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NORMALLY people I interview don't throw around the "jerk" word until they think I'm out of earshot. With Jeffrey Katzenberg, he's dropped it into his first sentence.
The DreamWorks Animation boss has just shown a cinema of 100 movie writers 20 minutes of footage of Monsters vs Aliens, DreamWorks's first 3D animation that Katzenberg promises will change the world when it's released in June.
This new generation of 3D effect defies easy explanation, suffice to say that seeing is believing.
"If a picture is better than 1000 words, a 3D picture is better than 3000 words," Katzenberg says.
The first thing to note about Monsters vs Aliens is that it's missing the gimmick that most people associate with 3D movies. Nothing jumps out of the screen and threatens to push the viewer out of the seat.
"As a joke, at the beginning we actually do something just to get it out of the way," Katzenberg says in a hotel suite overlooking Sydney Harbour a few minutes before he's due to head to the airport and jump on his private jet to head home to the US.
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"It was the director's way of saying to filmgoers this is the first and last moment that we want you to think about watching a 3D movie. You're watching a story. It's a good story if you saw it flat. And the fact that it's in stereo to add a level of dimension and excitement to it, is unlike anything you've experienced before."
Katzenberg was in Australia to promote Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, the sequel to DreamWorks' successful animated animals abroad tale featuring the voices of Chris Rock, Ben Stiller and David Schwimmer.
What he really wanted to talk about was his passionate belief in the power of 3D to transform cinema.
Katzenberg talks of having his moment of conversion in an Imax cinema while he was watching Polar Express in 3D.
"It's my eureka moment. I have to give credit to (Polar Express director) Bob Zemeckis, he is the guy who showed me the path to it. Now I'm taking it to a level that I'm not sure even he imagined."
It's because of the depth of that passion that the jerk word has come out. Fortunately it's not aimed at me, but at LA Times blogger Patrick Goldstein who wrote a piece ridiculing Katzenberg's vision.
Read a review of Madagascar 2
"Had he seen the movie, then I would never have opened my mouth," Katzenberg says of the missile he fired back at the blogger. "He wrote a stupid column. To say that since the introduction of colour there has been no good movies made, that the great movies were made in black and white – I don't think I've ever had someone open themselves up so stupidly and I couldn't help myself."
It is the scope of Katzenberg's vision that has some people unconvinced. Katzenberg says it is only a matter of time before most movies will be made in 3D.
"When was the last time you saw a black and white movie?" he asks, offering a question in response to my own about that bold prediction. "When was the last time you saw a silent film?"
He is just the most vocal proponent of the extra dimension, with other big-name directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson also firmly in his camp . . . but not everyone is convinced.
In a deja vu moment, The New York Times recently ran a summary of stories from the coverage of the release of the first 3D feature Bwana Devil in 1952. There are big promises in the start (this is the death of 2D movies, says one) but within a year the birth notice had turned to an obituary.
"Showmen now admit that the decline of stereopix is due in part to technically faulty, quickly made B pix rushed on the market to make a 'quick buck'," Daily Variety reported in 1953.
That rush to follow the trend is happening again. There are as many as a dozen 3D movies to be released in the next year, with the first being Disney's Bolt that comes out on January 1, and combines the voice of Miley Cyrus and John Travolta. Bolt will come out in America on nearly 1000 screens, making it the widest 3D release.
Read a review of Bolt
Even that figure raises the chicken and egg problem. Cinemas don't want to invest in expensive 3D projectors if there is not enough product to justify it and studios are hesitant to make 3D movies when there are not enough screens to show it on.
The transformation, after unsettled debate about who should pay for the new projectors, is happening, in the US and slowly in the Australian market.
Katzenberg says the last Shrek movie was released in the US on 10,000 screens. When the next Shrek adventure comes out in 2010, he believes 7500 screens in the US will be able to show it in 3D.
"The price we pay for being first is that it will not be as widely available as we would like it to be," Katzenberg says.
"We feel confident we will at least get back the investment we are making.
"The good news about coming first is that you're the pioneer. The bad news about coming first is it won't be as widely adapted at cinema levels as we would like it to be."
Katzenberg, who has a background in Disney theme parks, says the new 3D is not about a gimmick. It's about taking people into the picture, rather than having the picture come out of them.
It is a technology that offers filmmakers the ability to pan a shot along a different axis and Katzenberg has advice for another journalist. He's on a mission, and he wants me to join him in spreading the word.
"You're in for a film experience that's not in this world. It's something more fun, more exciting, more compelling, more immersive, it's not a gimmick, it's not a trick, it's not goofy glasses," he says.
"It is an exceptional way to see an experience of storytelling that's unlike anything that we've seen in our lifetime. That's pretty good, you could say that."
Bolt opens January 1.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa now showing.
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