It was one of those talked-about “Sundance moments,” when for one night, the Eccles Theatre seemed to turn into an 80,000-person arena for the screening of U2 3D. Bono and the band arrived rock star style and were welcomed by throngs of screaming fans as they walked up the red carpet. Inside, the theatre was abuzz with people scrambling to get a good seat for the show. Among them was former U.S. Vice President Al Gore who, like everyone else, donned a pair of 3-D glasses for the occasion.

The film, which utilizes the latest in 3-D digital technology, takes the concert movie to unprecedented heights. The effect is like being right there in the front row... not to mention flying overhead, and on the stage, for the best U2 concert imaginable.

Filmmakers Catherine Owen, Mark Pellington, and the band fielded questions after the screening, and Bono answered the question that was on everybody’s minds: Will U2 one day make a film like the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine using 3-D technology?

Q: How did this project come about?

Catherine Owens: A crazy bunch of guys in Los Angeles decided to invent these 3-D cameras... and they offered it to us. So I went to the band with the idea [and they said] ‘You’ve never directed a film, you don’t know anything about 3-D, these guys are just starting a company, it’s bound to be fabulous.’

Bono: The 3ality Digital people [the company that invented the technology] took a very big risk. It’s very sophisticated equipment that’s just been invented, really, just in time for the shoot. And normally you would be shooting in controlled conditions. We went to South America with all this stuff and it was some kind of feat to pull off. It really took a sort of inhuman effort.

Q: Do you have to wear the 3-D glasses when you edit?

Owens: No, you don’t have to wear the glasses when you edit. It’s a two-part process; we edited the film first song by song in 2-D – a very, very rough edit... and once the basic edit was finished, we took it back to this fabulous new 3-D facility, and then four artists built Olivier’s cut in 3-D. I’m not from a traditional filmmaking background, so I’m proof that this stuff really works and it’s open. 3-D is now open.

Q: Will the band ever consider making a more experimental narrative like the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, or something like that with a deeper story?

Bono: Fuck off. If you’re telling me Yellow Submarine has a deep narrative.... Underneath [U2 3D] there is a narrative operating, and I think it runs through the social activism. It moves through the ideas that fired up our engines over the years and has taken some of those ideas about non-violence and human rights. Taking human rights on the road is hardly a flippant thing to do.