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Sky Captain and the Films of Tomorrow
professorfalcon writes "Foxnews.com has an interview with the stars of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. They talk about their experience hugging a green screen for the entire film, and how the movie is 'unlike anything most audiences have seen before. It uses no sets, only computer generated imagery.' So most audiences didn't see Star Wars?"
What's better...
Sky Captain
Star Wars
Sex with a wookie
Sex with a mare
In fact Gwyneth Paltrow was interviewed on TV and the host asked about the green screen and she corrected him.
as far as sci-fi flics go. The backgrounds seem blurry and a bit off-sync with the characters. It's a good start - maybe in 5 years they'll get this blue-screen technology right - and maybe one day they will not need actors either.
Tron only used sets for about ... what 30 minutes, maybe, of a 90 minute movie?
Heavy use of blue-screened backdrops isn't THAT new...
"Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid stupid! I touched the hot wire right there - I'm an idiot!"
It used no actors, only computer generated whiny melodrama
If the special effects make you woozy, take some Milk of Magnesia.
All of the scenes in TRON inside the computer were shot on a bare black set with the computer imagery filled in later. This was done in 1982. The actors talk about how hard that was in the making-of video in the collector's edition box set.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
Star wars is very different. Sure, a lot of the stuff is CG or green-screened, but a lot of the stuff is done on sets with more than just a few props.
GMail invites for completed freeipods.com of
Actors hate it because they have no set to act in.
Audiences hate it because they're made so conscious of the forgery they're watching.
This sort of thing is a nice little novelty, but in time it'll be no more than a niche product.
You're telling me that Star Wars used only computer-generated sets? That there were no physical sets involved at all?
Offtopic I know, but I'm really starting to wish that article submitters could save the commentary for comments...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Star Wars had sets with some green screen work.
... even more green screen work.
Sky Captain has green screen work with
This is the future of special effects movies, because of the creative freedom and reduced costs. The hardest part will be for actors to have something to act against. I think this gets solved by creating preliminary computer models as part of the concept art and using it to show the actors, in realtime, what they're interacting with.
The point is that this film uses more blue screen tech than EVER before. Star Wars, Tron, etc. all had numerous practical pieces. This had the least... That's the point. A marriage of live actors with VR sets (so to speak). There's a whole new paradigm here, it's an aesthetic. No, not entirely new, but pioneering nonetheless.
did you win a free ipod? build a case for it here
The TV weather guy is always standing in front a of green screen. It must be really distracting, because the forecasts rarely verify.
Illegitimi non Carborundum.
I heard that same thing about Battlefield Earth before I saw it.
Hibbert: No.
Lisa: No.
Marge: No.
Wiggum: No.
Bart: No.
Patty: No.
Wiggum: No.
Ned: No.
Selma: No.
Frink: No.
Lovejoy: No.
Guy hyping Sky Captain: Yes. I mean... um, I mean, no. No, heh.
I saw this last night. I was interested in the visuals, after reading about the filming method. After ten minutes, the novelty of the effects wore off. I could get past the 30'-style campiness, but the actors didn't seem to be interacting with each other. As the movie progressed, you could tell that the actors were acting by themselves in many of the scenes. It was a neat idea, but it got really distracting for me after a bit. I think for a short film, it would have been pretty cool, but a full-length feature? I was bored out of my mind by the end of the movie...just my $0.02.
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The Star Wars Prequels have ALOT of Location Work (Tatooine, Lakeside in naboo, Etc).
Sky Captain had NO location work- It was all shot Blue/Green Screen.
this movie had no substance whatsoever.
ya, it looked cool..if you like a movie that looks like it was shot through an unfocused lense.
my 4 year old like it though.
Many of the scenes in Star Wars were filmed in Tunisia. None of the films are completely computer generated.
People saw it, they just wished they hadn't. Way to go Jar Jar!!
.. but I downloaded the trailers for sky captain and chrome and REALLY disliked both of them, I was strongly reminded of the original buck rogers black and white telly series, and I guess they were trying to recreate that sort of feel, but I for one didn't like it in the least.... at least the original buck rogers producers didn't have a choice ... this stuff strikes me as using a p4 3.2 extreme edition to emulate and old breakout game and say "but hey, it's UXGA now and the bricks are rendered in opengl to maintain that retro feel"... I guess it will appeal to some but I would rather wait for HL2
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
... the CGI future-retro backgrounds are completely replaced, re-locating the entire plotline to the fictional town of Springfield.
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
I saw it last night -- highly recommended. It will probably will come to be regarded as the "Star Wars" of this decade -- something that changed the entire nature of filmmaking.
:-)
There may not have been any sets, per-se, but there were a fair amount of props used in close-ups (like where the characters were leaning against a railing), so not absolutely everything was painted green.
Chip H.
Slashvertisement
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There's an article about this on Apple's website:
Apple - Pro/Video - Kerry Conran
I'm going to be modded flamebait since I'm going to bash LotR on Slashdot=)
After seeing the trilogy, I couldn't help but feel the fighting scenes were unsatisfying. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, and then I watched Braveheart. Now THAT had good action sequences. I don't think it had to do with ammount, it had to do with how over-the-top ugly action sequences which merely came off as scripted and campy. If I wanted to see two CGI armies battle it out, I could buy Rome: Total War or Warcraft 3. Live actors bring something to the experience as anyone who's every been to a good Ren Faire can tell you.
CGI is the new thing like OOP or the internet and so people believe it's the be-all and end-all. Maybe some day, much like the internet bubble, the CGI bubble will pop. And I can again enjoy a good epic battle.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
One could use such blue-screen masking to put the actresses into porn scenes and they would have no idea. Imagine Mr. Goatse posing as a director making a remake of "Journey to the Black Hole". Someone could also hack into the studio's computers, steal the blue-screen tracks, and put their own stuff in the background.
Table-ized A.I.
See thos story.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
If the special effects make you woozy, take some Milk of Magnesia.
I spat Milk of Magnesia out of my nose when I read this! It's from the film, FYI.
I would bet that a lot of the digital effects used in this film were rendered and perhaps even designed with Linux. If they were done with Windows they would have used a blue screen.
only voice talent, since the CGI characters will be so realistic looking. And how long before that can be totally replaced by generated actors you can't tell from the real thing who have generated voices which inflect and, indeed, sound like the real thing?
It sounds like a great challenge, but ultimately it takes the fun out of filmmaking, don't you agree?
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
It's truly a visually spectacular film. It draws a lot of influence from the 1930s/1940s, and the art just blows my mind. Everything about it is beautiful. It's a shame that the characters seemed shallow and the plot was a bit thin. Sure, it's probably intentional to some degree; it's supposed to be a beautiful action film and it succeeds in this area. I really feel that a lot more could have been done with it though. Neat ideas, but might have benefited from some better writing (and maybe a better actress than Paltrow). In the end, the movie seems almost like an anime movie with real actors - drawing influence from WW2 movies, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, comic book scifi, and classic love stories.
Is there any link between this movie and the game 'Crimson Skies'? I was blown away at how similar they looked after seeing the trailer on TV..
Don't call me a cowboy, and don't tell me to slow down!
YOU MELT IT!!!
Films like this are wonderful for 12 year olds. I'm hoping it will be the same kind of breakout fantasy for twelve year olds today that Star Wars was for me in 1977 when I was twelve.
I remember seeing the 20th anniversary re-release of Star Wars in the theaters in 1997. It was campy and Luke was a whiny twit. However, Star Wars was for boys and I let it slide. Sky Captain is for boys. Cut it some slack and escape back to when you were twelve.
Now, I hope this generation can find a replacement for the other breakout movie from when I was 12, Saturday Night Fever!
Not gonna happen. Flesh-and-blood actors are far cheaper and far less creepy-looking (Google for uncanny valley).
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
It was actually the computer-generated script and merchandising that really annoyed me.
I think the big deal behind the green/blue screen is that this movie didnt suck.
Yes we all saw Star Wars EP I and II, but movies that suck dont count, we try to erase them from memory.
Much like Matrix it was all that people talked about, then after 2nd and 3rd one. That movie dissapeared from people's minds within months.
So officially this is the first movie that was done entirely on a green screen.
...like mentioning World War One in 1939. And strobe flash photography.
I enjoyed the look and feel of the film, and Paltrow (a lot), and the luscious close-ups, but the story was just LAME. The film treated pre-WWI Germany as if it were Nazi Germany -- totally different kettles of fish.
On the other hand the last two words of the movie were hilarious.
Think Indiana Jones, but on an even bigger scale. Globetrotting around the world, giant robots, flying aircraft carriers, underwater planes, etc. Yes, you need to turn off your sense of disbelief, but it was an absolute blast. Ebert said it best, it went from Conrad's mind to film without reality intervening. A glorious film about an alternate reality we should've had.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Needing silly things like props or other actors to be able to act is the sure mark of a bad actor. The really good ones can do it on bare stage in solo and sweep the audience along.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You might as well say "Yeah, I like 2001 but why'd they have to put it in space?".
I've always liked the 30's vision of the future: dirigibles, flying fortresses, giant steel robots. And the old serials had a certain charm, you know that crawl at the beginning of star wars? Lucas got that idea from serials, which would use it to catch everyone up on the last episodes. Longtime fans of MST3K will remember "The Phantom Creeps" serials and especially "Radar Men From The Moon".
Sky Captain is a direct homage to these serials. I imagine that this movie would be the dream of any kid who watched those.
I guess it's a very different genre of movie from anything that's been produced in the last 70 years. Sky Captain isn't the best movie ever, but it's a lot of fun to watch the "we-make-it-up-as-we-go-along" style of storytelling. He crashes his plane into the ocean? No problem, Dax fitted it with submersible gear. Who cares if that's ridiculous. It's supposed to be, but it's still exciting.
I mean, how can you hate a beautiful movie like this, a british commander on a hovering air field saying things like "Alert the amphibious squadron!".
"So why did green take over? Is green dye just cheaper or is there a technical reason behind it?"
The technology of blue/green/organge/whatever screens is called "chroma key". The computer knows that anything of the key color is "background" and should be replaced with other imagery. They use those bright, stand-out colors for that reason -- those colors are unlikely to conflict with real actors or props. The computer could replace another color, e.g., black, just as well, but black appears normally all over the place.
They use the same technology for the "magic weather maps" you see the meteorologist stand in front of during modern TV weather reports. The map isn't really there; the meteorologist stands in front of a color screen, and the map is composited in electronically. You can occasionally see a goof where some part of the meteorologist's wardrobe is too close to the screen's color, and the map "bleeds through" and the person appears "hollow".
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I for one was very disappointed with this movie. I suggest waiting for a bootleg or rent it :P
Angelina Jolie's roll was minimal and the graphics were nothing special. I've seen better graphics in video game trailers.
It will probably will come to be regarded as the "Star Wars" of this decade -- something that changed the entire nature of filmmaking.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Star Wars was a box-office smash and that attracted the attention of everyone immediately. Sky Captain is more like Tron, as posters above have already pointed out. A few studio heads and filmmakers will respect it for doing something new on a technical level but Sky Captain certainly is not the Star Wars of this generation. I don't see lines snaking around the corner waiting to get in to the theater for this one.
The melding of the actors to their backgrounds in this movie looked less realistic than the CBS memo forgeries. It was just bad. Now, I only saw the trailers, so it is possible that I am overreacting. But from other comments I've heard and read, and considering you normally don't put your worst shots in trailers, I doubt it.
... just plonk a camera on a tripod in front of some people and tell them to start acting. This is something I could not possibly bear for two hours. Again, maybe the movie is not this bad, but from the trailers, it looked very amateurish ... perhaps some comments on camera angles from people who have seen it would be helpful.
Also, I've only seen trailers, but what struck me is the complete lack of different camera angles. Every shot of a person was basically level (from the feet up or waist up), or close ups. No real far shots, no crane shots, nothing different at all
Man are you confused. World War One was 1914-1918. It was talked about quite a bit in 1939, actually. Why should that surprise you? World War Two was 1939 (1941 for the US) to 1945. Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP = "Nazi") came to power in 1933/34. And you are surprised about people talking about this in 1939 ... why?
History. Without it, you end up with crap like the current Iraq war "strategy" (HA!) promulgated by nitwits like those currently in charge.
All that said, the film is entertainment - actually fantasy. It's not supposed to be excruciatingly perfect in historical detail.
If you look at the special feature documentaries with the recent Star Wars movies, you'll see that they do a lot of video compositing - they combine elements from real-life video of waterfalls, fog, dust, explosions, etc. to create a scene.
In computer-generated imagery the waterfalls, fog, dust, and explosions would be created from scratch by an artist / animator.
So if the Sky Captain visuals were completely computer generated, that is quite different from the way the Star Wars movies are put together.
You really should figure out what the word, "forgery," actually means.
On the main point, though, it's difficult to say with certainty whether this is the wave of the future or just a novelty. Anyone who says he KNOWS is just guessing. After all, many movie people were CERTAIN that sound in movies was just a novelty that would pass in time.
In 25 years Hollywood will have composite heros and babes that will never age or get paid.
I will prolly get modded down as a flame, but I'm tired of everyone acting like this is some new paradigm in movies, an example of the future... when in reality, the techniques aren't even new or the least bit interesting.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
Hey There,
... ...
... the Tomb Raider chick did a great job ... they should have given her a larger part.
I saw the movie yesterday.
I loved what they did with the film
but the actors
they didn't seem to believe they were in the movie.
Although
--The Dude
"You're telling me that Star Wars used only computer-generated sets?"
Yah, I thought that statement was bogus.
The interesting part is I've always maintained that the signature look of the original three Star Wars films (Episodes 4, 5, and 6) comes about because they didn't have all the special effects tech they have these days. Computer generated imagery didn't really exist; chromakey didn't exist. Everything was done with models (and paintings for large stuff) and then manually compositited. Even today's best computer models still don't manage to get all the details of a "real" scene completely right. If you look closely, you can still almost always spot the CG models. But in the original Star Wars, every time they blew something up, they actually built something and blew it up.
(Of course, the artifacts resulting from inaccurate hand compositing detracts from the overall quality, but hey, you can't have everything.)
I imagine CG models will eventually catch up, but right now, you still can't beat the "real thing".
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
http://www.apple.com/pro/video/conran/
The washed colors with a sepia tone and slight blur is deliberate. Ms. Paltrow was right. It was a blue screen that they used.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
"Man are you confused. World War One was 1914-1918."
Right. And until they had another one, it was called "The Great War" or "The World War". They didn't know to call it "World War One" until there was a second one.
This reminds me of the gag with the guy who finds a coin dated "50 BC".
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Man are you confused. World War One was 1914-1918. It was talked about quite a bit in 1939, actually.
I haven't seen the film but if they did refer to first world war as "World War One" before or during the second world war then that probably wouldn't make much sense. The second world was limited to eurasia and northern africa up until pearl harbour when it became a real world war.
Excellent 3d graphics, poor 2d acting.
R(k)
The upcoming Sin City (based on Frank Miller's graphic novel series, and it's directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller) uses a similar filmmaking technique as "Sky Captain," although not to the same degree. An FAQ is here.
:)
Compare the behind-the-scenes footage to the trailer that was shown at this summer's San Diego Comic-Con (they had originally posted a 640x480 version but it's been replaced by a 480x272 version).
Check it out (there's a brief topless scene, so it's not SFW), if only for the shots of Jessica Alba dancing around seductively in leather chaps.
Umm.. You want a better actress than Paltrow.. You mean 1999s Best Actress Academy Award winner, that Gwyneth Paltrow?
In the law there is no overlap between theft and copyright infringement whatsoever.
Much of the original "Star Wars" (Episode IV), used models, and not CGI. This was 1976, remeber: three years later I was fortunate to have a 10 Mb hard drive on loan: two 5 MB 14" platters, dimmed the lights when it spun up, was the size of a small beer fridge, and weighed around 300 lbs. They cost around US$14k at the time.
You could've hired me.
"So why did green take over?"
Ooops, got so caught up in my explanation I forgot your question had two parts.
The critical element is that the key color not appear on the actors or props. Bright blue works well for many indoor scenes and bright lighting, but does poorer in "outdoor" and low-light conditions, where blues are more common. That green color can provide better contrast then. I've also seen them use an orange screen for spaceship models which contained blues and greens. Again, the computer can key on any color; the important part is that the color not be present on the "real" stuff. I imagine bright purple or yellow would also work well in some cases.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
It was supposed to be a low-budget movie, but it ended up costing $70 million, when the original filmmaker couldn't bring it off on schedule and they had to outsource to a half dozen of the usual effects studios. It's somewhat discouraging to see how expensive computer animation still is. It's not the equipment cost any more. It's the army of artists. We've gotten rid of the "cast of thousands", but we now have the "animation team of thousands". (This has major offshoring implications. Look for more effects films from China.)
The look of the film is good, but not original. The opening scene is a blatant rip-off of the Centropolis Entertainment logo scene, first shown in 1998 on Godzilla.
You just have to love the Slashdot crowd. Anything new comes along and all you get is "oh, it's been done before... it wasn't quite as fully developed, and was only part of a larger whole, but it was done."
When are we going to stop and think about the fact that all innovation in human history involved taking things that already existed, and combining them in ways that no one else had?
No one had ever fillmed a feature-length movie with live-action actors as the primary stars in which there was only one set and 90% of the film was CG. If hollywood had nixed the idea of doing this, Slashdot junkies would be the first to rant that Hollywood never does anything innovative like this, but when they do, it's all just, "been there, done that."
Tron was an innovative and well-made film. So was Sky Capt. Why can we not celebrate the innovation of both (while lamenting that Hollywood DOES limit such innovation such that it took us 30 years to get from the one to the other)?
The author of this article needs to check his facts. StarWars had HELLA sets....the dullard.
It wasn't called World War One in 1939. The current war hadn't been dubbed World War Two yet.
also at Apple, about a sci-fi epic shot in 15 days for $30,000, also all in green screen. Called Able Edwards... frankly, judging by the clips, it looks a lot more interesting than Sky Captain!
http://www.apple.com/pro/video/robertson/
Bad writing, obligatory Angelina Jolie/Will Smith/Halle Berry vehicle, choppy direction, horrible dialog and a plot that makes zero sense if you're older than 12.
It makes no which never mind if they make the shit in a 3D hologram or on a green screen or, perish the thought, with real sets. Most movies suck so hard they're practicelly a brand new art form.
I've mentioned this in another comment, and others have pointed it out as well. To a lot of people, the big draw to a movie is the actors that are in it. For example, I will go see absolutely any movie that has Steve Buscemi, William H. Macy, or Angelina Jolie in it. Take away the star factor, and you take away the reason a lot of people will bother to see the movie.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
I just wanted to add to the chorus of responders calling you a fucking moron. Your condescending tone only throws your sheer idiocy into sharper relief. Kill yourself now.
I should write for Joey.
For a movie that everyone HATED so damn much, you guys sure can't seem to stop talking about Star Wars. Ever.
Although ... the Tomb Raider chick did a great job ... they should have given her a larger part.
I agree -- Angelina Jolie is damn hot but she looks better when she's wearing form-hugging outfits that give her the illusion of having "bigger parts"!
Star Wars 1& 2 as well as LOTR were nearly Skycaptain in their use of special effects. Skycaptain finally makes the leap from trying to "merge" real and imagined sets to simply shooting the actors ACTING and building all the sets from CGI. it's a nice middleground for a few years.
Okay, I saw it, and loved just about everything about it, except the opening title sequence was so jarringly out of place - it's like a standard opening title sequence for a regular movie, not for a 30s/40s sci-fi homage. Weird.
:)
I thought the storyline was great, the characters were very well realized, and the special effects were fantastic, most especially the designs. The more 30s & 40s sci-fi/action serials you've read/seen, the more you'll realize how effin' brilliant this homage is. If you've never read or seen anything from that era, you're really gonna hate this movie, though you may have enough artistic appreciation in your soul to see the beauty in the designs (though I doubt it, from most of the comments in here thus far).
The effects aren't _intended_ to be realistic. Another movie that did this to great effect was last year's fantastic version of "Peter Pan," which I very highly recommend. Kerry Conran (writer & director) came up with the idea to make, essentially, a comic book come to life, IN THE STYLE OF THE COMICS. _That_ is something noone has done before. The 'set' design evokes a time that never really existed (well, much like most movies do). I love the revisionist history, Hindenburg III, indeed, and docking with the Empire State Building like the original - nice touch! I found out that some New Yorkers don't even know about that.
I think a travelling museum piece about all of the things that influenced the making of "Sky Captain" would be a pretty marvellous thing.
re: the acting
Okay, it wasn't bad, first off. They did what they intended to do, so guess what? You missed the whole point. This is a comic book. Use your brain and think about the things that implies, okay?
The character I was most impressed with was Dex - a character that could have easily have been a helpless little geek character. Instead, he's the one responsible for most of the technical innovation the good guys use. His inspiration? Comic books! Brilliant. And I want that ray gun of his in the worst kind of way! Every time Cap said, "Good boy," I wanted to beat the shit out of him. And I cheered when Cap socked Polly.
I'd say anyone bitching about this would bitch about the original Star Wars (A New Hope) if they were seeing it for the first time now. You've got no soul.
And people are _bored_ by this movie? Geez. I feel really sad for you.
I enjoyed it as well... it felt halfway between an action movie and a cartoon, which is something different anyways.
The one thing that bugged me was the sound. Of all the elements of the film that they tried to give a 1940's feel, they seemed to gloss over the musical score. Stylistically, it was appropriate, but the recording itself sounded WAY too "2004 clean and accurate." I'd expected and hoped for a bit of campier orchestration and old-style recording quality (not the scratches and hisses, but the balance between instruments). There's a certain zing to older soundtracks, and this opportunity was completely missed in the movie.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
"and how the movie is 'unlike anything most audiences have seen before. It uses no sets, only computer generated imagery."
Gosh, so Finding Nemo had sets? I often wondered how the fish found their motivation...
Mary Poppings, Who framed Roger Rabbit...
i went to see it last night, with a few friends of mine. ,
I enjoyed the theme , the whole 20's era comic book idea was a good show
but, it started to get tiresome, and then of cource in the climax of the movie, the projector cut out and the sound kept playing.
This was a PACKED theater, becuase this movie has gotten good reviews so far were i live. so after a bit of the horrible shouts and hollers from the crowd, some little 18th level manager comes in, without a microphone, trys to announce that there are projector problems, and promplty gets a drink thrown at him.
go figure.
while everyone got a refund, and a free ticket for a show of there choice, i sure know im not sitting through it again just too se what happens. i sure just wanted them all to die like they should. god knows that wouldn't happen.
i do have two free tickets now, maybe i could take a date and not pay , WHO AM I KIDDING i'll just go see the next starwars for free for the first two shows.
Kids are the target audience! I'm glad someone has made the key point.
It's a bit silly that a lot of adults are sitting around holding forth on how a movie for pre-teen boys touched them (or didn't). It kind of reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live skit entitled "Women's Issues", where the entire panel of commentators was made up of men.
What really puzzled me was how it was possible for the action sequences to be boring. I can't say what specifically they did wrong, but every single action sequence in the movie was just blah. Of course, the fact that quite a bit of the movie was shot in the famous "let's make it so dark you can't see shit" style didn't help much either.
I really wanted to like Sky Captain, it seemed like a movie almost specifically made for me. I did like a few bits (some lines, the occasional visual, etc), but overall, it just wasn't good.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Anyone else think this looks really bad? The whole time I was seeing previews for it, I thought about how there are better Star Wars Kid vidoes all over the internet.
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
A couple years ago, a couple of guys made a nice little Star Wars short shot entirely against a bluescreen, using their Macs for the backgrounds and effects. It is pretty damned cool. Here is a Coralized link: Duality.
>> The Star Wars Prequels have ALOT of Location Work (Tatooine, Lakeside in naboo, Etc).
This is part of the reason why movies are so expensive these days-- having to transport the entire cast and crew to another planet for principal photography!
It all depends on the colors on the clothing of the actors whether they do a blue or green screen for a particular scene. It also may depend on the lighting they are trying to use (need to add directional color the actors, but not effect the hue of the screen in the shot)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Apparently the films of tomarrow suck.
Oh and the screen was blue, not green. And they added the pastel effect to cover up the blatent computer generated look.
Lexx used this technique and did a pretty good job of it - especially considering it was being done for television.
I imagine that better direction would have helped her performance (which I can only imagine, not having seeing the film yet).
the grandparent post doesn't say that the film refers to The Great War as "World War One", it just says "mentioning World War One in 1939."
I've never seen the film--so maybe the language is the issue. But to be fair to the parent post, the grandparent post doesn't specify that the terminology is the problem, just that the war is mentioned, which itself isn't a problem.
What appears 'real' in films is learnt from other films.
Real life explosions don't look like a slowed down close up of a pyrotechnic, but we have seen so many that it has become what an explosion 'really' looks like. We don't see big explosions in real life, so out only reference is movies.
In real life, they are very fast, and the flames are pretty small, not like the big flames on a burning model. Also, most things are obscured by smoke and dust, which is obviously crap when making a film.
Perhaps after watching a load of CGI'd movies, a new set of rules of what things 'should' look like will arise. They might even be closer to reality.
that i will give a g-mail account to anybody who mails gmailoffer@gurney.dissimulo.com, just to ruin any chances of the parent having success with his spam
They brought back Sir Laurence Olivier as a CGI person to play the bad guy.
The movie was alright but the potential to be much more mainly because of the story.
The coloring of the faces and scenery to seem like an old late 1930 is good. I would not be suprised if they are nominated for an Oscar set decoration.
I do like the last line of the movie "L** C**" and I think everybody did too because they erupted in laughter. It is censored for people's enjoyment who has not seen the movie.
Which of course it didn't. The outcome of WWI led directly to WWII.
"So most audiences didn't see Star Wars?" I don't care who ya are, that's funny!
I think Halle Berry (2002 Best Actress Academy Award) could've done it better. Just look how well she did in Catwoman.
It was mostly digital 'sets' too..
At least once they got into the system, the 'lab' was of course a real set. Even today, would be hard to create a 'virutal set' as accurate as the 'real'
lab, or office...
Though, somday things will be so accurate, including the 'actors', that we media consumers may never notice the difference.. Will put a lot of actors out of work.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Why is it that when actors have to act with no sets and very few props, and then GGI is added, it's always a sell-out, a commercialized ploy which makes it difficult for actors to act naturally and therefore makes the whole project suffer, but when they produce minimalist plays with no sets and even fewer props it's the height of artistic theater, professional acting in its purest form that wouldn't be possible with sets?
Several people, my girlfriend included, have mentioned to me that she looks hot with an eye patch. Am I the only one who doesn't have a thing for people with eye patches?
Why is the media branch of the White House doing movie interviews now?
The Truth About Slashdot
Alright, I saw the flick yesterday. Ignoring it's quality, the "no sets" thing is a lie. Several sets are obviously real, most noticeably Polly Perkins' Office. The professor's lab also looks to be significantly practial.
Really cool visuals, decent story.
Putting someone as famous as Angelina Jolie in the role she played was a complete waste. She had like 10 minutes of total screen time, and any attractive actress would have done fine as that character. Having said that, she did look hot (though I could have done without the eye patch).
Gwyneth Paltrow looked stunning-- the 30s fashions and styles were very becoming.
And for once, it was nice to see Giovanni Ribisi in a role where he's not so annoying I'd like to slap the shit out of him.
Nice idea, nice costumes but not a serious attempt. Still good news. Think TRON, then now look.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Go see this film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314063/ Same deal, digital set, digital characters. Its not the greatest film ever, but truly worth seeing at least once for the visuals.
I saw Sky Pilot yesterday, nice mindless throwback to Flash Gordon and the old 1930s serials. But Hollywood repeats a common anachronism seen in modern films set in the 1930s. They repeatedly refer to World War I as "World War I" when World War II hasn't happened yet! (It was referred to as "The Great War" at the time, Vote To Remove
So, what I want to know, is where can I see the six minute short?
/.'ers know where one might get a copy of it?
Nearly every article I've read about this film refers to a six minute short that Kerry Conran produced on his own. I've googled for it a bit, and I can't find a copy online. Any
The parent post contains a link to a disgusting picture (I really hope it is a drawing). Please, remove this post!
I've heard two technical reasons: 1) the green is brighter than the blue, making it easier to work with and expose properly, and 2) the human eye is more sensitive to green and hence film and video are also. (In the video component world, red and blue are represented as delta's from the brightness channel.)
Not much actually occurs in "Sky Captain and the World of Tommorrow," So I will be as brief as possible. The movie starts off with a blimp docking in "Gotham" city and a scientist giving a written message to a flight attendant, upon which the scientist vanishes, but not before showing off some rather bland looking "vials," thus foreshadowing their importance. The note lands in the hands of the reporter Polly Perkins who starts her investigation of the missing scientists. She is contacted by one of the scientists and she meets him in a showing of "The Wizard of Oz," and tells her vague plans of an supposedly abadoned project run by a Dr. Totenkopf . He leaves in a hurry and of course forgets his super important killer robot blueprints. Then, of course, said killer GIANT robots attack the city, apparently for the city's generators. Sky Captain is called and he shows up in his spitfire-esque plane and manages to "kill" one of the Giant Robots and save Polly Perkins. The Giant killer robot is taken to Sky Captain's base, which just happens to convieniently be right outside the city. There we meet Dex Dearborn, super nerd, the guy who obviously builds all of SC's cool gadgets. Dex is trying out his cool new ray gun, which melts through a foot of steel with ease. Then we have to listen to the obilgatory "ex-lovers spat" between Polly and SC. They decide to try and find the scientist who dropped his plans for the killer robots in the theater. They find him, but not after the "asian looking" assassin gets to him first. The assassin escapes and before the scientist dies he tells him of the plans and gives Polly the same two vials from the start of the movie. Of course, being a dumbass, she hides them from SC. Then new flapping-flying-killer-robots attack Sky Captain's base. Dex has figured out that one of the robots is receiving a signal for it's masters and tries to track it down. Of course Dex has to take his time while SC flies throughout the city trying to avoid being killed to try and buy time, all the time with Polly prattling on like a backseat driver. Then, Smaller, killer robots with tentacle like arms attack Dex and he melts one with his ray gun, which is knocked away and he is subdued, but he still manages to rip out the page of the map he wrote the location of the transmission and sticks for SC to find, which is in the Tibetan mountains. SC's plane is damaged in the preceeding melee with the flapping-flying-killer-robots and has to enlist the help of Angelina Jolie's character "Franky" and her "Flying Fortress." Of course, the flapping-flying-killer-robots find the "Gi Joe" inspired flying aircraft carrier and attack it. Now even though the flapping-flying-killer-robots obliterated Sky Captain's base and just about everything else in their path, they mysteriously don't manage to destroy the Flying Fortress, go figure. Sky Captain refuels and is on his way and then lands somewhere in Tibet. There he meets his Arab?! friend in the frozen wilderness and two menacing looking asian guides who allude that they are up to no good. SC and Polly and the Arab guy and guides go to the source of the transmission deep in the mountains. There they find a Mega Factory which looks to be long since abandoned. There, they are betrayed by the asian guides who steal the vials that Polly was carrying and lock SC and Polly in a vault with a Loony Toones size of dynamite (watch that scene and don't tell me you don't think of Yosemite Sam lighting a match in the dark, which turns out to be a room filled of dynamite). Of course their Arab friend reappears just in time to open the vault door and have all three pull a "Die Hard" running away from a huge fireball and escaping with only scratches. All three wake up in a bed naked, being cared for by monks. They are in Shangri-La/Eden and they find out that Dr. Totenkopf is the guy behind it all. The monks are pist that a lot of them died in slavery working at the killer robot factory and one monk who was melted by the radiation in the mines tells Sky Captain to put him out of his misery. Then t
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
I saw it - didn't look too good. And looked very much like a cheap computer picture :)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
What is Wings?
'unlike anything most audiences have seen before. It uses no sets, only computer generated imagery.' So most audiences didn't see Star Wars?"
Correct. The original Star Wars had No computer generated imagery in it, *AT ALL*.
It's truly a visually spectacular film. It draws a lot of influence from the 1930s/1940s, and the art just blows my mind. Everything about it is beautiful. It's a shame that the characters seemed shallow and the plot was a bit thin. Sure, it's probably intentional to some degree; it's supposed to be a beautiful action film and it succeeds in this area. I really feel that a lot more could have been done with it though. Neat ideas, but might have benefited from some better writing (and maybe a better actress than Paltrow). In the end, the movie seems almost like an anime movie with real actors - drawing influence from WW2 movies, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, comic book scifi, and classic love stories.
That's exactly what it is. Thin plot? There were gaping holes in the ridiculous plot, and they were put there lovingly. It's a gorgeous movie, a real work of art, and part of the artistry is the incredibly detailed truth to its comic book sources.
One tends to forget that most of the original SW effects and scenes were done with models and not with CG. Some little guy glued little blocks togeher and a small camera on a well controlled 'dolly' flew over the Death Star. Check the facts Jack! It is in the re-mastered versions that these scenes were replaced with CG.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Am I the only one who thought that this was a great movie?
Homer: "Shake hands with the Slashco!"
Old woman: "AAAAAAaaaaaaahhhhhh!"
Homer: handle first, handle first
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
black and white are also shades of grey...
Not really-
a shade is a color produced by adding black to a pigment, while a hue is the lightening of a color resulting from the addition of white.
So really, grey is more a hue of black, and a shade of white.
Tron beat StarWars by a considerable margin, I'll have you young whipper-snappers know.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It's like they took the arcade game 1942 and made a movie out of it. How can it possibly be any good without an arcade stick?
I thought Star Wars: Episodes 1 and 2 were made not with computer generated imagery, but with rat feces and hot grits smeared all over Natalie Portman's tummy tum!
Star Wars arguably, LOTR no. Watch the DVD extras- there was little CGI of complete environments, those were mostly done either on location in New Zealand or with miniatures ("bigatures", as weta prefers to call them). The CGI was mostly used for Gollum, animals, and the Massive crowd/battle generator.
Sky Captain really does represent a great leap forward- going from 2 sets to 1 is a minor change in logistics. Going from 1 to zero is a much bigger difference.
Not last time I checked.
Take a look at this picture, or this one or maybe even this one. Granted, these are stills, but CG "actors" are not that far off. (OK, one more.)
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Is it just me.. or is this movie strikingly similar to Crimson Skies (a MS Game!)?
OMG... I have a sig?
I haven't seen the film but if they did refer to first world war as "World War One" before or during the second world war then that probably wouldn't make much sense. The second world was limited to eurasia and northern africa up until pearl harbour when it became a real world war.
Obviously I agree with you about using the specific term World War One before a following world war. I do not know if the term was used in the dialog; certainly the post didn't specify.
Regarding what it takes for a war to be a world war, it's an interesting question. I don't believe there was any appreciable action in the far east or the Pacific at any time in World War One. Does it really require the involvement of the US to be a world war? Would World War One have been just The Great European War had not the US been involved?
You are the only twit who called anyone a moron in this thread, expletive qualified or otherwise.
Whether the grandparent kills himself or not, you are entitled to ponder your own sad life.
Come on. Most of the movie was nothing more than detached live actors in front of some cinematics. Think the last few scenes of Roger Rabbit. Toonville anyone?
6 out 10.
-mim
While it did debut at #1 (which isn't surprising when you look at what else is out there), it only made 16.2 million dollars. Viewer ship will probably drop off 50 - 60 percent next weekend. It will be lucky to make 35 million domestically.
According to Box Office Mojo The thing cost around 70 million to make and it's estimated that Paramount spent 35 million in marketing. That brings the total cost of this movie to around 105 million. If the movie pulls in 35 million domestically and the same overseas, you're looking at 70 million in profits at best. Mony will be made on DVD sales, but if few people go and see it, few people will probably buy it on DVD. Plus there will be additional marketing costs associated with the DVD release. Basically, at the very best it will only break even. It'll probably end up losing money. It's a failure.
I've seen Casshern posted on the net a couple of months ago.
Granted they were games, but they had hours of fmv in them with people like Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, John Rhys-Davies, and Tom Wilson. From what I remember all of the sets were computer generated, although obviously not to modern levels.
But for 94-96, they were damned impressive games in that respect. Computer games with a hollywood budget.
'Life is like a spoonful of Drain-O, it feels good on the way down but leaves you feeling hollow inside'
i have not see it yet. I thought it was gonna be a little kids movie. But reading some of the other post, i see people compareing it to starwars. Granted i love visual effects and the movie looks like it has tons. What is this "unlike anything most audiences have seen before". I hope it is something like Indiana Jones. By the way, there is talk about a new Indiana Jones.
www.angelfire.com/dc2/stockman/index.html http://www.FreeFlatScreens.com/default.aspx?refer
HAHAHAH! Right! :p
So will we have famous paintings by amazing virtual artists, robots that understands how much it hurts to lose your brother in an accident, and Wonderful virtual actors that understand all of life's problems and understand exactly what the director wants.
RIGHT. We need something far more interesting before truly "virtual actors" AI. If animating a photo realistic person is hard [and it is! almost impossibly so] then animating that person's brain would be at least an magnitude of difficulty harder. It would take every bit of that physical animation and who knows how much more.
So yes we will have our world class animators, combined with REAL actors for a while to come. Sotware improvements will come, helping modeling/texturing/animation out. And it will still be very very difficult.
I appeal to the wisdom of fellow
I think Halle Berry (2002 Best Actress Academy Award) could've done it better. Just look how well she did in Catwoman.
"Do you know what happens to a toad when it gets hit by lightning?"
You can't take the sky from me...
I'm sure there are more, these are just little bits I picked up on.
Well let's see here. Star Wars used a lot of sets and even more props. Sky Captain used very limited props and only blue screen sets that were per set up using MAYA. They used http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/maya/in dex.shtml/ to produce the entire movie even before the first shoot. Every camera angle and every set was already known by the directors and CG artists. Tell me one film that has done this without being FULL CG. I can't wait till more movies are done like this.
you never know till you try!
Well at least it's not Sky Marshall and the World of Today. That would have an entertainment value of, oh... absolute zero!
A friend of mine gets tickets to certain preview showings of Paramount films, and he brought me to see Sky Captain. I loved it! It's done as a film noir, and feels very old-school detective. The retro cinematography gave it a very fresh feel. Not only did it have a cool visual theme, but the story itself was a good one, also done in the old detective style.
I recommend this movie for anyone, but especially those who enjoy film noir, as they did an excellent job with Sky Captain.
Remember kids, tin foil doesn't work, so use LeadHat.
Star Wars used a blue screen backdrop, not green.
Help! I'm being overrun with nits and need help to pick them all!
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
The new Star Wars trilogies show that no huge amount of F/X money can compensate for bad scripts, bad directing and bad acting. I've seen a ton of indie movies with interesting characters and stories made for one thousandth of the budget.
That looks like an interesting flick. I'm trying to find a version I can watch. Doesn't look like it's out in the US yet, and downloadables are all really crappy quality. I'll wait for an english-subtitled DVD release, but thanks for the pointer!
You wanna talk about the real thing vs CG? Just watch the documentary "Under pressure: Making of The Abyss" that comes on the special edition of The Abyss DVDs-- Cameron didn't want to use CG unless he absolutely had to, he wanted to the movie to look as realistic as possible. So instead of using CG they actually built the giant underwater base featured in the movie inside an uncomplete nuclear reactor tower and then filled it with 7 and a half million gallons of water, used real submersibles and ROVs and even had real aliens I heard :) The scenes where Ed Harris was "breathing oxygenated liquid" wasn't real though (but the rat scene was ). For those scenes, Ed Harris was just holding his breath and actually in one scene, between takes, almost drown. Since they were actually shooting the whole thing underwater he had to rely on his buddy divers to give him a spare regulator between takes for those scenes. Watch the documentary for details on the mishap.
Additionally James Cameron stayed underwater for most of his life during that time, and while decompressing he had enough time to review the film that was shot during the day. It was the most expensive movie shoot of all time, only to be eclipsed by Terminator 2, only to be eclipsed by True Lies, only to be eclipsed by.. dare I say it... Titanic.
And now for the good stuff. Apparently Deep Core, the underwater base in the Abyss STILL exists inside of that Nuclear Reactor, they never moved it! Well, 2 hero-nerds decided to sneak onto the property and check it out. The story is incredible and yes, they took pictures!!!
http://www.x-plane.com/adventures/abyss.html
After you read it and are able to find your jaw where you dropped it, give this a read on how hard The Abyss was to shoot (and FFS watch the documentary on the DVD!), then come back and mod this post up, for great jaw dropping justice!
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
It took 31 years to come from 2D computer digitized image first used in a movie (Westworld) to this. Check out the timeline of CGI in movies for history and screenshots.
Of specific interest is the Matrix: Revolutions, which had the most realistic computer recreation of a human (agent) face. And then this face was smacked by a 100% CGI Keanu Reaves hand. Recreating humans is easy. My estimate is that in 2007-2008 we will see a 100% CGI film that would look like real thing, with AI agent in lead roles and all.
Also expect CGI sets to proliferate extremely quickly. There already are Immortel (ad vitam), Casshern, and Sin City that use the same technique. Expect tens more in the upcoming year.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
"Pardon me, but I beg to differ. If one watches the LOTR trilogy, it was jammed pack full of CGI. The only way one knows if it is CGI or not is if you watch the making of the film, other-wise, there is no way to tell."
Maybe there is no way for you to tell. I generally have a fairly easy time spotting most CGI. Of course, I know what to look for. Computing power isn't quite to the point yet where the computer can include enough detail to get all the imperfections and subtleties real life stuff has. It isn't so much what you see, but what you don't see.
I imagine we're not too far off from the point where a computer model can include chaos-level detail, though. The depth of detail is already quite astonishing.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
"You mean they actually built and blew up an entire planet?"
/SARCASM
Yah, that's obviously what I meant.
I said they actually built something. I figured it was obvious that they built models, and not real space ships. Sorry if that point slipped past you.
"Or did they do it with scale models, and if you'd look closely, you could almost always spot the scale models?"
You can spot the scale models in most cases, I admit. However, I prefer the look of a scale model over a perfectly smooth CG model. You can prolly call that personal preference if you like.
"I think SFX weren't better when you were younger"
You'll notice that I never said the SFX in Star Wars were better. I was commenting mainly on the superior appearance real models have over CG models, especially when it comes to detail and transformation (i.e., explosions, crashes, etc.). As others in this subthread have pointed out, real models still get used extensively for this very reason.
Also, my analysis is based on current viewings, not childhood nostalgia, thank-you-very-much.
Remember the transparent snowspeeders in Empire Strikes Back? Or that lovely outline around the stop-motion creatures?
I explictly stated that manual compositing detracted from overall quality. I was thinking of those same artifacts, not to mention a few really nasty spaceship scenes, when I wrote that caveat.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
"Just watch the documentary "Under pressure: Making of The Abyss" that comes on the special edition of The Abyss DVDs"
Already have. I own the DVD, BTW. I consider The Abyss to be one of the unsung great films in Hollywood history. The level of research, detail, and realism, as you note, are simply incredible. Plus it's a rocking great story.
The link to the people who took a day-trip to the still-existing abandonded set is very interesting, and something I was unaware of. Very cool. Thanks for that.
Cheers,
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.