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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?"
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.
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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.
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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.
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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Wouldn't a blue screen make it harder for the actors to show any emotion beyond sheer anger?
They are Windows users, aren't they?
... 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.
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There's an article about this on Apple's website:
Apple - Pro/Video - Kerry Conran
Actually, I saw that as well, but it was the other way around. The interviewer said they filmed it on a blue screen and she corrected him saying that they were on a green screen. Although the technology began with blue screens, green screens are far more prevalent today.
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.
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.
What show did you watch?
The Daily Show had the host asking if it was a green screen, and the actress corrected with blue.
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
Well, whatever color the screen is can't be used in the scene and blue is quite common for clothing, whereas green is much less common, especially the very bright green used for green screens.
There are tons of stories about people with conflicting wardrobes and green screens. My favorite is of a weather lady with heavy blue eyeshadow -- when she blinked you could see rought through her eyes.
Yes, it was blue. An on "set" picture shows them in front of the blue screen.
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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".
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"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
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"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
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Part of the reason for making it slightly blurry is probably to fit in the actors/actresses seamlessly into the background (no sharp edges etc.), but part of it could also be deliberate .. (gives you the feeling that you are watching a comic book in motion ).
After all you only need to blur the edge of the actors and not the whole scene. Per haps somebody knowledgable i graphics could comment.
As for being out of sync -> the worst case I saw was when Gyneth was running along side the robots in the streets of NY. Otherwise they were pretty much in sync (as far as I could detect). For example, people interacting with objects in a room.
Another strange thing was the movie never showed the people getting in and out of the vehicles, to save some graphics work.
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.
"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
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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 whole thing would be simpler if you could just buy paint that has a zero alpha component.
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.
To us old fogies, "Star Wars", without an explicit episode reference, implies the first one to hit theathers, i.e. "A New Hope".
You could've hired me.
I think Halle Berry (2002 Best Actress Academy Award) could've done it better. Just look how well she did in Catwoman.