CGI is destroying movies

johnny_ultimate

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

You mean like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcw2k-7H3k8

Or this?

(not embedding as it's a bit NSFW)

Maybe this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvDba2nMv_U

This is seriously impressive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFCXHr8aKDk

Pretty much this whole damn film - scratch that, pretty much this guy's whole damn career:

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

One extraordinary example that would not have been possible with computer assistance as well as the elaborate, complex set work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKW-Gd_S_xc

Just a handful of examples (limited somewhat by examples that work well as isolated scenes, as well YouTube and that whole copyright infringement business), but chosen as a mix of mainstream and indie, American and international, and - above all - CG and practical effects. 'Goosebump' moments are still a regular occurrence for me, I have to say.

We are talking about Blockbusters here, which Noah would fall into, and maybe Inception? Inception it works for sure, the Noah scene is like watching a computer game for me and that film for sure was OTT on the CGI big time. For every nice clip you show me I can give you whole movies of Fast and the Furious, Transformers etc. I already said I can see it used well as a tool in movies, its when it takes over which it has done in the most part for big bucks cinema releases is there the problem is. Noah I would put into that category too, what should have been far more memorable with the material there developed into a CGI bore.

Regarding Mosters, which Darko mentioned, and is the perfect example of how small the potential costs associated with CGI have decreased. If I'm right, the entire movie was made with a budget of $100,000. Get that around your head - $100,000 in total, including CGI that looked on par with his later release of Godzilla, which had a budget in the millions of dollars.

OK - can't find an exact number for the budget of Monsters, different articles range from $15,000 - $500,000, which is quite a gap, but is still pennies compared to what the average blockbuster costs to make.

don ramo

CGI has its place in cinema, and its constantly evolving, you look at a film like Avatar and see how to do it right, that for me is probably the pinnacle of what they can do, i cant see how they can push past that visually, then you have indianan jones 4 come along and show how not to do it, and i think it really is down to realism, which just seems to get thrown out the window in this CGI age, nobody takes a step back and ask could we do this if we had a bigger budget and more time, but seeing as they dont have the budget, ive no problem if they do it in CGI, once its within the realms of the universe you have created on screen, it has ruined many films in the last 15 years,

but in saying that, CGI has grown just as fast if not faster than digital film making, which has greatly brought down the cost of making films, and made life 1000 times easier for everyone in general, for every average 200+ million dollar film released in the last 5 years ive seen 20+ films that cost 20-30 million dollars or less that would blow the 200 million film outta the water, and these films can get made cause they can have 5-6 camera setup and get multiple angles in one shot, its make film times a lot shorter, look at looper or ex-machina, 30 and 15 million budgets, whiplash was an unbelievable film and only cost 3.3 million to make, boyhood was filmed over 10 years and only cost 4 million,

so anyone who fears CGI is gonna destroy the industry needs to take a step back and look at whats out there,

just a note, i honestly do not know how a film like mad max cost 150 million, what is it that drives the budgets up on some of these films, i dont see how mad max needed 3+ times the budget of looper and ex-machina put together, and yet somehow it was worse than both of them, just a joke

shazzerman

Deleted User wrote: »

We are talking about Blockbusters here, which Noah would fall into, and maybe Inception? Inception it works for sure, the Noah scene is like watching a computer game for me and that film for sure was OTT on the CGI big time. For every nice clip you show me I can give you whole movies of Fast and the Furious, Transformers etc. I already said I can see it used well as a tool in movies, its when it takes over which it has done in the most part for big bucks cinema releases is there the problem is. Noah I would put into that category too, what should have been far more memorable with the material there developed into a CGI bore.

I think you might actually be making the wrong argument here. I suspect you might side with people like Tom Gunning, Sean Cubitt, and maybe Susan Sontag - all of whom argued around the 1995-2002 period, with varying degrees of emphasis, that narrative cinema was losing the battle with spectacle and that popular cinema was returning to its earliest incarnation as a Cinema of Attractions (Gunning's phrase, I think). So, whereas the great era of classical cinema (say, 1930-1960), and then continuing into the 1970s up to the early 1990s (albeit, with a more postmodern tinge), had a large corpus of narrative-driven popular films, what we get now is a popular cinema in which narrative takes a secondary role to spectacle; endless releases where the narrative is a mere scaffolding for spectacular effects sequences, which, let's face it, is what these films are really selling. It was happening before CGI, I would argue. Technology marches on. And while popular cinema is awash with spectacle-wrapped-in-perfunctory-narrative, there are still plenty of other cinematic delights for us discerning cinephiles (ahem), and...still plenty of opportunities to shout "wow!" at the screen.

e_e

shazzerman wrote: »

that narrative cinema was losing the battle with spectacle

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Narrative is one of, if not the least important aspects to movies.

Look at greats of cinema like Man With a Movie Camera, L'Avventura, City Lights, Passion of Joan of Arc, Tokyo Story, 8½, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Play Time, Persona etc etc. All films where the content isn't as important so much as the very distinctive, refreshing and exciting ways in which they're presented. Even a film like The Godfather has a very simplistic arc when you boil it down, it's Coppola's amazing handling of cinematography, pacing and performance that give the mob story such beauty, weight and intrigue.

Quite honestly I think the problem with a lot of recent blockbusters is not that it's spectacle over plot, it's exactly the opposite. CGI or no CGI, for instance these Marvel movies would be so much more if they focused on really delivering spectacle and giving audiences something they haven't seen before instead of them looking like glorified TV shows where people stand around explaining the plot half the time.

But isn't it so great that regardless of that stuff there's literally hundreds of worthy movies being released every year.

Technocentral

Deleted User wrote:

The problem is CGI is destroying movies, its like a cancer on the industry. When talking about realism, its not about being believable, its about feeling like its really happening. When its been made by a computer by a guy on a keyboard and clearly we know that, the fantasy that whatever world that movie has created that might be real, or the suspended fantasy a viewer might have for that hour and a half, that is now taken away with CGI. A key element of film has actually disappeared with the advent of this technology, and has been replaced with computer game graphics. There are no Alien suits, and Alien sets anymore, there is a screen with some graphics. It reminds me of when the topic of discussion in school was the latest Nintendo game and how 'the graphics are amazing aren't they?". We are talking about film and the fantasy/realism of it. CGI is morphing film into games.

Totally agree, means filmmakers now don't have to worry about story's, cinematography and characters anymore much, watched Third Man and Touch of Evil in flicks recently, going to see Blade Runner tomorrow, zero cg in them and all of them the better for it. The lazy, talentless filmmakers tool imo.

johnny_ultimate

Technocentral wrote: »

Totally agree, means filmmakers now don't have to worry about story's, cinematography and characters anymore much, watched Third Man and Touch of Evil in flicks recently, going to see Blade Runner tomorrow, zero cg in them and all of them the better for it. The lazy, talentless filmmakers tool imo.

That tends to happen when a technology didn't actually exist at the time of the films' production.

Anyway, hope you're balancing those classic screenings with the many wonderful new, CG-free (or very CG-light) films screening at the moment. Isn't it wonderful that one can hop from a screening of The Third Man to showings of The Wonders, or Eden, or Song of the Sea, or Salt of the Earth, or The Reunion, or Dear White People, or P'tit Quinquin, or Love and Mercy - and that's only a few weeks worth

shazzerman

e_e wrote: »

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Narrative is one of, if not the least important aspects to movies.

Look at greats of cinema like Man With a Movie Camera, L'Avventura, City Lights, Passion of Joan of Arc, Tokyo Story, 8½, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Play Time, Persona etc etc. All films where the content isn't as important so much as the very distinctive, refreshing and exciting ways in which they're presented. Even a film like The Godfather has a very simplistic arc when you boil it down, it's Coppola's amazing handling of cinematography, pacing and performance that give the mob story such beauty, weight and intrigue.

Quite honestly I think the problem with a lot of recent blockbusters is not that it's spectacle over plot, it's exactly the opposite. CGI or no CGI, for instance these Marvel movies would be so much more if they focused on really delivering spectacle and giving audiences something they haven't seen before instead of them looking like glorified TV shows where people stand around explaining the plot half the time.

But isn't it so great that regardless of that stuff there's literally hundreds of worthy movies being released every year.

As I said a bit later,those writers were referring to popular cinema - or mainstream cinema, if you prefer - and not so much films like Persona or Man With a Movie Camera. But most cinema is narrative-based, there is simply no getting away from that. I tend to agree with the bulk of what you say though.

e_e

shazzerman wrote: »

But most cinema is narrative-based, there is simply no getting away from that.

The way I see it the narrative is like the bassline, it lays a good foundation and creates a through-line but more interesting stuff can often happen around it.

When I think of any movie I loved it rarely comes down to the story tbh. Even great classic blockbusters like Alien and Jaws are very barebones in what they do plot-wise. It's why I think a film like Fury Road will live on longer than most because there's a clarity and simplicity to the storytelling that allows the images to be the thing that speaks volumes.

Technocentral

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

That tends to happen when a technology didn't actually exist at the time of the films' production.

Anyway, hope you're balancing those classic screenings with the many wonderful new, CG-free (or very CG-light) films screening at the moment. Isn't it wonderful that one can hop from a screening of The Third Man to showings of The Wonders, or Eden, or Song of the Sea, or Salt of the Earth, or The Reunion, or Dear White People, or P'tit Quinquin, or Love and Mercy - and that's only a few weeks worth

Indeed I am, seen Love and Mercy and Salt of the Earth, both fantastic. Actually recent Bladerunner "Final Cut", does have a small bit of cg in it (wire removal, replacing bad stunt double with Joanna Cassidy). To me thats just tidying up, which is what CG should be used for, not for 90% of a film.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

We are talking about Blockbusters here, which Noah would fall into, and maybe Inception? Inception it works for sure, the Noah scene is like watching a computer game for me and that film for sure was OTT on the CGI big time. For every nice clip you show me I can give you whole movies of Fast and the Furious, Transformers etc. I already said I can see it used well as a tool in movies, its when it takes over which it has done in the most part for big bucks cinema releases is there the problem is. Noah I would put into that category too, what should have been far more memorable with the material there developed into a CGI bore.

Fast & Furious 7 did pretty much everything they could practically, they even went so far as to drop actual cars out of planes so as to make it as real as possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7XvjOp1qe4

It's obvious that certain posters have an obvious bias toward. After all we have a poster who stated that they can always tell CGI and then pointed out how sad it was that the highlight of the recent Mad Max film was the CGI fire wielding guitarist. That the poster was unable to tell whether or not it was CGI or real says an awful lot. This is the kind of debate which is going to go around in circles as some people have formed their opinion of CGI and will refuse to address it. CGI is like any tool, it can be used to create truly remarkable things and it can be used to create atrocities which should be burnt with fire. Writing it off or trying to say that those who enjoy CGI heavy films are idiots is just wrong and unnecessary. Blockbusters, CGI, fast editing, etc are not the death of cinema but rather a small part of it. There is so much great stuff out there that we are spoiled for choice. Looking that this weeks cinema listings and home releases and there are a multitude of films in which nothing goes boom and CGI is kept to a minimum. All it takes is a effort and you can find the kinds of films like they used to make

Technocentral

Deleted User wrote: »

Fast & Furious 7 did pretty much everything they could practically, they even went so far as to drop actual cars out of planes so as to make it as real as possible.


It's obvious that certain posters have an obvious bias toward. After all we have a poster who stated that they can always tell CGI and then pointed out how sad it was that the highlight of the recent Mad Max film was the CGI fire wielding guitarist. That the poster was unable to tell whether or not it was CGI or real says an awful lot. This is the kind of debate which is going to go around in circles as some people have formed their opinion of CGI and will refuse to address it. CGI is like any tool, it can be used to create truly remarkable things and it can be used to create atrocities which should be burnt with fire. Writing it off or trying to say that those who enjoy CGI heavy films are idiots is just wrong and unnecessary. Blockbusters, CGI, fast editing, etc are not the death of cinema but rather a small part of it. There is so much great stuff out there that we are spoiled for choice. Looking that this weeks cinema listings and home releases and there are a multitude of films in which nothing goes boom and CGI is kept to a minimum. All it takes is a effort and you can find the kinds of films like they used to make

Fair points. Spielberg would have used a CG shark in Jaws if it was available, though the main focus in that film is the 3 lads, even though it was a "blockbuster". Now I feel that the effects are the main focus in modern "blockbusters and the characters and story are minimal, thats my main objection to CG, not how real it is per se though I much prefer physical effects and models).

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Fast & Furious 7 did pretty much everything they could practically, they even went so far as to drop actual cars out of planes so as to make it as real as possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7XvjOp1qe4

It's obvious that certain posters have an obvious bias toward. After all we have a poster who stated that they can always tell CGI and then pointed out how sad it was that the highlight of the recent Mad Max film was the CGI fire wielding guitarist. That the poster was unable to tell whether or not it was CGI or real says an awful lot. This is the kind of debate which is going to go around in circles as some people have formed their opinion of CGI and will refuse to address it. CGI is like any tool, it can be used to create truly remarkable things and it can be used to create atrocities which should be burnt with fire. Writing it off or trying to say that those who enjoy CGI heavy films are idiots is just wrong and unnecessary. Blockbusters, CGI, fast editing, etc are not the death of cinema but rather a small part of it. There is so much great stuff out there that we are spoiled for choice. Looking that this weeks cinema listings and home releases and there are a multitude of films in which nothing goes boom and CGI is kept to a minimum. All it takes is a effort and you can find the kinds of films like they used to make

Yeah dismiss 'the posters' variety of points based on one small detail, lots of irony in your snide snob comment now Darko. I should have highlighted your contradiction a bit stronger that you turn off your brain on a Friday and just want fun, yet believe these movies are not made for people with short attentions spans. You also know more then Rob Zombie himself about the movies he's made. And here you are trying to dismiss my whole argument based on one small thing that has a load of post production around it as said by the director himself.
Michael Cimino would have used CGI, how many bull**** points should I bring up to completely dismiss your overall argument that CGI is a useful tool?

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote:

Yeah dismiss 'the posters' variety of points based on one small detail, lots of irony in your snide snob comment now Darko. I should have highlighted your contradiction a bit stronger that you turn off your brain on a Friday and just want fun, yet believe these movies are not made for people with short attentions spans. You also know more then Rob Zombie himself about the movies he's made. And here you are trying to dismiss my whole argument based on one small thing that has a load of post production around it as said by the director himself. Michael Cimino would have used CGI, how many bull**** points should I bring up to completely dismiss your overall argument that CGI is a useful tool?

Just because a film isn't challenging doesn't mean that it's made for dumb people. Your comments about attention spans was snide and unnecessary.

As for my comment about Zombie well it's true, The Devil's Rejects could easily be made today, just through different avenues. Zombie is a filmmaker I like but he's not a commercial one which is why he would struggle to raise financing

And by all means put words in my mouth, what I said about Cimino was that had he tech like CGI at his disposal he may not have bankrupt a studio. You can celebrate the merits of spending millions on sets but when the cost is people's careers then maybe it's not worth it

SpannerMonkey

CGI plays a massive part in movies these days but the film industry is relying on it way too much and while it does look great considering its not really there it doesnt look or feel like the real thing and it does show in film

This video shows how CGI ruined Zodiac.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sZS8OVyVr4

And here's a video of how True Grit was ruined by the evils of computer created images.
Some of the CGI from True Grit

e_e

Saw a movie today that was 100% CGI and it's one of my top 5 of the year so far.

It's also one that crucially wouldn't have worked as well in live action or even hand-drawn. An example of CG being not only a useful tool but absolutely necessary to the story being told.

youreadthat

CGI can be used like any cinematic tool, for good and bad. The biggest issue is that all CGI, even bad CGI, allows the impossible to be possible, and as such CGI alone with always draw in an audience. In that way it is also a very lazy tool at times. I have no doubt that when in the process of making a film and it goes badly, they have discussions about how much $$ they can throw at CGI to bring the punters in and save the disaster. I bet they even have a formula for CGI$ to audience ratio.

Wedwood

CGI used correctly is stunning. It's when it's used to animate characters that can defy the laws of physics that it ruins 'suspension of disbelief'.

CGI landscapes are just the evolution of Matte plates, so don't see what the issue is there. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a good example of where CGI was used well to make a previously unfilmable epic story.

The Marvel movies and Star Wars prequels are examples of CGI making movies almost unwatchable because of the 'clutter' onscreen.

As the old saying goes, it's the bad workman who blames the tools !

e_e

Relevant to this thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL6hp8BKB24

don ramo

it is a great point alright, we only criticise it when the film is bad, they had the social network in there, i cant remember what film it was compared it to, but it was a fairly heavy CGI blockbuster, and they said that the social network had more CGI shots that the blockbuster film,

you had the winklevos twins where if they were both on screen together, one was CGI, they werent allowed film at harvard where zuckerberg went to college, so had to use CGI to make the grounds of the university of southern california look like harvard,

that is probably one film i would definitely point to for CGI done great

looking at that video its just crazy how you really dont know what your looking at, it must be very strange for actors when they see the final film, they probably have an idea obviously cause they are told what they have to react to, and how to react to it, but actually seeing it must be weird,

Mickeroo

don ramo wrote: »

it is a great point alright, we only criticise it when the film is bad, they had the social network in there, i cant remember what film it was compared it to, but it was a fairly heavy CGI blockbuster, and they said that the social network had more CGI shots that the blockbuster film,

It was The Dark Knight.

conorhal

The use of CGI is often pretty lazy, the phrase 'feck it, we'll fix it in post' didn't really exist until the advent of CGI. It allows terrible directors to get away with an awful lot.

brevity

I forget that so many of Finchers films have lots and lots of CG.

Skerries

Yeah Zodiac was one I was always surprised at how much CG it had in it

chanelfreak

Wedwood wrote: »

CGI landscapes are just the evolution of Matte plates, so don't see what the issue is there. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a good example of where CGI was used well to make a previously unfilmable epic story.

I would completely agree with you for LoTR, but I would also suggest that The Hobbit trilogy is a fine example of how bad CGI can really spoil a movie and distract the audience away from the good points of the film.
All you have to do is to look at Bolg pre-CGI and post-CGI to see what an utter balls they made of what could have been a really brilliant character - he looks MUCH better pre-CGI and I find that so disappointing

Walter E GO

The new Star Wars movie looks like the perfect mix of live action and CGI.

Technocentral

Walter E GO wrote:

The new Star Wars movie looks like the perfect mix of live action and CGI.

Yoda better be a puppet or I'm walking.

Walter E GO

Technocentral wrote: »

Yoda better be a puppet or I'm walking.

Not in it, Afraid I am.

Technocentral

Walter E GO wrote: »

Not in it, Afraid I am.

My contacts say he will make an apperance.