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ILM Showcases "Dead Man's Chest" Effects Work
bonniegrrl writes "The work of ILM folks (including VFX supervisor John Knoll) is being showcased in a site just launched to explore the mind-blowing visual effects of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (heavy Flash). Interactive clips at the site allow you to peel back layers of animation to see what ILM had to start with before transforming actors wearing tracking markers into astonishingly real characters. Test your effects awareness by making the call: what's real and what's ILM, rotate turntable models of the animated characters, and download some goodies." The submitter also claims that there are a few Easter Eggs of footage in there somewhere.
Pirates and Pirates of the Caribbean are two entirely different movies.
showcased in a site just launched to explore the mind-blowing visual effects of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
I don't know about mind-blowing, but I do distinctly remember quite a bit of "Snot"-blowing special FX at the end of PotC:DMC.
I suppose the mark of really good effects is when you don't notice them being used.
Oh You POS
Firefox 1.5, with flash plugins, also noscript (temporarily enabled ILM), on Debian GNU/Linux. Pity.
10:15 Moviewreck
'...fun free footage of some whiny voiced special effects blubberbag in a Perfect Storm baseball cap taking us through a wireframe build of the spectacular finale again and again and again and again until the entire sequence is inorexably rendered so mundane and familiar the experience of finally seeing it... .. feels more like a lunchtime repeat of Knot's Landing than the white knuckle climax it would have been before the slickarsed marketing fucks responsble for tossing together this say-nothing advertorial assault on your dignity spoiled it all as part of their ongoing quest to bully the world into galloping down to the nerest multiplex to gawp at tits and explosions like the oblivious victims of a dystopian stupidity virus.'
as all of it looked like shit.
How the hells is this news for nerds or stuff that matters?
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
Now he wants you to download flash to toy with this marketing gimmick? It wont work John, I don't know how much Adobe are paying you but it wont work.
There is no news to be had on weekends.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
Charlie Brooker is a rock of sanity in a sea of shit.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/brooker/
Keith Richards' personal special effects include "life after death" for over 30 years.
If you download Keef, realize that the music biz learned a long time ago that he's impossible to delete.
--
make install -not war
They lost me at one of the first scenes... when they go "You're being arrested for assisting a pirate Jack Sparrow to escape" and they both correct him "Captain... Jack Sparrow". LAME LAME LAME. I really liked the first movie, but the second movie had a terrible script. I can only imagine the 3rd will be worse.
I liked the one where the whole pirate ship jumped over a giant shark.
The whole movie was just way over the top.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Don't bother looking if you're on Linux. The ILM page sent me to Adobe to get Flash, but even the newest version of Flash offered for Linux does not satisfy the requirements of the ILM page.
The whores get mad when the sluts give it away for free.
I had to hover over that link, just to make sure it wasn't a myspace profile.
In reply to your post, I disagree that the problems with this movie (similarly with the other movies you mentioned) that the problem was "lack of story" or some other such hand-waving. Some of them do indeed suffer from being "too long" or stretched too thin, but others suffer from pacing problems, problems with character empathy, anticlimactic directing, lack of subtlety, and as you alude for Dead Man's Chest, plot motivation. The swamp woman was indeed a cheap plot device that insults the intelligence of the audience. Be careful not to conflate all bad storytelling with "bad story". Many other factors affect the quality of storytelling in movies, games, books, an anything else.
In staying a bit more on-topic, I must say this: When I learned that Bill Nighy would play the roll of Davy Jones in the new movie, I was thrilled. It was an excellent roll for an actor with his ability to play genuinely dark, scary characters. And, he was hamstrung with effects. His face was covered up with digital prosthetics to the extent that his character was more crawly than creepy.
And I didn't get the sense that The Flying Dutchman was artificial; it was certainly no worse than its soul-less inhabitants. As you allude in at least three places in your post, pacing is the true problem with that scene and with long movies in general. (2: swamp woman breaks action; 3: King Kong / Casino Royale / PotC DMC too long) I call BS on "I could tell it was all CGI." There were very few visual mistakes, but many logical cues it was fake. The effects were well-done, but yeah, pal, everybody else could tell it was all CGI too. In that sentence, "tell" means "discern logically" and not "visually perceive". Of course it's not real. Go watch Office Space if you want a pedestrian setting with pedestrian props.
The important thing to see here is that technology is supplanting and not aiding the storytelling process. You might argue that in this case, the filmmakers' goal was to reduce the humanity of the characters in question. Whatever their motive, the result was that they nerfed the characters; they replaced character with nothing. I didn't think any of the bad guys had a soul except Will's dad. The rest, including Davy Jones (and despite great opportunity to show the nature of his tortured soul) were just CGI anti-mcguffins. Bad why? Bad how? Uhh, they just are, so fear them as the characters do.
I'm a different AC, fyi.
I just flew back from Japan. Due to a screw-up by Air Canada the same movies played on the way back as on the way: Dead Man's Chest and Toy Story.
The former I watched bits and pieces of but failed to get into. Swordplay on top of accidentally released water wheels? Please.
The latter I watched all the way through. Again. The dialog, the story, the characters, everything works.
"YOU - ARE - A - TOYYYY!!!!"
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
SHOW me, don't TELL me.
The problem is that the "logical cues" make you look for the "visual" cues
Movie MUST follow its own "logic". Even when that logic is not the same as the Real World's logic.
And the way you communicate that logic to the viewer is with pictures and sounds. And they failed to communicate that logic. They tossed crap in whenever they felt like it without tying it into the logic of that universe.
And that is what results when the logic is not established and nothing is tied into it. The characters have to keep TELLING you that they're afraid.
Why doesn't everyone send them a dollar _now_ so they just go away.
Am I the only one that liked the movie. I was looking for entertainment, and didn't play the "try to spot the CG". Sometimes I don't want substance, but just something to entertain me. And while this movie wasn't LOTR, it was good enough for me.
Here's BonnieGrrls's profile.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
The shark still looks fake.
It's truly amazing what ILM managed to do for Pirates 2. Too bad though that the producers chose not to invest in a similar amount of time and attention when they hired the screenwriters...
Until Adobe finally gets their Linux support done for Flash 9 (they skipped flash 8), websites should not be requiring anything later than Flash 7. That is the latest player available for Linux. Yes, they're working on it, and maybe it's even close to release, but ... horse, cart, etc. Sites should not be developing in anything later than Flash 7 until it's supported on the big three platforms.
One simple rule for its versus it's
you sir have failed.
good day.
You can't take the sky from me.
Argh, you've hit it on the head: "Good enough." I have to admit I was entertained by the movie, but it definitely is not at the same level as the original. I feel like Disney makes this mistake all the time; they'll occasionally hit on a great movie, but then they reduce it to a formula and produce sequels or imitations with the formula. I can just imagine the Disney producers sitting down with a bunch of kids and asked them what they thought of the movie. They said, "oh the CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow things was funny" or "I really liked the whole 'rum is gone' thing" or whatever, and they just wrote all these little jokes or gags into the DMC and expect people to eat it up. I could stand a few of them, but the recycled stuff made up a majority of the movie. Unfortunately Disney is just trying to make money, and I don't think the people making the decisions truly understand what makes a good movie. PoTC:DMC was entertaining, but it could have been SO much better. Is that franchise not successful enough to take a little risk?