'Monsters vs. Aliens' creates another dimension

LOS ANGELES — "Monsters vs. Aliens" opens with an old 3-D gag: A ball bounces directly into the audience, causing moviegoers to instinctively scoot back in their seats. But the resemblance to old-fashioned 3-D ends there.

The film, in theaters Friday, relies on entirely new technology — much of it developed during production — to lend depth to an epic battle in outer space and drama to the collapse of the Golden Gate bridge as four modern monsters fight to save Earth from alien invasion.

"We can dial in the (3-D) to a degree that was unthinkable even 10 years ago," said the stereoscopic supervisor at DreamWorks, who legally changed his name 12 years ago to Phil Captain 3D McNally (it appears on his driver's license as Captain IIID.)

"What I'm hoping people will see in 'Monsters vs. Aliens' for the first time is stereoscopic filmmaking that feels completely integrated into the flow of the story."

Unlike most 3-D movies, which are conceived and shot in two dimensions and then rendered later, the film was made start to finish in three dimensions, with directors watching daily takes through 3-D glasses.

Producer Lisa Stewart said it made sense for the story, which she characterized as "an homage to the 1950s and '60s monster horror movies where 3-D really first came into the fore." The film follows Susan (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), who's transformed into the 49-foot-tall Ginormica after she gets hit by a meteor on her wedding day. When aliens attack the planet, it's up to Ginormica and her fellow monsters — a gelatinous blob named B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), a mad scientist called Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie) and a fish-ape known as the Missing Link (Will Arnett) — to save the world.

The characters, concepts and landscapes lent themselves to three-dimensional exploration. But there were concerns about the technology. What were its limitations? Would filmmakers be reduced to a series of coming-right-at-you sight gags?

"There was an initial fear that it was going to be a gimmick like it was in the '50s, where we're suddenly going to be asked to throw a bunch of stuff out through the screen," Stewart said. "But that was not at all what he wanted to do. ... It was about how can we use this (technology) to tell the story that we're already telling, how can we use it to our advantage."

They developed the story as they typically would, she said. The magic — and complications — began when they started shooting.

"There was a lot of trial and error at first," Stewart said. "And there were a lot of preconceived rules of what you could and could not do in 3-D."