This weekend I had the great displeasure of seeing the latest installment of the Shrek movie series. That statement is in no way a movie review; unlike my opinions about Green Day’s American Idiot on Broadway I’m going to refrain from saying anything about the new Shrek movie itself.
But I have plenty to say about 3D. And yes, this was my first experience with the becoming-hard-to-avoid trend.
Forget that the price of a 3D movie is high to the point of becoming ridiculous. Someone has to pay for those glasses and of course that someone is the consumer (although since they get recycled and reused the premium being charged seems like a bit much).
Forget that because I happen to be nearsighted in one eye and farsighted in the other I actually missed quite a bit of the 3D goodness.
Forget that wearing the glasses gave me a headache—and that I’ve heard the same from pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to about the subject.
My question is: What Does 3D Add?
I’m certain there will come a time when and an application for which there will be good answers to that question. Alternate/Virtual Reality comes to mind, and I recall another movie from about ten years ago. Set in the future as a kind of Pinnochio rewrite, A.I. included a scene where one (real) character became “surrounded by” his interaction with another (computer generated) one.
Maybe having that kind of interaction feel more real via some sort of spatial immersion makes sense. But I don’t see how having the illusion of characters interacting in front of me being different distances from me adds anything to the experience of seeing a film.
Now 3D Television is here. And the earliest generations of the new screens cost two to three times what a regular TV costs, have no programming that supports the technology, and again . . . I just don’t understand how seeing a picture of two characters interacting in this spatially-altered way adds anything to passive experience of watching them.
What’s the Business Change Case for 3D?
Obviously, getting people to buy more/better/newer stuff is a business change that the media business can get behind. I’m a businessperson, and I can’t begrudge them that. Add-ons are great too (those glasses . . . a goldmine!).
But if your customer and consumer of a service you offer doesn’t gain anything, there comes a point where you alienate him so much that he becomes an ex-customer. And in the social networking era of business change communications, you can’t alienate people.
When planning your next business change, ask yourself a simple question: “is the change I’m getting ready to put in place good only for me (my bottom line)“?
And if your customers don’t benefit from your business change, don’t make it.
