The return of the real fake

Postmaster said:
Sometimes it looks like "Oh Boy, we have that new cool plug in, lets make a movie around it"
Click to expand...

Exactly! Does the movie 'Jumper' mean anything? I have a feeling that some new visfx artist was sitting at his desk playing around with the 'jumper effect' in his free time and some exec walked by and said 'I like that! make it into a movie!'.

Long live special effects, puppets, and props.
 
totally agree....I wan't more real explosions with people really falling and cut to a giant miniature blowing up....and reduce the overused greenscreen shots..It's been my lifelong ambition to train as a special effects technician.....maybe in the future.....
 
I don't think that its the end of CGI, its another tool, it should be used where it is useful, it is true that too much CGI is not a good thing.

But somethings just would be impossible to do otherwise, say you need to create a whole city, to create a miniture model that big would not be feasable, what if say you want to create an army of a million (crowd simulation).

Look at LOTR, they used a excellent mix of CGI + traditional SFX, so again its about using the right method for the right needs.

Anhar,
 
While Spielberg is taking personal inventory of this goofy CGI I hope that he simultaneously gets it through his thick skull (pun intended) that ridiculous attempts at adding over-the-top fantasy into the movies DESTROYS them!

Swinging with the monkeys and then having the monkeys instinctively join the good fight is retarded... as is Caddy Shack ground hogs... and 3D alien stare-downs... etc. etc.

It 'aint JUST the CGI that's the problem... it's the total loss of sensibilities in the production. To me it's as bad as completely unmotivated lighting... like when people are running through the woods in the dead of night and their perfectly lit faces are delivering lines.

As pointed out... the CGI isn't the problem... Jar-Jar Binkian thinking is the problem.
 
Matt speaks the bigger truth.

I don't mind CGI if it's a SUPPLEMENT, an ENHANCEMENT, to traditional effects. But at least someone's noticed that things seem more real if they're . . . well, real.
 
The end for CGI? No. Tapering off of ridiculous and gratuitous use of CGI? Hopefully. Some things are better as practical effects and some things are better as CGI. Both have their times and places and neither is intrinsically better than the other, IMO.


-A
 
I think it comes down to Film Execs realizing they can take the 300 union paid crew, shooting long overtime hours, on an expensive rental sound stage, with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of props, and replace that with 20 guys in a dark room in front of computers running Maya and Nuke. And no teamsters.

That was the worst run on sentence of my life.
 
CGI brings with it the possibility of bringing to the screen otherwise impossible stories. In this case, I'm all for it. If it is just being thrown into a story as an unmotivated device, then I'm against it. It's not the be-all answer but it can certainly be a legitimate tool in the right story in the right hands.
 
emretufekci said:
I wish spielberg had decided to move away from CG, prior to indy 4. What a waste that was.
Click to expand...

I just wanted ONE SCENE like the scene in Raiders where they're secretly digging for the well of souls... with the workers and Indy... in the giant setting sun.

I'd rather have an imperfect diamond full of little flaws then a perfectly polished plastic ball... if the script, acting, and execution isn't good enough... all the film bling in the world isn't going to fool anyone but kids and fools.

Blaine I agree completely that CGI can, and does, make the impossible possible... but I'd gladly be a consultant in Hollywood so I can veto cotton candy flavored chicken wings.
 
I also agreee that th eproblem isn't in the tools(cgi,sfx......). Is how the general mentality of blockbuster filmmakers and execs these days. they think that without overdone special effects people won't like the film. But IMO less effects and more control over all the other aspects(screenplay, as Mattin said lighting.......).

About cgi, I think that they want to create so realistic models that they end up with cartoony cgi, and then add all the extreme color correction they do and you have a live animation film.......
Then you also have good films like LOTR, totally agree with Anhar here.
 
That was either hand matched or it was shot on motion rig and the data feed into the 3d application, 1980! thats impressive
 
I think the biggest problem with CGI isn't that it can look fake, it's that the army of people who work on the effects make it easy for a director to lose his singular vision. Because he's not on a set dealing with a visual reality, he has to depend on an armada of CGI artists to make the shot and it can too easily become a work by committee.
 
Anhar Miah said:
That was either hand matched or it was shot on motion rig and the data feed into the 3d application, 1980! thats impressive
Click to expand...

What I think happened is that the model was plotted out full-scale in the studio, and the camera work done there. Then, the data was fed into a motion control system which duplicated the camera motion inside the model. (It was a physical model.)

But look at the shadow matching, etc.. It's amazing work.
 
watch the segment from 1.51, the shadows look great and spot on, I'm wondering if they had some proxy "greenscreen" pillars (actul props covered in green) that would help in three ways:

(1) Visual clue of the layout for the actor of the imaginary set

(2) correct shadows

(3) No need to do extra compositing work!

I was about to say if mo rigs even existed in 1980, but a quick search revealed it was first available in 1977 (star wars film),

I was going to point out some crits* but it was 1980, so its very difficult to complain.

*slight blue spill on some closeup 1.48 (shoulder area)
*2.57, no shadows under the bench yikes! and slight colorspace difference
 
1979 or 1980; TV budget. Slick work any way you slice it.

It *was* was one of the best documentary series of all time, of course.
 
I worked on the 2nd of these spots at ILM - the one with all the circus performers.

These were a marriage of enormous models and computer composition. A lot of the time, we shot these buildings out in a parking lot next to The Matrix Mannex hangars at Alameda Naval Air Station.

That was great - one of the last huge model projects at ILM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REs7eQNVkQA

e
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top