I Hate CGI

Heres a video showing mainly good use of CGI
http://vimeo.com/8337356

Now the line between good cgi and bad cgi to me is this- 'just because you can, doesn't mean you should'.
The prime example for me, is Transformers. They look ok, but there is way too much detail in the robots. They don't have a 'pleasing' shape that the eye can cope with.
The eye can only pick up certain amounts of info, so for instance, space battle scenes in SW ep 1-3 all look amazing in their individual elements but all together in one shot as a viewer you only read about 2 or three 'movements' in that scene- everything else just gets lost, and as a result the overall look becomes messy.
Compare with the X-wings approaching the Death Star in Ep IV- far fewer ships, far greater impact on the eye.
Done well- The Kraken in Pirates Of The Caribbean, and its great, although the fx guy in me still yearns for foam latex and cables.
At the moment, its a great new tool which everyone wants to play with. The result is it being over used and a loss of concentration in basic story telling and plot.
Check out the quality of miniature work on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAw2Vskb4PU
The designs may be dated now but this was made some 40 (?) years ago, so imagine how great it would look done today with the advancement of materials, camera lenses etc.
We wont be talking about Gi-Joe in 40 years time, thats for sure ;-)
 
The otehr thing is that miniatures and models and such are actual physical objects that properly show light in the environment.

The ideal, to me, would be a mix of physical objects being shot for as much as possible, and resorting to CGI only for those shots where you CAN'T do what you want to do. Example: one of the main actors is playing a part that requires latex mask work. The mask, however, can't undulate (even with bellows) quite the way you want it to. So, you shoot the actor in the mask, and CG in the undulation. (Isn't this what they did for Davey Jones in Pirates 2?)

Example 2: You want a giant mountain ogre to attack your heroes. You create a physical prop a la the Rancor, and shoot it doing as many things as possible, then CG transitions and perhaps some movement for the more "exposed" shots. Do it well enough, and people won't be able to tell which is the physical object and which is CG.


To me, CG should be used to "cheat" the camera. Transition shots, impossible stunts, cleanup work, etc. To this day, I maintain that Jurassic Park is THE benchmark for CG work. It is (at least as I recall) a seamless blend of animatronics and FANTASTIC CG work. Now, admittedly, it's been YEARS since I saw the film, but I recall it being basically indistinguishable as to which was a physical object, and which was the real thing. I only found out years later that they used animatronics in the making of that film, and CGed other shots. To me, that's the best way to go.

Your actors have something to play off other than a tennis ball on a stick. Your crew has something to light. Your CG team now has a physical object that they can meticulously copy, too, instead of trying to make a dinosaur out of nothing.



Oh, and you got that DEAD ON accurate re: the Transformers CG models. They just look like blobs of metal to me. That may be the idea, but it's not at ALL interesting to look at for me, and I found it detracted from my enjoyment of the film. Well, that plus all the Michael Bayisms and Baysplosions. But I digress.

The ROTS scenes also seemed jumbled, but I think that has more to do with how they were framed (because they could use CG), how fast that sequence happens, and the fact that I mostly didn't give a crap. By contrast, the shots of a similarly frenetic space battle in Serenity were (to me) awesome at the time, and I still thoroughly enjoy the shots of the space battle in ROTJ. And, of course, the surface attack and trench run in ANH are top-flight. So, while some of it is the business of the shots, I think a lot of it is also how shots are framed BECAUSE you could "do more" with CG than with models.
 
Best integration (!) of CGI elements in a movie that I have seen in the last few weeks was done in "District 9". Very believeable, catering to the needs of the story, enhancing the experience.

The most dangerous thing is the overuse of CGI alá "Transformers 2" or "ROTS". Or bad integration like in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom..."
 
Bad integration of cgi in TV is V. The entire inside of the ship is CG and it looks bad. Still like the show though, but bad CGI.
 
I hate BAD CGI or over used CGI but it definitely has had some amazing results in plenty of movies IMO.

I just think that Hollywood (George Lucas especially) has relied on it far too much.

Let's also not forget that everything before it certainly wasn't all bubble gum and rainbows either. Watching action movies from the 80s that everyone LOVED really shows you that most weren't nearly as good as you might remember. Even some of the best classics.
 
You know what I hate worse than CGI? Modern color timing. Every modern film seems to have the same color palette - washed out and grey. As phony as bad CGI can look, bad computer coloring of the cinematography cheapens it even more. In some cases, the CGI looks more real than everything else in the frame. I miss the films of the 1970s and 80s when the sky was actually blue. In this way, I think computers have ruined movies more than CGI critters have.
 
I don't hate CGI but I do think a ton of it is poorly finished and it has become a crutch. Poor CGI takes me out of the story escpecially when they use the other world camera actions and angles with it. Most of the time it seems the lighting or shading doesn't match the world around it or it is somehow "muddied" or dark. When it is done right (rarely) I shouldn't even notice it. That said, practical like stop motion takes me out of the movie as well unless it's a stop motion world as in Wallace and Gromit (love Nick Park's work). Many practical effects/models/makeup take me out as well. I think it comes down to the skill of the artist(s) and how they use or are allowed to use the tools they have given the budget and time constraints.

I think the "crutch" of CGI kills potential "accidental' creative story telling that could make a movie better. When you can't do something practical you come up with creative ways to tell the point - many times making the story better. As an example think about Jaws, if Steve would have had CGI back then to replace the non working shark we would have seen the shark way too much and as a result the suspense would have been gone (along with the shark music), it just would have been a gore fest and not as edgy.

Now on the other hand, I think that CGI has allowed the comeback of vast epic story telling that had been all but dead. Just in costuming extras alone the budget would be prohibitive if done strictly practical for a period epic tale. Granted you still need a good script, and production team to pull it off well, but at least it can happen again.

So my CGI stance is, I want good story telling with only nesessary (seamless as possible) effects. I don't want the video game or music video type movies that come from over use and over reliance of CGI.


Doug
 
Perhaps. On the other hand, I find the effects in the original Star Wars to look more "real" than a lot of the CG shots in the newer ones. I find the effects in Predator and Alien/Aliens to be more "real" looking than the effects in other films. I found the effects in Blade Runner to be FAR more convincing than those in Minority Report. I could go on, but you probably get the picture. Real objects, real photography, done REALLY well.

Now, of course, I can also vividly remember shots that were filmed ONCE for the pilot of the original Battlestar Galactica being repeated throughout the entire show. (Viper veers off to the right; upper guns fire; lower guns fire; Cylon Raiders break in the same pattern every time, etc.). I remember plenty of bad sci-fi shows and movies that used similar techniques (models, latex, etc.) looking cheesy, too. Ultimately, it's always the same culprit: budgets and/or laziness. Poor quality f/x are poor quality f/x whether they're practical or CG.

But I'll say this.


I will gladly watch a good, entertaining story with crappy effects ANY day of the week. But I don't care how visually amazing a film is -- if the story sucks.
 
You know what I hate worse than CGI? Modern color timing. Every modern film seems to have the same color palette - washed out and grey. As phony as bad CGI can look, bad computer coloring of the cinematography cheapens it even more. In some cases, the CGI looks more real than everything else in the frame. I miss the films of the 1970s and 80s when the sky was actually blue. In this way, I think computers have ruined movies more than CGI critters have.

Amen to that. The world used to not be tinted grey or green or blue. I mean, obviously, some things are shot more in a particular color than other things, but the way that modern films are done...everything seems uniform in color. And that doesn't even start getting into the overexposed look.

This stuff made sense when I first really noticed it in Saving Pvt. Ryan. That film was going for a particular look specifically to convey the "age" of the era. It made sense to use shaky-cam, and have washed-out colors, and such, because it was almost like you were watching a live-action newsreel. Taht was a creative choice which made sense for THAT SPECIFIC MOVIE.

Since then, however, directors like Ridley Scott (whom I actually LIKE) and worse directors have made it their mission to so screw up colors and light in film that now everything looks like shades of a particular tone, rather than distinct colors. And everything's shaky-cam. And everything's overexposed and washed-out.
 
I like the CGI effects in From Hell. Wasn't until I saw the extra features on the DVD that I realized there was any CGI in that movie. Sure... I could see some post production coloring of the image, but actual CGI use was not something that jumped out.
 
It worked for me on films like Sin City where you needed that comic graphic novel feel. The background elements worked that way for me.
 
The Fantastic Mister Fox would have sucked if it had CGI in it!! Likewise, Star Trek would have sucked if it had Stop Motion in it.

The right tool for the right job is the key!!

FB
 
Haven't read all, but also don't favor the bad CGI - I think the total overkill was SW1-3 and Lucas did say SFX and CGI should help telling the story not being use for the sake of the tech - what a contradiction he made!

I also agree with people here D9 was the one of the best integration of CGI and RL Action. But I also ahve to say, that Transformers and Transformers II had stunning CGI, where in certain moments like Barricade transforms to Car mode chasing Bee was flawless or Prime parachuting to the bridge to car mode A W E S O M E!
 
The Fantastic Mister Fox would have sucked if it had CGI in it!! Likewise, Star Trek would have sucked if it had Stop Motion in it.

The right tool for the right job is the key!!

FB

Truer words have never been said! :cool
 
It's just a tool.

Some people use it for the sake of it, some use it to tell a story and you don't even realise it's been used. If you can see the 'strings' it can look bad, unless you are completely taken away by willing suspension of disbelief.

Sometimes it's not the best tool. IMHO traditional FX can often produce more believable results.

If some one uses a hammer when they should have used a screwdriver, I don't blame the hammer.

I've enjoyed the results of both, often without realising which.
 
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