricting.

You know, I realize I've been talking a lot about cinematic immersion in recent videos, and

that's because it's the highest goal of every filmmaker.

You want the audience to have a deep involvement in the narrative on screen.

That involvement can be physical, can be emotional, intellectual, or all three at once.

For a long time, 3D has been billed as an aid to immersion and intensifier of it.

Hey everybody, thank you so much for watching.

By the way, if you enjoy 3D movies, more power to you.

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