The stereoscopic 3-Dimensional (S3D) technologies develop so fast that one has no time to consider them in hindsight. The immersive S3D technology is already available not only in cinema theatres, but also in home video, video games, mobile phones, and on the web. A new window, new space has been opened to a wide range of artists, developers and users. It seems important to explore its artistic and democratic potential and to give people some keys to escape the commercial logic and make the technology of stereoscopic 3-Dimensional video making closer to their daily lives and common way of visual expression.
TRANSISTOR is a new way of multidisciplinary training initiative offering European professionals in the audiovisual sector a series of intensive trans-disciplinary workshop sessions focused on advanced new technologies employed in production and post-production of feature S3D films, S3D documentaries and experimental media creations.

2012 edition brings forward these main training modules:

Making a stereoscopic movie: documentary and fiction (3 sessions)

1) S-3D DOCUMENTARY FILM MAKING – 2. – 5.7. 2012 – CIANT, Prague
2) S-3D FICTION FILM MAKING – 16. – 19.7. 2012 – CIANT, Prague
3) POSTPRODUCTION – 27. – 30.8. 2012 – CIANT, Prague

Benefits:

- Understanding technical and creative pipeline for stereoscopic and 3D CGI films
- Practical experience in mixing 3D CGI sequences with stereoscopic real scenes
- Knowledge of visual effects techniques for S-3D and their distributed manner of delivery
- Understanding the specific characteristics of documentary filming and synthetic movies creation, both in S-3D

The overall objectives are:
- To focus on emerging creators from the countries with lower audiovisual production and to develop their capacity to better understand and properly respond to the changing needs of the European audiovisual market and industry
- To foster the working relations with audiovisual industry
- To broaden possibilities of documentary film making by introducing the creators to methods of synthetic movies
- To provide comprehensive S-3D training in a trans-disciplinary perspective while combining technical hands-on sessions with concept-based methodological introductions
- To make S-3D techniques available to a broader spectrum of filmmakers, including authors of documentaries and of experimental cross- and trans- media productions
- To offer an outstanding international training in preservation techniques and methodologies for digital audiovisual works with respect to latest achievements in the area of reference models and repository technologies


Specific Reasoning and Approach
Digital cinema has entered the era of stereoscopic 3D (S-3D) where new concepts and techniques become essential drivers of innovative productions. The cinema industry found in S-3D new ways to draw audiences into cinema halls. Also new ways of expression emerged connected with the new techniques of filming. As the technologies for S-3D filming are getting available for productions with lower budgets, documentary filmmakers also take interest in them.
This module delivers integrated introduction into state-of-the-art S-3D cinema technologies and provides strong hands-on project-oriented professional development experience.
The three workshop sessions connected into training modules follow the pre-production, production and post-production aspects of the creation of a test-bed S-3D film, which is composed of real scenes and computer generated imagery (CGI) featuring virtual characters animated using motion capture technology. The similarities and differences between synthetic movies and documentary movies will be explored in detail. The content of the modules is evenly divided into theoretical parts followed by hands-on practicing sessions.


All this events has been designed according to 3 main objectives in an attempt to enrich this reflection:
• to contribute to a sensitive and plural reflection of European social communities
• to promote new creation forms in connection with today’s cultural uses
• to encourage European citizens to appropriate new technologies as means of
expression and sharing
• to foster new ways for artistic expression through disseminating knowledge of new,
available S3D technologies
• to support networking in “new artistic genre” of S3D video through circulating
particular artistic works

Curriculum Vitae

Since the beginning of the 1990s Pavel Smetana has been artistically experimenting in the field of digital interactive media, creating installations “The Room of Desires”, “The Mirror”, “ The Cyber-Portrait of Dorian Gray” and “Lilith”. Since 2003 he directed several multimedia performances, interconnecting science, contemporary dance and game technologies.
Pavel was during past ten years Professor of 3D, VR and Art at the National Art Institute in Aix-en-Provence, France and Director of the International Festival ENTERmultimediale (2000, 2005, 2007) in Prague.

Currently he is director of CIANT, also functions as National coordinator of the international mobility programs and expert in art/science program in EU.

Pavel Smetana was born in Ústí nad Labem, Bohemia. From 1979-1982 he studied at the Arts and Crafts School in the Prague Žižkov neighborhood. He was not accepted to the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague because of political reasons, which was one of the reasons why he decided to leave for France in 1984. In Paris he studied at the École Nationale Superieure des Arts Décoratifs (1984-1989) with specialization in “Art-Espace”. At first he was engaged in abstract painting, creating oil paintings but also images using tar and asphalt. Another image cycle was made by rubbing canal covers on canvas. He exhibited his paintings at a one-man show in the Saint-Germain Des Prés gallery in Paris in 1991. Pavel Smetana’s artwork has been from its beginning aimed towards monumental creations: he is author of various large-format wall-paintings in public space (for example, the Paris Saint-Lazare train station in 1987 or painting on the Concorde, the first supersonic passenger aircraft, in 1989). He has also created mobile sculptures and decorations for ballet performances. He had began to deal with Video and Computer Art at school, influenced by Don Foresta, pedagogue and theoretician of media art who founded the first Video Department in Europe in 1976 there.