The new virtual sets that have been demoed at the NAB'15 and '16 are actually pretty good - albeit mostly limited to 720p - but they're made for live broadcasts, sales presentations and so on. I am talking essentially what we have just seen from "Ugly Betty" and "Wolf of Wall Street" but designed for general rather than specific project use. I'd like to see virtual sets be comparable in quality to the classic studio lots with the "Western town", the old New York, a city square and so on.
Hollywood workflow VS. rest of the World...?!
- Thread starter Maest
- Start date
The new virtual sets that have been demoed at the NAB'15 and '16 are actually pretty good - albeit mostly limited to 720p - but they're made for live broadcasts, sales presentations and so on. I am talking essentially what we have just seen from "Ugly Betty" and "Wolf of Wall Street" but designed for general rather than specific project use. I'd like to see virtual sets be comparable in quality to the classic studio lots with the "Western town", the old New York, a city square and so on.
Regarding special tools, Industrial Light & Magic uses all the tools you use (photoshop was invented at ILM). But they also have a software team developing special software. Even with that, a colleague of mine who worked on that team was frustrated that they worked so hard at developing special techniques and were getting beaten at the Oscars by other films that used the software that is available to all of us.
As already said, it's talent that makes a great film. The tools are secondary.
As already said, it's talent that makes a great film. The tools are secondary.
paulcurtis
Veteran
This is a dark side to all this too - just because it *can* be done, should it? IMHO there's a lot of digital nip and tuck and replacements and virtual sets just because someone wants to influence or stamp their own mark on something - when the story doesn't really require it.
Sometimes old school solutions are faster, i believe most of Suits was shot with a translite background, you can clearly see weird perspective when you look at an angle onto it. Now one director would have an issue with this and another wouldn't care, you're supposed to be looking at the talent.
I've just done a series of shots of someone sitting on the edge of a cliff, now clearly comping that made sense - way too dangerous for real - but there's plenty of stuff i've done that really could have been avoided on set...
The more talent you have in the chain, the better and faster things will be, that's always been the way. These days though i think the major difference is that chain is a lot shorter, less people needed to pull off more.
hope that makes sense
cheers
Paul
Sometimes old school solutions are faster, i believe most of Suits was shot with a translite background, you can clearly see weird perspective when you look at an angle onto it. Now one director would have an issue with this and another wouldn't care, you're supposed to be looking at the talent.
I've just done a series of shots of someone sitting on the edge of a cliff, now clearly comping that made sense - way too dangerous for real - but there's plenty of stuff i've done that really could have been avoided on set...
The more talent you have in the chain, the better and faster things will be, that's always been the way. These days though i think the major difference is that chain is a lot shorter, less people needed to pull off more.
hope that makes sense
cheers
Paul
The "Wolf of Wall Street" composites were clearly done for the budgetary reasons. As were green screen shots for "Ugly Betty". In the "Game of Thrones" and "Once upon a Time", the VFX are an integral part of the shows that couldn't be done otherwise.
(I was going to post a link to "GoT" VFX but those were a bit too gruesome and everyone knows how and where to find them anyway)
deltoidjohn
Veteran
Hollywood has the budget to get enough skilled crew that they don't end up with all these problems in the first place; proper lighting, smart equipment choices etc prevent these things from ever being an issue.
They use mostly the same equipment that is available to us, but they also get much larger support from the manufacturers - things like early access to cameras, firmware updates, on-site technicians etc, which ensures that the hardware & software is always running at maximum capacity. Not to mention they have spares of everything, because they can afford them.
paulcurtis
Veteran
Just to be contrary (after all vfx is what i do mostly so people in glass houses...) but
First shot, did we really need to replace the buildings either side of that? Aren't most people looking at the party?
Lion. 100% on this, that's VFX at it's best and most useful.
Third shot, if it was a pick up sure, but if it was principal photography, couldn't they could just shoot somewhere with palm trees?
Forth, translite would have been fine and saved a bunch of $$$
Fifth? Really? Why...
Six: translite would have been fine (no motion in the shot, distanced from the window)
Next, well i would like to look at the costs for flying them out to that location with a small crew. Could go either way on this one.
In the park, assuming this was shot in the US for the UK, but i don't think that changed the story if the fountain wasn't there.
The thing about the last shot (according to Rob Legato is that the crane duration was too short and there was masses of roto and retiming on the elements to get it all to work), i can see the point but 10 years ago it would have been a location.
I really am just being devils advocate here. But how many of the shots in that breakdown affected the story? The Lion sure.
In no way am i commenting on the work, which was excellent. Just whether there is an overuse of this these days.
GoT is a fine use of vfx, these worlds don't exist.
cheers
Paul
I don't think that knowing pros and cons is playing a devil's advocate. Without knowing the costs of these composites vs. the cost of a crew, size of a required crew, location rental, etc., it's impossible to make a completely accurate judgement. The assumption on my part was that something was done because it made sense from the economic standpoint and satisfied both the creative and the economic participants, whose interests often collide.
The movie cost $100M to shoot and it contained 400-450 VFX shots (according to Wikipedia). Off other sources, cost per shot varies from $30,000 to over $60,000 and averages $42,000, with the lower budget films being lower (surprise!), down to $10,000.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
I think it also comes down to the time commitment of the actors. Do you send the talent to another country for three or four days to get a couple of shots or do you have an FX team do it so the talent can be working on other parts of the show or doing tours and PR? The talents time is more valuable than a group of FX artists whose job it is to sit in a dungeon and churn out frames. With a TV series time is just as much of a factor as cost.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
"Hollywood" is, of course, a very broad term and while it encapsulates a massive range of budgets, money is almost always a concern in one way or another. Locations are mostly picked because of tax incentives and then it's up to VFX to erase and replace. A friend of mine worked on the upcoming Ghostbusters which shot in Boston for NYC, he said basically every shot was considered an effects shot (and they often didn't bother with green screen).
paulcurtis
Veteran
It is very broad, true.
And if you cannot physically shoot somewhere then sure, that makes sense. Or actor availability, very true. Of course a lower profile and lower budget 'old school' approach would be to base Ghostbusters actually *in* Boston, or another city. But to me, for every exterior shot to be an vfx shot (and is it a 3D shoot? In which case it will all get roto'd anyway so no need for GS) just seems, well, a bit of a waste of money. Think what some other filmmakers could do with that...
Of course you raise the incentives as well, which is something that will probably slowly kill the industry, and that's moving away from the spirit of the OP question. But yeah, if local tax payer are funding the vfx work, then sure - path of least resistance. But doesn't mean it's right.
cheers
Paul
Wow!
I just have to say-WOW!
Wow for the answers, wow for the links (I learned so much from them; never heard of Lustre before for example
wow for the quantity and quality of your replies!
Thank you so much, everybody, for your contributions!
I am glad that my first post here broth something worth discussing in this manner.
As I am rereading the replies, I feel obliged to feedback you a bit.
Yous answers honestly boost up my confidence and lowered the lever of anxiety (and expectstions) but enforced my Faith in Myself! I never felt better about my film talents
I can not describe the level of misery and frustration when I was a kid, misery based on a fact that I could never perform and play the way Jimmy Page does the very intro of Black Dog. Countless nights oh been angry, ocassional tears of desperations and who knows how many tricks and inventions and trials, nothing could make my guitar sound the way Page's Les Paul does. I though it was me and my pick, my fingers, my Roland and my Stratocaster. I wanted to ritualy burn them all. But eventualy I managed to maintain my sanity.
It took good 20 years that I finaly found explanation in an article, from Page himself, that the very intro sound on Boack Dog had nothing to do with actual him playing the guitar (nor it had to do wth Les Paul for that matter) but acctualy it had to do with him playing with magic tricks andctools in sound postproduction!
What that Article did for my music talents, you guys did for my filmmaking. And the best of all, I didn't had to wait for 20 years. Just few days acctualy
Thank you All Oh so much!!!
I just have to say-WOW!
Wow for the answers, wow for the links (I learned so much from them; never heard of Lustre before for example
wow for the quantity and quality of your replies!Thank you so much, everybody, for your contributions!
I am glad that my first post here broth something worth discussing in this manner.
As I am rereading the replies, I feel obliged to feedback you a bit.
Yous answers honestly boost up my confidence and lowered the lever of anxiety (and expectstions) but enforced my Faith in Myself! I never felt better about my film talents
I can not describe the level of misery and frustration when I was a kid, misery based on a fact that I could never perform and play the way Jimmy Page does the very intro of Black Dog. Countless nights oh been angry, ocassional tears of desperations and who knows how many tricks and inventions and trials, nothing could make my guitar sound the way Page's Les Paul does. I though it was me and my pick, my fingers, my Roland and my Stratocaster. I wanted to ritualy burn them all. But eventualy I managed to maintain my sanity.
It took good 20 years that I finaly found explanation in an article, from Page himself, that the very intro sound on Boack Dog had nothing to do with actual him playing the guitar (nor it had to do wth Les Paul for that matter) but acctualy it had to do with him playing with magic tricks andctools in sound postproduction!
What that Article did for my music talents, you guys did for my filmmaking. And the best of all, I didn't had to wait for 20 years. Just few days acctualy
Thank you All Oh so much!!!
There's an English based You Tube channel run out of some music store, whose hosts have a series of "how to achieve XYZ* sound on a £1,500 budget" (XYZ* being a famed guitar player like Page, Hendrix, May, et al). In Page's clip that I have seen a few months ago, they take a Les Paul knockoff, two effects pedals and fairly inexpensive solid state amp and manage to mostly get there with that chain.