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special effects looking awful
pearlsandplums
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Does anyone else think that cgi special effects just look awful? the more lifelike and realistic things are getting, strangely, the faker they look
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Films like 'Jurassic Park' and 'Forrest Gump' used the technology well but now it's being abused.
I'm glad to see that some producers are going back to basics like 'The Lone Ranger'.
I think they mostly look fine. With modern CGI, the world onscreen has endless possibilities. But, it all relies on the vision of the director and the quality of the FX company he uses. If he isn't careful, it can be disastrous no matter how good it looks. For instance, the TRANSFORMERS film. There's no question that the FX are stunning. But it's also confusing. There's so much going on at times that it can be hard to follow.
I think the visual effects look terrific in the new POTA film. An even bigger improvement over the last one. But that's just my opinion.
The directors with a cinema sensibility are just not offered these jobs any more.
Just watched the POTA trailer and it's basically a video game "cut scene", I imagine the whole film is like that.
Examples? Oh, and starting your directorial career in other visual mediums is pretty standard.
Who do you speak of, and what are these jobs they aren't being offered?
Err....videogame cut scenes take the cues from cinema don't they? There's bound to be a similarity here and there. And I imagine the new Apes film seperates itself from a videogame quite considerably.
No I disagree. Some are better than others but in general they look great. It's easy to think cgi is limited to big monsters or robots destroying cities. But there is so much more to cgi than that. In most cases we don't even notice them.
Is that supposed to be an insult or something?
Since the 1940s, approx. 80% of film directors - anywhere in the world - started their directing careers in television, radio and/or advertising. Half of them never left while maintaining their film careers, either. And the rest worked in television at least once during their careers.
Alfred Hitchcock worked in TV. So did Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, Jean Renoir, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Frank Capra and the rest.
Even Stanley freaking Kubrick. He worked in television before working full time as a film director.
A recent film where I think that the cgi was used to good effectl is 'Cloverfield'. I didn't like it the first time I saw it but with subsequent viewings I'm starting to appreciate it.
It captured something that the majority of cgi movies don't - a sense of scale.
It's pretty obvious that they are themselves being "directed" when they get to make these $200m franchise films.
Regards
Mark
CGI has pushed movie making to unparalleled new heights. I think what you are talking about are some of the Scifi/Superhero movies where the action is so unbelievable that it is obviously CGI. But almost all major motion pictures use some form of CGI throughout the movie and it is so well done that you don't even realize its CGI.
http://www.totalfilm.com/features/50-cgi-scenes-you-didn-t-notice
On the one hand, CGI and its capabilities has improved. The level of expression you can now get in a CG face is astounding. There is a true beauty to some fully animated films - Tangled and Rise of the Guardians are some of the most impressive animated movies I've ever seen.
On the other hand, the way we use and implement CG has changed in recent years. What we are now able to do with special effects has often put them at the forefront of a movie. In the time of Jurassic Park they could use tricks to enhance the CGI - like filming at night to reduce the complicated lighting, and to film in rain to reduce the need to take away the 'clean shine' that computer imagery is well known for. These effects are still phenomenal, and will stand the test of time very well. Now we're in the age of films like The Hobbit, where entire locations are rendered by computers and some characters like the Orcs are CGI, regardless of what weather or time of day it is. It's meant that whilst CGI has improved, the film makers are still trying to push at the boundaries to improve what we see on-screen. In ten years time, a film like The Hobbit could be rendered with absolute realism, whilst right now I think there is a slightly off, cartoon edge to what they've produced.
In addition to that, film makers also have to compete with an ever-crisper image on the screen. People are getting wrapped up in HD, 4K, and 48fps... all of these aren't likely to make it any easier to produce convincing special effects. Gone are the days when you could rely on dark corners of the screen, or motion blur in order to disguise the more difficult CG moments.
I'd say the focus right now seems to have turned to being able to produce convincing faces via special effects - The Hobbit, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and many more have really turned the focus towards expression and producing computer generated character. Special effects might be nothing new, but I'd say that they are always trying something new with what they've got. Could some films stand to cut back on the CGI? Absolutely! It isn't always convincing and sometimes it feels extremely artificial. But for the most part, I see the odd special effect that looks a bit off, and see it as a learning curve. It'll be improved upon in future and we'll see more convincing examples of what we're seeing right now.
Next years Jurassic World should be very interesting to see, as they're using puppets and prosthetics still as well, and they're trying to stick to the series' roots to some extent or other. If they don't overdo it on the CGI, it'll be interesting to see how things have truly progressed since the original was released in the early Nineties