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Movie Landmarks for CGI Effects?
Daniel German asks: "I am in the process of preparing a lecture on the influence of computers and computer science in the movie industry. I'd like to include excerpts from the most important landmarks, and in order to give credit where credit is due, I'd like to ask for help from the Slashdot community. What are those movies and moments? The Westworld robot vision; the city landscapes of Blade Runner; Final Fantasy; Toy Story; the water beings from The Abyss; the starting sequence in Forrest Gump; bullet time; and so on. What do you consider to be the scenes that have become landmarks in computer generated special effects in Movie History? I am not only looking for Science Fiction, in fact, I'd like to have a wide range of examples on how computers have altered the way that a director can bring his or her vision to the screen "
Young Sherlock Holmes is listed on IMDb as the "First feature film to have a completely CGI (computer graphics image) character: the knight coming out of the stained glass window (animated by Pixar)."
Boids are fun, and used in Batman Returns, The Lion King and a lot of other movies to simulate flocks and flock-like things.
It was done entirely on computers, no models. The DVD has a documentary on it: it was a landmark in that it only used CGI for the ships, spaceflight, etc. Also, the kid brother in that was in Invaders from Mrs- another 80's classic, even if it was a remake.
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... are the ones you never see.
If memory serves, Back to the Future 2 made good use of CG effects by removing the wires that held the hover-boarders over the ground to appear as though they were defying gravity.
True Lies is one of the milestones in the digital fx industry. Not so much for 3D rendering, but for compositing and for motion tracking. You'd be surprised what all went into making Arnie pilot the Harrier over a city block.
It's neat to use computer generated effects to wow people, but there's little attention given to the digital effects that are used to keep people from being distracted. Who would have enjoyed BttF2 if they could see the wires holding up the hovery things?
"Derp de derp."
Beauty and the Beast beat Aladdin by a year, with the ballroom scene...
This sig intentionally left justified.
With its CGI fog. Plus, it's non-Hollywood, non-American film. It could make for some nice variety.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
This is an excerpt from Understanding Computers, an old Time-Life book, that covers how the CG inTRON and The Last Starfighter were done that you may find of interest for your lecture.
True...
However, 'Rescuers Down Under' in turn beat Beauty and the Beast by a year (with CG that was integrated much better) and 'The Great Mouse Dective' beat B&B by 5 years
In The Greate Mouse Detective, the climx in the works of Big Ben is the main thing to take note of.
Rescuers was much more impressive, but underrated. It's computer work was much less jarring that Beauty (where the ballroom looks like a completely different movie), and was used to further the story. From an animation standpoint, it was quite impressive. The opening sequence, for one, really used things to help the story without jumping out at you.
Oh, and 'Oliver and Company' did have some also, but not as much to note
The cityscapes in Blade Runner were all models. They did use computer controlled cameras, but that was about it.
From the ILM books and 80's Siggraph annuals you should look at:
The early days -- Replacing models with CGI. The spectical of CGI itself.
TRON (CGI + Live Action + Rotoscoped Animation)
Young Sherlock Holmes (stained glass knight)
The Great Mouse Detective (use computers to create 'pencils' for clockworks scene)
Star Trek II (Genesis Planet animation -fractals)
Last Starfighter (cgi spaceship)
Abyss (cgi/actor interaction)
The middle phase -- Hybrid/Partially Synthetic actors. Partially Synthetic environments.
Jurassic Park (synthetic non-human actors, sorta)
Flintstones (dino)
Babylon 5 - (synthetic environments, desktop-level software)
Star Wars - The Phantom Menace (Yoda, Jar Jar)
Then we have a leap. With The Matrix you now have the ability to create a synthetic camera. Add to this the leap in sythetic environments (subway fight scene).
The next phase is going to be realistic human synthetic actors. So far, the results are not that impressive. Spiderman CGI was over animated as was the cgi humans in the Matric reloaded.
Artists will need to realize that the squash and stretch so necessary to create convincing motion in non-realistic animation carries with it, the immediate recogition as non-real. Subtle effects based on movement, cloth and interaction with the environment will come in the next five years to create realistic human movement. Creating the realistic human face will take a lot longer.
A list like this is difficult to compile. If you included every single film that made an advance in CG, you'd end up with a mile-long list. Since the original poster asked for influential uses of CG, I'm only going to include films that had a big impact on Hollywood and its view and use of CG. Films that, while certianly worthy in their own right, didn't impact Hollywood in regards to their use of CG are excluded from my list.
They are:
Willow (first film to use morphing)
The Abyss (water tentacle)
T2: Judgement Day (T-1000; was more than just the standard 2D morph)
Jurassic Park (dinosaurs)
Forrest Gump (Various invisible 2D effects, digital removal of Gary Sinise's legs the most notable and most well done)
Titanic (realistic CG water, CG stunt doubles)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Gollum)
I'm intentionally excluding movies like Tron and The Last Starfighter, because they weren't very influential. Tron bombed, The Last Starfighter broke even, and more importantly nobody "Ooh"'ed and "Aah!"'ed their use of CG. I'm not saying that the CG in those movies wasn't done well, just that it didn't influence many people.
I believe Pixar's first feature film work was in The Wrath of Khan. They did the exploding planet with the Enterprise flying away. This was when they were still a part of Lucas's empire. Lucas had to sell some divisions of LucasFilm when he got a divorce, since California law says spouses must split things 50-50. That's when Steve Jobs bought it and named it Pixar. I'm pretty sure Lasseter was a part of it even then.
Alex.