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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Computers taking over film making..

When I was 7-8 or so I watched Star Wars for the first time. It was immediately my favorite movie.

But even as a kid. With absolutely 0 knowledge of anything related to film making I thought Yoda looked like a lame hand puppet. Tauntauns were stuttery and weird. Jabba the Hutt was obviously made of rubber. And the Rancor wasn't really scary because it was so obviously an effect of some sort.

I didn't notice Chewie (he's a guy in a suit but whatever he looks great) or anything else but those things in particular were obvious to me as rubber.

While the creative decisions that were made in the Special Edition I don't always agree with. I was blown away by the improvement in a few key scenes and for the first time it felt so real instead of being blatantly aware I was watching a stop motion puppet fight Luke.

It sounds like a lot of you just have a problem with the fantasy genre in general. Not CG. Gran Torino doesn't really lend itself to VFX. (I'm sure it has some, it has a VFX supervisor so you definitely missed them. Although the studio which did the VFX is now out of business.) I say you just have a problem with the genre and not the implementation because if they had made Pirates of the Caribean 10 years ago we would have had a dead looking silicon abomination which would have been lifeless and unemotional instead of the absolutely stunning and damn near perfect Davie Jones which we got.

There used to be two choices: Bad Effects or No Effects. Most movies still chose Bad Effects. The level of effects even in a bad film is far better than the rubber and silicon emotionless masks that people used to wear. Digital compositing has allowed far more ambitious miniature and live action integration.

There is nothing that was done before that can't be done much better now and far less obtrusively. Even if that means suits it means we can do hybrid approaches such as Narnia Half-Suit-Half-CG characters where the VFX teams can use practical real elements where affordable and desirable and use CG where most affordable and desirable.

Can it be over used? Of course. So can Pro-Mist filters. I personally thought the prologue to the Fellowship of the Ring was a better battle than the ROTK even though they had millions of more combatants just because the direction was better.

And honestly I would say Michael Bay make more egregious use of pyrotechnics than CG in his films--and they're almost all practical.
 
In my opinion, it's a shame to see good CG wasted on bad scripts (e.g. Dragonball Evolutions).

Nowadays you see so many movies with hundreds of people in the credits... some of these scripts are just noticeably awful.
 
I love me some good CGI. I thought Star Trek was highly entertaining and that CGI only helped advance the story without distracting from it. I've even taken some introductory lessons to Maya. It's incredible to see all the work that goes into the rigging, hierarchies, inverse kinesthetics, etc. But, I also see the other side's contention:

I hypothesize that CGI can serve as a crutch for studio execs. I'm not saying it's the only crutch, as I would put showcasing popular "talent" higher on the list, but still a crutch. If you're an exec and you see two scripts, one with a slightly better theme and emotional impact, the other with some great visual and digital effects opportunities, you're going to spring for the one with more explosions, man! You can't show a heartfelt character arc in a 30-second teaser, but you can show some amazing imagery. CGI hasn't changed this hard reality of the business. A media product has to appeal to the public quickly and easily. Perhaps, however, the great advancements in digital modeling and animation have exacerbated this reality.

That said, I'll be the first to admit that I'm easily entertained by motion graphics. I wish I were better at creating them for my own shorts too...
 
CJ.. your right.. my rant shouldnt have been
(and in my heart wasnt) really about CGI.. but the lack of story and reliance on radical effects to make up for the storytelling shortcomings
 
MiguelOrtega said:
the only difference is one has reached its limit and the other has not.
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I would have to disagree with this line only. My reason is technology is always advancing on all fronts. I would hate for all films to only use CGI and nothing else. Same in the reverse(special effects). Both technologies need to evolve.
 
Joseph Ward said:
I would have to disagree with this line only. My reason is technology is always advancing on all fronts. I would hate for all films to only use CGI and nothing else. Same in the reverse(special effects). Both technologies need to evolve.
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thing is it has,regardless of the romanticism behind it, you are limited to the realities of physics..
 
MiguelOrtega said:
thing is it has,regardless of the romanticism behind it, you are limited to the realities of physics..
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Yes, but the realistic limitations are what makes it somewhat realistic in the first place. But this looks like its turning into one of those endless threads so I will bow out now...:smash:
 
Plundstr said:
Yes, but the realistic limitations are what makes it somewhat realistic in the first place. But this looks like its turning into one of those endless threads so I will bow out now...:smash:
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a mouth moving up and down like a muppet without any phonomes does not look real sorry.

ANYYYYYYYYYWAYS, this thread is going nowhere fast,,, im outta here..
 
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Not to belabor the point, but while I enjoy CGI, let's not scoff at puppets either. Look at something like Farscape. Sure, the show had plenty of digital models and effects, but without the Jim Henson Co. and some amazing puppets, that series would've been dramatically different.

Different strokes for different folks.
 
Farscape is a case where the CG definitely was inferior to the puppets on the budget they had. Then again it was a TV budget on a TV schedule so I'll afford them some leeway. And the puppets were as good as they get.
 
That entire 2012 movie seems to be designed with the sole purpose of creating an awesome trailer with iconic images of landmarks being destroyed. I'm quite sure, from a marketing point of view, that this scheme will work perfectly. Nevermind that the story will probably be a disgrace to cinema. I for one will check it out, just to see those awesome FX. The trailer was packed with really amazing FX.

I am also very, very much looking forward to Cameron's Avatar, which will be nearly entirely "computer generated."
 
CraigWB said:
What's up with everyone dumping all over 2012?! It's a friggin teaser trailer for crying out loud!
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Because it`s just another mindless POS from Roland Emmerich - the only thing this guy seems to be capable of is blowing up New York by lizards, climate, space ships or tectonic plates.

And additionally the movie 2012 is one big statement why those blockbusters loose more and more of their mass appeal since (as dumb mainstream audience may be) even the biggest dumbnut anytime realizes he`s served the same vfx-polished turd again. Or maybe not - as Einstein said "Two things are infinte: universe and human stupidity. But I`m not that sure about universe`s infinity..."
 
I think I speak for at least $150m worth of movie goers when I say I'd pay $10 just to see LA, DC and NY get destroyed by a giant wave and sink into the ocean.

It should also be noted that the last time (to my knowledge) that Emmerich destroyed the white house it was a live action miniature and not CG. :D
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
It should also be noted that the last time (to my knowledge) that Emmerich destroyed the white house it was a live action miniature and not CG. :D
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I think the entire success with that movie belongs to THAT shot being in the teaser trailer. I can't remember what movie I had gone to see for opening night, but the crowd just erupted with cheer when they saw that. As disturbing as that might be now... no one had seen anything like that. And of course it makes no sense whatsoever... but the visual impact was unmistakable.

EDIT: just found the trailer. As with most trailers, they never hold up well. http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/independence-day/teaser-trailer
 
Roger Ebert's Transformers review is worth reading.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090623/REVIEWS/906239997
If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

The plot is incomprehensible. The dialog of the Autobots, Deceptibots and Otherbots is meaningless word flap. Their accents are Brooklyese, British and hip-hop, as befits a race from the distant stars. Their appearance looks like junkyard throw-up. They are dumb as a rock. They share the film with human characters who are much more interesting, and that is very faint praise indeed.
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:biggrin5:
 
To be perfectly fair I doubt that Robert watched the cartoon like I did as a kid. I have to go see it, but I am much more eagerly awaiting G.I. JOE! Woot! Lol, I hope that one is a bit more "new Batman" (which should be a common term!).

I will not miss 2012 at the theater unless my life depends on it. It looks E-P-I-C! (and I am a bit morbid) :)

I REALLY hope Holly-crap doesn't go 3 for 3 on these... one of them has to be good.
 
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