Slashdot Mirror
Speed Racer's Visual FX Uncovered
Marco Trezzini writes "View exclusive interactive samples of the digital building blocks behind the Speed Racer movie in VRMag's in-depth interviews with award-winning Matrix visual FX guru John Gaeta, Dennis Martin, Lubo Hristov, and Jake Morrison.
Including Virtual Reality panoramas of the movie locations, turn tables of the mach 5 and 6,
and many making of videos unveiling the secrets of the visual effects.
Link to 'Speed Racer uncovered' and to John Gaeta's interview." The first time I saw the trailer for this movie, my jaw hit the floor. Nobody makes live action "Cartoons" that look like this. I guess that makes me believe there is no way the movie can be good.
All they do anymore is remake crappy tv shows i never wanted to watch in the first place into crappy movies i still dont want to watch.
Writers strike be damned, im on a viewers strike!
I don't think that's exactly fair. There is some way the movie could be good. The original Matrix had neat (maybe not original) effects but it also had a very sound core science fiction theme along with a lot of great drama and situations. The dialog wasn't the best but I thought the story was very very strong. My 50+ year old aunt and uncle watched it when it came out and the one thing they remember from it is the story. Not the special effects or dialog or who was in it but the possibility of this Man Vs Machine universe.
I'll admit when I saw the Speed Racer trailer, my brain didn't comprehend anything that happened. I couldn't tell who was what, what I was looking at or even what kind of conflict the movie centered on. I was utterly stupefied. I'm not afraid of admitting that, it was just confusing and I've never seen or read any Speed Racer material so I have no precursor or knowledge of what the theme is.
If this movie is relying 100% on its stunning visual effects, it's going to be a summer blockbuster and nothing more. It isn't going to age well and might go down as being a standard to watch on the latest plasma screen until next summer when a better movie comes out. There is, however, still a very likely possibility that one or more elements comes through to save the movie. Whether it be the directing, the acting, the story or even the music.
My work here is dung.
At least, the preview wasn't. The preview was quite clearly for a movie about F-Zero.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The previews for this film really bug me, particularly the way that the cars are constantly fishtailing back and forth. I realize that this is Speed Racer and this is not supposed to be realistic, but I believe that you need some inkling of reality to achieve any sense of excitement and drama.
Its based on a cartoon! What they have created is a caricature of a caricature of reality. Granted that makes the previews a caricature of a caricature of caricature. Still, it gives me the overwhelming impression of trying too hard, probably to cover up for the script.
Then again, I thought the Matrix series was kind of dumb.
Really, the only way to possibly enjoy this film will be to go in with absolutely no expectations at all.
Forget the Matrix, forget the old cartoons, don't bring any assumptions or fond childhood dreams to the party.
Just order a large popcorn, maybe get a little intoxicated, and go watch the eye-candy.
And if there's a plot that actually makes sense, it's all gravy.
You never saw Racer X going "AHHHH!" and looking like he's going to crap his pants.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
I'm asking because I'm thinking that Speed Racer is primarily a U.S. childhood memory keepsake.
I've seen the trailer pass by before various movies four times now (10,000 BC, Definitely Maybe, Reservation Road, The Spiderwick Chronicles - a pretty spread out mix of audiences), and all four times the audience's response ranged from "wtf is speed racer?" to "what's with the awful effects?".
Somehow I can't see any of the audience here (NL) to be immediately drawn into the movie thanks to the lack of growing up with Speed Racer, and the trailer showing a minimum of story and mostly oddly-composited (I guess it's a "visual style") live action/CG doesn't exactly help to lure people in based on the visuals.
So what has audience response been in other countries?
Gah! How can they screw up a classic!?
There aren't any Neon lights in the 1967 cartoon!
Where's the really fast talking and loud gasping!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Damn you Hollywood!
But what made me laugh was the trailer clearly showed he did _NOTHING_ his whole life but think about racing, or practice racing.
So htf did he build the muscles and learn the skills to take out the ninjas they show later? lol
He's not even a pirate ;)
$40 million for the leading man and leading woman
$100,000 for the script
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
So, a thread where everyone gets to show how terribly sophisticated they are by turning their noses up at an action film? no way! I submit to you all that the vast majority of this trash talk is little more than fickle ignorance.
This film is certainly about visual appeal. But i can say that with just a teensy bit of knowledge in that domain, it is readily apparent to me that this is a spectacular triumph.
The film captures the recently popular technique called HDR or High Dynamic Range photography, but they manage to do it at 24 frames per second at IMAX resolutions and keep it going for 2 hours. All of the motion blur, lens flares and other camera artifacts are clearly intentional and separate from anything having to do with their cameras, most likely in order to emphasize a sense of scale or motion. Notice how the backgrounds are in focus, crisp and sharp along with the immediate foreground- this is surely the most essential element of creating the live action cartoon feel that the brief snippets of trailer are hinting at.
But the most important thing I'm able to extract from the limited glimpses I've had is that they employ all of this to convey the sense of big heavy cars racing at hundreds of miles per hour and flipping through the air as gracefully as a ballet troop in full deployment.
So what good does the optimistic assessment do me? For one thing, it gives me some joy in the anticipation. More importantly, I get the satisfaction of being truly sophisticated without sitting in a traffic jam down on Snark St.
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm only a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta
According to a reporter who sneaked into an air vent (using modified Mythbuster techniques) above the Wachowski's offices, if Speed Racer does well, they plan to do a live action Urotsukidji - Legend of the Overfiend.