Worst use of CGI in a movie? (1 Viewer)

[Matt Stone]

Oh Yah! I forgot about that one. It amazes me how often Pinata shows up on AMC at 4am

 

[Bryan X]

Yes! That was horrible! It looked like a cartoon.

 

[Robert Anthony]

Oooh. I just saw this on cable today, and flipped past once I realized what it was.

Uwe Boll's masterpiece "Alone in the Dark." Gooood LOOORD bad CGI abounds.

 

[Dick]

The tiger that leaps from the left side of the frame to try to claw Russell Crowe in the GLADIATOR arena - it was only a few frames long but was so obviously CGI (and piss-poor at that) that it took me several minutes to be able to settle back into the movie.

The snowman in JACK FROST. Abysmal.

I was about to add Jar Jar Binks, but then realized he is, in fact, a beautifully rendered CGI character who simply happens to be abrasive and insufferable. Waste of a lot of otherwise great computer work.

 

[Bob McLaughlin]

Derek, I won't argue that jerky old-fashioned stop-motion animation is superior to CGI, however I would say that bad CGI isn't much better. It takes you out of the movie. At least with stop-motion you are seeing something that is physically real, although the motion is far less realistic. Even bad CGI usually has a more fluid motion.

We could discuss which stop motion animation is better than others, but there seems to be less disparity in quality than there is with CGI. I will say that some of the work Tim Burton's crew has done with stop-motion is breathtaking.

 

[Vader]

Agreed!

 

[David Deeb]

Agreed. And it didn't help that it went on for 5 or 6 minutes either.

Remember stunts? Sets? Costumes? I like them better.

 

[Ryan L. Bisasky]

I know its stop motion, and that shouldn't count, but the endoskelleton in terminator 1 looks really bad today, esepecially when we see it move with most of the body in frame. Now there are many good shots in that scene where we just see the foot move, or the top of the head, but its those few shots that look laughable.

 

[Jason Seaver]

The Illusionist has some awful use of CGI, but it's not because the effects are rendered particularly poorly. It's just that if you have to use CGI in your movie about a stage magician, you've done something very stupid at the writing stage.

 

[George Banks]

Okay my two cents...

I work in the visual effects industry with people of various disciplines but are all very talented.

Despite the progress that CG has made over the years sometimes the suspension of disbelief can go out of the window. It's not so much that the visuals look too fake (there are some exceptions), but what happens in a scene where cg is featured. Thats when people ususally start calling CG fake. Sometimes smaller FX companies simply doesn't have the same resources as a larger FX house and it can show on the screen despite their best efforts. Sometimes its just lack of a big budget. Then there's the bad movie/good movie ratio. If a film is perceived to be a bad film by the viewing public, then EVERYTHING is bad about the film. Not just the story, but the actors, the soundtrack, and yes, the visual fx. However, if a film is perceived as a masterpiece of film making by the public, then the opposite happens. Great actors, wonderful soundtrack, amazing visual FX. Give that film an Oscar. That's the one thing I have noticed in my movie making career.

king Kong had great animation in terms of CG but some of the compositing was questionable. The reason why the stampede scene looked bad was because in real life those people would have got trampled to death. Having them, or at least the main characters, survive doesn't make sense to the average viewer. But the creature work was fantastic.

ILM did indeed rush The Mummy Returns and they know it. One of the few times that ILM did let their heads hang alittle low. It's a case where they had to finish the movie and they simply ran out of time. I did enjoy the little pigmy monsters though. I thought that they had alot of personality. It still made over $200 mil at the box office. I thought the Kraken in Pirates 2 looked fine. Maybe I would have toned down some of the sub-surface scattering on it alittle bit but the performance was pretty good.

The tiger in Gladiator that took a swipe Maximus was real. Read that in a copy of CineFX magazine.

Taking a live action person and making them ride a cg character always seems alittle off despite the best tracking/match moving that can be done. The only time it works well is when both animal and rider are CG. But if you do that for too long, you loose the effect of fooling the audience. You loose the gag, as my former boss would say. When you try to composite a live action actor to a CG animal, the rider looks out of sync. The rider's body is not reacting naturally to what the CG animal/creature is doing. Hence it looks alittle off. It's hard to find that balance where it looks just right.

Digital humans are one of the holy grails of CG. You can create a very convincing, photo realistic still image of a cg human but as soon as it moves, it looses it's realism. The audience knows right away when the digital double is on screen for too long. If there is one living creature that people have seen in real life more than any other life form, it's other people. You know the suttle nuances in people when they walk, run, eat, talk, facial expressions, the whole bit. That's why films like the Polar Express, Final Fantasy, and other films that feature photo realistic looking humans, the people look like zombies. They look slightly off. Where as in a film like The Incredibles, the people are stylized. You can get away with alot more. Shrek is the same way.

If there are anyone else on this forum that works in the FX industry please speak up and be heard.

 

[Martino]

Sorry, I don't work for the FX industry...

But I would nominate the big cats from Hidalgo as some bad CG in a movie - when they showed up, they just looked so fake...

 

[Robert Anthony]

Yeah, let's get those stunt-trained Brontosaurii on set, and see if the big one can't knock over the light-rigging this time. Oh, and not trample on people

Special Effects purists are admirable, but a little kooky sometimes. I am glad, however, this thread has mostly steered away from the "practical vs cg" debate and hasn't descended into flat-out Star Wars/Lucas bashing like I was almost CERTAIN it would on page 2.

 

[Brett_M]

Awesome post.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

I think we've remained pretty civil about it too. I have no problem with CGI, but I do believe some instances of practicality are better eg. my Gone In 60 Seconds example.

 

[Matt-Z]

I'm not in the business but have two friends who are lead animators for a contract studio in SF. My experience with these guys and their working environment was/is pretty surprising. I think people's impressions of the special effects industry are pretty romanticised. I think the best way to sum it up is to recount how my conversations go with them when I call.

Me: Hey, what's up?
Them: Not much.
Me: What are you guys working on?
Them: Oh we're doing a couple shots for (insert title here).
Me:What? Doesn't that open in a couple weeks?
Them:Yup.

I think we all imagine that all this stuff lives in a Pixar world where the goal is to achieve perfection. Most of these movies have effects done by the lowest bidder. Then you get a handful of smelly guys working 36 hour days until you have something, anything that will do. I hear nothing but horror stories about what goes on with this stuff. They work really hard and really know their stuff, but when the deadline is tuesday morning and it's Sunday and the Director just changed his mind and you partner is on vacation - well you sleep under your desk and eat pretzels and diet coke for two days.

 

[BrianB]

"Shows" (i.e. the job of producing a number of FX shots for a film etc) are generally put out to tender. Money decides how many artists are available for creation of models, how many (and what quality) of animators are available to animate those models, and how many compositors are available to put all of those fancy effects together with the actual film background. For the likes of ILM, how much R&D do they need to do to deliver new tech to drive those shots (say for example the water in Poseidon)?

And there's generally zero room to be late.

So the FX house has to budget for all that, make a profit & put forth a bid where they'll be undercut by outsourced FX houses.

 

[George Banks]

double post

 

[George Banks]

Ususally a bigger budget means better cg/eyecandy. But it depends on what type of movie it is. Remember, its a business and the owners of said FX company are in it not only to make great looking work but to make money too. However, having a bigger budget for doesn't equal good story. There are plenty of movies out there that look gorgeous but the story is just plain terrible.

When people watch the extras on a Pixar dvd, you see guys riding around on scooters and segways. Everyone is having fun. Care free non-corporate atmosphere. Now...some of that is true. They do have fun but is is hard work and late hours to be sure. Not everyone riding around on scooters in the hallway, people aren't doing tai-chi at their desk. But its not just Pixar but all FX/animation houses are like this to a degree. Some FX houses are better than others. Some are more cut-throat with their employees. Some treat their employees very well. The one real negative aspect of the industry is that all movies are project based. Once the project is over, you may find yourself out of a job.

Usually if a FX house is awarded with a big show, it can take 6 months to a year and a half of pre-production work with design, R&D, budget, schedules, deadlines, personnel, etc. Once all of that stuff is figured out and done then the actual production starts. Thats when FX studios gear up and sometimes balloon to a large size staff wise to get the show done on time. That can take from 6 months up to two years depending on the level and complexity of the film. When the end of the production is near, that's when crunch time hits and overtime becomes a factor. Keep in mind that you'll already be working for 9-10 hours a day. But now that includes weekends. The guys at Weta while working on King Kong were working 7 days a week during their crunch time. You get burnt out real quick. One of the reasons why Pixar made Cars was because the staff was burnt out from making the Incredibles. The downside come when the production ends and companies that have ballooned up with staff now have to cut back and shrink. That means layoffs. The FX industry is not the most stable of careers but we love what we do. We get paid to be artist and we are willing to put up with all the craziness of the film industry just to see out work on the big and small screen.

 

[RickER]

And just to think they did it in 1974 with water and a miniature ship, and it still looked great!
Just because it can be done with CGI doesn't mean it has to be. Lord of the Rings showed us miniatures still look great.

 

[Seth=L]

I completely agree with George here. If you offered ILM a million to do a job versus 2 million, the one millit would only get a certain amount of time and effort, where as you give them more they try harder, use more people, and spend more time. An example or this mindset. You offer a 13 yr. old to mow your lawn and trim the bushes on your budget of 10 bucks, he may do a poor job or maybe not even take the job. If he chooses not to do the job for set pay you may have to find a more affordable alternative like the kid who always misses spots and trims the bushes unevenly. This is of course asuming you have no means to mow the lawn yourself. Of course if your budget increases to 20 bucks you could afford the kid that knows how to mow and trim bushes well. That is my take.