Release Date: January 23, 2008
Duration: 85 Minutes
Official Press Release:
Revolver Entertainment and National Geographic Entertainment present a groundbreaking cinematic event from 3ality Digital. U23D. For over a quarter-century, U2 has been recognised not only for their musical invention, but for their incomparable gift for reaching millions of fans through new technologies. Their live shows immerse concert-goers in multisensory experiences: whether through their groundbreaking use of video screens or, more recently, the use of dimensional, lighted-bead video curtains.
U2 3D - the first digital 3D, multi-camera, real-time production - reflects the band's long-standing embrace of technology, its recognition that digital 3D isn't a developing platform - it's fully here - and its belief that "U2 3D" has the potential to be as revolutionary for 3D as "The Jazz Singer" was for talkies. Marrying advanced digital 3D imagery and 5.1 Surround Sound with the unique excitement of a live U2 concert, U2 3D takes viewers on an extraordinary cinematic journey, a quantum leap beyond traditional concert films.
Filmed during the South American leg of the band's 'Vertigo' tour, 'U2 3D' captures the exceptional performances onstage during the band's concert in Buenos Aires. The film portrays the passionate reactions of 80,000 fans from nine digital 3D camera systems as well as the exuberant onstage dynamic between U2's Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jnr, as they incite and inspire their massive audience.
Over 100 hours of 3D footage was shot, documenting a set list that during two weeks included such seminal U2 songs as "Pride (In the Name of Love)," "New Year's Day," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," " I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," "Where the Streets Have No Name," "With or Without You," "Mysterious Ways" and "One," as well as more recent tracks such as "Beautiful Day," "Vertigo," "City of Blinding Lights," "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own," "Love and Peace or Else" and "Original of the Species."
A 3ality Digital production, directed by Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington, "U2 3D" takes a performance by the band U2, winner of 22 Grammy Awards and 8 Brits, into a totally new film dimension.
To see this great band in 3D is to get swept up in the adrenalin rush of their explosive performance. U2 3D is a record of this great rock band during one of its most phenomenal concerts. 3-D is a new cinema medium that truly allows moviegoers to viscerally experience not only the music but also the energy and electricity of what it is like to be in one of the front rows at a U2 concert.
Certificate: tbc. Running Time: 84 mins.
Track List:
- Vertigo
- Beautiful Day
- New Year's Day
- Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
- Love And Peace Or Else
- Sunday Bloody Sunday
- Bullet The Blue Sky
- Miss Sarajevo / U.N. Declaration of Human Rights
- Pride (In The Name Of Love)
- Where The Streets Have No Name
- One
- The Fly
- With Or Without You
- Yahweh
Media Review:
Review: U2 3D
4 stars (out of 5)
By Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
Hollywood A-list director Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies, Arlington Road) and newcomer Catherine Owens team up to break new cinematic ground by co-helming U2 3D -- the first three-dimensional concert film in movie history. The effort intercuts footage culled from several U2 shows on their 2005-2006 Vertigo tour in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, Argentina, with Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. performing before rapt audiences. The picture opens with several thematically light rock songs, such as "Beautiful Day" and "Vertigo," but soon segues into more politically conscious material at the hands of social-change advocate Bono and his bandmates, such as the numbers "Bullet the Blue Sky," "Love and Peace or Else," and "Sunday Bloody Sunday"; at one critical point, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is projected high above the audience. Pellington, Owens, and cinematographers Tom Krueger and Peter Anderson make frequent use of a roving camera and multi-layered 3-D effects; they also step away from the approach utilized in the band's previous concert film U2: Rattle and Hum by omitting interviews and focusing exclusively on concert footage. The full version of U2 3D runs 80 minutes; a 56-minute "preview" version ran out of competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.