[**The Dark Flaw in 3D's Bright Future**:][1]

> The figure of **[16 foot-lamberts][2] is the standard established by the [Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers][3] for a projector with no film in it.** 
>
> If you add a **2D film** to a projector that meets the brightness standard, you’ll generally wind up with **about 14 foot-lamberts**, considered an appropriate level of illumination.
>
> **3D projection, though, displays two separate pictures**, one designed for the left eye, one for the right [...] the immediate result of dividing the picture into two images is that, in [Lenny Lipton][4]’s words, “*You lose half your light, because half the light goes to one eye and half goes to the other.*” 
>
> **Instantly, a 14-foot-lambert image is reduced to 7.** 
>
> **The glasses** used to decode the two images [...] **then cut the light further**.
>
> “Avatar,” says Lipton, generally screened at about four-and-a-half foot-lamberts; other films are as low as two or three.
>
> “***Fourteen foot-lamberts is a decent picture. Half of that, you’re doing fine.  But a third of that, you’re kind of getting hairy.  And when you get down below three foot-lamberts, you start losing your color vision, and the images are appalling.***”
>
> “*It can all be solved,*” Lipton insists. “*The technology is there.*”

[**Michael Bay and 'Transformers 3' shine a light on theater projection**:][5]

> Michael Bay [has been lobbying theater companies to turn up the brightness of their projector bulbs][6] to make *Transformers: Dark of the Moon* look better in 3-D.
>
> ![Letter][7] <sup>[Source][8]</sup>
>
> Paramount Pictures has taken the added step of [shipping an extra-bright digital “print” of the film to about 2,000 theaters][9] showing it in the RealD 3-D format. 
>
> Why would a theater be reluctant to pump up the wattage? It’s because the bulbs can average around $3,200 or run as high as $5,700 and burn out after about 500 screenings, which adds up quickly at a multiplex. 

  [1]: http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/3d-progress-lost-dark-19392
  [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot-lambert
  [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Motion_Picture_and_Television_Engineers
  [4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Lipton
  [5]: http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/06/23/michael-bay-and-transformers-3-shine-a-light-on-bad-theater-projection/
  [6]: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/business/media/22transformers.html
  [7]: https://i.sstatic.net/WLVao.jpg
  [8]: http://www.firstshowing.net/2011/michael-bays-letter-to-3d-projectionists-his-plea-for-fans-to-go-3d/
  [9]: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118038975?refCatId=13