Being There - immersive documentaries

Thanks to Digital Magic, a state-of-the-art film and video studio in Hong Kong, I had the pleasure of watching the full uncensored trailer of ‘Sex and Zen in 3D’ in excellent conditions . The original ‘Sex and Zen’ (traditional Chinese: 玉蒲團之偷情寶鑑, Yù pútuán zhī tōuqíng bǎojiàn) is a 1991 Hong Kong erotic comedy film directed by Michael Mak and starring Amy Yip and Lawrence Ng. The film is loosely based on The Carnal Prayer Mat, an infamous Chinese erotic novel by 17th century author and playwright Li Yu.

This 3D sequel (there has been a 2D remake already) is advertised as ‘the first 3D porn movie in the world’. It’s being produced in Hong Kong for a 3 million USD budget and eagerly awaited by a certain part of the public, thanks to an extensive marketing campaign. I was wondering what the porn industry was waiting for, as they are usually among the early adopters for new technologies. ‘Sex and Zen in 3D’ is not only a feast of flesh, but also a pixel party, since it’s shot in 3D and 4K (the highest resolution currently available for movie production). Suffice to say that watching the 5 minute trailer is an immersive and breathtaking experience. This is certainly a very convincing showcase of technological advances and digital immersive storytelling potential. Nipples were jumping at me, as hands reached out to grab me and every imaginable body part seemed to come very close to my face. Luckily,  I was wearing the 3D glasses.

The trailer on youtube is censored (and 2D, of course):

But if you want to see the uncensored trailer, you can at this website, but you have to enter your age first. The first reviews are out.

It is easy to see that porn consumers will be a prime market for new 3D content, since the added value of 3D for porn by far exceeds that of sports, dance or animation in my estimation. It’s one thing to see a football coming right at you, but an open mouth or a penis (not in the trailer) is something else. Now that the sales of 3D televisions is lagging behind, because of insufficient attractive content among other reasons, this is probably the type of content that may help get the new tv sets into the living rooms (or bedrooms, rather).