I’ve just watch the Derren Brown hosted “magic in 3D” show from last week’s 3D themed broadcasts on Channel 4, and I have to say I was underwhelmed. I also caught some of the other shows and none of them really inspired me. So I thought I’d just jot down some thoughts on the matter. I might revisit this post later (but don’t hold your breath!).

Despite Derren stating at the beginning that they wouldn’t be using the usual tricks of launching things at the audience – they did. One of the other shows I saw 30 seconds of was on 4 Music and consisted of a boy band jumping around a stage and pointing at the camera, again actions to emphasise the 3D rather than just showing something which happens to be in 3D. All of which really goes to show that 3D is still a gimmick.

Having said that, despite the poor quality glasses supplied by Sainsbury’s, the parts filmed in 3D in the Science Museum looked quite good – true 3D rather than a series of cardboard cut-outs at various depths. There was also some non-3D footage that they’d treated to give the illusion of 3D. This works best when the image contains moving elements at it involves showing successive frames to each eye, and so was patchy given the material that they were using. There was one of Derren doing a trick in Venice, the bits that were in 3D were those were he was constantly moving, while the static bits reverted to 2D.

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