Wachowski Brothers Speed Racer.

[Harva Raj]

I also saw the trailers and thought, "Maybe when it hits DVD." But then I went and saw it with my 12 year old son (in a theater packed with 9-15 year olds and their fathers). . . it was amazing!!! It got a rousing standing ovation (I do not kid).

Yeah, it was a bit over the top, but so was the cartoon! Cinematic anime. I thought it was a great interpretation.

Actually, I also appreciated the lighting. (On the talent, that is.)

Go Speed, Go!

exactly! Gen Y people love this kind of films. (cartoon/cinematic anime). they are the target audience for my next (indie) film.

 

[suwak]

What you might want to read (if you didn't already) is latest issue of VRMag (www.vrmag.org) with lots of in depth articles about Speed Racer vfx techniques and video interviews with John Gaeta at BoingBoingTV:
http://tv.boingboing.net/2008/05/05/speed-racer-is-popti.html
http://tv.boingboing.net/2008/05/09/speed-racers-photoan.html

Anyways, vfxs are damn expensive, time consuming and require a lot of enormously talented people, whose abilities doesn't come within days but years of training, experience and knowledge, and I mean some really hardcore knowledge and training. If you're anyhow familiar with compositing and any aspect of 3d, you know how hard and time consuming it is. So don't be amazed by huge budgets and don't try this at home (or at least don't pretend to get the same quality).
Of course there are one-man-armies, as mentioned here, Makoto Shinkai or Gareth Edward (although both quite different worlds), but so are John Gaeta and his crew, teams at ilm, imageworks, dneg, digitaldomain and many other studios that consume those huge budgets to deliver outstanding quality at unbelievable scale (number of vfx shots) within reasonable time, say up to two years.

 

[Harva Raj]

If you're anyhow familiar with compositing and any aspect of 3d, you know how hard and time consuming it is. So don't be amazed by huge budgets and don't try this at home (or at least don't pretend to get the same quality).

thanks for the link. it really helped. but why cant we achieve the same result with arsenal of indie equipments. Mac Pros, Cal digit HD Storages, REDBOX(parallel renders), shake 4.0, Motion 3, After Effects. working with one vfx shot for 3 days for 18-24 months in the garage (with a day job to bring food to the table) is possible, and might give a same quality. why will it not?

 

[Ed Blythe]

... The next favoured action style...

....

but do you think with 4k + and the (growing) ability to deliver that image, that its going to remain a styllistic choice or is green screened hyper focus going to be the style pushed as "most suitable" for the technology?

Another example of the technology leading the content rather than the other way around.
-coz

I don't think this is the tech leading the content - definitely the reverse, in fact. The idea to do this grew out of the cel style animation of the original TV series (and a lot of anime - where backgrounds and foregrounds are all in focus, and moving slightly out of sync with each other) that they were remaking into this movie. It's not about greenscreening or getting around the laws of optics, it's about transposing a visual characteristic of the source material into the remake.

Can't see this taking off the same way that shaki-cam did - that was a low cost, time-saving device that (under conventional directorial thinking) heightens the subjectivity of the action. Here's a great article by David Bordwell about this trend:

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=1175

I was particularly intrigued by the things that the technique 'covers' (which I think is part of the reason it was so successful in shepherding thru 24 despite the seemingly incomprehensible and unexecutable production requirements of that show).

[I think Greengrass' use of this technique is impeccable, btw - and I do NOT like a handheld camera, but he uses it with intent to a specific dramatic purpose. Def not hacking on him or his work.]

 

[Michael Schrengohst]

The turnaround time demanded on a major feature.

Yes, you could do it. But let's put it in perspective. Speed Racer was more than 1000 very complex, high-geometry, high-resolution VFX shots with a turnaround time of a few months. Now factor in modeling, texturing, rendering, 2D and 3D compositing... and that editorial changes, script changes, and VFX changes are constantly coming that must be accomodated. And the Studios demand dailies delivered in several different formats, as well as regular screenings in multiple locations.

Still think you could do it on a couple of Mac Pros? : )

Good, fast, cheap. Pick two.

Lucas
------
ASSIMILATE, inc.
LA, CA, USA

Ugghhh, to think of all that time, talent and money going down the drain.
Heads will roll on this one....
I am afraid I will have to endure watching this with my 8 year old son.
Maybe I can take a nap.

 

[Ayz Waraich]

I seem to remember watching countless cartoons as a kid with bright colors and no selective focus. Considering most of us had no problem as 10 year olds dealing with jam packed colorful frames, as long as a story was being told -- why would we now?

Sure, taste mature -- but that has very little to do with what works or what doesn't.

IMHO.

 

[Ruairi Robinson]

thanks for the link. it really helped. but why cant we achieve the same result with arsenal of indie equipments. Mac Pros, Cal digit HD Storages, REDBOX(parallel renders), shake 4.0, Motion 3, After Effects. working with one vfx shot for 3 days for 18-24 months in the garage (with a day job to bring food to the table) is possible, and might give a same quality. why will it not?

It's very simple, if you are working to a hard deadline, you don't have the luxury of figuring things out at your own pace, at home, in a garage, no matter how good the food is. If you have a release date, there are legal ramifications to not delivering. If you HAVE to deliver, then you have to overcompensate to make absolutely sure you deliver on time.

It's also a matter of volume, and maintaining a consistent level of quality over a large, large number of shots. 20 or 30 or fifty at home is manageable, 2000 shots is not.

Also the people who are really good at this get paid well, and deservedly so. They trade "having a life" for it...!

 

[M Most]

thanks for the link. it really helped. but why cant we achieve the same result with arsenal of indie equipments. Mac Pros, Cal digit HD Storages, REDBOX(parallel renders), shake 4.0, Motion 3, After Effects. working with one vfx shot for 3 days for 18-24 months in the garage (with a day job to bring food to the table) is possible, and might give a same quality. why will it not?

3 days is barely a starting point for many of the shots you're talking about. There are shots in large features that are worked on for months - and that's not an exaggeration. The equipment/software is not the issue. Many of the shots you see are created in the same tools you can use - Shake, After Effects, Maya, Boujou - and the versions they have are generally no different than what you can buy. The difference is the level of expertise, the level of artistry, the level of commitment, the team surrounding the software that can make it do things it's not really designed to do off the shelf, and lots and lots of time. It's often said that really great VFX shots are never finished, they're just abandoned. And that's generally true, which means that it takes a great eye and a deep understanding of what makes a shot really work to produce the level of artistry you see on the big screen, and that eye and that understanding usually come from a very talented and experienced visual effects supervisor. If you have that, it's a big step towards producing excellent visuals. If you don't, you're likely to be caught thinking that what you have is a lot better than anyone else will think it is.

 

[Jaime Vallés]

Just saw Speed Racer last night with my wife. We both loved it! I'm not sure what people were expecting from this movie, but we thought it was very fun, exciting, and extremely cool looking. They absolutely succeeded in making it look and feel like live-action anime. The racing scenes were awesome, and the story was cute and simple.

Thoroughly entertaining, and highly recommended as brain candy. Seeing it in a big theater is a must (though you may want to sit toward the rear of the audience).