Is CGI going to kill American Cinema (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Reynolds]

However, my feelings on the matter haven't changed.
Consider this: Why do people buy antique furniture when there are alternatives like Ikea? Could it be there is value in hand craftsmanship, or just plain hard work that goes into the making of something, flaws and all? The flaws give character, and are part of the charm of owning or experiencing something that is crafted with minimal technological "help".

What if the man hand making the furniture used a CAD program to help him lay out his design rather than a piece of paper and a ruler?
And once again, we have the comparison of apples and oranges. If the furniture at Ikea were identical to what it is now with the exception of being made by hand, you think it would suddenly be the equal of antique furniture? Not bloody likely -- the furniture at Ikea is of an entirely different design.
And are you telling me that there's no hard work all of a sudden if you edit or colour correct a film in the digital realm instead of analog?
From my personal experience printing, I will tell you that I put every bit as much effort into digital printing that I did with chemical printing! The difference is that I can do more, that I have more flexibility and can do a much better job than was even possible before!
Yes, I can make a contrast mask without spending an hour on it, but it is NOT the hour that is what made the contrast mask work, it was the knowledge of why it was needed and how it should be applied. But according to you, I have lost all of my skills and become a technician because now I work in the digital realm.
I will restate my question to you about AVID vs. editing on film, which you declined to answer: at what point during The English Patient does Walter Murch cease being an artist and become a technician? It should be easy to tell, because suddenly the film should become cold and souless and not as good anymore, according to you.

 

[Scott Calvert]

Aaron, I have never said it isn't possible to do good work with the new tools. Walter Murch is a good editor, but we'll never know what The English Patient might have looked like if he had used an old movieola. As it is, it's a well edited film. BUT, I think it's pretty obvious that the avid and other software-based editing tools have resulted in an unfortunate trend in the arbitrary, frenetic cutting we so far too often in films today.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

Computer-generated effects, non-linear editing, digital color correction, etc etc etc. The practical aspects involved in putting together a film have ceased to be an art. It's more scientific, than anything else.

As a fine art printer whose colour work has moved all to digital, I am offended by the inference, but also can tell you that it's bull. There is every bit as much effort and every bit as much skill put into fine art printing digitally as there is conventionally. Don't tell me that fine art printing sucks these days because at the Wal-Mart they have a digital photo lab.

You cannot say that because some people make bad movies using digital tools that the tools are responsible. If Resident Evil were created in the analog realm it would not be any better. If Cat Women of the Moon had CG instead of bad painted backdrops it would not be one ounce worse.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

BUT, I think it's pretty obvious that the avid and other software-based editing tools have resulted in an unfortunate trend in the arbitrary, frenetic cutting we so far too often in films today.

I would also like to dispute this: I would attribute the breakneck editing favoured these days to MTV and the rise of the music video. Videos were edited at a looney pace before non-linear editing was available or affordable at that budget level.

By the way, I do agree that these days many films stink, and often cheesy digital effects are substituted for a solid script, and that incomprehensible editing is becoming more and more common. I just don't blame any of this on digital tools.

I certainly don't blame my lukewarm reaction to The Phantom Menace on its eyepopping vistas -- I blame it on the awful dialogue, half-formed story, and the fact that nothing seemed to lead anywhere and that there was no sense of awe or grandeur. This is not the fault of the effects, but of the story. I had low expectations of Phantom Menace based on Lucas' recent work, but I have irrationally high hopes for Attack of the Clones. We'll see how I feel about it when the film comes out (and if it actually does improve Phantom Menace in hindsight as it is rumored to do).

 

[Sean Oneil]

If a director knows what he is doing with CGI, and knows when to throw it out if it just isn't working, then it is an invaluable tool. A lot of directors just aren't as finicky when it comes to scrutinizing how well CGI works within a film. The talent and skill of the CGI animators and designers also plays a huge part... there are a lot of hacks in this business, but just because they don't use CGI to it's fullest potential does not mean that CGI is a bad thing.

In the proper hands CGI can meld absolutely seamlessly into a film. A lot of the higher quality and skillfully done CGI work will go unnoticed by anyone.

There are many cases of CGI being so well done that you really can't tell it apart from reality, but there are so many cases of poorly done CGI that tend to give it a bad reputation. CGI is a good thing when used properly.

 

[Mark Pfeiffer]

A couple people in this thread have mentioned it, but it seems to have been overlooked. CGI is used in a lot of movies, except it tends to be transparent in many of them. It could be something like shading the sky the particular way the director wants it. (I seem to recall reading an article that this was done in The Winter Guest, hardly a film where I even expected or considered it would have been used.) Fact is, the tools are there and are used by many moviemakers, even the small independents. The CGI may not be what we consider the term to mean--flashy FX work in action/sci-fi films--but it's used a lot more than I bet most of us realize, which is when it's put to use best.

 

[Mike_G]

Christ...

Let's all go back to cave drawings.

CGI is just another TOOL, just like we once had COLOR, and then FILM, and then BLUE SCREEN, and then...

Mike

 

[Edwin-S]

I have been reading some posts in various threads and it looks to me like people need to relax a bit. Aren't these things supposed to be just friendly discussions? I was reading some posts in the DAS BOOT flipper thread and judging from some of the responses, you would have thought the guy had just shot someone's mother.

There are people who probably thought sound was going to be the end of cinema and then color and then TV and so on. Cinema hasn't died yet and CGI is certainly not going to be its death knell. Right now CGI is a new tool and like with any new tool it is going to be used until it becomes just one more tool in the box. There is a lot of experimenting going on at this stage of CGI's development. Some of the experiments will be more successful than others. Eventually, I think CGI will start being used in a more subtle manner, it is just going to take some time.

 

[David Rogers]

I truly feel sorry for you Scott.

---

David, those were all legitimate concerns. In the documentary Visions of Light, Allen Daviau remarks that the introduction of sound possibly came too early, cutting short the development of a wonderful art in silent cinema. He also makes comments about hoping to someday shoot in black & white. I certainly don't bemoan the development of sound and color film, but I can see the value of older, time honored methods.

---

ANYONE who feels film is better, more artistic (to use YOUR words) without sound, without color … I hardly know how to properly express my dismay, my disagreement, my complete incredulity at that position.

I'm happy you like old movies, old techniques, and that for you the pinnacle of movies was somewhere back in the 1920s.

The rest of us are interested in seeing what's happening today I guess.

For me, the point of filmmaking is to tell a story.

For a story to work, it must be interesting, it must be enjoyable, and it must create an illusion.

The illusion must be one of reality, of belief, of rightness. Some stories are remarkably easy to accomplish this with; set piece dramas and comedies for example.. Others require some set dressing and costuming, and some looking into proper accents and speech patterns (period dramas).

Some stories, however, are of the 'fanciful' sort. Not necessarily FANTASTIC, but of the sort that you can't just put actors in front of a camera on a set and have that work, have that be enough to create the illusion. I have to believe an actor I'm watching is a race car driver who is on the Formula-One circuit for Driven to work; effects, including CG, make it possible for me to believe I'm watching a real race. I have to believe two actors I’m watching are star crossed lovers caught on what's about to be one of the most famous disasters of the 20th century for Titanic to have any sort of impact, and without CG the sinking ship around them is reduced to people rippling sheets of metal off camera and rocking the set back and forth while they splash water on the actors. I have to believe a bunch of actors I'm watching fight the beginnings of a galactic dicatorship really are caught in a galaxy far far away for Star Wars to be enjoyable, and without CG they can't go to space to fight a battle, use lightsabers, or even show us the aliens and city of the capital planet.

CG makes these types of visions possible. You can't put a real person in a race car and wreck it dramatically; not a sane person anyway. You can't really shoot up dozens of people if you're going to tell the story of the Allied Invasion in Normandy.

The examples go on and on and on. CG enables the storytellers to put us closer to the action, to make the action more believable and more real.

I'm sorry you can't see it. I'm sorry you feel it's the bane of all filmmaking

I continue to pray your opinion remains in the extremely strong minority, because to remove CG from films would put us back to the dark ages where movies looked like people in crappy costumes against carpenter constructed sets acting in one-room-plays.

You will probably think I'm making fun of you; I'm not. I'm serious. Your opinion, spun out to the ultimate conclusion that it's right, results in the removal of CG from film. That is a world where I lose much interest in film; other tools simply do not exist to replace the absence of CG in the storytelling process. But you've also indicated a lot of OTHER inventions and innovations that've been applied to filmmaking are also unwanted, such as digital editing, colorized film, and sound.

I simply cannot agree, to any degree, in any form, that holding us in an environment lacking any advancement is good for the 'art' of filmmaking.

Yes I'm calling you a Luddite. Your own repeatedly stated position seems to label you this way extremely clearly however, so I don't feel I'm reaching.

Here's the good news though Scott; through the marvelous invention of DVD you can enjoy films from the heyday of moviemaking looking as good sometimes, and also sometimes even BETTER, than they did when they first came out. So you can pack your shelf full of the things you love, and that way we all win.

 

[Greg Br]

David,

You make solid points, but would you not say the trend has been to use CGI when needed as in T2 and other movies of that type, now it seemd like instead of a tool the CGI is a crutch to hold the movie up. Is it really a tool of filmaking if CGI is used to substitute a mountain, when there are a million mountains that could have been shot and used. The Driven example is a good example, but I would think the next step is to have film of the actor sitting in a car and everything, the crowds, the track, the cars all be CGI, thats the way the Spiderman trailor looked to me. I guess we need to combine Video game and filmaking one cause thats what I am seeing.

Here is one for you. what was the worst part in Mission Impossible? For me it was that stupid helicopter scene with the train, the only part of the movie that was completely based on CGI, the whole movie seemed very real to me until that scene.

 

[RobertR]

and without CG they can't go to space to fight a battle, use lightsabers

That particular claim is wrong. They DID go to space and fight a battle AND use lightsabers in the OT, all WITHOUT CG.

 

[Jack Briggs]

It can all be summed up simply and easily: CGI can be a marvelous tool, the newest extension of a filmmaker's arsenal. But the situation is similar now to the one facing pop music in the early '80s: Pop fell in love with the synthesizer, and summarily overdid it. Music became intolerable there for a while. The synths were a crutch for creative bankruptcy.

Right now, CGI technology is an object of indulgence; it's being done because it can be done. Instead of serving films, CGI often is the star.

In time, if we're fortunate, the studios will come to grips with the technology and put it all in perspective. But, for now, moviemaking is about everything but subtlety. Hence, today's summer popcorn flicks are $10, twho-hour-long video games that are doing little more than to dull and numb the senses.

 

[Greg Br]

here here Jack, could not have said it better.

 

[Sean Oneil]

Again, just because you have seen some ugly or fake looking CGI does not mean that CGI is a bad thing. It can be a plus when used properly.

 

[DavidAC]

Ok question why does everyone feel the need to compare the CGI in the AotC to cartoonish or videogame like? Did anything in that trailer looked real? No. But most definately nothing looked remotely cartoonish or videogame like in that trailer, rather poor choice of words.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

"Is CGI going to kill American Cinema?"
In short, no.
Not every film, let alone American film, is going to use CGI. I'll beat this thing further into the ground and say that CGI is nothing more than a tool lying around for somebody to use it. Not every movie will see a need for it. It'll naturally have its problems. Just watch Singin' in the Rain, and you'll see some of the problems with sound.
Straight from the source itself George Lucas (on a promotion for From Star Wars to Jedi, a documentary on the making of the trilogy), who is often accused of such indulgences, says that, "Special Effect without a story is kind of meaningless." I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that he does this more often than people give him credit for. Last I checked, the pod race in Star Wars: Episode I was there for story reasons, not all flash as some have implied. George has such fantastic ideas in his head that some of the more primitive technologies could not at all execute. Take a look at Star Wars: A New Hope. The dogfights pre-Special Edition looked good, but they were nothing compared to what they looked like in the Special Edition.
I think that the problem with CGI is not that it looks fake (personally to me, CGI landscapes as ones found in Fellowship of the Ring and Star Wars: Episode I are extraordinarily beautiful), but that people praise them to be real-looking.

 

[Jeffrey Forner]

I have an interesting question that I hope someone can answer for me.

If filmmakers didn't have CGI available to them, would movies today be better on a whole and why?

 

[Dome Vongvises]

If filmmakers didn't have CGI available to them, would movies today be better on a whole and why?

Depends on the movie being made.
For example, Gladiator would've been the same movie made with or without CGI (for better or worse). It would've just been harder to make (getting the sheer number of extras on par with Lawrence of Arabia or Ben-Hur is a rather difficult task these days.)
Even without CGI, a movie will still be judged on its story, plot, and direction.
So in essence, movies would not necessarily be better if CGI didn't exist.

 

[Seth Paxton]

I think they would be Jeff, but not because CGI = bad.
Rather because CGI = new. Some films would benefit from not being CGI showcases and would instead actually have to be ABOUT SOMETHING .
But films like Gladiator would simply force the filmmakers to use effects/techniques that were far more refined and understood. Thus the film might take different approaches (like matte paintings) but these approaches would be using those techs at their highest level rather than CGI at what will be seen in a few years as at a very raw level.
It is funny though that one of the "best" CGI films is Tron, a film that totally shows off CGI. However that film makes the story conform to the CGI world rather than try to (poorly) make CGI conform to reality. Thus while it's far less sophisticated Tron's effects work much better than most modern effects films.
I do think AOTC looks cartoonish (people marching too perfectly is one thing that gives this effect, unreal lighting is also a give-away) but I'm not 100% against that. If it looks cartoonish in a story serving manner then who cares. We can tell foam rubber puppets too, but it was still possible to love the life put into Yoda.
PS - I know they are clones but that still doesn't mean the physical act of marching would be that perfect and aligned. It looks CPU, too perfect and clean, one of the biggest problems with CGI right now.

 

[RobertR]

Also, some rather poor films that are essentially nothing more than CGI showcases would not be made (simply because without the CGI factor no one would bother), thereby raising the overall quality level.