Photos from nWave Pictures Arid lead singer
Jasper Steverlinck (second from left) lends his
talents to the role of a rock musician who wanders through, of
course, a "Haunted Castle" in director Ben Stassen’s latest 3-D
film for IMAX screens.
By Suneal Kolluri
Daily Bruin Contributor
A very select group of pioneers of the movie industry are adding
a whole new dimension to modern movies with a new type of cinema
““ three-dimensional films.
Belgian movie director Ben Stassen is an integral part of this
select group. His latest, controversial, 3-D film, “Haunted
Castle” is now playing at the Sony IMAX in Universal City and
other IMAX movie screens all around the world.
The film, which follows a rock musician’s journey through
a haunted castle, presents a whole new way of telling a story.
“You have to take into account the component that you have
in an IMAX theater that you don’t have in anything
else,” Stassen said in a phone interview. “There is a
very visceral and physical level that we create. The screen is so
large you don’t even realize there’s a frame around the
picture.”
Three-dimensional filmmaking is rather new, and the market
remains fairly small due to the fact that making a 3-D film is such
a costly, complicated and time consuming procedure.
“So few filmmakers have attacked this medium “¦ 10
people have taken it on and only three have had any success in
it,” Stassen said.
 Writer-director Ben Stassen shoots part
of his film in Brussels. He explained that 3-D filmmakers are very
restricted by the types of things they can do with today’s
technology.
“Right now the technology is kind of dictating not only
how the films are, but what the films are,” Stassen said.
“It’s so limiting that technology puts on so many
restrictions.”
Nonetheless, Stassen emerged as one of the premier directors of
these hi-tech 3-D movies.
After attending film school at the University of Southern
California, Stassen began working with various feature films. One
of the films he produced, “My Uncle’s Legacy,”
received a Golden Globe nomination in the “Best Foreign
Language Film” category.
While doing a film in Belgium, however, a computer graphics
company called Little Big One attracted Stassen’s
interest.
“It was doing state-of-the-art computer graphics and it
was going bankrupt doing it because it was using its tools to be a
service company rather than a creator of content. So, I said,
“˜The hell with that. I want to create content.’
That’s where it started really,” Stassen said.
He then took on the challenge of helping out the fledgling
company and used his skills as a filmmaker to help the company
create film shorts that would act as demos to promote its
services.
Stassen also created a company of his own called nWave Pictures,
which uses computer graphics technology to create and distribute
its own movies, rather than being a mere service provider for other
production companies.
Using the technological know-how of his company, Stassen created
three movies in 3-D ““ “Alien Adventure,”
“3-D Mania” and “Haunted Castle.”
For Stassen, however, the technological aspect of creating a
whole movie in three dimensions was definitely no easy task.
“It’s a very technical medium and I don’t like
that part of it,” he said. “It’s a necessary
evil.”
Nevertheless, Stassen put aside his qualms about the
technicality of the medium and now uses it often in this
unconventional style of movie-making. He aims to create an
“experience” for his viewers.
“It’s a lot of fun to play with ““ not so much
to tell a story, but to create an experience,” Stassen said.
“I’ll be able to create all these different layers …
and it’s really fun to bring a lot of elements onto a
computer generated set.”
He said “Haunted Castle” uses these state-of-the-art
computer graphics to make up for its weak story line by creating a
new and exciting 3-D experience for viewers.
Stassen is quick to acknowledge the lack of a solid story line
and hopes viewers will be so engrossed by the amazing 3-D effects
that they can overlook the somewhat empty plot that consists of a
rock musician walking around a castle.
“Nobody today has succeeded in really telling a story in
3-D “¦ I know the audiences will not buy that forever,”
Stassen said. “Right now audiences are impressed enough by
the experience to find it interesting. Very soon we are going to
have to be able to deliver the goods also on the story
aspect.”
“Haunted Castle” is the first non-educational film
to be played on IMAX screens. This ruffled a couple of feathers
with the IMAX corporation, the company that manufactures the
screens that are used for 3-D films like “Haunted
Castle.”
“The IMAX corporation is going through a very difficult
stage right now ““ financially and promotionally. They feel
they need to protect the brand and they feel that my film is
degrading to the brand,” Stassen said.
“One of the IMAX executives, justified IMAX’s
position saying, “˜This film is not what people have come to
expect from an IMAX film,'” Stassen continued.
“Did it ever dawn on them that that might not be a bad
thing?”
Despite all of the controversy that surrounds the first
non-educational 3-D movie, Stassen is indisputably a pioneer of the
genre.
As for the future, Stassen hopes to one day create a completely
computer generated movie that integrates live action with a
computer generated background in such a way that viewers
won’t even be able to tell that what they are watching is
artificial.
“I know where we are at and I know where we’re
trying to go,” Stassen said. “I prefer to take it one
step at a time.”
FILM: “Haunted Castle” is now
playing at the Sony IMAX located at 100 Universal City Plaza in
Universal City. For more information, call (818) 508-0588 or check
out www.nwave.com/hauntedcastle.