CGI- Wrong idea?

[BeltFedLeadHead]

It seems to me that CGI should be relegated to the beginners. People who don't have the budget for a thousand extras or a fleet of a hundred spaceships. Even then, amazing things can be done with miniatures.

 

Once your ability level and budget improve, your reliance on CGI lessens, and you gradually wean yourself off the digital crutch. Finally, at the pinnacle of your career, you're shooting LIFE or at least physical representations thereof. Your film doesn't look like a video game, and there are no tired, cheesy cliched homages to certain sci-fi films that feature "bullet-time technology".

 

As a side note, it's interesting to think that the afore-mentioned technology was possible at the very birth of filmmaking. All it required was a series of cameras all synchronized with a cable or timer, and a bunch of film. Voila! Sure, the end result wouldn't have been as polished, and the filmspeeds were MUCH slower, but the concept is sound. I'd like to see someone try it with a bunch of old fashioned Brownie cameras, or the like.

 

I feel as though CGI should be used as an absolute LAST RESORT to things that cannot possibly be duplicated physically. Nuclear explosions? Ok. Huge laser battles? Ok. CGI might actually look GOOD in those respects.

 

George Lucas doesn't need CGI in his films. If he asked for extras to make their own costumes, and sit unpaid in the desert for days waiting to be in the next movie, he'd have more people than he'd possibly know what to do with.

I can spot CGI a MILE away. It cheapens the experience and detracts from the credibility of the director. I believe it amounts to laziness.

[David Mullen ASC]

Would you care to tell us your name before we engage in a discussion? You can set-up a signature to automatically appear at the bottom of your posts.

[BeltFedLeadHead]

Would you care to tell us your name before we engage in a discussion?  You can set-up a signature to automatically appear at the bottom of your posts.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

My apologies. I'm used to anonymous forums.

 

I'd be interested in your perspective on this discussion.

[David Mullen ASC]

The newest anniversary issue of "Cinefex" magazine has a fascinating discussion with the industry's top efx people and this is one of the things discussed, basically is a CGI crowd ever going to be as impressive as the real thing, etc. Most of them say the same things, i.e. that CGI crowd scenes are overused right now, however, that they will get better (more convincing) and that they are the only way now of creating the scale of the 1950's epics on a reasonable budget, etc.

 

I remember reading about "Titanic" and how at first Cameron wanted very few CGI stunt actors but after trying a few takes with thirty or more stunt people leaping off of the Titanic set and no matter how well they planned and rehearsed the shots, several stunt men ended up injured on each take simply due to the odds of something going wrong as the number of stunts were attempted in one shot, Cameron finally gave up and said to do more stunts digitally with CGI because too many people were getting hurt on the set.

 

Anyway, I don't really have a problem with good digital crowd replication because most of those people are tiny in the frame anyway. I don't "care" about all those tiny extras anyway. Where CGI gets overused is when creating physical creatures that are supposed to interact with people (like the digital Yoda or the clash of the vampire and werewolf at the climax of "Van Helsing") -- the creatures lack enough physical presense for the audience to really believe it, other than exceptions like Gollum, who was an excellent work of CGI. Gollum is one of the few CGI creatures that gives a performance and who elicits an emotional reaction from the audience.

 

As for crowd replication, I thought it was well-done in the battle scenes for "The Patriot" -- they mixed in so many real people in different parts of the frame that it's hard to spot where they end and the CGI begins. The problem is when those wide crowd shots are used for no other reason that to show you a lot of people in the frame; the novelty wears off because there is no emotional reaction. But the same problem was true of the 1950's spectacles as well. You look at some great crowd scenes in "Land of the Pharoahs" by Howard Hawks and are briefly impressed -- but that doesn't make the movie any better!

 

CGI is best used as an enhancement to real-world objects. For example, minatures have a certain weight and mass on-screen (although miniaturized) but you couldn't before really miniaturize rising smoke or falling water or fire on a small scale. CGI can make a miniature look more real by adding moving elements at the right scale. For example, the Saturn V rocket in "Apollo 13" was a miniature (not CGI as some people think) but the falling ice and the heat waves and the camera vibration were all added using CGI, giving the miniature a sense of scale. "Lord of the Rings" was also good at mixing miniatures with CGI, or using old-fashioned camera tricks like force-perspective but with modern twists like motion control to allow camera movement in the forced-perspective shot.

 

But "Van Helsing" in particular pissed me off -- you get to the final climax between the hero and the villian of the movie, and our two male leads step off and two fake CGI monsters fight it out for the next five minutes! The audience has no emotional investment in these two monsters that show up in the last scene. That's simply bad filmmaking.

[BeltFedLeadHead]

I'm glad you mentioned LOTR. I'm a huge fan of forced perspective, and I don't think it's used NEARLY enough in films. I'm wondering if people are taught to think in those terms.

One shot that stands out in my mind was not purely forced perspective, but it got my gears turning at an early age. It was a scene from Labyrinth where the characters walk into a courtyard through some odd stones, which then, as the camera tracks, form David Bowie's face. Incredibly creative. I've seen things like that off and on in movies since and was excited to see it in LOTR, and done so well.

When I see behind the scenes docs of actors on bluescreen sets with NOTHING there to interact with, I lose a lot of interest in the film. SW epI being a perfect example. Was it me, or did Liam Neeson sitting on the blue-fabric draped "animal" look at the camera once or twice with a certain forlorn expression?

[David Mullen ASC]

Some actors are better at "bluescreen acting" than others, i.e. using their imaginations. Bob Hoskins, for example, did an amazing job pretending that Roger Rabbit was on the set with him. But I agree that actors, like cinematographers, need real sets and locations to play off of, not to mention real fellow actors!

[Keith Mottram]

David, Roger Rabbit is a great example of why we need CGI. Now before everyone starts banging on about how RR is hand drawn think about it along the lines of how you could do it in 'the real world'. You obviously couldn't have a man dressed up as RR and in the same way that you cant have a huge wave crashing over a ship in the Perfect Storm. CGI is a very good effects tool as is mat painting and minatures. Bad CGI, like bad acting will only ruin a film. To say no to CGI is like an old codger moaning about how life used to be better in the 'good old days'. It wasn't, nostalgia just tends to make you forget about all the old rubbish. I love Ray Harryhausen films, but to be honest I've seen greater realism on playstation.

 

Keith

[Guest Kai.w]

It seems to me that CGI should be relegated to the beginners. People who don't have the budget for a thousand extras or a fleet of a hundred spaceships. Even then, amazing things can be done with miniatures.

 

I feel as though CGI should be used as an absolute LAST RESORT to things that cannot possibly be duplicated physically. Nuclear explosions? Ok. Huge laser battles? Ok. CGI might actually look GOOD in those respects.

 

I can spot CGI a MILE away. It cheapens the experience and detracts from the credibility of the director. I believe it amounts to laziness.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Although I'm working in this field I'm not really fond of some famous CGI stuff too. But I'm really suspicous about people who think they can "spot CGI a Mile away". Cause it's just impossible. There is so much stuff done digitally which you would never notice. One of my favorite examples is "panic room", but all that's stuck in our memories is horrible Jar Jar Binks.

Gollum is another example. There were some wide shots of him were he really looked like CGI : looked great in itself, but not as if shot with the same camera and at the same place as the background.

Then there were other closeup shots were you really thought: this creature is real and of flesh and bones.

So, even though Gollum had some shots were he was far from perfect it was his performance which made me not care about whether he was CGI or not.

 

What is "forced perspective"?

 

-k

 

BTW.: I saw Episode II digitally projected and I found that CGI looked much more integrated in this medium. The overall cleanliness of the image fit to the CGI and made it look much more "as one".

[Matthew McDermott]

-- the creatures lack enough physical presense for the audience to really believe it, other than exceptions like Gollum, who was an excellent work of CGI. Gollum is one of the few CGI creatures that gives a performance and who elicits an emotional reaction from the audience.

 

Gollum worked well as a bit of CGI and I very quickly gave myself over to the character, but when I first saw him (it?) in his entirety I thought it was horrendously fake looking. I'm not sure if it was better animation or the fact that you do get emotionally drawn into the character and begin to ignore his artificiality. Additionally, once you've seen Andy Serkis in the white suit--flopping around in that small stream chasing a fish for example--it all becomes unintentionally humorous for me.

 

 

 

What is "forced perspective"?

 

Forced perspective is when you arrange objects or characters in relation to the camera so that their relative sizes change from what they would naturally be. You can move people or objects backward or forward of one another so that say the person in the back appears much smaller than they actually are. You could also cheat the camera down or up as required to make one person appear taller or more dominant in the frame. It's done all the time in a subtle way (or least I do it all the time) to give emphasis to one character or another in a conversation.

 

A more complicated way to do it is was used in Casablanca. In the scene at the airport at the end, there is an airplane being repaired by some mechanics far off in the distance. Or that's what you think. In reality it was a smaller replica airplane being repaired by little people. Since they're sufficiently out of focus and not the center of attention in the scene you never notice that they're not what they seem.

 

If someone can explain that in a more succinct way, please be my guest.

[Sam Wells]

 

Once your ability level and budget improve, your reliance on CGI lessens, and you gradually wean yourself off the digital crutch. Finally, at the pinnacle of your career, you're shooting LIFE or at least physical representations thereof. Your film doesn't look like a video game, and there are no tired, cheesy cliched homages to certain sci-fi films that feature "bullet-time technology".

 

 

Well my opinion is if you want to shoot "LIFE" you can just do it without even a thought to CGI.

 

I guess I should be honest and say I could care less if a Hobbit is CG or some guy in a costume.

 

Having said that I was quite taken with the "CGI worlds" within "Innocence" ("Ghost IN The Shell 2") --- but that was an art in itself, I didn't have to be convinced it was any kind real space & time..

 

-Sam

[Keith Mottram]

Well my opinion is if you want to shoot "LIFE" you can just do it without even a thought to CGI.

 

-Sam

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Which is why Scorcese used CGI in Aviator. At the end of the day there is never enough money for certain set pieces, whether you are just starting out or you're a well respected veteran. Leaving alone space ships and other fantastical elements sometimes only CG will work. One of my favorite Woody moments of recent years was in Deconstructing Harry- "daddys out of focus, daddys out of focus", try doing that in camera.

 

Keith

Edited January 3, 2005 by keith mottram

[Guest Kai.w]

Forced perspective is when you arrange objects or characters in relation to the camera so that their relative sizes change from what they would naturally be. You can move people or objects backward or forward of one another so that say the person in the back appears much smaller than they actually are. You could also cheat the camera down or up as required to make one person appear taller or more dominant in the frame. It's done all the time in a subtle way (or least I do it all the time) to give emphasis to one character or another in a conversation.

 

If someone can explain that in a more succinct way, please be my guest.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Got it. Thanks!

 

Did'nt know there was a term for this.

 

-k

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I tend to agree, in the broad strokes. I didn't enjoy Van Helsing very much, and the overloading of bad CGI didn't help. On the other hand, I enjoyed Underworld (Go, Kate) very much indeed, and there was only a sprinkling of CGI in that - werewolves turning into humans, etc, which was universally well-done.

 

The Pod Race scene from [whichever star wars movie] did some amphitheatre-style crowd stuff very well - and most of them were painted Q-tips!

 

Phil

[Bob Hayes]

Films like ?I Robot?, ?Troy?, ?Mummy II?, and ?Clone Wars? get so obsessed with showing thousands of digi characters that you have no connection at all with background characters. These huge crowd scenes are like looking at a bowl of rice.

[David Mullen ASC]

Some examples of in-camera forced or false perspective:

 

 

 

Another version of the same idea are "hanging" or foreground miniatures. In "Star Trek 2" the ceiling and sides of this set are a miniature foreground element. In the shot from "Conan" the most of the city at the top of the frame is a foreground miniature. All of this requires a lot of depth of field to pull off.

 

 

[Jon Allen]

I agree that dependence on special effects CAN lessen with experience, but on the other hand, like George Lucas, once you go down the dark path of bluescreen sets, it's hard to turn back.

I'm not sure you could catch every bit of CG in any given movie you might watch. Matte and forced perspective are probably used more than most of us realize.

I personally thought that the camera trickery used in LOTR was good. It was a little discombobulating however, when Frodo and Bilbo seemed to change size in relation to Gandalf due to inconsistent framing.

[Matt Pacini]

It seems to me that CGI should be relegated to the beginners. People who don't have the budget for a thousand extras or a fleet of a hundred spaceships. ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You are under the mistaken impression that CGI is cheaper than the real thing.

This is almost always not the case, certainly not in cases where "beginners" are involved.

 

Matt Pacini

[Jon Allen]

You are under the mistaken impression that CGI is cheaper than the real thing.

This is almost always not the case, certainly not in cases where "beginners" are involved.

 

Matt Pacini

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I agree, I remember not too long ago, just getting Maya or 3d Studio software cost like $3000. I guess it can still be that expensive, but considering what kind of bang you need for the buck, the price to product ratio is way down.

I've also seen a lot of miniatures and puppets that really suck, it's not a matter of using one over the other, it's a matter of using them well.

[Max Jacoby]

You are under the mistaken impression that CGI is cheaper than the real thing.

This is almost always not the case, certainly not in cases where "beginners" are involved.

 

Oh really? And if one needs a fleet of spaceships, where does one get these from? The local scrapyard? :P

[Jon Allen]

Oh really? And if one needs a fleet of spaceships, where does one get these from? The local scrapyard?  :P

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Lucas did it, didn't the first star wars (ep 4) have a budget of only 13 mil? (And wasn't most of that to pay alec guinness?)

[David Mullen ASC]

Lucas did it, didn't the first star wars (ep 4) have a budget of only 13 mil?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yes, but in 1976 dollars... That was considered a moderately high budget, although not the highest in the day.

 

Actually, to create a fleet of spaceships back then, you only needed a couple of models shot separately several times and combined in the optical printer -- which was extremely tedious because every element needed several pieces of film (beauty pass, hold-out matte, garbage matte, etc.) Digital compositing for chroma-key work is one invention most efx people would agree is a big improvement over optical printing.

[Bill Totolo]

As for Forced Perspective, it was a topic that was introduced to me in my first Cinematography 101 class. Our instructor, Bill McDonald, introduced us to "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" (1959) starring Sean Connery.

 

That will always be the best example of F/P to me.

 

Special Effects by

Peter Ellenshaw .... special photographic effects

Eustace Lycett .... special photographic effects

 

Cinematography by

Winton C. Hoch

 

Produced by

Walt Disney

[Mark Allen]

I was a visual effects supervisor for about 8 years and I still consult now and then.

 

I've always felt that the Academy Awards for special effects should keep in mind budget and situation - which, of course, it can't - but I always feel that these guys with 30 million dollar effects budgets and who can spend a year and a million dollars developing a cool effect are deluding themselves into thinking they are genious. I'm always impressed with the guys who do cool things for little time and little money and manage to schedule it so it finishes on time.

 

What I have found sells effects better than anything else are these:

 

1) They're integral relationship to the story or the moment. It is a waste of money and effort to do things that are big camera tricks - it's much cooler to sneak effects into the movie just to make things more incredible, dramatic, fantastic, etc.

 

2) Shot design. So often directors will hand effects people shots that have people standing very stilted in plateaux form. DP's - don't let your diretors do this - might as well just put a card up saying "effects shot"

 

3) Sequence design. If all the shots are swinging around or panning and suddenly we get to a still shot that is the effects shot - it's all for naught. (we actually usually blow up the shots at this point and pan inside them since it's just too silly to have everything stop for the effects.)

 

 

Essentially - I think effects when used as tools to enable options that weren't otherwise avaiable are effects used well. Definitely low budget people have more limitations - but larger budget shows keep trying to push harder and harder into the fantasy realms with more and more fantastic unreal or unobtainable locations. All that is a good excuse for an effect.

 

A side note that probably half the effects shots though done in hollywood are for fixing things. "Oh - that box looks too much like Cocoa Crispies - change it to something else." "Oh we don't have permission to use the LG logo - remove it." "Our actor couldn't make it to the set - we shot him on green screen later - put him in." etc. etc. errors, ommissions, and bad luck. 20 years ago all those shots would have just been tossed out - now they save them.

 

There was a network television show that I was the supervisor on from day one and one day I was on the set and they said "how is this for you?" "I said - you know - it's not good - we're going to have all kinds of trouble with those cables and the way the light is hitting the subjects." They looked at me disappointed. "How much extra would it cost to fix that?" I replied, "Maybe four thousand dollars, maybe five." "Well it will cost fifteen for us to change the shot - so take four thousand and deal with it." That was the last day I was on the set that season. There was no real point as my job for the most part was just "make it work.... whatever it is." Saved a lot of driving and scheduling time too - worked out great.

[Matt Pacini]

This last post points to exactly why I say the original question was misguided.

 

There's this wacky idea, that CGI FX are easy, that they just have a room with some college kids hitting a few keystrokes, and everything comes out in realtime and is amazing and instant, and therefore cheap.

I have friends who do CGI and they laugh at some of the requests that they get.

"Can you make that guy thinner?

"Uh, yeah if you don't mind adding weeks and a couple hundred thousand dollars to the budget".

 

Obviously it's cheaper to so some things CGI than by traditional means, but CG is not in itself cheap, and we haven't even gone into the extra price of scanning and outputting the film.

Personally, I think if it's possible to do something traditionally, it's always going to look better.

 

MP

[Mark Allen]

I have friends who do CGI and they laugh at some of the requests that they get.

"Can you make that guy thinner?

"Uh, yeah if you don't mind adding weeks and a couple hundred thousand  dollars to the budget".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I was a producer on a low budget trilogy where those requests came up daily and at first everyone's first answer was "no." Eventually we started getting silly and actually started trying to make all this happen. The filims, honestly, were no good so we figured the least we could do was try to experiment and R&D speed techniques. I have to say it was a great learning experience that the production benefited greatly from... but, for the most part - this comment points directly at the kind of requests CG people get AND how producers don't have a good sense of bang for their buck with effects.

 

When things are planned out well in advance and shot correctly, CG can be very affordable production enhancers.

 

We're doing a production this year where one of our goals is to use all the tricks we've learned to add some production value. For example - here's an easy one... set extensions... these make perfect sense - shoot your actors on the set you have then just build out the top of the set. Renting a stage that is 50' high for one shot isn't really worth it... and would be very expensive... great time to use a CG effects for the establishing shot.