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Talk to a Movie Digital SFX Expert
Thad Beier has been working with computer graphics and film since the late 70s. In 1995 he and three partners founded Hammerhead Productions, a company that specializes in computer-generated special effects. Thad received a Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscar people, not the MPAA) in 1998 for one of his many technical innovations. He's worked on Terminator 2, Angels in the Outfield, The Fast and The Furious,
and the upcoming Blue Crush, among other films. He wrote this 1992 Siggraph paper, and now writes all of Hammerhead's software tools and manages the company's mixed bag of SGI and Linux equipment. So ask Thad anything you want about computer-generated special effects. We'll send him 10 of the highest-moderated questions, and post his answers when we get them back.
Since special effects are so expensive, why not go back to having plots?
At one point, as a film student, I was interested in computer animation as a way for a single person or small group to produce a film, without the expense of locations, casting, cameras, etc. I thought that soon, as hardware and software improved, it would be possible for me to create a film on my own computer at home.
But my experience in animation in college taught me that increasing hardware capacity doesn't reduce the time it takes to produce a film or demo reel; it simply increases the quality of the final output. I imagine that the modelling, animation, and rendering of the scenes in Tron took as much human time as comparable scenes in Fellowship of the Ring. It's possible to render Tron-quality CG in realtime on a modern PC, but nobody wants to watch it.
My question is this: do you think it will ever be possible to produce a full-length CG film in about a man-year or less, with effects which are reasonbly "modern" for the time? Will the technology curve eventually flatten out, once we get to a certain point where the human eye can't really tell the difference? Or is it implausible to think that a single person or small group could provide all of the artistic input (scriptwriting, directing, modelling, animation, acting, etc) to produce a full film, even ignoring all technological constraints?
Is a plethora of CS and CG knowledge enough when creating SFX for movies, or do you find advanced knowledge of the movie-making art a requirement as well? For instance, are there times when someone is making an effect that looks good by itself, but breaks some of the "basic rules" of filming or the scene setup. Or instead, do you find yourself unencumbered by the those rules, and able to create more innovative effects without thinking about them?
More apt might be "will the artist ever WANT to do the programmer's job via scripting" - I know quite a few artists that don't mind using the computer, but its more of a chore than a joy. This doesn't seem to be something that changes over time ... it just seems to be a philosophy many creative talents share.
How do you feel CG is effecting films? These days many films opt for fake sets and sequences while the stunt men who worked so very hard in the 80's go begging for work. I always find it very easy to spot the CG textures and colors (can't you guys pick a color palette that actually occurrs in the real world?), and find myself increasingly disappointed by CG even as it "advances" every year. Do directors and producers give you the opportunity to offer input about the overall quality of a CG scene -- whether or not it will be convincing?
I ask this s a long time "fan" of SGI. Given their recent history. What do you see as their future. Can they stay competetive in the high end graphics stations with cheaper Linux solutions popping up? Or do you think they would be better off focusing on their x86 based server stuff? Or something all together different?
It's amazing how spiritual an elaborated beer commercial can be. -- Philip K. Dick
I think if you haven't been convinced, then you'll never be convinced. Special effects are often used when it would be impossible/very difficult to actually film. You probably weren't convinced of the waves in Perfect Storm because you thought to yourself "Nah, that couldn't be shot in real life, it must be CG." I for one, was totally convinced of the CG water in Titanic because I didn't automatically have to disbelieve that they actually shot a regular ocean. I find this problem a lot when people are criticizing CG heavy films such as Star Wars. Everyone says the CG wasn't convincing enough and, true, some shots weren't, but when I was watching the segement where the clones come in and start fighting the battle droid army, I was completely convinced that most of the foreground clones were real, as well as the ground they were standing on and only the background and haze was digital (because it would be impossible for them to get that many clones and huge battle droid stations don't exist), but I found out that pretty much the whole shot was completely CG, and that amazed me. I think CG has gotten to the point where the only way someone can distinguish it from reality is because reality isn't accessible enough when you can just recreate it in the computer.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
I'd be interested to your response to this comment by John Carmack to the effect that "production frames will be rendered on PC graphics cards before the end of next year. It will be for TV first, but it will show up in film eventually."
Do you agree with John that the next year or so will see hardware cards with the power and flexibility (and software tools) necessary to replace software rendering farms for many tasks? If so, do you know what companies/tools he's talking about when he says, "I had originally estimated that it would take a few years for the tools to mature to the point that they would actually be used in production work, but some companies have done some very smart things..."? If not, why not, and when (if ever) do you think hardware will be ready to take over?