Slashdot Mirror
Filmmakers Reviving Sci-fi By Going Old School
jjp9999 writes "The special effects arms race sci-fi films get stuck in has pulled the genre further and further from its roots of good storytelling and forward-thinking. The problem is that 'When you create elements of a shot entirely in a computer, you have to generate everything that physics and the natural world offers you from scratch There's a richness and texture when you're working with lenses and light that can't be replicated. The goal of special effects shouldn't necessarily be to look realistic, they should be works of art themselves and help create a mood or tell a story.' said filmmakers Derek Van Gorder and Otto Stockmeier. They hope to change this with their upcoming sci-fi film, 'C,' which will be shot entirely without CGI or green screens, opting instead for miniature models and creativity. They add that the sci-fi genre has gone wrong in other ways—getting itself stuck in too many stories of mankind's conflict with technology, and further from the idea of exploration and human advancement. 'In an era where science and technology are too often vilified, we believe that science-fiction should inspire us to surpass our limits and use the tools available to us to create a better future for our descendants,' they said."
The problem is that 'When you create elements of a shot entirely in a computer, you have to generate everything that physics and the natural world offers you from scratch
I don't see that as a problem, and the thing is, with GCI you can do things that are impossible, impractical, or incredibly dangerous without it.
I was impressed with Apollo 13. I don't know if they used models or CGI for the outside the capsule shots, but the weightless scenes were shot in the Vomit Comet".
The goal of special effects shouldn't necessarily be to look realistic, they should be works of art themselves and help create a mood or tell a story.
I disagree; unless you're shooting a cartoon, everything should be as realistic and beleivable as possible. And everything in the movie should strive to be a work of art in itself.
They hope to change this with their upcoming sci-fi film, 'C,' which will be shot entirely without CGI or green screens
Yeah, do that scene in Star Trek where Spock walks into the lift from one part of the ship and walks back out in another. Without a green screen they'd have had to have an acutual elevator.
I think it a bit ironic that a sci-fi movie would eschew real-world technology.
Free Martian Whores!
The points these people are trying to make in doing this have been seen and well documented with the degredation of the Original Star Wars films, the more they mess with them the worse they get.
Derek Van Gorder and Otto Stockmeier? WHO? The real reason that their film will be shot entirely without CGI or green screens is more likely that they can't afford CGI.
It's *not* the CGI, it's the tripe that producers and directors *DO* with it.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
One of the oft-leveled criticisms of CGI movies is their lack of soul. But rather than removing special effects altogether (which I suspect is a primarily cost-centered move anyway) I feel they should be treated differently.
Moon didn't eschew CGI and other effects completely, but it *did* make use of more model work than most of the SF movies I've seen recently. I think it's one of the reasons why I liked it so much.
There's a certain something about model shots in movies that CGI just doesn't quite match. Possible the models are actually less "real looking" than the CGI in some way, but there's something undeniably real and tangible about a model shot that CGI can very rarely deliver.
Yey, another win for planning your process ahead of knowing where your process is going.
Without a script, how do they even know they don't want CGI. Maybe it'll happen not to need it - suddenly their "NO CGI!!!" isn't so meaningful anymore.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
Fans of Firefly, the old Joss Wheadon Fox Sci-fi show that was fan-driven into a movie a la Star Trek TOS, will understand this argument. That was a (damn good) story driven show/movie with limited and low cost CGI, but still managed to innovative. I remember reading somewhere (OK don't kill me, but I did read it years ago) that the Serenity movie was the first to use a virtual camera style that moved around a lot giving an effect almost like a hand held camera. Have noticed that style of CGI in many movies over the last few years, and I suspect that CGI in general is not as expensive as George Lucas would have us believe. There is probably good software solutions out for that industry, pop in a model and manipulate the shot. Why not, "we have the technology..."
"If the only tool that you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Donny Rumsfeld
I'd like to see something shot at faster than 24fps. Having fast motion turn into nothing but a smear it getting kind of annoying.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I blame Michael Bay. His stories are just vehicles for his elaborate FX sequences. And I blame the general public for seeing his crappy films enough where he'll keep scoring great sci-fi franchises that deserve a better director. It's not that I don't enjoy his FX serquences, but the plot, dialog and direction aren't even as good as the Star Wars prequels. That's a pretty low bar to start with. DO NOT WANT.
"Never underestimate the potential of Human stupidity." --Heinlein
Given that the trend is that the majority neither understands science nor knows what fiction is, we are on target.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
It makes Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus look like a real thinker.
So what is C? I did a Google search and the term "c film" returns wonderful results such as: ...
C-film: a new spermicidal contraceptive.
B movie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
C-film: A new vaginal contraceptive - Elsevier
Coating paper, coating color: Cargill C*Film starche for papermaking
Although, at the same time I'm a little nervous that this may end up looking a bit too much like Red Dwarf, Space 1999.... or Team Amercia :|
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
You know, there are many great sci-fi films that came out using these old school techniques. If the story is captivating and the modelling is done right, sets, costumes, etc; it could be something really cool. Lets see what this guy can do to backup his claims.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
On the other hand, without *any* help from CGI, you have to be really good not to avoid all the pitfalls that the old school techniques fell into.
I think a good approach is a blend, use sets and that old tech just to get the natural basics etc, then CGI on top of it.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The special effects arms race sci-fi films get stuck in has pulled the genre further and further from its roots of good storytelling and forward-thinking.
No one will give us a decent FX budget.
The problem is that 'When you create elements of a shot entirely in a computer, you have to generate everything that physics and the natural world offers you from scratch There's a richness and texture when you're working with lenses and light that can't be replicated.
We're pretty good with a camera anyways so we will just shoot it without effects.
The goal of special effects shouldn't necessarily be to look realistic, they should be works of art themselves and help create a mood or tell a story.'
We'll still do some cheap-o matts and maybe some models.
The sci-fi genre has gone wrong in other ways—getting itself stuck in too many stories of mankind's conflict with technology, and further from the idea of exploration and human advancement. 'In an era where science and technology are too often vilified, we believe that science-fiction should inspire us to surpass our limits and use the tools available to us to create a better future for our descendants,' they said."
We can't really come up with a SF story that can be made with effects so we're just making a regular movie and adding ray guns and shiny computers.
For one thing, it's visual effects, not special effects. Special effects is explosions and whatnot.
So, how are they going to shoot heir models? All of Star Wars models were shot over blue screen - it is true that they were composited optically and no digitally, but you have to use some kind of process photography.
I agree that with models one gets a lot of realism "for free", dirt and weathering for example. There is a place for everything.
I always loved those model ships in a bathtub being attacked by Godzilla scenes.
Now if they can only re-animate Raymond Burr.
bleh sorry I didn't proofread, I scrambled my point
"to avoid and not to fall into the pitfalls".
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
By not surpassing our limits and not using the tools available.
Look at the special effects in The Thing (prequel, from this year). They're nowhere near as scary as the original. They don't look any more real IMO. The special effects in the original were disgusting and horrifying. The new one just looks like the necromorphs from Dead Space.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Proof that sci-fi doesn't need fancy effects to make a great film.
The goal of special effects shouldn't necessarily be to look realistic, they should be works of art themselves and help create a mood or tell a story.'
So are they saying that CGI artists are not artists? I know a lot of people who would disagree.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
If you want to create a good scifi movie, they should start with creating a good story. Otherwise, they will just end up with another Space Odyssey.
"Now if they can only re-animate Raymond Burr."
Hire Rosie O'Donnell, trim the excess body hair, and have at it.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Sounds like something Gene Roddenberry would have said.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Things that are clearly props don't look good any more than obvious CGI does, unless you're going for a "Who framed Roger Rabbit?" style movie. Toy scale models don't act like the real thing would either. Early CGI often looked too clean, too perfect, too cartoonish but recently they look more real than you can manage with rubber masks.
Of course "realism" in sci-fi is relative to the context. If there's a shot of the Enterprise I want to think that's a real space ship, not a cardboard prop or a computer animation. I want to think it's a "real" spaceship. Same with various monsters, I want to think that's a real monster, not a guy wearing a monster suit nor a badly painted in CGI monster.
Take something like Gollum, I don't really consider that he's a CGI character and the hobbits are real actors. Both do a good job of looking very different compared to the humans, they don't look like humanoids with pointy ears like series who had to rely on human actors had to. The actors in Avator too, even though the world is a bit of an acid trip in colors.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I disagree that there's anything inherent to CGI that is less artistic than physical model building, and i also disagree that there is any practical effect that cannot be duplicated by a computer (given enough desire to do so).
i do agree wholeheartedly that the focus on special effects arms race comes at the expense of good storytelling and forward thinking, which is the true value of Sci-Fi. but how is vowing to use only practical effects not just another special effects gimmick?
these guys hearts seem to be in the right place. i wish them all the luck in the world. but i would implore them to make the best use of all the tools available to them in order to tell their story.
i could live a little longer in this prison
Some of the sci-fi shows today are so cliche and manufactured that it makes me yearn for the days of ST:TNG. If you're doing sci-fi, get some 'sci' in there!
I'm a fan of hard, oldskool science fiction, and I don't see any problem calling it sci-fi. I would prefer the original name "scientifiction" though.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I've seen Asimov's Nightfall down well as a play. A good word-smith will create most of the scifi you need in your imagination.
In the scheme of things CGI is still in it's infancy. Even the use of models have advanced a good deal over the last several decades. So I'm not going to be critical of a medium simply because it hasn't had time to evolve. CGI opens up opportunities filmmakers have never had access to before. Certainly there were filmmakers doing impressive work previously, but it pales in comparison to what's possible today.
The fundamental problem is not with CGI, it's with film-making. Movies today emphasis the spectacle over substance. Writing today is crap, it's as simple as that. It's like they're writing a video game, the plot present only to move the film from one set piece to the next. Look at movies like Blade Runner or Alien. Both feature elements that could be considered contrived. A dystopian future with flying cars in one movie and exotic, vicious aliens in the other. But those aspects take a backseat to the store-telling so that they enhance the story instead of distracting from it.
The thing is that any one of these movies could look even more impressive today. But it would all get slathered under a layer of Hollywood flavor-of-the-day gloss. Look at Avatar, visually it's amazing, but the story is simplistic to the point of being patronizing.
So are we going to see a giant hand moving the spaceships around?
Super secret intern info: You hit the nail on the head. Syfy is merging with G4 in the spring. Syfy will stay the channel but it will be G4 programming at night.
Similar to Cartoon Network and their Adult Swim shows
I donated money to this project because it sounds like a hard-SF storyline that focuses on technology and a positive vision of humanity's future. We need more of that.
Where I differ with the people working on this project is the idea that CGI is somehow inherently a bad thing. CGI has lowered the bar for people to make science fiction films because the effects are so cheap and greenscreens make them so easy to implement. 20 years ago, a special effects-laden film cost far more to make and the studios made sure there was a marketable plot and storyline to ensure its success. Today, Hollyweird can churn out movie after movie on cheap, so a lot of films that we would once consider B-movies now have A-Movie special effects (Transformers, the glut of superhero films, etc) so it's getting harder and harder to know what's going to be a great film from previews alone. CGI and an overabundance of funding has produced this state of things, but great films are still being made that use CGI.
Like I said, I support this project because I support Hard SF, but it does sound a little snobby to claim their foregoing of CGI will make their film better. It reeks of misguided nostalgia.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
Is this a geek trope or some sort of pretentious "vinyl sounds better than CDs"/"old stuff is more real" sort of thing? That's not geeky. Geeky is going to SIGGRAPH, developing 3D tools and hardware, etc. I'm not sure what sort of geek normally hates Computer Generated Imagery.
(Though, geeks hating the other CGI makes sense, I'd say.)
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
For your information, the most realistic Sci-Fi movie ever made, 2001: A Space Odyssey, did not used any CGI nor green screen. Of course those technologies did not exist back in 1968 and it was 9 years before Star Wars which again did not use CGI nor green screen at the time of its release.
The first movie to include most of its action in a computer generated set was Tron in 1982, almost 30 years ago. In that time we went from miniature models and ingenuity in creating special effect to a software based point-and-click interface.
LoTR still used sets, some being really large. I can't imagine Rivendell or Edoras being 100% CGI. Some TV shows now use CGI almost everywhere like Sanctuary, to make them cheaper to produce and in that it makes senses. In the end I think CGI is used not because it gives the best result but because it's cheaper and easier to produce than miniature models. On the other hand, we have shows like Doctor Who who still is a show produced on a budget with minimum CGI films with proper and "real" props and set, proving it still can be done.
In the end knowing the battle cruiser in the beginning of Star Wars is a lot smaller than you typical Sedan car and still being blown away would maybe not happen if we knew it was only done by a computer file.
--- Bouh !!! ---
The problem i see with most CGI is it's used as a crutch. Many filmmakers rely on CGI to make something so real and perfect that the audience will get drawn in. Then they slack off on actually doing the story telling that does draw us in.
These people seem to be making the polar opposite assumption. They assume that a good miniature is going to really make the film. They are making the same mistake. I would like to point out Disney's The Black Hole. That film has some incredible miniatures. That film sucks.
C may turn out to be a great film in spite of the filmmakers elitist attitudes. However, from the look of the trailer, it could use some well crafted cgi.
They aren't using CGI because they can't afford it. They can't afford it because they're penniless nobodies with no track record and a dull sounding arthouse premise who can't get funding any other way than by begging for it retail. This is essentially online panhandling.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
No CGI? How about no talent and no budget either?
They should do the entire Lensman series. Updated so that everyone isn't constantly lighting up, or using dated language. Talk about exploration and human (and alien) advancement. Even just the first book, Triplanetary, would make a cool three-part miniseries.
I think their point is that filmmakers are focusing too much on special effects, and not enough on the story. They're not against CGI, which they make clear in the article, but they think filmmakers are forgetting the fundamentals. So they're going to the other extreme to prove that good Sci-fi films can be created without all this. At the same time, while computer graphics have improved a lot, so have cameras and their abilities to shoot good footage in low light -- meaning they can shoot convincing space scenes by just turning down the lights. It's an interesting concept, if nothing else.
See: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Side note: It's interesting that Hollywood at one point claimed that piracy was resulting in the loss of jobs in the movie industry, upon closer inspection the jobs were carpenters, set designers, construction teams, backdrop painter, and the like, the loss mostly due to green screen and CGI.
But hey it's Hollywood and they know how to sell it.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I wouldn't sully that name by calling anything out of Hollywood by it. They barely manage 'fiction', never mind 'science'.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
"There's a richness and texture when you're working with lenses and light that can't be replicated."
Bullshit. Lenses and textures aren't magic - they work based on laws of physics. If you can emulate those realistically enough, the end product will be the same.
Also, this ties into the whole stupid argument put forward by what I can only assume are uneducated hipsters who like to see film as some kind of set-in-stone ideal which should not be tampered with, or else the gods will be displeased. The old movies were better, CGI is bad, yadda yadda, all the same pseudointellectual crap from people who like to feel that their taste is special and privileged.
District 9 and Avatar were awesome as far as I'm concerned and felt no more or less "rich" than other movies I enjoyed.
No computer graphics in Blade Runner and that was an awesome sci-fi movie. OK, it did also have Ridley Scott directing and Rutger Hauer and Harrison Ford, but no CGI and if you didn't know that you'd think it did.
Sci-fi is absolutely no different from other genres. The conflicts that form the basis of the story are exactly the same. Anytime you deviate from good storytelling you have made a vast mistake. CGI and green screen can aid in that deviation but ultimately they are only a crutch with the real problem being solely on the shoulders of the producers and directors. Any use or not use of some sort of storytelling technique is simply hype and nothing more. Very good movies can be made on shoestring budgets as well as on multi-hundred million dollar budgets. The technology makes absolutely positively NO difference whatsoever. Don't believe me? If you truly love film watch A Streetcar Named Desire and tell me that technology makes any difference at all. That movie looks like a filmed stage production and is one of the single best movies I have ever seen. On the other hand come the recent super hero movies. They haven't all been great by any means, but most of them are at least good and they have tons of CGI and green screen work. The point I'm making is that they are pointing a finger at something that is not the culprit and I have to wonder if they are doing it as an experiment in storytelling or as a bunch of hype to sell their movie high while it costs low, but I can be an acerbic cynical snipy jerk.
Will the sequels be called C++ , Objective-C and C#? Will they even be called sequels or SQLs?
It sounds like a great plot. I certainly wouldn't hold on to saying there will be no CGI. Nothing beats CGI for shots of planets from space. CGI can be used to make space scenes look like they belong. Paint on glass requires someone with serious skills to make space scenes look realistic. The more they show what is being explored the better an exploration film is, IMHO. SGU was a good example of not showing space or the ship enough. They had this massive ship. Not only did it have tech exploration waiting to be exposed it had historical exploration that could be explored too. That is two seasons of good stories if you ask me. Instead they focused on trying to duplicate Battle Star Galactica's moody environment and plot. Sci-Fi that introduces new places, people, and things are historically the most successful; Star-Trek, Starwars, Dune, Avatar. I think these guys should take a really good comparison look at the two Dune movies. Anyway. I hope they get some decent cash to make the file and rethink using CGI.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Take a look at the inventor of modern space miniatures (camera system that allowed multiple models to be easily shot for the same scene), George Lucas. What is the difference between those early models and the CGI models used in the prequels that don't exist?
Smoothness. The OLD physical models were dirty. They had a used, naval vessel look. The NEW CGI model was a polished mirror. The prequels were to clean to really work. The old movies had a Wild West feel to it and I don't just mean the blasters worn on the hip. The prequels have a feel to it of a costume drama.
Same with a lot of other movies, they look so futuristic with such smooth shaved actors that it all feels fake. And because it feels fake and we know it is fake, it feels even more fake.
When you see Jackie Chan doing a stunt, you know it is real and so "simple" stunts like him jumping through the opening in a clerks window is amazing and thrilling. James Bond jumping down a cliff is fake and therefor not really that inspiring.
A Sci-Fi movie, and I am talking space opera here because REAL hard core Science Fiction needs no special effects at all ("That morning, the sun rose in the west", The last man on earth is sitting in room, there is a knock on the door), has to feel "right" and that doesn't come with special effects but with making the story engaging.
And watching a trade dispute while shouting at the screen "behind you" is NOT engaging.
The original Star Trek had primitive effects and even Spocks Brain blows the new movie out of the water.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Need anyone mention that bastion of "putting all one's eggs into the CGI basket", Final Fantasty: The Spirits Within? They put all their efforts into the CG to make highly realistic skin surfaces and artificial actors. So much so, that they completely forgot to put effort into actual story development. It was beautiful to watch, but terrible to have to follow.
While it was a fantasy, I thought that Lord of the Rings was an excellent use of CGI without getting in the way of the storytelling or acting. Consider the case of Gollum. A fully artificial being generated via CGI within the movie, yet he was so integral to the story.
One science fiction story I would love to see brought to "life" on the silver screen would be Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern. That is a story that would need CGI on the scale of Cameron's Avatar to make it visually believable.
Whew! This water sure is cold!
At Epcot there is a "ride" / exhibit called The Living Seas. To enter you ride an elevator down a distance that seems a couple hundred feet, then it opens up and you're surrounded by huge aquariums. The elevator is the kind with two sets of doors - one on each side of the elevator. You enter one side and go out the other. I could tell that it was fake - I think maybe I could see sunlight under the outside doors. I tried to convince my friend that it was just an illusion - bubbles would go up the glass sides of the elevator making it appear you were descending, it would shake and shimmy and come to an abrupt stop at the bottom, etc. However they just couldn't believe it was fake, even though to exit you just walked straight back outside another normal set of doors. Finally I proved it to them by slipping on the elevator to ride it back up (you were not supposed to exit that way). As soon as the doors leading inside the building closed, the doors leading outside opened to allow the next batch of people in.
My point is that even in-person a fake elevator can be an very convincing illusion. It is even more so in a movie, where they have total control over the camera angles, the actors are trained to enhance the illusion further, etc.
Better known as 318230.
Copola took this route when he made that movie. It was worth it at the time and the movie have a special look because of that.
Contemporary and excellent sci-fi can be done with almost no CGI and special effects. If you haven't checked out Pioneer One, you owe it to yourself to do so. One of my favorite shows.
http://www.pioneerone.tv/
http://vodo.net/pioneerone
Entirely supported by viewer contributions. No adverts. If you like it, make a donation.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
I've watched a lot of Scifi films over the years and sometimes I like to go back to the older films because I find them more interesting. CGI might look nice at first but it just can't replace that interaction actors have with a model. In many cases, I'd rather watch an old budget scifi film done with a real model set, vs a new CGI movie like Avatar. When you rewatch these old films you discover new things you didn't notice before. Plus with CGI you miss out on all the bloopers that were fun to spot.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
When you create elements of a shot entirely in a computer, you have to generate everything that physics and the natural world offers you from scratch There's a richness and texture when you're working with lenses and light that can't be replicated.
Technology Bad!
In an era where science and technology are too often vilified, we believe that science-fiction should inspire us to surpass our limits and use the tools available to us to create a better future for our descendants
No wait...
Technology Good!
Sounds like code for "using a low budget as a selling point"
is assuming it required a huge special effects budget. The moment you think a sci-fi movie requires a $300 million budget, you failed....ahem Michael Bay and George Lucas.
Good science fiction should be nothing more then a compelling and interesting plot set at some point in the future, period. Why Hollywood thinks it requires epic space battles, aliens, robots and obscene amounts of explosions and noise is beyond me.
Also Michael Bay and George Lucas should be banned from making or releasing any movie ever again, science fiction or otherwise, they are predominantly why Hollywood cannot make good science fiction.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
"they should be works of art themselves and help create a mood or tell a story"
Problem is majority of movies don't do that at all.
For example, the overused (both in movies and now in video games) horizontal/vertical strentch lens flare effects, not only are they annoying as hell, they don't bring any "art" and the only "mood" they give is annoyance and irritating. Nor they do tell a story...(no need to be said but...its what de-constructing that bullshit statement leads to by simple reasoning/logic.
Turbolifts always moved at the speed of plot.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
No CGI, no Green Screen?
This ought to look at least as good as Space: 1999 ;)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
It's plural only because it's two people working on one and the same movie.
That's no basis to imply (as the title of the summary does) that it's is a wide spread new trend in scifi movie making.
Wishful thinking much?
"In an era where science and technology are too often vilified, we believe that science-fiction should inspire us to surpass our limits and use the tools available to us..." and that's why we are determined to do entirely without CGI.
Yes, well.
This just is not true... movies like moon. Or masters of science fiction.. the tv show firefly and sanctuary.. there are many great scifi movies... sunshine is epic.. in my opinion with computer games being on locked down consoles and facebook.. the movie industry is the only people using computers to push tech forward.. look at avatar.. however.. I really want to watch c now and see what its like.. the matrix combined models and cgi..
I think it's great that someone with a bit of creativity and vision is willing to take a chance and pursue his vision. Film has become our way of tapping into archetypes and mythos, and these fundamental concepts are very important to people and culture. However, the trend will be, due to monetary concerns, to more fully embrace technology, that is, CGI, and completely abandon the physical. The animated full-length "movie" "Final Fantasy" was the knock on the door when it comes to showing what the future of movies will be. Starting with green screens, the process will end with the end of the acting profession. Who needs actors when you can simply digitally re-create people, and down to a level of detail that makes you fully believe that you are looking at real people acting? Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the efforts or vision of this daring director. However, the physical world (models, physical special effects, etc.) are more expensive, more time-consuming, and not as believable as CGI effects. I guarantee you, you will see the time come when movies will not ever need real actors, and when kids in high school create full-length feature movies. I direct your attention to YouTube, in a sense, the future has already arrived. (But who will the "National Enquirer" talk about when there are no more celebrities??) John V. Karavitis
without the optical printers used since nearly the advent of motion pictures to do optical printing effects that have been used forever. ALLA original star trek transporter was an optical printing of the transporter beams printed over the cross desolve of 2 plates. I would bet I can show you films that are done with CG mixed with minatures and you can't tell the difference. The SMART THING to use CG when its the right thing and practical (real world) The best movies know when to use what and when to mix them together. The big problem is most people don't even know when a creature is a mix of robotics and CG. Have a look at what companies likes Stan winston now called "Legend" does. amazing mixes of cg and robotics.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
Pixar films are entirely CGI, and I don't hear anyone calling them soulless or lifeless ... But hating on CGI is an unfortunate geek trope.
Watch something done by the SyFy channel rather than Pixar. Basically CGI is like everything else, it can be done poorly.
Geek tripe, hating CGI? Are you sure? I can see a nostalgic fascination with old school techniques, a respect for that art, but I don't know that there is an accompanying backlash against CGI, at least when well done. And by well done I don't necessarily mean in a technical sense. For example Han chasing storm troopers around the corner and finding the 6 or so real actors supplemented with 25 or so CGI troopers. It added nothing to the scene, probably made it worse (IMHO).
We Slashdotted the homepage, the least we can do is drop a dollar in the jar.
CGI is completely overdone today. Whereas before, people would come up with a movie, shoot it and add special effects at the appropriate points in the story line, nowadays, so many movies (too many to list) seem to be created with the first thought being "well, we can do shots like this now, and animate these things" and then the storyline evolves around it. The end result being movies with horrible storylines, overdone CGI, and shots that, while they might look spectacular as single frame renderings, look horrible animate (animators seem hard pressed to create humans who move how you'd expect a normal human being to move - instead their actions are overdone and they move, well, just too fluidly).
the effects houses certainly don't mind all the work being pushed down the pipeline to them. But the stories suffer, and this being the capitalistic society that we are, only the "safest" movies are put into production, on account of the budgets being spent on CG, etc.
For instance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films
Pirates of the Carribean: at Worlds End cost $300 million to produce, and took in $963 million (a 3 dollar return for every dollar spent).
Now go back to yesteryear:
Empire strikes back cost 32 million to make and took in 475 million at the box office - almost 15 dollars back forevery dollar spent.
Similarly, Thunderball (the forth James Bond film) cost 9 million to produce and returned 142 million at the box office (a similar return).
So one could argue that CGI hasnt benefited the studios at all - it's just driven up production costs by a huge extent, and probably detracted from the variety of projects they're willing to handle, which is ultimately a net-negative to us consumers. I for one am sick of the continual re-hashing of old comic books (xmen and spider man were good, but fantastic four, hulk, green lantern), the new versions of old movies, classic or not (remakes of Arthur and Footloose... really?!?), and the CGI overloaded flicks (Tranformers jumps to mind here), and rarely ever go to the theaters anymore. Maybe if they concentrated on original storylines and great acting, they'ed bring audienecs back out?
Just a guess...
Why do I never have mod points at the right time? And as a bonus, the coffee cleared up my sinuses as it passed through my nose!
Dog pilling on with the parent... 'C' may be the working title, but the trailer screams "Back To the '70's", in the good and bad sense. The all-to-brief sensor view of the asteroid and spacecraft flyby scenes looked promising. But, the music, titling, actors lighting and backdrops, and the scientist in his office dragged me kicking and screaming back to the pre-Star Wars 1970s, when all we had was the memory of 2001, and a whole lot of crap.
Anyway, I've already contributed my kickstart to a movie project, having kicked in a few bucks to the creator of Man Conquers Space , a guy in Oz who's been gradually pulling together a - uh - traditional live action/CGI film in his spare time.
Luke, help me take this mask off
I wouldn't sully that name by calling anything out of Hollywood by it. They barely manage 'fiction', never mind 'science'.
Last night I saw a wonderful counterexample, an adaptation of Heinlein's Destination Moon (1950). Of course actually having Heinlein involved in the writing and acting as a technical director probably helped.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042393/
If I had not caught that 1950s classic last night I probably would have offered 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Of course it had Arthur C. Clarke's involvement.
Perhaps the secret is to have "real" science fiction authors involved in a meaningful sense. I'm not suggesting that they can necessarily write screenplays, that is a different art than novels, but there can be serious collaboration. In such an environment CGI can be a great tool.
Apollo 13 used miniatures, with extensive CGI added later.
The service module, capsule, and lunar module were all built as a single unit at 1/4 scale (and thus about 16' long) and were mounted on a huge gimbal so they could be oriented at any angle and rotated about the axis. The only real difference from the actual one is that the capsule was painted a matte finish and the reflections were added as CGI later. The model was shot sometimes with green screen and sometimes with black background and the matte generated by a rough cg model later. Some multi-pass was done to put lights in the interiors but that technology was already pretty obsolete. Obviously the background stars, the gas, all the floating debris, thruster exhaust, etc, were added as CGI.
The entire Saturn 5 and the service tower were built as a huge miniature at 1/20 scale. It was constructed sideways and the rocket actually moved relative to the tower. This was all filmed greenscreen. The backgrounds were actual pictures of the area around the launchpad, sometimes mapped onto very simple models of the ground and sky (such fully-surrounding photographed environments where the camera move can be done later are really common now, but it was an innovation at the time and this movie may be the first to use it). All the falling ice and the smoke were CG. The rocket exhaust was interesting, it was CGI but it was rephotographed overexposed onto real film to get a realistic glow effect. The large Saturn 5 model also came apart into all the stages and was used for all the shots in space until the third stage was jettisoned. No real footage was used for this movie, as it avoided any problems with matching (and in fact the model apparently has the wrong paint pattern for the Apollo 13 mission, as pointed out by various nitpickers).
There was also a huge model at the same scale of the interior walls of the vertical assembly building. The shots of the rocket on the crawler and inside the doors of the VAB were of a commercial 3' rocket model with a scratch-built tower and platform, with a motion controlled camera replicating the movement on the live-action background image.
All these models ended up at Universal, where they were on display for a while (the rocket was apparently strong enough that it could be stood vertically) and are probably in storage now.
Watch 2001 again. A decent copy of it on a decent screen. No CGI, just models. It's the lighting - even with the all the physics in modern programming it's damn hard to get the light exactly correct. And Kubrik's team nailed it.
Ten or so years ago a local theatre offered a showing of 2001. Sometimes the bigger screen "hurts". For example in the African savannah scenes you can recognize the background as painted. A wonderful painting but it does hamper the "suspension of disbelief". Even so the movie deserves its place as one of the greatest sci fi movies ever.
was entitled "The Man From Earth". As Sci-Fi as it gets, but 0% percent CGI. Fabulous reviews and plenty of awards. It's all in the script.
JigJag
"The hallmark of humanity is the ability to move beyond sensory inputs" - Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Slashdot is not what it used to be. 275 comments so far and people are still arguing over the relatively unimportant issue of how CGI compares to models on film. Guys, they have called it "C" instead of "c". Seriously guys...
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Ray Harryhausen, the best special effects creator ever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Harryhausen
Unless they get the price of production down, this won't help.
The problem with Hollywood is the $100 million movie. At that price point, the project needs assurances of success. This leads to sequels, remakes, and the occasional new idea by a known director. That was the trend for 2010-2011. It got out of hand, and sequels started bombing. The low point was probably when "Police Academy 8" was green-lighted.
The comic-book branded movie thing seems to be winding down. The first-tier characters have been done. The second-tier characters have been done. The third-tier characters don't have enough fans to guarantee box office success.
In SF, you have to build a world, as full sized sets, miniatures, or CGI. This costs. If you cut corners, it shows. CGI looked good at first - now you could build Big Things at last. But then you have to fill in all the detail on the Big Things. That's why CGI films list hundreds (sometimes thousands) of staff in the credits. In the Toy Story movies, you'll see long drives or chases through suburbia. Each house is different and has unique landscaping. Somewhere up in San Raphael is the poor schlub assigned to landscaping houses 1030 through 1045, in the cubicle next to the one doing houses 1046 through 1060. Procedural city generation has been tried, but still doesn't look very good. (Procedural tree and forest generation, though, does work quite well. The processes that generate real trees are local and fractal and can be modeled successfully. So far, nobody has built a good automatic architect.)
"Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" started out as a $20 million movie and ended up an $80 million movie for that reason.
That was done frequerntly if I recall right. I think on occasion the 'stop the turbolift' conversations didn't take more time than some 'let the turbolift go' conversations. Obviously turbolifts go to their destination, make whooshing sound effects, and open the doors when they detect conversation is over. 'Computer stop' was just a signal to cut the sound effects.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
It would have been a bit funny, after a particular epic part, or moving dialog, if ship officers got into the tubolift and just stood there awkwardly, staring at the walls or floor, waiting to get to destination, while cheesy music plays. Extra points if it actually has to stop somewhere a long the way and pick up a red shit or something...
Epcot *had* an attraction called "The Living Seas". It's now a slow-moving dark ride themed to Pixar's Finding Nemo. The majority of the ride's visual effects are simply video projectors, projecting CGI scenes created for the ride. Though, the jellyfish and angler fish are animatronics. There is still a fake elevator at Disney World, however. The entrance queue room to Haunted Mansion has raising section that gives a rather convincing illusion that the floor is dropping, but it's only the ceiling and half the walls that actually move.
Now, from a geek perspective, video projectors and CGI may seem like an unimpressive way of creating visual ride effects - but in most cases the end result is rather spectacular, even though you know exactly how they did it.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
I dont know if I agree with the sentiments about cgi. But I do agree sci-fi storylines in movies and TV have become awful, repetitive, predictable and most of all, more fiction than science.
Its great to see someone at least thinking about what went wrong and getting away from the post-apocalyptic / disaster / alien invasion / technology will destroy us themes. Lets think about a future of discovery and development instead!
L8r.
"How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47
The word those anal retentive people who don't understand normal speech and disagree with the use of 'realism' would be verisimilitude, the quality of realism in something.
One is where CGI is the medium for art and provides a canvas for story telling, such as what Pixar does.
The other approach to CGI is as a gimmick layered on top of some cheap live action to spice up film that is designed to meet the minimum requirements for entertainment.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I'd like to see more films with dialog and real character building, rather than fast paced high framerate action.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"Now if they can only re-animate Raymond Burr."
Hire Rosie O'Donnell, trim the excess body hair, and have at it.
They lost 3 people the last time they tried.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
"There's a richness and texture when you're working with lenses and light that can't be replicated" Warning: smug artist alert. Ignore this advertisement in full. "Can't" is a strong word, and "richness" is just fluff that people use when they can't explain something.
and the story is the story.
Stop vilifying CGI.
The idea that there is some 'natural' imagery that will never be produced by computers is laughable. Of course it will.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The trailer reminds me of a pilot made between the seasons of Space:1999 known as Into Infinity.
==//==