Jeffrey Katzenberg's DreamWorks Animation and No. 1 chip maker Intel announced a 3-D movie image brand called InTru 3D at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. Intel's innovations come from its stand-alone graphics chip due in 2009, code-named Larrabee.SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)—Starting in 2009, all of DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc's films will be in next-generation 3-D.
"This is the next innovation for the movie industry," Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation, said in an interview. "It impacts how we make our movies, how movie theaters present our films and how audiences experience our films."
Katzenberg's DreamWorks Animation and No. 1 chipmaker Intel Corp announced a 3-D movie image brand called InTru 3D at Intel's Developer Forum in San Francisco on Wednesday.
The first movie from DreamWorks Animation to use the brand and logo will be "Monsters vs. Aliens," coming out next March.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Renee Brown, head of Intel's software and solutions business, told Reuters that Intel's contribution to the 3-D partnership technology came through acquisitions of start-up companies, with more innovations from its stand-alone graphics chip due in 2009, code-named Larrabee.
"The two of us will be working together to generate new computer animation from the ground up," Brown said.
Already, DreamWorks Animation has announced plans to replace its existing computing hardware with those using Intel microprocessors and other technology for its large computer-animation operations.
"The quality and creativity of where Intel is headed is light years ahead of what we've seen anybody else doing," Katzenberg said.
Katzenberg said that the animated 3-D images that can be produced now with digital projectors and the computers used in the production process are vastly more sophisticated than the hokey, blurry 3-D images of decades ago.
"The real promise of 3-D is an immersive experience, not an observational experience," he said.
Brown and Katzenberg said the next logical iteration of the new 3-D technology after theaters would be in video games, and it would expand from there.
"We want to then move this technology on to the Internet and other experiences," Brown said.
(Reporting by Duncan Martell; Editing by Gary Hill)
© Thomson Reuters 2008. All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters and its logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Thomson Reuters group of companies around the world.
