For the casual movie-goer, filing into cramped theater seats and donning the dorky glasses that accompany any 3D movie might easily ooze “gimmick.” For Charlotte Huggins, it’s sacred ritual.
The film producer and UCSD alum is one of the world’s most prolific producers of 3D films — from blockbusters like 2008’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” to those nostalgic “4D experience” attractions at theme parks (remember Disneyland’s “Honey I Shrunk the Audience”?).
It’s a pretty remarkable achievement in such a specialized field, and it certainly wasn’t Huggins’ plan back in 1980.
“It was a very unexpected but straightforward route,” Huggins said in an interview with the Guardian Wednesday. “I graduated a quarter early but I wanted to do the whole graduation ceremony, so I got a local job at World Research as an economic researcher. And they made movies that had to do with economic topics.”
During this time, Huggins was approached by a USC Film School writer about possibly producing a short, high-concept docu-drama. But at that time she had aspirations for law school and international business.
“He showed up at my door one day and we wrote a script for a little documentary called ‘Interview 15,’” Huggins said. “And it ended up winning all these awards all over the world.”
On the heels of this unprecedented success, law school began to sound a lot less attractive. Huggins moved to Los Angeles and began working her way up the ladder as a production assistant. Soon, she began writing for the hugely successful police drama series “Hunter” with writing partner and now-husband Tom Huggins, up until the Writers Guild strike of 1988.
“It’s funny; [Tom] had an undergraduate degree in film and I had an undergraduate degree in political science, and during the strike he went back to UCLA to get a Ph.D. in biology while I got a job at an FX company,” Huggins said.
At Boss Films, Huggins had her first exposure to early 3D, working on such projects as Sony’s “Wings of Courage” and Disney’s “Honey I Shrunk the Audience.”
“I was hooked,” Huggins said. “I watched the way people reacted to it, and it was so immersive. I dreamt, then, that it would be more than a wave. It would be a tidal wave.”
With practically every animated movie now being released in digital 3D, and the current second coming of 3D re-releases, from the Disney classics to “Star Wars: Episode I,” clearly Huggins’ dreams have been surpassed. Not to mention, she’s found the perfect job.
“The core of producing is setting up the best circumstances possible to make the best movie possible,” Huggins said. “I don’t do the job of the director, or the writer, or the cinematographer, but I get to find all those people, bring them all together and give them the most freedom and the most creative experience possible. And that’s incredibly satisfying.”
But what truly makes Huggins the perfect candidate for mass 3D production is the simple fact that she’s just 3D’s biggest fan — a mark that becomes apparent listening to her gush about her latest project, “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island,” due out this Friday.
“This weekend I will probably see ‘Journey’ — I hate to say it — six or seven times. I’ll see it in digital 3D, I’ll certainly see it in iMAX 3D, I’ll see it in 2D. I love watching people watch the movie.”
Speculations about the near future of 3D are met with even more excitement.
“The next big thing, I believe, is glasses-free 3D,” Huggins said. “The technology is there. The minute you can sit in your house and watch 3D without the glasses is the minute it really, truly becomes ubiquitous.”
In Huggins’ near future: a 3D collaborative film with Metallica — an as-of-yet under-wraps project that will combine a concert performance, narrative and “will star the five members of the band: James, Lars, Kirk, Robert and the fans.”
That’s one more of the countless surprises in the producer’s wildly varied career. (Huggins can’t help but chuckle at the notion of working with one of thrash metal’s most popular bands, though she adds, “they’re amazing, amazing people to work with.”) But as of now, Huggins is simply thankful that she stuck with her instincts.
“I worked hard at UCSD,” Huggins said. “I took French and Italian and a lot of business classes. I knew what I wanted to do and then, whammo, I started doing something totally different. At the end of the day, you gotta keep your eyes open.”
