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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
"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."
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.
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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
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.
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.
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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.
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From a "realism" perspective, the original Star Wars films are about as scientific as a cartoon, which is why the genre is generally called space opera and not science fiction. I have no problem with George Lucas messing around with Star Wars, as he wants to keep the movies "current" and sell more toys - if he pisses off his adult fans in the process, so be it. The movies aren't targeted at adults, they are targeted at 12 year old boys (for the most part) and have to stay relevant for that market to keep the merchandise bandwagon going. This is all about capitalism and making billions of dollars at the expense of art, but in this rare case the artist is making the money - if you don't like that, stop buying his stuff (like I did 20+ years ago).
Sci-fi seems to have gone a couple different directions lately. First you've got man vs machine and man vs alien - this is almost always CGI driven schlock like Cowboys and Aliens, Battle:Los Angeles, Transformers, I am Number Four (haven't seen it, but if Michael Bay is involved it goes here), etc. Then you've got the mind benders like Moon, The Adjustment Bureau, and Inception. A genre that popped up in the last few years is "let's rip off ET" where you get Super 8 and Paul.
Here are some of my personal peeves I hope they avoid:
20th century medicine or earlier used 200+ years in the future (cancer is still a scourge, "he's dead Jim" insti-death, etc).
Troll 2 quality monsters
Giant spaceships hovering over cities (they would crush the city)
Creatures that behave like they're in a computer game with a bad AI
Groaner names for anything - I started hating Avatar when they first uttered "Unobtanium." - not unwatchably bad, but it is essentially a Michael Bay-like action movie with a hippie theme. Independence Day wasn't unwatchably bad, either, and that was the CG pinnacle of its time (it was an action movie with wafer thin characters and almost no plot, which is why I disliked it, but many of my friends thought it was the best movie, ever, and saw it 10+ times in the theater).
Tossing in impossible things just because CG can do it or some 1960s art showed it. Avatar's floating mountains, for instance, which is based on 1960s art (or 1970s at the latest). Or Terra Nova's dinosaurs that keep attacking as they are MACHINE GUNNED (these things have brains the size of a pea, yes, but so does a turkey, and they still feel pain).
Here are some issues I see as a problem in the future, and may be good sci-fi issues:
A society that doesn't age, has machines that clear their arteries, etc - death is rare and usually accidental, so how is population controlled (birth control? gladiator combat? suicide?)
A society that doesn't need to work. Maybe a bunch of capitalists run everything and everywhere else is a slum, or maybe there is a Star Trek like society, or maybe everyone owns a robot that works for them.
People needing technology to do their jobs.
Discovering life on another planet, but it is vastly different and possibly inferior to our own (so how do we deal with it? what do we do with it? if we found Egyptian society of 4000 years ago, would we make contact and be gods to them?)
People that no longer need to bear children (vat grown babies - and we already have artificial uterus's for sharks, so I think this is an imminent issue) - is it really immoral (I don't think so, but the Catholic church may feel different)? Does society become hedonistic? Do Jesus, Allah, and Buddha join forces on a murderous rampage to redeem humanity?
Cybernetics, though I think there are many issues ignored in sci-fi, like powering them, and I think people are attached to their human parts - augmentation is no big deal, but, say lopping off your arm for a cyber arm would be.
Growing replacement anything in a lab (limbs, eyes, pets, people, etc).
Here are some things I don't have a problem with, but may or may not be possible or may have limited potential:
Warp drives (some like time bubb
Turbolifts always moved at the speed of plot.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
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...