[Editor's Note: The Conversations is a House feature in which Jason Bellamy and Ed Howard discuss a wide range of cinematic subjects: critical analyses of films, filmmaker overviews, and more. Readers should expect to encounter spoilers.]
Ed Howard: If there's anything that can excite an impassioned debate among film fans, it's the topic of 3D. The technology has been around for a long time in one form or another—the first 3D films were released in the 1950s—but its popularity tends to wax and wane, sometimes reaching peaks where it's a huge fad and a box office draw, while at other times the technology falls into disfavor and disuse. We are currently, without a doubt, in the middle of one of 3D's peak periods, and there are even those, like James Cameron, who argue that 3D is the future of film. It's pretty rare these days for any big animated film or summer blockbuster to get released to theaters without being in 3D, and older hits from the Star Wars series to Titanic are being refitted and re-released with 3D effects grafted on.
Our entry point for this conversation is provided by the release of two 3D family/adventure flicks made by esteemed directors working in the 3D format for the first time. Martin Scorsese's Hugo and Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin are very different movies, both in their own right and in how they use 3D. Scorsese's latest work is a deeply personal (but also, paradoxically, uncharacteristic) ode to the early cinema, a formalist celebration of the joys of movies. Spielberg's film, an adaptation of the beloved comics by Belgian artist Hergé, is arguably less of a personal work, a propulsive, often funny, action movie that hardly ever pauses for breath. Though both films share a certain witty European sensibility and both are family-friendly crowd-pleasers, it's hard to imagine two more different movies in terms of tone: the breathless, wide-eyed wonder of Hugo and the kinetic, nearly slapstick violence and adventure of Tintin.
Precisely because these films are so different, and because they're the product of two highly respected American directors rather than just two more disposable holiday-season spectacles, they provide a perfect opportunity to discuss the merits of 3D, to consider whether this technology really is, as filmmakers like Cameron seem to think, the future of film and a valuable aesthetic tool, or if it's simply a faddy gimmick that's cycled back into popularity before people get tired of it again. These films provide an interesting case study for these questions. One curiosity is that the brasher, louder Tintin arguably uses 3D effects much more subtly and minimally than the comparatively low-key Hugo, which suggests that 3D can easily be separated from the other elements of a film's style and tone. I wonder if that disconnect between 3D and the rest of a film's elements provides some proof for the viewpoint that 3D is an unnecessary gimmick rather than a truly vital means of expression.
Jason Bellamy: Before I grapple with that thought, let me back up a moment and provide a brief account of my history with 3D as context. I don't remember exactly when I first donned a set of perception-distorting glasses, but I do know that prior to this recent 3D craze I experienced the sensation of swimming with fish through a vertical kelp maze in an underwater short at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and long before that I saw portions of The Birds in 3D at MGM Studios and had a Muppets 3D experience at another theme park (Disney's California Adventure, I think). There were other 3D exposures, too, here and there, but the first 3D Hollywood feature film that I saw in its entirety was Cameron's Avatar. Since then I have seen four 3D movies: Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Hugo (twice), Tarsem's Immortals and Tintin, in that order. Of course, seeing a 3D film these days means suffering through about 20 minutes of 3D trailers, so while I didn't actually attend recent releases like The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides or The Three Musketeers, I saw enough of their 3D imagery to get a sense for the way those movies try to swashbuckle into the audience's lap with penetrating swords. Likewise, I have a sense for how the re-releases of Star Wars and Titanic will look with an extra "dimension."
I mention all of that to make it clear that my experience with 3D makes for an extremely small sample size. But, if we're honest, that's true for almost everyone. We're having this conversation now because two revered 2D directors, Scorsese and Spielberg, have dipped their toes into 3D waters. But that leaves countless revered 2D directors who haven't come anywhere close to the pool (and it ignores the possibility, however doubtful, that Scorsese or Spielberg might someday decide to commit to 3D altogether). 3D might not be "new," but as an art form it's in its infancy, and great filmmakers like Scorsese and Spielberg are in the infancy of their 3D careers. With improving technology, there are possibilities available to 3D filmmakers today that weren't available 50 years ago, certainly, and probably even 5, and even if those technological developments don't continue (and I suspect they will, for a while), 3D could remain cinema's New World for decades, as filmmakers partake in a kind of 3D land-grab, racing to be the first to put their signature on a shot in the 3D format that might have been memorably accomplished in 2D before they were born. (Whether there's true "invention" in that is another debate altogether. Point is, someone will look to be 3D's Orson Welles.)
Time will tell how this all plays out, but I'll admit at the outset that I'm stunned at how much my physical response to 3D—never mind my critical opinion of it—has changed since seeing Avatar only two years ago. What not so long ago felt distinct, odd and even nauseating (the 3D effect has been known to give me migraines lasting for hours), now feels startlingly, well, normal. Put another way, the more 3D I see, the less 3D I "notice." And while that might sound damning (and, indeed, maybe it is), and while you wonder if the disconnect between the overtness of the 3D effect in Hugo and Tintin and the overall style and tone of those movies might expose 3D as empty gimmickry, I see the same thing and wonder if we might be heading toward a time, maybe even very soon, in which 3D becomes so unassuming that it becomes difficult to argue that it has a significant negative effect, as many traditionalist cinephiles are quick to argue. So while today the challenge is often to demonstrate 3D's value in order to justify its very existence, are we approaching a point in which the more difficult challenge becomes arguing 3D's impediment and/or impairment?
EH: That's a good question, and before I answer it, I'll admit that, like you, my experience with 3D is fairly limited. I don't enjoy the effect, so I tend to avoid 3D showings unless I have a really strong motivation to go, like the opportunity to see what a favorite director like Herzog or Scorsese does with the technology. For me, anyway, 3D still has substantial impediments. I agree with Jim Emerson, who wrote (regarding Avatar, though his words are equally true for almost any 3D feature), "[Each] layer looks flat, stacked in front of or behind some other layer. So, people for example look like cardboard cutouts rather than rounded figures. What's worse, if the camera's depth of field holds something out of focus in the foreground or background, you can't do anything about it. If you look at something that's closer or farther away, your eyes have a natural tendency to bring it into focus. 3D camerawork frustrates that instinct."
The technology keeps improving, and filmmakers may get better at avoiding the worst headache-inducing tendencies of the form, but I don't think the basic situation has changed since Emerson wrote that in 2009. I think he's right that 3D filmmaking is essentially "dictatorial" in a way that 2D imagery is not: 3D assumes a certain way of looking at an image, and a viewer who tries to see the image in a different way than the director intended will only be rewarded with eyestrain. A good 2D director tries to guide the viewer's eyes to the important aspects of an image, not to force the viewer to look at one part of the image and one part only. There's little room in 3D for visual ambiguity: try to imagine a 3D version of the final shot from Michael Haneke's Caché, a crowd scene in which the viewer must scan and search for the meaning. I think that 3D encourages a substantially different—and more limited—way of seeing than we're accustomed to from 2D movies, or indeed any other art form. Whereas in most art the ideal viewer is an active viewer, the ideal viewer for a 3D movie is passive, because being a thinking film viewer—really looking at the composition as a whole—is strongly discouraged by a format in which certain parts of the frame seem to be hovering in midair while other parts are blurry and indistinct.
For that reason, 3D has, historically, primarily been a medium of spectacle and entertainment, and in my opinion there are serious obstacles to it being anything but that. Even if the technology improves to the point where some of the current visual limitations—like the dimmer colors and blurriness—are overcome, which is very possible, the larger issue of active versus passive viewership remains. The two movies we're focusing on during this conversation are again a perfect example. With Hugo, I had two extreme reactions to the 3D imagery: I thought it was inventive and powerful at times (especially in the recreations of Georges Méliès' films) and distracting and gimmicky at others, as in all the shots where something juts out of the frame just because it can. While watching Tintin, on the other hand, there were long stretches where I barely noticed the 3D. Some of the frenzied action sequences were perhaps a little more disorienting than they would have been in 2D, and occasionally I felt that familiar and uncomfortable 3D sensation of having my gaze ripped from one focus to another. For the most part, though, I felt like Tintin did very little with 3D, for good or ill, but maybe that's just because it's such a different movie than Hugo. Tintin hurtles along, delivering one action set piece after another, ramping up the outrageousness until it climaxes with that ludicrous crane duel at the end, and it's easy to get swept up in its rush of images. Hugo is a much more deliberate and patiently paced film, and its 3D compositions seem more deliberate, too. Scorsese does some interesting things with 3D in Hugo, but because he calls more attention to the 3D effects, I found that on the whole I enjoyed the easy-to-forget, unambitious 3D in Tintin more. Which, again, raises the question: even if we leave aside the technological and physiological issues with 3D, if the more enjoyable 3D movie is the one that does so little with the device that it can mostly be ignored, what does this say about the creative possibilities of the form?
JB: I'm not sure it says anything, actually. See, the trouble with much of the conversation about 3D at the moment is that it supposes that this effect with the rare ability to be in your face must wow us with in-your-face imagery to be valid, because otherwise why bother? I understand that line of thinking, but I wonder if it might be outdated. If we were to discuss great achievements in CGI, for example, your mind might reflexively call up images from innumerable summer blockbusters that exist primarily to show off their ostentatious effects, and yet some of the best CGI is the stuff that goes entirely unnoticed. (As luck would have it, one of Emerson's latest posts at Scanners touches on this very subject in describing how David Fincher combines multiple takes within the same frame in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.) So I wonder: why doesn't 3D deserve the chance to be thought of in the same light, as an effect to subtly accentuate compositions or to lie dormant for the majority of the film and come out of hibernation only when needed?
That's kind of the way Herzog uses 3D in Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Each scene isn't approached with the intent to embrace the 3D effect, as there are numerous traditional sit-down interviews that render the effect moot. But we accept the moments in which the 3D is incidental for the opportunity to see 3D put to brilliant effect in Herzog's examination of the Chauvet caves. Before I saw the documentary I came across several interviews in which Herzog insisted that 3D was the "only way" to make Cave of Forgotten Dreams, because it was the "only way" he could accurately convey how the ancient cave art makes use of the natural undulations of the rock canvas, so that a bulge in a cave wall accentuates the hump of an animal's back, and so on. Uncle Werner is prone to exaggeration, so I must admit that when I heard these claims I assumed he was merely trying to hype his film and validate his use of 3D without losing his art-house cred. Once I saw Cave of Forgotten Dreams, however, I couldn't help but agree. Indeed, the 3D improved my appreciation of the cave art's use of the topography of the rock walls while also enhancing my basic understanding of the overall cave environment, all of which heightened the all-important feeling of being there.
Looping back to your previous comment about the compatibility of the 3D effect with a film's overall tone, Herzog's 3D use would seem more than justified, because the effect is a direct extension of Herzog's cinematic intent. And yet it's only fair to point out that one of the reasons the 3D is so noticeable in Cave of Forgotten Dreams is because Herzog is constantly calling attention to it by explicitly commenting on the shape of the caves. That's not to say that we wouldn't feel the power of the 3D on our own, but it's worth asking, what if the Chauvet caves were simply the setting and not the subject of Herzog's documentary? What if the caves provided the environment for a movie like The Descent? In that case, the 3D effect might not seem necessary, and certainly it wouldn't be so pronounced, as our focus would be on the action in the narrative and physical foreground, but that doesn't mean the 3D wouldn't be effective, enhancing our claustrophobia and/or sense of confinement on a comparatively subconscious level, heightening our feeling of being there.
I bring that up to get us here: If we approach 3D with the attitude that it can only be justified when the effect is noticeable and significant, what we're essentially saying, I think, is that 3D is valid only if a 2D projection of the same film would be cinematically and dramatically inferior. In the case of Cave of Forgotten Dreams I would argue that, yes, a 2D projection is inferior to the 3D version. I wouldn't say the same of Hugo and Tintin, I admit, but I'm not sure it's actually fair to look at them that way. After all, if we were to adjust our collective attitude and put the burden of proof on 2D, I wouldn't call the 3D projections of Hugo and Tintin inferior either. In moments? Absolutely. On the whole? No.
Interesting discussion, though I would have hoped you'd have something to saw about Wim Wenders' Pina as well.
Not only do I remember 50′s era 3-D my favorite film of that era was Sangaree directed by Edward Ludwig (a great fave of Jean-Luc Godard's) It stars Fernando Lamas and takes place largely in a swamp.
Are there any 3-D prints of it still in existence?
Hitchcock's Dial M For Murder is a great film in 3-D and merely a good one, flat. It explores a single room with an intensity in excess of both Rope and Michael Snow's Wavelength (its only peers.)
David: Yeah, unfortunately we wrapped this conversation a few weeks before Pina became available, otherwise it would be been perfect to include.
I've never experienced Dial M for Murder in 3D, but as you watch it in 2D you can tell that Hitch was thinking 3D-first.
Hokahey says -
Thanks for all your great Conversations! You two are amazing.
I do not need 3D. If a movie presents its story vividly and absorbs me with its story, it's all 3D in my mind. I don't even need it if the result is "significant" because I am made too aware of the artifice because of the glasses. I saw the releases of The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast in 3D and I noticed the added depth of field. Fine. Then the enchanting stories took over and I didn't care about the added depth. Interestingly, seeing the latter I learned how 3D can go wrong. I thought my glasses weren't working. Objects were blurry and had double lines. I got up, told the manager, and then the projectionist focused the 3D – which looked like a wipe cut falling over the frame twice, and then suddenly it was 3D. Interestingly, I think everybody else in the theater noticed the blurriness but was willing the endure the whole film unfocused.
I must say I am irritated by all these re-releases. I want new movies. However, I am very excited about one re-release: Titanic. I have seen the preview multiple times and it has gotten me as excited as I was when I saw the movie 6 times on the big screen in 97-98. I will definitely race to see this movie in April. (Ha! Sank in April, clever.) But I won't care if Jack and Rose and the bow of the ship strike me right between the eyes. I will just take delight in what is going on in the movie, as it has been going on since 1997.
David, I've never seen Dial M for Murder in 3D either, but I will say that I've always thought it was decidedly minor Hitch, charming but slight. Not sure if the extra dimension would change that for me.
Hokahey: what you say about an audience that would have been willing to sit there watching a blurry movie hints at something bigger, that audiences are pretty disinterested in aesthetics in general, which may explain why 3D, which often makes the images dim and blurry and disorienting, hasn't been able to succeed anyway.
Today's 3-D is nowhere near as blurry as it was in the past.
I'm not in favor of converting flat films to 3-D. It's aform that should be utilized from the first and worked all the way through. Hugo is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. It's not a bag of tricks. It's 3-D gives us access to the world it creates that a falt film woudl not.
Pina,?i> recreates excerpts from a number of Bausch's dance theater peices. And as she tuilized the stage in a very full and complete way — with different actiosn going on simultaneously, 3-D truly enhances her work.
I enjoyed 3D in Pina and Herzog. The rest of the movies, not so much. It's bothersome to pay extra and wear those glasses and sit in a correct position just to… get the movie that's neither better or worse.
Pina and Herzog are about space. Ideal movies for 3D. It's like you are in theather in Wupperthal, it's like you are in the cave, you get to know the space you didn't know. You have to see it in 3D to truly understand what it's about.
I have yet to see a fiction movie that would have something like that. Even great directors, they say "now I thought in 3D" but you can see they didn't – they didn't envision the space, only the image.
Perhaps what's holding them back is that every movie has to be watchable in 2D. That's not a thing with other technologies: you don't have "talkies" that were made to be perfectly understandable without sound, etc. There are some special "3D-only" movies but as far as I know, they're all just some "let's explore Safari/the space/the ocean" mini-documentaries. No big 3D movie. I'm going to see Hugo in 3D just to check it out when I can, but I'm starting to think it will stay a gimmick not worth attention for some more time.
Hey guys, this is a really good piece. It reminds me: when I first heard that Scorsese and Spielberg were both releasing films in 3D at the tail-end of 2011, it made me think something along the lines of, "Well, if they can't convince me that 3D is actually worth a damn, nobody will."
In fact, I thought Hugo and The Adventures of Tintin were both, on their own terms, amazing, outstanding films; they both made my Top 5 of the year. I did, however, have mixed feelings about the ways in which they each utilized 3D. For me, Hugo had plenty of charms that *included* its striking usage of 3D, whereas Tintin turned out to be a great film *in spite of* its rather superfluous use of the medium. This passage by Ed sums up my feelings rather well:
With Hugo, I had two extreme reactions to the 3D imagery: I thought it was inventive and powerful at times (especially in the recreations of Georges Méliès' films) and distracting and gimmicky at others, as in all the shots where something juts out of the frame just because it can. While watching Tintin, on the other hand, there were long stretches where I barely noticed the 3D. Some of the frenzied action sequences were perhaps a little more disorienting than they would have been in 2D, and occasionally I felt that familiar and uncomfortable 3D sensation of having my gaze ripped from one focus to another. For the most part, though, I felt like Tintin did very little with 3D, for good or ill, but maybe that's just because it's such a different movie than Hugo.
Here's something else I might add to that. Hugo was, without a doubt, the best experience I've ever had with 3D in a theater, and the sheer act of admitting this brings a goofy smile to my face; I mean, after all the senseless garbage that's come out of 3D in the last 3 or 4 years or so, it finally took the director of Taxi Driver to master the process? The irony of that just makes chuckle.
But then I look at some of those magical 3D shots in Hugo, like the train popping out of the screen (a brilliant way of giving modern-day audiences an inkling of how audiences back in the pre-motion picture days might have reacted to such a shot), and I'm not laughing anymore. Hugo really IS a splendid demonstration of how to do 3D the right way, and I say that as one who has witnessed some of the more excessive uses of it at those theme parks in Orlando, Florida (namely Terminator 3D). Although I can't really argue with Ed's suggestion that Hugo has its "gimmicky" 3D moments, I don't have much of a problem with them. When the director is Scorsese, I'm usually open to just about anything gimmicky (as long as it ain't boring).
Now, with Tintin, I can't say for sure whether the 3D was all that necessary. Unlike with Hugo, where the 3D factors into the storyline (innovations in the movie industry), the 3D in Tintin is just kind of… there. I think the movie itself is great, but as far as the 3D goes, I don't remember much that made it any more exciting than it would have been had I seen it in 2D.
The one distinct 3D shot in all of Tintin that I remember enjoying the hell out of is the golden treasure coins flying straight out of the screen after Francis Haddock has blown up Red Rackham's ship. But aside from that one, uber-cool shot, I don't remember much about the 3D. Maybe there were some 3D enhancements in that long-take chase sequence in Bagghar at the end, but if there were any, I couldn't tell you; my attention was focused too much on the brilliant economy of the sequence in general. You don't need 3D for that.
The discussion you guys have been having on the merits of Tintin itself is interesting. I'm a fan of the Herge comics, but I will concede that Jason's criticism about how Wright, Moffat and Cornish probably assume too much emotional involvement, from the audience, in Tintin himself — as a character — is a valid one. Then again, however, Hugo in Hugo wasn't all that well-developed, either. In fact, I'd argue that Hugo and Tintin are both intended to be juvenile windows into the lives of older, broken adult characters in the two stories. Hugo is not meant to be Hugo's story, but Georges Melies'. Similarly, The Adventures of Tintin is not meant to be Tintin's story, but Captain Haddock's. Here is a man who is a drunk, a loser and a pauper — an embarrassment to his family legacy. Tintin and Snowy, however, are instrumental in restoring Haddock his dignity, and that's what makes the film more emotionally-involving than its detractors suggest.
There are, after all, going to be Tintin sequels (isn't Peter Jackson going to direct the next one?), so we have an entire trilogy to learn more about Tintin as a protagonist. What we learn about him in The Secret of the Unicorn is quite enough: he's intelligent, he's punctual, he's observant, and he tries to prevent distractions in his missions whenever he can (notice that witty scene where he insists Haddock stop drinking, so that he can finish his story about Red Rackham's treasure). There's also Snowy, who is quite possibly the smartest movie dog to come along in quite awhile. Most dogs in Hollywood movies these days tend to be dumb and reckless, but Snowy is actually a SMART dog, capable of solving crimes and getting to the bottom of mysteries (just like his master). Only Uggie in The Artist makes for stiff competition.
But back to 3D. I was so floored by Scorsese and Spielberg both trying their hand at the process last year that I was disappointed Francis Ford Coppola's Twixt didn't see the light of 2011, too. Coppola has, apparently, been struggling with the process; he's been known to badmouth 3D before, and I suspect the only reason he's been trying to use it on Twixt is because his producers advised him to. Incidentally, I have no idea when Twixt is actually going to be released. Anyone know?
Ogqozo makes a great point: "Perhaps what's holding them back is that every movie has to be watchable in 2D. That's not a thing with other technologies: you don't have 'talkies' that were made to be perfectly understandable without sound, etc."
I think that's pretty much right on, and may just be the #1 reason why 3D is so inconsistent. Directors essentially have to hedge their bets a little because a movie that ONLY works in 3D would be a big problem for distribution and DVDs and TV viewing.
Adam, I agree with you about Tintin. Jason probably is right that the film assumes too much emotional involvement from the audience, but like you, it wasn't much of a problem for me because I love the comics. The script smartly draws a lot of good stuff from Secret of the Unicorn (the drinking/story scene you mention is right out of Herge, and Herge's staging of it is arguably better) along with selected bits and pieces from other albums. Making the film Haddock's story of redemption, though, is an invention of the script, and as you say, a very good one: it's a surprisingly moving story, and he's the film's real character, while Tintin is pretty much a pleasant cipher, which works just fine IMO.
Cosign on Ogqozo's observation.
Adam: Hugo is not meant to be Hugo's story, but Georges Melies'. Similarly, The Adventures of Tintin is not meant to be Tintin's story, but Captain Haddock's.
Agree on TINTIN. The thing with HUGO, though, is that it's very much about childlike wonderment, which makes it very much Hugo's story, even when it's Hugo and Isabelle's story, and, to some degree, even when it's OUR story, as Scorsese attempts to make us remember what it is to fall in love with movies for the first time. Tintin is much more of a cipher. I didn't dislike him. But somehow I found his adventures lacking, mainly because the movie never stops long enough to take a breath between them.
Great conversation guys! This actually might be the first in the series where I find myself more in agreement with Jason (haha, please don't take any offense, either of you! The argumentative dichotomy is always a pleasure). I find this traditionalist denial of 3D to be really aggravating and pretty regressive, because one of the fundamental ways in which art forms advance is through technological experimentation. Ed, I consider the perception of 3D as "limiting" to be, well, a limited perspective. If we look at 3D only in terms of how the form is being used at this moment – that is, with greedy, cynical blockbuster spectacles at worst and accessible stylistic exercises from powerhouse filmmakers like Scorsese and Spielberg at best – then yes, the third dimension seems pretty dismal and uninspiring. But I am skeptical of any outright dismissal of a technique in itself, especially when that dismissal rests on criticisms that judge the technique through some other yardstick (2D). Jason's point is particularly well put: "the problem with that argument is that it falsely implies that 2D films aren't full of the same: moments in which filmmakers "force" our eyes to points on the screen, either by what they choose to leave in focus or by what they choose to leave outside of the frame altogether." While the norm in 3D films at the moment is that they do encourage passive viewership, that's not to say that some artist will come along and singlehandedly try to reverse that trend. Not to mention that it's hard to argue that most contemporary 2D Hollywood blockbusters – marketed right alongside 3D features – don't create a passivity in the audience.
I'm definitely not celebrating 3D, especially not when it has so many hurdles to overcome at the moment. But if it can sidestep some of the logistical pitfalls (the cumbersome glasses, the blurriness) – and there's no reason that it cannot considering the rapid rate of technological progress in the world today – I believe that something truly unique and inspirational can emerge from 3D. For the sake of argument, what if the second-coming of Stan Brakhage came along and made a 3D experiment? What if someone used double or triple projection with the added depth of 3D? Essentially, what if a director acknowledged and took glorious advantage of 3D's unusual ability to problematize human vision and perception? When that happens, it certainly won't be marketed towards the multiplexes, but I'd be the first in line wherever it screens.
Carson: Truly, no offense taken. (I can only imagine your exasperation as you read this. "Wait. What? I'm agreeing with fucking Bellamy again? This can't be right!")
Your last paragraph hits on something that Ed and I danced around but never completely engaged with: I think it's safe to assume that 3D's reputation among "serious" cinephiles is being tarnished in part because the technique is being used to not-so-serious ends, creating an association between 3D and gimmickry that I'm not sure is intrinsic. In saying that I don't mean to imply that the criticisms against 3D are baseless — in general or when applied to the films we discussed. However, I'm sure 3D would be seen differently if a filmmaker like Brakhage was the one leading the 3D movement and not someone like Cameron.