When does the Green Screen stop?

[Greggl]

I think its really become a semantic argument. 'CG' or 'Effects' movies aren't really
a genre onto themselves anymore. Saving Private Ryan had a ton of work, but
it was purposefully left out of academy competition for 'Best Visual Effects' because
it didn't want to be considered as such. On the other hand, you've got films like
Kong and the 'tent pole' action films that rely on *whatever* technology is
state of the art to put folks in the seats and take em for a ride. Same tech, different
usage and varying levels of 'obvious' breaking of realistic constraint.

We're also witnessing a bit of a transition. In the field, we've had more than a
decade of the technician/artists, as the tools tended to be very intensive and
somewhat of a different paradigm than a stand-in for their real world equivalent.
This is changing. The tools are now to the point where a 'real world' DP can be
more quickly comfortable as the CG tools, now mimic how their traditional tools
behave, MUCH more closely.

Personally, I specialize in the hybrid films. Live action/cgi, traditional cel/cgi, etc.
At the end of the day, it is all pretty much the same.

 

[zoostory]

machinist. Howabout this. Hitchcock shot most of north by northwest on a soundstage with projected backdrops. He hated shooting outside. Kubrick shot Eyes Wide shut on a completely built set of New York made in London because he was weird that way

Roman Polanskis "The Pianist" had as many visual effects shots (in order to create a destroyed poland) and greenscreen shots than "Batman Begins"

All of "O Brother where art though" and "Sideways" were completely re-colored so as to have a completely different look in post production using Digital Intermediates.

I guarantee you you have seen many, many films that have a ton of visual effects, but you didn't notice because they call attention to themselves.

Movies like sky captain and sin city call attention to the animation because that is what the directors wanted to do.

Still, the directors had to go on a set and work with real live performers to achieve a sight and sound performance. Even in King Kong, where Andy Serkis acted out every movement of the ape. Where as in a truly animated film the director would work to acheive a sound performance for dialogue, but everything visual would be created from the imaginations of talented artists.

Of course, many films are blurring the line these days. That's because we have all this exciting technology that allows us to, and lots of artists want to play and discover new storytelling techniques...

but to categorize films based on their technical use of visual effects is just such an oversimplification and way off base my friend!

 

[P!body]

It really does seem like that trend is growing. Now that the technology has reached this point- completely composited backgrounds make $en$e. I wonder if America will ever embrace a film if it was completely animated (actors and all- but not like Toy Story, more like the Final Fantasy movie) There seems to be less commercial acknowledgement for animation than say your everyday live-action.
Thoughts?