Great News From 3-D SPACE

I’m thrilled to be able to announce that 3-D SPACE, The Center For Stereoscopic Photography, Art, Cinema, and Education has been granted 501(c)3 tax-exempt status by the IRS. This means that 3-D SPACE is now officially a nonprofit charity, and is eligible to receive grants and tax-deductable donations. This is a very important milestone and will allow us to move forward with the next phase of our project, which will involve both the cataloging and digitizing of the many images, videos, and other artifacts in our collections, as well as actively pursuing the funding to get a physical space to house the museum. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the enthuiastic support that 3-D SPACE has received from the members of the LA 3-D Club during our startup.

Last month, I presented a special screening of HOUSE OF WAX at the Monsterpalooza convention. Several days before the event, I was contacted by the organizer, Eliot Brodsky, who told me that one of their guests had cancelled and that there would now be an empty meeting room at the convention center. Eliot asked me if I would be interested in setting up a 3-D exhibit in the room for the duration of the convention. I agreed, and set about curating a 3-D mini-museum, which became the first public presentation from 3-D SPACE.  We displayed a number of promotional posters, lobby cards, and other items from the 3-D horror and sci-fi movies of the 1950s and the 1980s, classic 1950s horror comic books, and educational materials on the history of 3-D and science behind stereo vision. We also set up a theater area, with seating for 15 people and an LG passive 3DTV, where we showed classic 3-D clips and the wonderful slideshow BOB BURNS: A HALLOWEEN LEGEND. The room proved to be very popular, and served as sort of a 3-D lounge where people could sit down, rest their feet and watch some entertaining stereo content. Thank you so much to club members Lawrence Kaufman, John Rupkalvis, John Hart, Mark Kernes, Steve Golden, and Jodi Kurland for loaning items for display in the exhibit, and for volunteering to help on site at the convention.

While 3-D doesn’t seem to be getting as much press lately as it had in recent years, that doesn’t mean it’s going away. In addition to our own club events, there have been stereoscopic goings on almost non-stop for the past month! The recent Giant Screen Cinema Association Expo featured a full program of 3-D IMAX films on the big screen at the Universal AMC. That was immediately followed by the Virtual Reality Los Angeles Conference, a sold-out event in downtown LA that featured numerous stereoscopic VR experiences. There were 3-D screenings at the Monsterpalooza convention, the Wondercon convention, and even the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy conference. The Columbia Space Shuttle Memorial Museum in Downey featured an outdoor 3-D movie screening as part of it’s week-long City of STEM science events. And there are numerous 3-D events at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas this month.

And lastly, there are some great new 3-D Blu-Ray releases happening. Warner Bros. last month finally put out a 3-D restoration of KISS ME KATE, and the 3-D Film Archive is now taking pre-orders for their 3-D RARITIES disc, coming out in June. Bob Furmanek has also announced that later this year they will be restoring both THE MASK and GOG for home viewing. These should be in everyone’s collections, and I would encourage you to support these releases so that we will hopefully get more classic 3-D movies in the future!