Interesting article on CGI

mike65

Return of the real fake

You may have noticed some internet excitement around the new Indiana Jones film. Most of the clamour comes from fans who can't wait to see their hero return, bullwhip in hand. But take a closer look and you'll see an unexpected theme developing among the excitement. It seems that devotees of the original trilogy are upset at Steven Spielberg and George Lucas having used computer-generated images - despite assurances from Spielberg that he was "making as much of this movie practical magic rather than digital magic".

There's an increasing feeling that CGI, which promised so much, is looking increasingly clunky these days, that sophisticated audiences can see the joins and spot the jerky movements, and that these failings are cheapening the cinema experience. What began as a grumble about the CGI-heavy Star Wars prequels looking worse than the original trilogy has metamorphosed into full-grown irritation with the notion that computer wizardry is enough to make a film. It's easy to see why: was Deep Blue Sea any scarier than Jaws? Would ET have been as cute if he'd existed on a hard drive rather than as a model? The first leaked review of the new Indy film, on the Ain't It Cool News website, crystallised the feeling: "The fake stuff doesn't mix with the real stuff at all."

And it's not just fans who are sick of implausible and plasticky CGI. Gil Taylor was the cinematographer on the first Star Wars back in 1977. In fact, he's the man who made the lightsaber glow. "It was very do-it-yourself," he says. "The lightsabers were just triangular bits of wood which were covered in reflective material that I projected a spotlight on to. They've gone over to digital now, which I never used and I don't believe in. Personally, I'm incredibly bored with those effects; they've taken over everything."

Having been raised on 'real object' effects I'm glad there is a bit of a rethink. CG Opticals are best left to subtle areas and tidying up, not faking explosions or collapsing buildings. A good example was in the second (?) Borne movie when JB uses gas to blow up an agents house - the explosion was lame with obvious artifacts, they'd have been wiser to not have shown it at all.

Mike.

L31mr0d

How did Jurassic Park manage to get the balance just right but every other movie since has made a mess of it.

Mark Hamill

L31mr0d wrote: »

How did Jurassic Park manage to get the balance just right but every other movie since has made a mess of it.

CGI in films is like sticky tape in dress fitting. A little here and there to tie up lose ends and keep everything where it should be is fine, but a whole dress made of sticky tape? that just looks painful

BlitzKrieg

CGI is here to stay, not cause it works or people like it.

Its cheap, and its much easier today to find someone who can do CGI then it is to find someone who can build a convincing set.

Lament a great loss to films everywhere.

L31mr0d

I just think we're unlucky to of lived during the birthing period of CGI. It's just learning to walk at the moment, and we're forced to endure its awkward progression.

I'm sure our children will not be able to tell the difference between CGI and reality.

Galvasean

L31mr0d wrote: »

I'm sure our children will not be able to tell the difference between CGI and reality.

Because they'll be stupid?

Eirebear

Galvasean wrote: »

Because they'll be stupid?

Of course not.

Genetic engineering will have been able to locate the gene which gives people this ability and it will be removed in the fertilisation proccess in a horrible Orwellian style conspiracy involving the major Holloywood studios and....erm....Aliens from the planet X.

(sounds like a script for M. Night Shyamalan)

stereoroid

It was the same with Batman Begins: Christopher Nolan wanted to minimize the CGI. For example, that scene with Batman standing on top of a building, as the camera goes past: that is not CGI, it's a camera on a helicopter flying past a stand-in perched on top of a building.

Pigman II

First off CG is not cheap, it's very expensive.

Second of all Lightsabres were only done practically for the first SW movie and the results were so dissapointing that they even had to be touched up in post. The entire process Gil Taylor mentions was abandoned by the time of the second movie and was replaced by rotoscoping. The lightsabers in the prequel movies are amazing looking and are a clear example of where CG has surpassed previous practical and non-practical techniques.

Basically if he's trying to convince us that CG is a step backwards then he chose a very bad example to back up his argument.

BlitzKrieg

First off CG is not cheap, it's very expensive.

I guess cheap wasnt the right word.

Lets try cheaper then most practical solutions.

The larger worker base + the moveable capitol makes using CGI a much better economic choice for most of todays SFX then the other processess.

There is no shortage in people coming out of schools with the skills and the machines/programmes needed to create the effects can be divided up among numerous projects, only requiring incremental updates every so many years*.

And thats usually covered when one of the blockbusters tries to make itself stand out from the crowd (ala Transformers).

Compare that to more traditional sfx such as models, puppets, minitures, sets etc, they have a once off capitol that is more often then not used for a single purpose and thats it, the people who use it are very specialised and are not as common as there is much lengthier ladder to actually be anyway qualified in those areas (it cant be gained from a course alone.)


Now I might have been harsh before, CGI is not a big evil that is destroying cinema, quite the contrary it has done many wonderful things. There are huge amounts of things CGI has done that is not directly SFX, computers have saved countless dollers on colour correction by digitizing it and thats great. There are many details that are insanely difficult or downright impossible to do without cgi, and in numerous cases CGI has allowed for very stylised and unique films.

But it has currently flooded the industry and the result is laziness. The great use of CGI is now the exception and not the rule. Far too often pacing, plotting and suspense is ignored and visual impact is left up to a overblown cgi image. it has seriously hindered many recent Blockbusters such as Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribean 3.

EDIT:

ooh there was another article a year ago about the artistic damage CGI does. it was over some hooplah with the Blood Diamond ending:

they put in cgi tears on rachel weiz characters final scene

L31mr0d

Galvasean wrote: »

Because they'll be stupid?

is that supposed to be sarcastic?

No because CGI will get to the point where it can fully emulate realism. Heck they are already at the point where they can render CG pictures that can't be distinguished from the real thing. I give it another 5 years before we have fully emulated realistic actors and look back at Beowulf the same way we look back at the lawnmower man now.

BlitzKrieg

No because CGI will get to the point where it can fully emulate realism

except for the whole uncanny valley thing, all our kids will have nightmares when cgi is that good

johnny_ultimate

But is CGI any worse / better than some of the old school effects? Stop motion may be charming, but looking back it still looks as awkward and out of place as really bad CGI does. Rose-tinted glasses may make it seem like things were better, but were they? Are some people just afraid of change?

I'll be the first to admit that CGI looks dreadful when they try to do too much: the Star Wars prequels, superheroes like the Hulk (although the Hulk is always going to look a little silly in live action). But when it is used properly and with some intelligence, I think it is to be welcomed. Someone mentioned Juarassic Park - great mix of old and new styles. Something imaginative like the City of Lost Children or Mirrormask. Or simply carefully touching up something. These show the potential of CGI. Like everything, theres good and bad examples.

As the technology improves and grows more mature, hopefully things will get better. They really need to stop making CGI humans though - see the Matrix sequels - waaaayyy too obvious and distracting. And when traditional effects will do the job, they should certainly stick to them.

BlitzKrieg

But is CGI any worse / better than some of the old school effects? Stop motion may be charming, but looking back it still looks as awkward and out of place as really bad CGI does. Rose-tinted glasses may make it seem like things were better, but were they? Are some people just afraid of change?

Oh its very much true that old school sfx can look as dreadfull as some CGI can look today.


the difference is at the moment we are swamped with an overkill of CGI and there's an air of lazyness to it, like I already explained. You are right that chances are in a couple of years they will improve. But I dont believe it will be a purely technological process, I think you will see it turn over to a matter of craftsmen, that certain people will be able to make CGI work. Much of *rose tinted* memories people have of more traditional sfx is because by the mid 90's there were people who were genuises with putting them to use, prominant among them you would agree is Stan Winston.

Which if you read his wiki article, reads of the best of for both traditional sfx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Winston


When we start getting recognisable CGI craftsmen who's name you can stick to films and people will know it will look fantastic, then CGI has arrived. Until then, it still has problems.

TerrorFirmer

CGI is fine to a certain extent, and it does provide scope far beyond what traditional effects can capture in some aspects, but it's the excessive use of it in situations where it's totally unwarranted not to mention noticeably inferior is what grinds my gears - in particular, the use of CGI in lieu of squibs and gore in a lot of zombie/action movies, it just looks so incredibly fake and completely inferior to traditional make up.

Galvasean

L31mr0d wrote: »

is that supposed to be sarcastic?

It was simply a joke about the 'dumbing down' of generations. For the record I agree that in a generation or two they will probably develop CGI that is indistinguishable from real world images.

BlitzKrieg

finally got to see the new indy film, which is the recent source of anger towards CGI and I felt that two of the points that came through very strongly about the CGI in the film were:


1. Some of it is really not needed

pretty much any CGI in the opening scenes, those bloody goafers being a big crime

I put this down to Lucas syndrome then anything else.

2. Its like seeing the strings on a puppet, having cgi at the centre of a set piece kills alot of the magic of it because there's no *how they do that?* element to it, anyone who doesnt know alot about applying cgi effects (and the work that goes into it) would roll their eyes and think it was a matter of a few clicks of a mouse. There is an air that once the viewer can explain to himself/herself how it was done, a big part of the immersion one has into the action is lost.

Green Hornet

Watched "I Am Legend" a few weeks ago and I must say the CGI was appalling. Ruined the film completely (not that it was actually very good in the first place).

Duggy747

CGI dosen't really mean anything anymore unless it's done in a subtle way or has a genuine "wow" factor. I think most people when seeing a CGI bit usually go "meh, that looks half-decent" instead of actually being immersed in the said scene. Frankly it can throw you off.

Honestly, though, as daft as Transformers was my jaw litteraly dropped at the quality of the CGI. A movie like that is needed in order for better CGI to be created. It certainly raised the bar and thus other movies that are CGI-heavy will be compared to. More powerful servers are installed, new CGI techniques are learned, and generally more time is allowed for rendering the sequences. Now that Transformers 2 is going ahead, the processing power for CGI rendering will be greatly enhanced as well as the fact that the artists have figured out new techniques on how to mix CGI with reality.

The transformation of Optimus Prime before he meets Megatron took 36 hours to render one frame at a time :eek:

BopNiblets

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

except for the whole uncanny valley thing, all our kids will have nightmares when cgi is that good

Along comes James Cameron to jump over uncanny valley?

BlitzKrieg

if anyone can I'd say it be good old Jim...

Pigman II

Well that certainly has to be the most confusing graph I've seen all day!

When it comes to CG Cameron is consistently the one who sets the bar for other likes Spielberg to follow. He did it with Abyss, Terminator 2 and Titanic. No reason to think Avatar will be any different.

Running Bing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgWk9fO3_8Y

Its funny because its true. Lucas is a cvntwipe of the highest order and Spielberg is completely overrated.

Eoin

Green Hornet wrote: »

Watched "I Am Legend" a few weeks ago and I must say the CGI was appalling. Ruined the film completely (not that it was actually very good in the first place).

That's exactly what I was thinking reading this thread.

Galvasean

Green Hornet wrote: »

Watched "I Am Legend" a few weeks ago and I must say the CGI was appalling. Ruined the film completely (not that it was actually very good in the first place).

Yeah, what's so wrong with hiring actors to play vampires?

Ardent

CGI works best when you don't notice it. I can think of one film as an example of where it was used judiciously and quite brilliantly : Children Of Men.

When CGI detracts from a movie by being patently obvious it should be avoided at all costs.

Neo#

mike65 wrote: »

Having been raised on 'real object' effects I'm glad there is a bit of a rethink. CG Opticals are best left to subtle areas and tidying up, not faking explosions or collapsing buildings. A good example was in the second (?) Borne movie when JB uses gas to blow up an agents house - the explosion was lame with obvious artifacts, they'd have been wiser to not have shown it at all.

Mike.

I have to disagree with you about the Bourne Supremacy. I think they actually blew that building up for real. If you watch the dvd bonus features they raved about how they were doing it for real and not cgi. They even showed the stunt guys on ropes being thrown about the place. I loved that scene and thought it looked cool. Unless they were lying to us about the cgi but I doubt it.

mike65

If we are talking about the same moment then the producers should have got a refund, even the way it was shown at a distance suggests it wasn't good enough to show in traditional close-up multi-camera slow-motion.

Mike.

kowloon

CGI looks particularly bad whe it's motions like jumping and the likes. There are some horrible effects in fight scenes that would not have been attempted if cgi didn't exist. A lot of it comes down to the skill of the artists, they struggle when they can't use motion capture. Kong was motion captured so looks pretty good, whereas a character flipping backwards out of a building and landing looks terrible. See the falling bodies in Titanic.
The artists will become the bottleneck, not the computing power.

MooseJam

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

ooh there was another article a year ago about the artistic damage CGI does. it was over some hooplah with the Blood Diamond ending:

they put in cgi tears on rachel weiz characters final scene

you mean Jennifer Connoly ?, Rachel Weiz wasn't in it.

BlitzKrieg

*doh*

my mistake