Catherine Owens, U2 3D's director, sat with me Saturday morning while she had her makeup done for the director's brunch, and marveled at how she got from the concept phase of our project four years ago to today. In between whispering side comments to Chris, the makeup artist, about how she never wears makeup, she spoke about how thrilled she was to be celebrating the experience with her core team, the editor, music producer, producers, visual effects supervisor, and their teams. An artist by trade, Catherine began as U2's creative director when she designed the cars that hung from the rafters for U2's Zoo TV tour. Coming from that background, she never imagined herself ending up at what is by all accounts, the definitive North American festival-especially in the year where Robert Redford's introductory remarks were about artists as agents of change, and the increase in submissions from artists of other disciplines crossing over into film.

After reminding Chris that it had to be waterproof mascara or nothing, she talked in her musical Irish clip about what an honor it was to also share the fruits of everyone's labor with a town full of people who know how to make films. In fact she was giggling at the idea that, "..these Irish folks were being dropped smack dab in the middle of such fabulousness." But she was most excited about being part of something that was truly on the cutting edge technically, visually and sonically.

Catherine Owens, "There is really no way to prepare people for the experience of seeing this film. My team and I have worked to push 3D up to the next level. When Producer Pete Shapiro approached me years ago with this idea of doing a project with U2 in 3D, one eyebrow went up. But for whatever reason, maybe because the seemingly impossible is incredibly enticing, Pete and I and a small army of incredibly talented misfits came together with the single purpose of having compelling musical storytelling seen through the filter of technology so new, it was being completed as we went along."

Co-Executive Producer Scott Mednick, "Coming from working on 300, I didn't think it was possible to be part of yet another filmic experience that was presenting images and technology that had never been seen before-that had to truly be seen to be believed. But when I was shown just a few songs in 3D during editorial, I couldn't believe it was happening again. I think one of the big reasons that the imagery and technology got so far is that Catherine started as an artist and when you think about the way an art piece is created, one of the steps is to walk around your creation and look at it from various angles. She moved onto visuals for live performances, again, creating a piece that has to be built from many angles. The natural progression was bringing that to 3D, a format with a long history in film, but one that in the past used the gimmickry of sending images out to the audience and trying to grab them. With U2 3D, there is no need for the gimmickry because you, the individual moviegoer, is grabbed and pulled in. Catherine and this team of vanguards has made the technology disappear and has made infinity behind it."

Because of this, the film couldn't be marketed traditionally. There were no TV spots because it didn't make sense to show on TV in 2D, and the trailer was only shown in 3D ahead of Beowulf. While there was a dynamic 2D teaser that will be tactically shown on the jumbo-tron in Times Square and online, it contains no 3D footage. In fact, the film will never been seen two dimensionally. The band decided if they were to do this, it had to go all the way. The material had to be so compelling that there would be no reason to create a plan b set of images in 2D. But, this is not a group, neither the band nor the filmmakers, who bother with plan b anyway.