Gravity

[terry78]

This same argument is going on with WETA doing CG monkeys for Rise of the Apes. The apes described in the book are intelligent and anthropormorphic, but they're still apes, and they act like apes, move like apes, etc...they're just human sized. CG is honestly the only way to pull off something like that. Man in suit, if that's all you have, go for it.

 

[Crook]

you dont use a puppet for king kong. instead of putting a dude in a motion capture suit, you simply put a guy in a king kong suit, shoot him against a green screen, then place him in the shot. it'd look far more realistic than a CGI ape.

You don't get anywhere near the freedom of facial movement if you go for this method. That's what made Kong so believable in PJs version, you could see a breathing organism (thanks to Serkis). And it's not as simple as filming over a greenscreen then pasting it into a shot. CG elements just plain work better together than without. With Kong's size and the huge backdrops, it would have taken more work and likely looked faker. Especially with the action scenes.

Avatar could've done most of the Na'vi with makeup and CG enhancements.

Anatomy may have been similar, but the faces couldn't have been done with prosthetic, mainly because of the huge eyes.

 

[Motown Marvel]

You don't get anywhere near the freedom of facial movement if you go for this method. That's what made Kong so believable in PJs version, you could see a breathing organism (thanks to Serkis). And it's not as simple as filming over a greenscreen then pasting it into a shot. CG elements just plain work better together than without. With Kong's size and the huge backdrops, it would have taken more work and likely looked faker. Especially with the action scenes.

i totally disagree with this, but i guess it doesnt matter. you prefer computer generated images taking over your movies, thats cool man. but personally, i think it looks fake as hell and the film industiry would be better served if CGI became far more scarce.

 

[Crook]

No, you've actually got it wrong. I prefer real shots more than any other because of how tangible it is. Nothing beats real. But I'm also willing to concede that some things are just impossible to film by nature, to which sfx/cgi is required. In the particular case of non-humans, I think cgi has only just recently edged out as the superior method because the of the level of freedom it provides.

While I don't think it's overcome the uncanny valley just yet, I think it's a tad better than makeup and bodysuits. The stiffness (be it the face or the body) always rubbed me the wrong way. You are free to cite some examples that showcase the more impressive feats, though. I personally have yet to see it.

 

[Figs]

you dont use a puppet for king kong. instead of putting a dude in a motion capture suit, you simply put a guy in a king kong suit, shoot him against a green screen, then place him in the shot. it'd look far more realistic than a CGI ape.


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and seriously, avatar was far from photo realistic.

While Avatar wasn't photo realistic it was damn close. To say it was far from it is in fact wrong. It's the same as all the people that have bad eye sight that said they've seen video games with better effects/CGI.

im not against advancements in technology. im all for it actually. i just prefer the technology to be used responsibly rather than flagrantly.

So do I. I think a lot of films misuse CGI but at the same time a lot of other films have used it well. It usually comes down to the director and the computer effects team. I enjoyed Avatar, it was fun but I don't want all future movies to be like that. Having a fully CGI film is fun and ok every now and again but I still prefer doing things the real way.

A great example is The Thing. That's one of my favorite horror films of all time and I cringe at the thought of all the CGI the remake/prequel will use when the practical effects in Carpenter's version worked fine and were great for it's time. People need to look at practical effects like that and realize they've only gotten better over time.

I just can't agree on the wanting of a guy in a suit for the King Kong remake, it would be laughable. In The Thing, the effects were for an alien that could change and mimic others but when you want to use practical effects like a godawful costume for a major real life kind of character(yeah he's huge but i'm mainly talking about him being a gorilla and not a fictional alien of course) like Kong and in this day and age, it would be horrible.

 

[Doctor Jones]

Figs, you should read the script review for the Thing sequel. It was supose to be a two part tv movie. It sounded pretty good.

 

[Figs]

Figs, you should read the script review for the Thing sequel. It was supose to be a two part tv movie. It sounded pretty good.

So it's a sequel and not a prequel with the Norwegians?

 

[Doctor Jones]

It's a sequel that was written a while back that took place after the first film. It takes place in a small town with two stories going on. One with a Russian scientist and one with a Native American hunter tracking it down claiming it to be a skinwalker. It's much grander in scale yet it does the right thing and respects what Carpenter did. Basically it's the Aliens of the first film.

 

[Electrofarce]

i totally disagree with this, but i guess it doesnt matter. you prefer computer generated images taking over your movies, thats cool man. but personally, i think it looks fake as hell and the film industiry would be better served if CGI became far more scarce.

I think this guy is either over 80 and hasn't seen the light of day for 40 years or it's some practical joke.

 

[Crook]

Besting Lucas' overuse of CGI is no surprising feat, but this is a good showcase of what practicality and a bit of smart thinking can achieve:




One of the few cases where I think shooting it real looks well for non-humans, though.

 

[Boom]

Besting Lucas' overuse of CGI is no surprising feat, but this is a good showcase of what practicality and a bit of smart thinking can achieve:




One of the few cases where I think shooting it real looks well for non-humans, though.

That is simply remarkable.

 

[Electrofarce]

Besting Lucas' overuse of CGI is no surprising feat, but this is a good showcase of what practicality and a bit of smart thinking can achieve:





One of the few cases where I think shooting it real looks well for non-humans, though.

Cool, but in the movie it would look cheesy as hell and not nearly as good as the CGI Grevious.

Then again Grevious was not very convincing and neither was alot of CGI in the newer Star Wars films. George Lucas must have worked on a pretty small SFX budget or he had so much CG it just ended up not looking too good.

 

[Octoberist]

The CGi in the prequels are servable but characters like Grevious looks so dated now.

I think also the amount of CGI (green screen and characters) was a work overload. In some ways, perhaps he should have a bigger crew.

 

[matrix_ghost]

The CGi in the prequels are servable but characters like Grevious looks so dated now.

I think also the amount of CGI (green screen and characters) was a work overload. In some ways, perhaps he should have a bigger crew.

To a certain extent yes . Lucas shot the prequels a full 2 years before the movies came out giving ILM almost 18 months to work on all the VFX shots.
I think the quality of the work was more due to Lucas working with a small budget which means that you can only go so far with CG realism.
Say what you want about Lucas but the guy is a smart business man. Just like Spielberg , he's working with a budget that should be recouped with BO earnings. Avatar with it's photorealism has a "official" budget of 238 million. And that includes the tech. development over the years. If Lucas decided to go for near photorealism for the CGI in the prequels , his budget would've gone to at least 300 million per movie. And it's a question of just how realistic he could've made everything look given the status of the tech back then
Ultimately the guy played it safe.

Anyway going back to Gravity. I can see what Mo Town is saying but i think that someone like Cuaron knows when shots can be filmed with real sets and when CGI is needed. The one take sequences in Children Of Men are mostly real with a camera rig inside the car .
However for this movie you'll need the CGI. Can it be shot practically. Yes. But it would be too expensive and time consuming and given the level of realism of metallic objects , i think CGI would be a good choice. Not to mention the freedom it gives the director and actors.

 

[dark_b]

Lucas made a stylistic choise to have clean CGI. fact is (no opinion but fact ) that if you would add on Grevious more dirt,more scratches,more rust and more damage it would look more realistic.
you know there is a reason why the robots in the TF movies are dirty and damaged when they are in robot mode. because it looks better. clean looking robots didnt work. ILM said it. its also the big reason why D9 looks better to people then Avatar.


Lucas deserves a lot of praise for hat he did in the 70's with ILM. he deserves a lot of praise for helping making Pixar.he deserves a lot of praise for the SW franchise. but the guy just doesnt understand how to use modern CGI in big blockbuste movies.

i dont have a big problem with the prequels. so what if it didnt look realistic. i enjoyed the worlds and the scope.


its also about hypocricy. there are some sets in the Last Airbender that look like hollywood sets. they look fake. i dont have a problem with them. but people who complain about CGI should have problems. but they dont have. the problem is not to them that something looks fake.. they are just agains the computer technology. its that simple.

 

[Crook]

No, I think people still can make out fake-looking sets. It just so happens that the fake sets still look a bit better than fake cgi, hence the lesser fuss.

 

[matrix_ghost]

Lucas made a stylistic choise to have clean CGI. fact is (no opinion but fact ) that if you would add on Grevious more dirt,more scratches,more rust and more damage it would look more realistic.
you know there is a reason why the robots in the TF movies are dirty and damaged when they are in robot mode. because it looks better. clean looking robots didnt work. ILM said it. its also the big reason why D9 looks better to people then Avatar.


Lucas deserves a lot of praise for hat he did in the 70's with ILM. he deserves a lot of praise for helping making Pixar.he deserves a lot of praise for the SW franchise. but the guy just doesnt understand how to use modern CGI in big blockbuste movies.

i dont have a big problem with the prequels. so what if it didnt look realistic. i enjoyed the worlds and the scope.


its also about hypocricy. there are some sets in the Last Airbender that look like hollywood sets. they look fake. i dont have a problem with them. but people who complain about CGI should have problems. but they dont have. the problem is not to them that something looks fake.. they are just agains the computer technology. its that simple.

It's about blending the CG work with real sets. OF course you need to do some work on the CGI but in many cases the CGI works better because of the reference with real world objects and/or surroundings.
For example you could have a digital water going upwards of a ship coming out but when you combine those with real plates of splashing water and oceans it suddenly looks very real. Like the work ILM did with Davey Jones ship.

In Lucas case , there is no reference material because the guys shot the entire movie against green screen. Everything was created in the computer which means that even a mountain range looks CG .
Look at what Spielberg did in Indiana Jones 4. THe jungle car chase was shot in a jungle but also on a blue screen stage. Even though the FX team had to insert plants and trees where the cars were driving , it blended quite smoothly with the blue screen shots because spielberg shot alot of the footage inside the actual jungle.

 

[Electrofarce]

I just watched the masterpiece that is Children of Men again and tryed to analyze it a bit. The 10 minute shot was so well executed, everyone hit their mark perfectly and the camera remained at the right pace all the time.

This is also the only film I did not know where the CGI was and found out that some very real looking things were actually all CG (most shots of London were expanded with digital fx).

I have come to the conclusion that with Cauron's directing and Framestore working on this massive epic: THIS FILM CANNOT FAIL!t:t:

 

[:eek:]

Scarlett Johansson has "verbally agreed" to star in Alfonso Cuaron's sci-fi epic "Gravity" for Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures reports The NY Daily News.
Set during an orbital repair mission, the story follows a male (Robert Downey Jr.) and female astronaut (Johansson) who are outside when debris from an exploded satellite threatens the rest of the crew.
Originally developed at Universal, Angelina Jolie was recently attached to star in the female role but left around the same time Universal passed on the project.
Cuaron ("Children of Men," "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) will direct and co-wrote the script with his son Jonas. Filming kicks off shortly in London.

 

[dark_b]

Scarlett? f... no.

just because she was in IM2 that doesnt mean that she should do mroe movies like this.

 

[Hunter Rider]

 

[Aesop Rocks]

dark_b, U mad?

 

[dark_b]

i just want that Cuarón casts teh best actress possible.

 

[Hunter Rider]

Maybe he feels Scarlett is the best actress for the role, she is a damn good actress.

 

[Doctor Jones]

And hot.