ARLs 3D glasses © Copyright Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008
Today the Exhibition team got our first taste of what our 3D Colossal Squid movie is going to look like. The exhibition opens in December and it will include Te Papa’s first 3D movie!
The production company Animation Research Ltd (ARL) sent us the latest cut of the movie and special 3D viewing glasses. Don’t worry we’ll have normal 3D glasses in the exhibition.
We all took turns to watch using the glasses – that’s Judy our Project Co-coordinator in the photo. Wow. It’s amazing to see the Colossal Squid and a whole lot of other deep sea fish literally come to life in front of you.
You might just be able to make out that the movie is still two separate images side-by-side. Each eye looks at one picture when you use the glasses. Your brain then recompiles them in to a single 3D image. When ARL have finished you’ll see a single image projected onto a screen and use normal 3D glasses.
Judy looking at the movie on her PC © Copyright Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008
We’re pretty excited about this part of the exhibition. The goal is to give you an idea of what the Squid’s life and environment might be like. We have to say might because until someone films one down in the deep sea we really won’t know for sure.
It has meant there have been some interesting conversations. How does it swim – cockatoo position or with arms straight out in front? How does the beak move when it’s eating? When would it use its light organs, or headlights when hunting?
We’ve been working with ARL for the last 2 months on this 3D movie. ARLis an amazing company in Dunedin who we worked with on the Whales/Tohora exhibition. They created the amazing Sperm Whale versus Giant Squid video.
Not long ‘til the exhibition opens – Dec 13th - and our girl goes on display. We’ll also have a new Squid website. It’ll have lots of the cool exhibition stuff including a version of the movie for those of you who can’t make it into the building. It’ll be a 2D version ‘cos as far as I know you can’t get 3D on the web – or can you?
Lucy Hoffman
