"Ready, steady, fire!" Zoic Studio’s Killzone 2.

Leaner. Faster. Better. They’re the three goals that best sum up the pursuits of a post-production house’s R&D department. If that sounds a bit like Lee Majors in The Six Million Dollar Man, well the comparison isn’t far off. Whether it’s redesigning workflow and improving efficiency in its pipeline or developing tools for its effects artists to handle the demands of new technologies, the aim of R&D is to vastly improve on the models that came before.

The bar for post houses has been launched into the stratosphere thanks in part to the enthusiastic reception to Avatar’s incredible 3D visuals. Research and development has always flowed from film to commercials, but at the moment R&D departments are not solely focussed on meeting the challenges of shooting in stereoscopic 3D, they are advancing in other areas as well. These include 2D to 3D conversion; the manipulation of digital footage via the rise of smart phones as filmmaking tools; and real-time CG production. R&D departments are pushing to respond with innovative solutions in all three.

But R&D isn’t only an Eden for technologists. Designers are also getting into the field, creating proprietary software to help execute their creative vision.

“Everybody wants to make sure they’re at the forefront of the curve of innovation, that it’s at the heart of what they’re doing,” says Nexus Productions, London founder Chris O’Reilly. “So much of R&D is led by what has become possible and it’s each innovation that makes another little thing possible.”

In the realm of possibilities, all eyes are on stereoscopic 3D (S3D). This year, Samsung, DreamWorks and Technicolor are releasing home 3D entertainment systems. Meanwhile, the slew of 3D films slated for release has paved the way for 3D cinema commercials. Digital Domain, Venice led the pack when it created the first 3D commercial to hit adland, Sobe “Lizard Lake” in 2009.

For productions that want to respond to this shift, but are without the time, budget or ability to shoot with S3D’s twin-camera technology, there is an alternative. 2D to 3D conversion is a process that can create stereoscopic 3D from source material shot on any medium, even retroactively on 2D films. It’s something George Lucas is said to be contemplating for a re-release of cult hit Star Wars.

The first 3D spot to hit adland, Sobe "Lizard Lake" from Digital Domain.

Hush's touchscreen media display for Hyundai.

Global post-production house Prime Focus’ R&D efforts in this arena has led to the development of View-D, a process that allows for a conversion rate of 2D to 3D five times faster than what is currently available elsewhere. Launched in December ’09, View-D is already being used to convert its first end-to-end feature, Clash of the Titans, in an extremely tight 10 weeks.

“A lot of our competitors have no idea how we’re going to do it. It’s to the point where they don’t believe that we can,” says Prime Focus president and senior VFX supervisor, North America, Chris Bond.

But if Prime Focus can deliver the film by its April 2 release date, it will show that the prime benefit of a 2D to 3D conversion process is time saved. That’s even more beneficial for commercial productions.

“With 3D, somebody has to wait hours, days or weeks to be able to see a version of a shot. The point of our process is once the files are prepped, we can work with it pretty much interactively,” says Bond. “With View-D, an artist can affect depth in minutes. We can have a director sit over their shoulder and go through a number of different iterations of the shot until they get something they like, then render it out in very short order and review it. It’s more flexible because instead of seeing something and having to live with it, you can see something and instantly change it. It gives art direction to 3D.”

It’s not just major shifts like S3D and 2D to 3D conversion that are pushing productions outside the bounds of traditional filmmaking. The rise of alternative filmmaking tools like smart phones are prompting post houses to develop new ways to integrate high-end effects into lo-res digital footage.

The Mill, London’s R&D division is mainly focused on pipeline and software development but a recent spot, City Harvest “Apples” posted by its New York office, was shot entirely with the iPhone and posed a new challenge and opportunity.

The challenge was distortions in the iPhone footage, which made it impossible to track. When an image is recorded in the iPhone’s sensor, it’s scanned from top to bottom for every frame. But if a director makes a quick camera move, the sensor doesn’t have time to absorb the information and the resulting footage looks as if it’s on the diagonal. This so-called rolling shutter makes it impossible for traditional tracking methods to work with iPhone footage because the 3D software is used to high quality images from professional cameras.

“The only way it could be tracked is indirectly, by trying to get the position of the iPhone in space rather than analyzing the footage and tracking it,” explains The Mill’s joint head of 3D and “Apples” co-director Yann Mabille.

To do this, The Mill had to create a virtual camera move that matched the iPhone camera’s. The post house recreated a motion capture set-up on set and built a bespoke tracking rig consisting of four rods with LED tracking lights and the iPhone positioned in the middle. Three Canon 5D Mark 2 static cameras were then placed for triangulation to capture the iPhone’s movement.