Unless you're the Dalai Lama or head of an African nation, your chances of being in the same room with U2 anytime soon are pretty slim. Consider U2 3D the next best thing. The concert movie has the distinction of being the first ever live-action 3-D digital film (as in, high-def!), and its aim is simple: to give audiences an experience that's as close as possible to being at an actual U2 concert.

More than 100 hours of footage was shot during the band's South America swing on the recent "Vertigo" tour, using the largest collection of 3-D camera technology ever assembled for a single project. That raw footage was eventually culled to just 13 songs, including "One," "The Fly," and a goose bump-inducing version of "Where the Streets Have No Name."

The film's co-director (along with Mark Pellington) is Catherine Owens, an Irish artist who has for some 15 years worked with the band to create the visual aspects of their stage show. She explained what's so great about 3-D and how she expects you'll soon be able to see the movie in all its dimensions on your HDTV.

3-D movies have come along every few years with limited success. Why will now be different?
The reason we've jumped on this is because of the technology. [James Cameron's] underwater film [Ghosts of the Abyss] shot with the same digital technology. Before, you'd have to have a camera that was rather large and didn't move, and you'd have to change your film reel every three minutes. You were shooting with actual film. It made it inflexible and costly, and few people could work like that.

This technology is the digital format, so you can shoot as long as you want. And the cameras have been reduced to handheld size. You can do a lot now that you couldn't before. It makes it more accessible.

©2007, 3ality Digital

How prevalent do you think 3-D movies will be in the future?
I think obviously James Cameron is at the forefront of pushing everyone in this direction. And films like Beowulf help. Disney is part of that push: They have the largest 3-D footprint in terms of experience. But I think it's going to be driven by the avant-garde companies and filmmakers who want to make 3-D. And I think it will be driven by how good the experiences are. As long as the experience is good, I think it has a secure future. One of the problems could be that a lot of money gets thrown at it because it is 3-D, and not enough thought put in about, well, is the project right for 3-D?

One of the advances on this film is the use of layers — multiple shots superimposed on top of one another with a real feeling of depth. Why did you decide to use that effect?
The band had reservations about doing this film in the beginning. They had developed a certain kind of style about how their videos and DVDs were edited. They have a certain type of groovy, rock 'n roll style, and they didn't want to lose that style to this 3-D pacing. 3-D has to have a slower pacing to keep your mind and eye comfortable. The solution there was to come up with a new way to edit U2 that still kept the momentum of the performance.

My thought was to substitute the fast edits for layers of dissolves, which keep the performance intact, but loses the need to do those hard cuts. We edited the film in 2-D, the way we wanted it to look. Then we worked with the 3-D postproduction team to build those effects in the 3-D space. The technology didn't exist at the time we first started editing to layer one 3-D image on top of another 3-D image. So a company developed software for us.

Was the band skeptical about making the movie for other reasons? They weren't particularly fond of Rattle and Hum.
I heard more than once, "We don't want to make another Rattle and Hum." Sometimes what happens with people is, if they don't have a great experience with something, the taste that's left in their mouths is sometimes worse than the product that came out. Rattle and Hum might be a case in point.

I actually think it's a good piece of work. [Here], we decided to play to their strength and make the movie performance-only. No interviews and no backstage. We were never going to be in a Rattle and Hum situation.

Were they particular about which shots you used of each of them?
Yeah. They're their own best critics. They were very involved in postproduction, especially in the shot sign-off and performance sign-off. We lost quite a few songs. We recorded 26 altogether, and we have 13 in the show. Certain songs just didn't make it because of the performances. Certain ones that were just sort of borderline great, the band would say, "That's not good enough. We're not performing to our top power there." That I think is what makes them the band they are. They're no-compromise people. Bono has a good line: "If I believe these four guys, then it's good. But if I don't believe them or everybody else doesn't believe them, then the song doesn't make it."

This film was shot in HD. What are the advantages?
We edited in standard def then transferred it to HD and 3-D. Basically it's like looking at something through foggy glasses, then you clean them. HD is lovely and the 3-D is a nice expansion of HD. Now people are used to looking at HD, so it helps with the transition to 3-D.

Has the audience been accepting of the technology?
Certainly our reviews are phenomenal. It's unbelievable. You couldn't pay people to say the things they've been saying. The [box office] numbers are really fantastic. It's in IMAX in limited release until February 15, when it goes to a wider digital release.

What about the 5.1 surround sound?
The team that worked on this worked to create a 360-degree musical experience. The audio is a good reflection of the visual experience. I think that adds to the success of this particular film.

Seeing a concert movie is obviously a different experience from seeing an actual concert. In the movie theater, you can't really dance, drink a beer, etc. Were you worried that those restrictions would diminish the experience?
Well, you know, we're not afraid of people getting up in the seats. We're encouraging that idea. But we weren't really worried. The funny thing is, when you have your glasses on — new kind of 3-D glasses that aren't bulky; they're almost like groovy Ray Bans — I say it's a little bit like virtual reality. I think this film is the best example of what virtual reality might feel like. You really do get lost in the moment. Because it's performance only, you never really leave the film. There doesn't come a moment when you think, Oh, I really need to go have a Coca-Cola or get a hot dog.

Can this 3-D technology be translated to home theater?
Yeah. We've tested it for the home TV. We looked at it on a Samsung that's HD enabled. It is phenomenal. It's so insane. The reason we did that was because we did some 3-D reviews in Ireland, and there was no 3-D cinemas in Dublin. So we brought over the TV, set it up in the band's recording studio and watched the film in 3-D for review. To see that is pretty phenomenal.

Right now, we're playing the film off a hard drive. But the company who developed the technology and the cameras, 3ality Digital — the reason they got involved in all this was to have 3-D for sporting events. They want to have audiences be able to watch live sporting events in 3-D on their TVs [glasses would be required]. That's probably three to five years away.

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