Tim Sibley

I think audiences are sick of CG in movies with derivative scripts that don't challenge the audiences or the filmmakers - it's a tool like any other that can be misused in the hands of the wrong director. I'm pretty sick of the shaky-cam look, but I don't think that's the fault of the cinematographer in a lot of instances - it can very well be that they're just executing the director's vision. And, for reference, of the top-50 grossing films of all time, every single one (with the exception of 'The Passion of the Christ') is a visual-effects heavy film. Audiences love spectacle; and when you combine that with a nice story, you've got yourself a hit. I'm not sure where this idea developed that cinematography is just about the practical - it's what ends up on the cinema screen. It sounds like you're confusing this with photography. Painted backdrops in studios are not 'real', but they have been an important tool in crafting cinematic images. Matte paintings have been cinematographic tools since the birth of the medium. Digital effects today are no different - they're a powerful set of tools in the hands of talented artists that help shape the images that end up on a cinema screen.

So for you, Karl, a physical camera is required, otherwise the end result is without merit? If that is your opinion, I'll just respectfully disagree - maybe you'd be happier if they changed it to "Best Live Action Cinematography". I just don't see why the live action DP should be elevated to any higher level than a CG DP, if the end result is the same for the audience - pictures on the screen telling a story set in a world we can relate to (unlike cel animation). I don't think celebrating one has to come at the expense of another, necessarily.

Ari, I couldn't agree more. This isn't the best 'cinematographer' award, it's rewarding the best cinematography. Obviously, everyone can have their own opinion about the artistic merits of each nominated film, but to disqualify something because it's not physically photographed would be ridiculously unfair to those that crafted its look. I think there's some misconceptions out there about designing shots and lighting in CG - these are not geeks hammering out lines of code, they're artists using a different set of tools to realize the same goals. They care about the technology to the same extent a DP cares about his camera package; they're tools that are used to achieve their goal and should be studied and understood to get the most out of them, but a cinematographer working with CG images doesn't care about the underpinning lines of code any more than a live action DP would care about the polymerization process of the plastic in a film mag. At the end of the day, it's about rewarding those responsible for the image that ends up on the screen; just because there might be some ignorance regarding the process and tools that are used to create those images shouldn't mitigate anyone's level of appreciation of the final product. I'm happy to be challenged on this, but I think the same choices of lighting a character, choosing a lens, framing shots to serve the story apply to both mediums, with the exact same level of importance.

Check this one out, a short entitled "The Third & The Seventh" created single-handedly by a guy by the name of Alex Roman - explores architectural compositions. http://vimeo.com/7809605 .. I got a third of the way through before realizing the entire film is done in CG (!)

Yeah, things are apparently going fairly nicely in Vancouver - there's the new Pixar studio, Image Engine, ZOIC, CIS, Spin West and others. Vancouver and Toronto are also both terrific cities to live - clean and safe, nice people - as long as you don't mind rain in Vancouver and 4 months of snow in TO..

I've worked in VFX since 2006 when I finished film school - I'm currently a senior FX animator at a mid-sized company in Toronto; I've also done a fair amount of compositing and more general 3D work. It's good fun - since I've started I've probably worked on about a dozen films that have ended up in theatres... including a few that shouldn't have :)

FYI, all of the alien CG work was done by a Vancouver based company called Image Engine - Weta was only responsible for some design work and the alien mother-ship. And, as mentioned, the aliens were fully CG - the ground interaction was likely a mix of practical rigs pushing debris around to match footsteps (with the wires/mechanism hidden or painted out), warping effects on the plate footage, or CG debris. http://www.vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&am...4037&page=3

http://www.fxguide.com/article556.html Anyone else heard of this camera in development? I've heard very good things about Spheron's previous HDR products, and this looks like it'll have some great things going for it - including no rolling shutter artifacts, up to 60fps in test models, and 20 f-stops of latitude. Even if this camera doesn't shake out to be too impressive, I'm excited to know that this type of HDR technology is coming so fast, which may help to address a lot of the limitations of current digital cameras.

I'm curious about the backlash against the blu-ray format - In 90% of cases, it'll look exactly the same as the DVD version, with the exception of added resolution and better compression, which should make the image more accurately reflect the source material (and in those other 10%, It'll usually look better, because of an updated scan). Any specific complaints about contrast likely aren't inherent to the format, but to the viewing device (many TVs ship with "black enhancement" features enabled and high-contrast modes in place). Will, I'm curious about your point of reference, the Jurrasic Park Blu-Ray ... where did you happen to see this? As far as I'm aware, that title has not been released on any high-definition format, including Blu-Ray, so you were likely looking at a DVD. If I'm wrong on this, my apologies - (and I'd love to know where I could pick it up, as I've actually been looking forward to the release of this one one for a while, as it's also one of my favorites).

I couldn't agree more about the 120hz option - this may be one of the stupidest "innovations" I've seen in recent memory - it basically adds more interpolated frames so images play at a higher frame-rate than 24 (which is how most films were made to be seen). It may add more perceptual clarity to something like a sports broadcast, but for watching a film, it makes me cringe. I also couldn't disagree more about the blu-ray format - I think it looks absolutely stunning when viewed on a properly set-up system - you can see detail (even down to film grain) that are missing in other formats. I recently worked on a (admittedly rather brainless) high budget action film; It was finished at 2k, and in the end I think the blu-ray version I've seen compared quite favorably to the 35mm release print I'd previously viewed. The first Blu-Ray film I saw was 'Wall-E', which made me a believer in the format - which is a film that is of course fully CG, and doesn't look at all like a "video game" to me at all - it's a beautiful, warm, dynamic image. I also recently purchased the Blu-Ray release of 2001 - and I've found the transfer from 70mm to be very well done (no contest between it and previous DVDs of the film).

http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/cu...ssue/10092.html

bah, double post.

CGI is a tool just like any other - I think what you're getting at is what's described as the "Flying Purple Elephant" problem. If you try to stick something into a scene that isn't believable, it will seem "fake" regardless of how well it's rendered - eg. no matter how much time and money you could spend trying to insert a flying purple elephant into a shot, you will never accept it as real because as a viewer you have an intrinsic sense of what exists in the natural world. While the Hulk's CGI may not have been flawless, I don't think there's any way you can put a 15-foot tall beast man that moves at 50 km/h on screen without it looking "fake". A child watching that movie would be able to suspend their disbelief and accept it as belonging in frame, but any more intelligent viewer immediately realizes that it's an unreal element. One thing to remember with CG - it's the director that chooses how it's used, not the artists. If you include a scene in your film where the camera magically flies around actors and sets in a physically impossible manner, the odds are it will look fake regardless of how competently it's executed. On the flip side, I guarantee 80% of VFX shots in films today slip by completely unnoticed by audiences, because they're integrated in a manner that reflects something that fits believably within the film's world. The amount of set extensions, editing/makeup fixes and greenscreen comps that are included in the average film is considerable, and are for the most part completely invisible. Consider 'Dark Knight' - there were over 700 digital VFX shots (think about that) in that film, including a lot of digital character and environment work - and in fact there were several shots that were completely digital (the waterline and ferries in the climactic sequence were completely digital, for example). I'd guarantee 99% of audience members accept all of those shots, because the 'purple elephant' flag isn't raised. However, when it comes to the Harvey Two-Face digital makeup, I'm betting most people (knowingly or not) decided that such impossibly grotesque wounds cannot be real, and must be VFX. This isn't the fault of the artists, I'd call that a "fault" of the director, for pushing thing too far. If, for instance, the VFX artists created a scaled back version of the effect that looked like it could have been achieved with practical makeup (no exposed tendons, etc.), I'm betting nobody would have raised a Spockian eyebrow when those shots appeared. The same argument can be applied to car commercials, where CG cars are becoming rather ubiquitous, and when rendered properly in a non-stylized fashion, are accepted as real immediately, as we're not asking our brains to accept anything preposterous. In my mind, the most important thing to consider is where to place the line between reality and fantasy for a given film - I'd look at VFX heavy films like 'Dark Knight' and 'Children of Men' as examples of movies that found a great balance between the two.

In terms of the realism of VFX work, there's a great little read here http://effectscorner.blogspot.com/2007/11/...-in-visual.html ..it talks about certain director's proclivity to 'show off' the fx work that they're paying all of their money for, rather than let the work sit naturally in the scene (believe me, the vfx guys are not the ones that decide that a sexy "matrix like camera-move" would be perfect to use on a matte painting establishing shot for a victorian-era romantic drama) I'd look at a movie like 'No Country for Old Men' (which has a large number of key vfx shots) or 'Children of Men' (which allowed for unprecented freedom for Emmanuel Lubezki to move his camera around) as examples of the right way to use digital vfx - in fact, I know most people would be absolutely shocked at the number of shots in the average film that have some vfx cleanup element - whether it be a digital make-up touch up, painting out flares, etc. In most cases, it's not that hard to achieve a seamless result, as long as you're willing to sacrifice the 'sexy' factor (eg. the swooping 360-degree panorama shots that no physical rig in the world could actually film).

I think you nailed it there, Will. I have no idea what the added time/expensive would work out to in quantitative terms - I'm sure that varies from production to production, and would be much easier for a vfx house that has previous experience with anamorphic .. although I'd agree 40% is likely very high (I'd think this number would likely be much lower on a 3d-heavy production where the bulk of the expense lies in modeling/animation/rendering, versus a straight-ahead comp heavy show, where you're dealing with a higher volume of less tricky shots). You're right - although it's not always essential for everyone in the process to have this knowledge (a texture painter, for instance, or a modeler, would likely be better served to have a strong foundation in traditional art, as opposed to a lighting artist or compositor - the best of these guys have a thorough understanding of the medium). For me personally, I did 4 years of film school (where I shot my own stuff on 16mm, did some editing, etc.), and have done a handful of on-set supervision gigs for independant productions, which helps me keep connected to the 'real' side of things ;) To Karl's point, for me personally, I love it when you get 'gritty' source material (unless you're pulling a key) - this does make it easier to integrate CG elements in a lot of cases (shallow dof and grain can help - and locking a 3d element with a properly tracked camera in a handheld scene seems to give those elements a certain grounding in the physical reality of the shot that is harder to approximate when dealing with a perfect, locked off tripod shot).

Nope, but I do work at a VFX shop in Toronto, and I'm used to the VFX companies getting the short end of the stick in any production - whenever any other aspect of the production runs long (as it always, without fail, does), the time crunch goes to the vfx guys (who are 'lazy' enough to work 60 hour weeks during peak production time to meet impossible schedules). I'm not complaining - I love my job, but I don't like it when the vfx guys are slagged just because it's easier than trying to understand the factors that influence their work :) if you get a chance, give this one a read http://www.variety.com/article/VR111796587...d=2520&cs=1

..the same logic applies - more money is a reflection of more time spent, be it from the artists or in terms of render time. Anamorphic requires a pre-compositing stage in the pipeline before a shot goes to 3d tracking, as you won't be able to get an accurate track if there is any distortion in the source plates; it also requires for each lens used in production a custom 3d camera with appropriate overscan values; and then in the final comp stage it requires re-distortion of all 3d elements, as well as any 2d elements/stock footage that is used - and as was mentioned before, when working with anamorphic material, you also often have to deal with much more complex artifacts from lens flares and chromatic aberration. None of this extra work is overly difficult of course (and has become routine on many large productions) - but it does take extra time and necessitates more hand-offs and bottlenecks between different departments within a vfx facility.

I wouldn't look at this as a problem of the VFX house - they're not "dictating" what format the films are shot in, they are merely reflectingthe financial reality of the choice to shoot anamorphic - if the production can afford it, then pay the extra 20-40%. It does indeed cost more at many stages of production to deal with anamorphic footage (not the least of which is having to render 3d elements at much a higher resolution to allow non-lossy undistortion to match the plates, which means either more render hours booked or a higher investment in their renderfarm infrastructure). This isn't about the VFX people whining - this is a simple matter of production costs.