Same Shit, Different Day!

A local news station ran an article today on how 3-D TV sales are growing and cited the MPAA as saying there were 150% (approximately) more movies released in 2009 than in 2008. They also were bringing up the issue of whether 3-D TV's were a 'FAD' or not. I think people have to remember 3-D fads in cinema of the 50's & early 60's, then again in the 70's & early 80's. And though these were indeed fads, they did have an impact on cinema and also the change of mood of the theater goers when leaving. Those 'old-school' 3-D movies were indeed primitive in comparison to the 3-D of today, but were they when looking at the end results. And just how healthy is this for our young person’s ophthalmologic health.

Let's take a look; we took a small survey after several movies offered this past year. These surveys were mainly local and of a small group of theater goers personally known to us, however after talking to the people surveyed, we determined that if they did not know the person giving the survey, they would not have been completely honest with their answers.

Among theater goers surveyed;

56% stated they felt no ill- effects of the movie

32% stated that they had severe headaches after the movie, but watched the movie in its entirety.

12% stated they had to leave for a few minutes, during the film, to allow headaches or nausea to subside

I think our most alarming discovery is that of the 200 people we used as our subjects, 88% stated that whether they had headaches or not they will still continue to visit the theaters to watch 3-D movies. The other 12% stated they will return to the theaters to watch future movies in 2-D or wait for DVD/Blu-Ray releases to see the picture.

When trying to get information about the in-home 3-D experience, only 2% of the people we surveyed had 3-D capable entertainment equipment in their homes. However, 40% said they would consider buying this equipment when pricing came down a bit more. But 58% of them stated they would not ever buy these products, because of the experiences they have had at the theaters.

Since finding this information proved to be so difficult we approached a local cinefile group to participate in a poll. Of those polled in the group, only 74 had home theater equipment capable of 3-D, which amounted to approximately 15% of the total group. Only 51 of them agreed to participate and of those over 90% stated they could not watch a 2 hour 3-D movie in its entirety at home, but instead would pause or stop the movie and take breaks after 30-45 minutes to allow a rest for their eyes. However, none of them felt that they should not have purchased the equipment.  Most stated they had been looking to upgrade from much older systems anyway and this was a minor increase in cost so they didn't mind spending the extra money for the 3-D capable hardware.

We suspect that having the newest technology also played a role in these purchases since most if these people upgraded from large screens to much smaller ones.

All-in-all we felt the results of our little non-official poll displayed alarming results and that the government may even want to take a closer look into finding a way to research as to whether these TV's/Movies are detrimental to our eyes in any way.