3D northern lights captured by Japanese filmmaker

An award-winning Japanese filmmaker says he's the first artist to shoot the aurora borealis in threedimensions.

IkuoNakamuradid it in the Northwest Territories.

"It's coming out from the screen," he says."You feel like you can touch it."

A blog post from the artist describes the process of capturing the images despite freezing temperatures.

"It was really challenging when I had to work over a frozen lake under -30 C," Nakamura writes.

"I made a lot of mistakes especially during the first week.There were unexpected malfunctions due to cold temperatures (including malfunctions of my motor skills and brain).There were numerous trials and errors.

"Frostbite was a serious danger," he writes. "I was not supposed to touch anything with my bare hands as everything including cameras and tripods were all frozen."

Nakamurasays he was drawn to shooting aurora borealis in 3D because it's the largest light show on earth.

'I believed it was possible'

Nakamura says the cold wasn't the only challenge to capturing theaurora in 3D. He says large objects like the moon tend to appear flat to human eyes and he sought a way to counteract this optic illusion.

Whereas human eyes are about eightcentimetres apart,Nakamura expanded the distance between his cameras to betweenfive and tenkilometres.

"Everybody including my wife said it was impossible:Don't do that," he says. "But I believed it was possible."

Nakamura used stars as reference pointsto blend the twovideos together.

The result is a stereoscopicfilm which is viewed with 3Dglasses.

The 10-minutefilm hasalready been shown in Germanyand New Yorkand Nakamura has plans to screen it inJapan.

Film to be screened in Yellowknife

NWT Tourism will bescreening the film in Yellowknife this weekend, at the Chamber of Commerce's annual Spring Trade Show.The Northwest Territories' governmenthelped pay for some ofNakamura'stravel.

Nakamurafirst approached the territory's tourismdepartment in 2013 with stills and an explanation of theconcept.

About a third of the territory'stourist dollars come from people visiting to see the aurora. The department says that segment is growing.

The department has ordered 3Dglassesthatfeature the NWTtourism logo.