io9 
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San Francisco, 3:09 AM
Sat Dec 12
27 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/11/09
"futurism" is "this might happen".
"science fiction" is "if this happens, this will be the consequences".
"fantasy" is "this will never happen, but what fun anyway".
None of them are "this will happen", and any attempt to do so even in the short term pretty much sucks at it.
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
-Kle.
12/11/09
So basically you are saying that it's a waste of time to try and imagine how things could be, where things might be heading? Why are you here?
12/11/09
"WTF?"
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/08/09
12/08/09
From what she's saying, Cameron had things plotted out to the point he could show actors the lush jungles and animal life they were interacting with, at least in a rough form, so that the actors could respond realistically to what is happening.
Yes, the 10 years better CG is going to make things better than Phantom Menace... but if Lucas was given the exact same toolset, I seriously doubt better CG would have helped that stinker in the slightest.
12/08/09
12/08/09
that is exactly the kind of advancement in CG that has happened in the last 10 years...A.I. (2001) was one of the first (if not the first) film where this kind of interactivity was possible.
12/09/09
12/09/09
No matter how good the actor, the more CG intensive a movie... the less they react properly to what is going on around them without a good director to guide them. Take Skycaptain for example... there's simply too much greenscreen going on, and not enough response to what they should be seeing.
Sam Jackson and Liam Neeson may be good actors, but when faced with a whole lot of nothing to interact with (Liam had it easier, at least most of his shoot was on location in the desert)... they simply have no idea how to respond realistically. On can just picture a manic Lucas standing to the sidelines and shouting things like, "And now the droid things are crawling all over your space plane! Yes, they're everywhere... but you've gotta play it cool as well Haydon... after all, you're the best pilot there is."
I imagine Cameron is not only offering visual cues, but also emotional ones so that his actors know the proper response to sell the CG to the audience. It has little to do with an advancement of CG, and a lot more to do with Cameron being an expert at getting actors to react properly to special effects. (Just look at The Abyss... that whole Water Tentacle scene works because everyone knows what it is, what it's doing, and what their character is supposed to be feeling. Some people are in awe... some are scared... and one in particular acts like it's the most frightening thing he's ever seen. That was done well before Phantom Menace, so the whole "It's because of the advancement of CG 10 years" argument is piffle)
12/09/09
Christopher Lee is a great Actor, and in the one time each I watched those god-awful abominations, each one worse thn the last, Christopher Lee was the only person who could actually act and didn't stand out like a sore real life thumb in a CG world.
12/07/09
12/07/09
It's because George Lucas didn't write it.
12/07/09
12/08/09
12/07/09
CG is great. But there is something lacking... and I hate to break it to Michelle Rodriguez, but in 10 years we'll look at Avatar and think "man, that's what, 2007? 2008? You can totally see the (xyz)... that's obviously fake. Now District 14's effects look better because...."
I think the prequels suffered from the mixture of traditional alien masks and full on CG creatures in the same scene. That sense of "realism" is important, and the prequels would have fit into the OT much better had there been less CG and more... um.. story. Some of the most memorable and iconic scenes from the OT are character based and are largely centered on the dialogue or metaphor.. Luke looking at the twin suns, finding out Vader was his dad, the interplay of Han and Leia, all that stuff was about story.
GL kind of bragged that there were never any actual costumes created for the Clone Troopers, that they were all CG. While it's cool you can actually do that, the thing that made the original Stormtroopers so cool was that the costumes were REAL. Not to mention that they served a story. These days, the story serves the FX.
Anway, back to Avatar... I don't care how good CG gets. People know the difference between a real object and a CG object that looks 95% real.
12/07/09
D9 is a good example of marrying physical effects and CGI. I think they used what the needed when they needed to - there was some decorum.
No actual costumes for the Clone Troopers is not good for visuals, I think. It's okay for the big massive battalion scenes, but up close and personal its hard to replicate the uniqueness of each individuals battle scars and dirt and things like that.
12/07/09
D9 obviously couldn't use real people because the aliens had a different anatomy. But Clone Troopers? Human beings wearing armor. Ridiculous to fake actual humans
I agree about D9 though--of course they were fortunate to have a real slum city ready to be filmed in. The aliens were convincing as well, so mixing CG with real actors can be done if the right people are doing it. D9 was a good story first and foremost. It wasn't about showing off the effects... it was about using them appropriately to create believable characters and to help tell the story.
12/07/09
12/07/09
You must have some exceedingly high standards... Are there any examples of better compositing that you can cite?
No rotoscoping technique is perfect but Blomkamp's approach was some of the best I have ever seen, aside from Cameron.
Even going back to all the viral vids and ads that he has done over the years, his attention to detail and skill are better than Lucas' effort in the SW prequels. ...and yet Blomkamp's team accomplished their results with a small fraction of ILM's money and resource.
12/08/09
12/08/09
12/08/09
That's the fantastic thing about motion-capture that I think M-Rod was alluding to. It brings back a little of that organic feel that gets lost during the generic animation process.
I always wonder how the people who slaved over makeup and costumes and set design are feeling now that their jobs are being replaced by computers and high-tech camera gear. I should hope they would remain happy in the supreme satisfaction that what they did by hand looks and feels more organically realistic than what is being done now.
12/08/09
It is sad that all the craft from the "old days" is dying out. I know it's still used, but it's sad to see it take a back seat.
Who knows. Maybe some movie that uses traditional effects will come along and be a huge success and audiences will demand a return to realism. We're the target audience and we're fed up with the CG already.... it was great in the beginning because it was new. It's not new anymore. Seems like it should go the other way now. Just like you pointed out, you can make a real Chewbacca but SLIGHTLY alter the facial expressions with CG. I guess Where the Wild Things Are used the same approach, I haven't seen it yet.
But I'm all for the return of old-school.
12/08/09
12/07/09
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12/07/09
IOW, she is reading WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much into this.
12/08/09
12/07/09
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12/07/09
12/07/09
I often wonder if I would have enjoyed the Star Wars prequel trilogy had it been fully animated.
12/07/09
12/07/09