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I was thinking this forum might benifit from a special effect section, so I am offically petioning the management to add one. Who's with me?!! B)

 

Sure, although "special effects" and "visual effects" usually mean different things in credits (special effects are "floor" effects like explosions, rain, wind, etc. whereas "visual effects" are things like composites, matte paintings, etc.)

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Visual FX is what I meant, ALTHOUGH..... the section COULD include "floor" FX if we wanted it to. Filming many "floor" FX probably carries with them, their own set of problems and rules that might be of interest to many filmmakers, including myself. You, for example, having had some expirence filming minatures might be able to go into much greater detail on exactly how you did it than you might in a less directly related section and I for one would love to hear ALL the details so I can learn from what you did.

Edited by James Steven Beverly
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I would be opposed, VFX guys have ruined the film business. In the old days if you needed 10, 000 camels for a scene, you got 10, 000 camels for the scene.

 

Now they just paint em' in :(

 

R,

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I would be opposed, VFX guys have ruined the film business. In the old days if you needed 10, 000 camels for a scene, you got 10, 000 camels for the scene.

Damn right!

 

If nowadays you actually went through the throuble of putting 10.000 camels in a scene, no one would believe they were real...

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As a soon-to-be-professional visual effects artist, I'd agree that this forum could use a section for effects. I'll try not to ruin films too much for you guys ;)

 

Also, it would be cool if "Visual Effects" was an option for Jobs in our profiles, so that I don't have to list myself as "Other." Hint-hint, Tim, if you're reading this.

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I agree , also VX people like S35 rather than Anamorphic , it make life easier for them , so we suffer a loss of quality,because of digital fx kids . John Holland, London.

 

John,

 

Having seen Max Jocaby's Anamorphic 35mm B&W film 3 weeks ago, and Casino Royale S35 B&W poop on the same cinema screen in Geneva on Wednesday I have to agree!

 

Stephen

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I would be opposed, VFX guys have ruined the film business. In the old days if you needed 10, 000 camels for a scene, you got 10, 000 camels for the scene.

 

Now they just paint em' in :(

 

R,

 

I disagree on this point. VFX became necessary because no one has a budget for 10,000 camels, and if any one still wants to use camels there's nothing to stop them except the budget. VFX as we know it today is just the evolution of efforts that began moments after the birth of cinema.

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Guest Tim Partridge
I would be opposed, VFX guys have ruined the film business.

 

Interesting, considering visual effects were actually created by cinematographers to begin with. Double exposures, anyone? Glass shots? Optical printing? Heck, the VFX of both JURASSIC PARK and TERMINATOR 2 are credited to an ASC member.

 

Virtual cinematography is for real now. Has been for a while. It's a perfectly valid and accepted enhancement of YOUR artform. The 3D realm is here to stay, and you HAVE to know about it to help physically construct the vision of any director using it. It's all about integration, and that's something that goes back to the silent days.

 

Now they just paint em' in :(

 

R,

 

Does the name W Percy Day mean anything to you?

 

Peter Ellenshaw?

 

These guys helped get work for cinematographers such as Jack Cardiff and Freddie Young. They were in on the vision and illusion. Jack Cardiff won an Oscar for the matte painting saturated BLACK NARCISSUS, don't you forget.

 

 

I am all for this new forum.

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Special effects have been a part of moviemaking since almost the beginning -- "Citizen Kane" is chock-full of optical printer effects, matte paintings, etc.

 

Yes, it's true that we've lost something when we just add CGI crowds rather than the real thing, but on the other hand, old movies often had matte painted ceilings rather than the real thing, and half the location work was faked on a soundstage with rear projection, and matte paintings in post... so why is that kind of fakery any less disappointing than using a computer to do it? Hollywood has always used visual tricks to save money or create fantastical scenes.

 

I don't think we'd be complaining half as much about CGI crowd extensions if they were done more seamlessly.

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Like it or not, we live in a world where animation and live action are integrated into even the nost straight forward of charature driven stories. Skys are enhanced. Vitrtual buildings replace out of place ones. Actors who die during production are albe to finish their preformance with a few re-writes and some VFX trickery. All of these things are a fact of life for the 21st century filmmaker. Not to mention refining the optical FX of the 19th and 20th centuries in the modern era.

 

I just found out today that most of the soldiers, the city and mayhem in Kingdom of Heaven where virtual, layed in with massive sets. This blew my mind because I thought they ad just gotten someone's army to do the extra work and it NEVER occured to me that these extras were virtual. The physical portion of the set for Jaruseluim (However you spell it) was one of the largest ever built and designed to be shot from any angle, but there was NO WAY they could have built an entire city! VFX are here to stay and they have allowed fimmakers to do thing that are quite litterally inpossible to do any other way. It's a craft we had better start to master if we are going to work in an industry ennindated with it.

 

Also whats wrong with learning good ol', OLD school FX like miniatures and opticals and what what David refers to as Floor FX? There has to be techniques that are inportant to know and that many people here are un-aware of. This forum can only HELP, not hinder. Anyone who doesn't care to use VFX in their filmmaking whouldn't be forced to read it and should the need ever arrise for them to have need of this knowledge, it would be there for them to reference. I for one would rather have a tool I never use than not have it when I need it. B)

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I disagree on this point. VFX became necessary because no one has a budget for 10,000 camels, and if any one still wants to use camels there's nothing to stop them except the budget. VFX as we know it today is just the evolution of efforts that began moments after the birth of cinema.

 

No budget? How did David Lean do it in "Lawrence Of Arabia?" How where those crowd scenes done for Richard Attenborough's "Ghandi?" It can all be done, we are simply losing the will and the craft to the computer.

 

Of course that was before one star gobbled up 20 million of the film's budget.

 

In the movie I'm posting now I used a "real" creature and a real wolf, every thing was done in camera. Some have laughed at this idea when I told them about it, but I think it looks better and definately cost less.

 

Now as Max Jacoby pointed out, when people see the wolf in my movie they'll say, "who did the wolf for you? it looked quite real." I know it will happen :D

 

R,

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Well, the first movie you make where the script calls for a half-million extras... we'll see how long before you reach for a visual efx solution to augment the 5000 extras you actually were able to get!

 

I did a movie (D.E.B.S.) where we needed to fill an auditorium with girls dressed alike in school uniforms -- we only managed to fill one-third of the auditorium, so we had them move over and fill the next third and then move again and fill the last third, and then composited it together as one shot. All the girls are real, no CGI, but the final crowd shot wouldn't exist without efx work.

 

But this isn't really so different from how it was done in the past. Even "Spartacus", with some shots containing 20,000 extras or so (I forget the number they got in Spain for one shot), used special effects to increase the size of the Roman army. And the Silent Era "Ben Hur" used foreground miniatures with tiny people on shaking rods in the stadium to create a crowd. And the 1950's remake used matte painting to create the widest stadium shots.

 

You don't get brownie points from the audience for avoiding a visual effect just on principle. They just want to be entertained, and your job is to figure out the best way to do that. Maybe it involves a post effect, or a miniature, or a make-up effect, or a slight-of-hand lighting trick, whatever, it doesn't matter ultimately if you pick the right technique and then do it well. But just to avoid effects for the sake of avoiding effects doesn't make much sense if your story requires a certain image to be effective, and that image can only be practically created using some sort of trick.

 

Which brings up the other point, which is that you used all sorts of tricks I assume to make your film seem bigger budget than it really was. A lighting effect is a "trick" for example. A sound effect to sell something happening off-camera is a "trick". It's all about using a variety of cinematic tricks, so why are the only ones that matter are the ones that happen in-camera? Did you do all your fades and dissolves in-camera too? Are you going to avoid titles over picture? Those are all "tricks"...

 

I do agree that some efx people and filmmakers are a bit lazy when it comes to designing and executing an effects sequence -- they opt for whatever technique comes easiest to them, what their facility is designed to handle. So a CGI-based company is probably going to go to great pains to avoid miniature work that they would have to farm out to another company, perhaps to the detriment of the movie -- which is why you want to be careful who you hire to do effects supervision. But there is nothing inherently wrong with CGI versus any other efx technique if it is done well and used appropriately. The tools themselves are not inherently good or bad.

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"Did you do all your fades and dissolves in-camera too?"

 

Dammit!!!! I knew I could have saved some extra money!! Brilliant idea...next time, just iris down. David you are a genius :)

 

A good example of a movie that went nuts with VFX was Flyboys. Yes I know a lot of the stuff they wanted to do would have been too dangerous to shoot for real, but, they went overboard. It looked more like a flight simulator video game, it was the past seen as the future.

 

As I work my way up the budget food chain, I do look forward to hiring 20,000 extras for a scene. Like I said, they did it in Ghandi :) Those where not CGI people in the march to the sea scene.

 

R,

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No budget? How did David Lean do it in "Lawrence Of Arabia?" How where those crowd scenes done for Richard Attenborough's "Ghandi?" It can all be done, we are simply losing the will and the craft to the computer.

 

Of course that was before one star gobbled up 20 million of the film's budget.

 

In the movie I'm posting now I used a "real" creature and a real wolf, every thing was done in camera. Some have laughed at this idea when I told them about it, but I think it looks better and definately cost less.

 

Now as Max Jacoby pointed out, when people see the wolf in my movie they'll say, "who did the wolf for you? it looked quite real." I know it will happen :D

 

R,

 

OK, forget the camels... How would film the Hindenburg? You could use stock footage which is very limited and worse every one has already seen it. Hmmm boring to watch and no fun for the cinematographer either.

 

You could build the Hindenburg... but you'd probably end up building a model, because to build the real thing would be prohibitively expensive. Not only would it be expensive but it would be dangerous. Even filled with helium, the Hindenburg would be very hard to control on a moderately windy day. OK you still want to film the real thing 1:1? Now you'll have to find a location and get the Hindenburg there, but you won't be flying it so it will have to assembled on location because even an experimental aircraft has to pass some FAA.

 

This feature is getting really expensive.

 

So you are going to build the model, and now you have to decide what scale the model is going to be. You are going to have to compromise on size and quality verses time and money. Once you realize that you are going to compromise between what you really want and what is possible you will want the model that gives the best result. In some case a physical model will be the best choice while in others you are better off going straight into the purgatory of the digital realm.

 

Cinema has from its inception relied on the talents of people in a wide range of disciplines to "fake" what was too expensive, too dangerous or just plain impossible to get with the lens alone. VFX is not the enemy of cinema, its just one of the tools that gets misused like so many other things.

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I see nothing wrong with a scale model, it would look great, filmed at high speed. Better than CG that's for sure.

 

Thanks for the movie idea, I'm adding it to my list. I'm looking at the explosion of the Hindenberg from my stock library now. Some balsa wood, cloth, and gasoline, that's all I need.

 

R,

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Also whats wrong with learning good ol', OLD school FX like miniatures and opticals and what what David refers to as Floor FX? There has to be techniques that are inportant to know and that many people here are un-aware of. This forum can only HELP, not hinder. Anyone who doesn't care to use VFX in their filmmaking whouldn't be forced to read it and should the need ever arrise for them to have need of this knowledge, it would be there for them to reference. I for one would rather have a tool I never use than not have it when I need it. B)

 

I'm always looking for the challenge of doing the impossible, and I don't care if the trick is old or new, in camera or in post. My favorite book on the subject is, Special Effects Cinematography by Raymond Fielding. I'm on my second copy and the pages are falling out. I recommend highly but never loan it out ;)

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I see nothing wrong with a scale model, it would look great, filmed at high speed. Better than CG that's for sure.

 

Thanks for the movie idea, I'm adding it to my list. I'm looking at the explosion of the Hindenberg from my stock library now. Some balsa wood, cloth, and gasoline, that's all I need.

 

R,

Well, there ya go. You could tell us all exactly how you did it in our new VFX section. No one said we had to limit the section to CGI in fact I would think that would be a big mistake. I would love to see pics of the construction of your model, the placement of the pyro, the lighting set-up and lenses used. The problems you incountered and if you get stuck you could ask for advice on what to do next. BTW in the move "The Hindenberg" (1975) starriing an all star cast headed by George C Scott, they did use a very big model but my guess is that in today's world it would be a combination of CG and models along with full sized elements OR if James Cameron did it he'd just build the damn thing full sized down int Mexico or some damned place. B)

Edited by James Steven Beverly
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I see nothing wrong with a scale model, it would look great, filmed at high speed. Better than CG that's for sure.

 

Thanks for the movie idea, I'm adding it to my list. I'm looking at the explosion of the Hindenberg from my stock library now. Some balsa wood, cloth, and gasoline, that's all I need.

 

R,

 

 

I think CG is getting pretty good these days, but in any case I would argue that building a model requires at least as much time, skill and effort as doing good CGI work, though I do think the Hindeburg is a good candidate for a physical model. Other things like dinosaurs with their bendy parts are probably easier to pull off in the digital realm, but I'd love to do some animatronics ;)

 

If you are going to do Hindeburg, you may still want to do some compositing because you'll only get to blow that model up once. So shooting with lots of cameras is a good idea. Also plenty of people with fire extinguishers. Safety is something to plan on ;) You want to be near enough to medical help should the unthinkable happen and yet you'll need to be some where you can light off the pyrotechnics with out starting a forest fire or burning down the neighborhood. There is a reason why people are licensed to do this kind of work. The insurance on this wouldn't be cheep.

 

You might also build some larger partial models for close ups of the explosions. Cheap cameras are good choice for those shots... Also I recommend doing a LOT film of testing with the fuels and materials you plan on using. If the materials don't burn cleanly enough the soot is going to scale up along with everything else and ruin the effect.

 

Of course the Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen which is fairly energetic. This presents a challenge because the more you scale the model down, the more you will have to overcrank the camera to get the time back to the rite duration for a believable explosion. So using hydrogen you will need to get a fairly fast camera or use a slower less energetic fuel. Hydrogen is also lighter than air which raises two more issues. The first is your model will want to fly away ( that's not so bad ) The second is that any but Hydrogen is not going to rise up the same way as it explodes. Methane, Propane, Naphtha, Gasoline and the like, are all heavier than air and only the heat they generate will cause them to raise up as they burn. So you'll probably have to go with Hydrogen after all.

 

One thing about the Hindenburg people usually don't know is that the skin was fabric saturated with an aluminized dope. As it turns out this was a very very bad idea, because this formulation turns out to be very very similar to rocket fuel. If you take a look at the actual footage of the Hindenburg burning, you can see that the skin is burning faster than anything else. In essence the skin burned away exposing the hydrogen witch was them able to mix with the air and burn. Bummer :(

 

I think in the end the single most challenging aspect of doing the Hindenburg is that every one is so familiar with the original footage that you can't just blow it up any ol' way. There was a certain progression of the flame front, and the eruption of the hydrogen leaving the Hindenburg and rising in to the air as it's structure gave way crumpling to the grown. For the same reason it would be very challenging to do the twin towers of the World Trade Center coming down on 9/11.

 

Ah.... but I so would love to do the Hindenburg!

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Having come out of the visual effects world where I was actually the guy that was expected to a) figure out how to do "the thing" and B) budget it. c) make sure it was done well... I thought I'd share some thoughts.

 

1) I'm not really a big visual effects fan per se. I know somoe people like to read about them, talk about them... I'm just not that guy. However, I am a huge fan of what they can do for movies when used well. I think too often films are getting lost in their effects. Sometimes the drama is lost in the action - sometimes it's even lost in the story! (yes... think about it, it happens a lot in big studio movies - they get so into making sure they hit every point of their "hero's journey" they totally forget that great filmmaking comes from great moments of drama). So I don't think visfx are guilty of anything more than a super wide angle lense would be. It's up to the filmmakers to use it drama-appropriately.

 

2) Minatures are usually more expensive to make than CG models. My rule of thumb though was if the thing had to crumble or explode, then miniatures were a serious contender for the base layers.

 

3) I think the idea that miniatures or practicals look better than cg as a rule is outdated. It's very hard to get microdetail on a model and it's hard to shoot it with the appropriate lighting. As for creatures, watch Doom - when the CG monster finally arrives it's such a more interesting creature than the make-up monsters.

 

4) Fire, smoke, explosions, splatter. All these things are often challenging for CG and make good sweeteners to add into CG composites. Often the most powerful solution is one that is broken down into what each discipline (visfx vs. specfx) can do best.... at the moment.... ...and then it's just a matter of having the right talent available for a reasonable price.

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More about the Hindenburg model :A miniature of the Zeppelin "Hindenburg" was constructed for filming. The "miniature" was over 25 feet in length, and was able to be "flown" by suspension cables in front of a backdrop. The miniature was donated to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, where it is on display. B)

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