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The best of the best: The SP-FX houses - Page 2

post #31 of 97
4/20/07 at 5:53pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

Watto always impressed me. ILM's huge workload on the PT always impressed me as well.
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post #32 of 97
4/20/07 at 7:24pm
Thread Starter 

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

While there are some that love to rail on the PT, all three films are absolute visual marvels. Literally a feast for the eyes. Of the three movies, the environment that was most impressive to me was Kamino. The contrast between the exteriors and interiors was really cool to see. I often find that the PT's FX often get tied into the overall disappointment some of the fans feel about the movies. Bottom line, ILM did a helluva job on those movies.

I was royally disappointed with the two 'Matrix' sequels, but those movies have some of the greatest FX I've ever seen for a major motion picture and I'm not going to diss the work FX team did just because I didn't dig the films themselves. This is also often the case with Ang Lee's "Hulk". Regardless of the quality of the movies, the FX are just spectacular in my opinion.
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post #33 of 97
4/25/07 at 7:56pm
Thread Starter 

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

With Weta probably out of the running, which FX house should New Line go with for the two Hobbit movies? I think ILM would do the best job, but I think New Line will go with someone like SPI or Rythm & Hues.

Also, just how ground-breaking is "Avatar" going to be? I know very little overall about the project, but all I keep hearing is that Jim Cameron and Weta could deliver one of the most revolutionary movies (in terms of visuals) ever made.
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post #34 of 97
4/25/07 at 8:39pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

I would probably go with ILM. I think their greatest strength is in the compositing which is directly connected to their digital lighting of the 3D elements. That is what sells most of their stuff. Although I seem to recall the last Kraken shot in POTC2 looked like a really bad composite. But that aside, they do an incredible job.

I'm glad that Starship Troopers has been mentioned quite a few times. I don't think any FX company had done so many broad daylight creature shots by 1997 as they did. And it was mostly seemless. Incredible work that still holds up today.

While so far everyone seems to be mentioning only the big FX houses, I think a shoutout to all the little ones that ILM and such farm out some of their work to.

CafeFX being one of them. Some of the shots being mentioned in this thread probably were worked on by this company. King Kong, Hulk, Spiderman 3, Sin City, Pan's Labyrinth to name a few. Some other small houses such as Custom Film Effects, Digital Dimension, EdenFX, Intelligent Creatures, Rainmaker, Frantic Films, Blur. Most of these places specialize in specific aspects of special effects such as motioncap, compositing, color correction, rotoscoping, digital mattes etc. The computer and having access to the same software as the big guys has created most of these companies. So now it is mostly up to how talented the artist is behind the keyboard.
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post #35 of 97
5/11/07 at 10:21am
Thread Starter 

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

The Visual Effects Society (basically Hollywood's Guild for the FX industry) have compiled their list of the 50 Most Influential Visual Effects Films of All Time.

THE VES 50
(there were some tie scores in the voting for the #3, #20, a five-way tie at #25, a tie at #36, #41, #46, and #50)
#1 "Star Wars" 1977 *(won FX Oscar)
#2 "Blade Runner" 1982
#3 "2001: A Spacy Odyssey" 1968 *(won FX Oscar)
#3 "The Matrix" 1999 *(won FX Oscar)
#5 "Jurassic Park" 1993 *(won FX Oscar)
#6 "Tron" 1982
#7 "King Kong" 1933
#8 "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" 1977
#9 "Alien" 1979 *(won FX Oscar)
#10 "The Abyss" 1989 *(won FX Oscar)
#11 "The Empire Strikes Back" 1980 *(won FX Oscar)
#12 "Metropolis" 1927
#13 "A Trip to the Moon" 1902
#14 "Terminator 2- Judgment Day" 1991 *(won FX Oscar)
#15 "The Wizard of Oz" 1939
#16 "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" 1988 *(won FX Oscar)
#17 "Raiders of the Lost Ark" 1981 *(won FX Oscar)
#18 "Titanic" 1997 *(won FX Oscar)
#19 "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" 2001 *(won FX Oscar)
#20 "Jason and the Argonauts" 1963
#20 "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" 1982 *(won FX Oscar)
#22 "Toy Story" 1995
#23 "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" 2006 *(won FX Oscar)
#24 "The Ten Commandments" 1956 *(won FX Oscar)
#25 "The War of the Worlds" 1953 *(won FX Oscar)
#25 "Forrest Gump" 1994 *(won FX Oscar)
#25 "Citizen Kane" 1941
#25 "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" 1958
#25 "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" 1954 *(won FX Oscar)
#30 "The Terminator" 1984
#31 "Aliens" 1986 *(won FX Oscar)
#32 "Mary Poppins" 1964 *(won FX Oscar)
#33 "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" 2003 *(won FX Oscar)
#34 "Forbidden Planet" 1956
#35 "Babe" 1995 *(won FX Oscar)
#36 "The Day the Earth Stood Still" 1951
#36 "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" 2002 *(won FX Oscar)
#38 "King Kong" 2005 *(won FX Oscar)
#39 "Planet of the Apes" 1968
#40 "Fantastic Voyage" 1966 *(won FX Oscar)
#41 "Jaws" 1975
#41 "Ghostbusters" 1984
#43 "Sin City" 2005
#44 "Superman: The Movie" 1978 *(won FX Oscar)
#45 "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" 1937
#46 "The Lost World" 1946
#46 "Return of the Jedi" 1983 *(won FX Oscar)
#48 "What Dreams May Come" 1998 *(won FX Oscar)
#49 "An American Werewolf in London" 1981
#50 "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" 1958
#50 "The Fifth Element" 1997

The big SP:FX houses of today that had multiple entries were ILM with 11, WETA had 4, and Digital Domain had 3.
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post #36 of 97
5/11/07 at 11:00am

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

Quote:
Originally Posted by TerryRL
While there are some that love to rail on the PT, all three films are absolute visual marvels. Literally a feast for the eyes. Of the three movies, the environment that was most impressive to me was Kamino. The contrast between the exteriors and interiors was really cool to see. I often find that the PT's FX often get tied into the overall disappointment some of the fans feel about the movies. Bottom line, ILM did a helluva job on those movies.

I was royally disappointed with the two 'Matrix' sequels, but those movies have some of the greatest FX I've ever seen for a major motion picture and I'm not going to diss the work FX team did just because I didn't dig the films themselves. This is also often the case with Ang Lee's "Hulk". Regardless of the quality of the movies, the FX are just spectacular in my opinion.

I agree with this statement 100%. The fact that Episode III wasn't nominated for the VFX Oscar was one of the biggest jokes in recent Oscar history.
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post #37 of 97
5/11/07 at 11:18am

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

What's interesting about the list to me is how much it agrees with some of the more controversial Oscars in the recent past- Matrix is #3 on the list and no Phantom Menace at all. FotR made it but no AI. King Kong is on the list but RotS didn't make it, etc. Indeed, none of the Star Wars prequels made it anywhere on the list.

The Visual Effects Oscar may be voted on by the entire Academy but it certainly seems that the Visual Effects professionals generally agree with their picks.
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post #38 of 97
5/11/07 at 11:31am

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

The Matrix being more influential for visual effects than the original King Kong, Jurassic Park, T2, The Abyss, everything Harryhausen's done and considered on a par with 2001 is a joke to end all jokes.

And even Blade Runner being number 2 is ridiculous. In terms of conceptual design, then a big yes, but in terms of visual effect it was really nothing that special.
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post #39 of 97
5/11/07 at 11:45am

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

Realizing that this is an industry poll and these guys know their craft infinitely better than I, I have to ask what was so influential about Titanic and FOTR's FX. The list reads to me more like a "best of" list.

--
H
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post #40 of 97
5/11/07 at 11:50am

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

It's odd that The Two Tower which introduced Gollum is voted the least of the Lord of the Rings movies.

And where the hell is the remake of The Thing?

And I sort of take back what I said about Blade Runner. With the exception of maybe Metropolis, few have ever seen a future so fully realized on film and while that still mostly design, much of it was achieved through visual effects and such. Still, number 2 is a little too high for it.
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post #41 of 97
5/11/07 at 12:38pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

As these are supposed to be the most influencial fx films, I agree with most of the list. Influencial can mean a lot of things and cover style, technique, quality, popculture etc.

The Matrix's Oscar and placement in this list is very much deserved. Bullettime complete in its execution and use was something that no one had really seen before. It expanded on what the public expected in terms of SFX and it got people talking.
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post #42 of 97
5/11/07 at 1:47pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

What amazed in FOTR was lived-in CG and excellent compositing, similar to what Star Wars pioneered in 1977.

Titanic should be on the list because of several reasons...use of CG for historical reasons, digital stuntpeople, and possible sheer scope.

I agree that The Thing 1982 should be on here.

Chris T, I heartily disagree. It wasn't even the biggest Star Wars PT Oscar tragedy. I would have put Sin City on the list before ROTS (unless you let me boot Narnia, then I'd put both). As far as the PT, Trisha Biggar got "robbed" more than the VFX teams. And the Oscars make WAY bigger mistakes every year than not including ROTS (which would have lost) in 2005. VFX is hardly a big offender in THAT category.
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post #43 of 97
5/11/07 at 1:52pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

Another note: I agree that King Kong got JOBBED on the list. Should be #1 or #2 (probably 2).

Shocked to see no Matrix sequels. I'd put them on there ahead of dozens of those, including ROTK (released the same year). And yes, I'd put TTT ahead of the others, just for Gollum.

Sorry for the two posts,
Chuck
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post #44 of 97
5/11/07 at 2:45pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Harbaugh
The Matrix's Oscar and placement in this list is very much deserved. Bullettime complete in its execution and use was something that no one had really seen before. It expanded on what the public expected in terms of SFX and it got people talking.


I beg to differ. The effect had been seen in a number of commercials before the film was released, including the famous swing dancing GAP commercial where people jump up in the air and freeze as the camera appears to swing around them.

It was a neat gimmick - set a bunch of cameras up around something and have them all go off at the same time then combine the frames and the illusion of movement makes it looks like something been frozen in air as the camera spirals around - that's now dated.

It looked cool but I find it hard to believe it was more influential than the originial King Kong or any Harryhausen film. Pioneering stop motion techniques and expert craftmanship of stop motion armitures. That's influential. Motion control - influential. Using computer technology to render near photo realistic dinosaurs - influential. A bunch of cameras going off around something at the same time. Cool looking but not really influential when you get down to it.
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post #45 of 97
5/11/07 at 2:53pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

OK, I am not an FX junkie. In fact, I think that is one of the bigger problems with movies these days. Still, unless I missed something, I am surprised neither Pan's Labyrinth or Children of Men has been mentioned. I have to say the "assassination" scene and the final 20 minutes or so of Children of Men are among the greatest FX I have ever seen, particularly since for the life of me, I can't tell what is FX and what isn't.
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post #46 of 97
5/11/07 at 3:04pm
Thread Starter 

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

I was also surprised that TTT ranked the lowest of the LOTR trilogy, especially considering how well received Gollum's introduction was in that movie. I am biased considering that it is my favorite of the three movies, but the entire battle of Moria sequence from 'Fellowship' remains my fave action sequence of the entire trilogy.

I was also surprised none of the SW prequels made the cut. Despite the flaws as a movie, 'The Phantom Menace' to this day has some truly spectacular work in it. Again, I'm biased.

I was also shocked to see that the original "King Kong" wasn't among the top three with "Star Wars" and '2001'. 'Kong' has been considered the "Babe Ruth" of visual FX. I guess that makes '2001' Ali and "Star Wars" Michael Jordan.
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post #47 of 97
5/11/07 at 3:11pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Hawley
I beg to differ. The effect had been seen in a number of commercials before the film was released, including the famous swing dancing GAP commercial where people jump up in the air and freeze as the camera appears to swing around them.
Making a commercial and making a feature film are two different things. I don't know the exact timeline of the actual technique being pioneered but it is probably safe to say that they were around the same time, if not by the same company. Finishing a single shot for a quick commercial will be a lot faster.

Eitherway, everyone has their own opinion. I'm just glad the Academy awarded the right film that year and going by this new list, it still resinates today in the SFX community.
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post #48 of 97
5/11/07 at 3:18pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Harbaugh
Making a commercial and making a feature film are two different things. I don't know the exact timeline of the actual technique being pioneered but it is probably safe to say that they were around the same time, if not by the same company. Finishing a single shot for a quick commercial will be a lot faster.

Eitherway, everyone has their own opinion. I'm just glad the Academy awarded the right film that year and going by this new list, it still resinates today in the SFX community.
It was always quite clear to me that the technique was developed for The Matrix, then used in the commercial, which was able to be aried before the movie was released. Also, the commercial did not use "Bullet Time" and the technique described by Mark is not "Bullet Time" but a freeze frame with the ability to move around the subjects. "Bullet Time" is actually quite a bit more complicated to accomplish.

Besides, it is easy to brush it off now as nothing special, but if it were really that easy or obvious a thing to do, why didn't someone think of it earlier.
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post #49 of 97
5/11/07 at 3:25pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

Freeze frame isn't bullet time. Bullet time is a predecessor to virtual cinematography (used much more extensively in the sequels). FWIW, The Matrix also pioneered digital sets a few months before TPM, and had the single greatest effects sequence (battery reveal) in modern filmmaking. I don't agree it's ahead of Kong, but it's the only film since Jurassic Park that should be top ten.

Also, T2 is getting jobbed harder than anything. #14? It's the first major film to require CG (The Abyss could have cut the scene) to be photoreal and interact with people. It's also the first "modern CG/action blockbuster". That puts it ahead of JP (yup, which wouldn't have been made without T2) and Tron, in my opinion.

Still, fun list to discuss.
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post #50 of 97
5/11/07 at 4:01pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

What's interesting is that it was the SFX in Terminator 2 that led Spielberg to believe that we were ready technologywise to do Jurassic Park. Sounds like that is the direct definition of influential. And of course, both high on the list.

I'm really surprised of all the hate for Forrest Gump on another forum discussing this list. The movie is packed full of SFX, most of which is completely transparent to the viewer which just makes it that much better. Some of the best compositing in a film.
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post #51 of 97
5/11/07 at 4:25pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

I fail to see how Tron is considered more influential than King Kong ('33).
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post #52 of 97
5/11/07 at 5:08pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

I'm pretty sure the GAP commercial aired around the summer of 98, significantly before the release of The Matrix. Aside from that, the "freeze" technique was done in The Stones' video "Like a Rolling Stone" which aired in '95 and in "Lost In Space" which was released in '96.

As for the difference between the Freeze thing (I believe it was once called Virtual Camera Movement) and bullettime, I'm not sure. I've seen behind-the-scenes footage of The Matrix and it shows Keanu in a green screen room with dozens of cameras mounted around him so while it may be more intricate, as the camera spirals around him as he freezes and twists in various speeds, it's still the same general principle - various cameras placed around an object going off at one, etc.

And didn't Radioland Murders use digital sets? Of course on one wants to put that on any(positive) list!
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post #53 of 97
5/12/07 at 6:09pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zack Gibbs
I strongly disagree with the opinion of WETA being a top FX house.

I admire them for several reasons; they pioneered realistic CG characters and pushed Mocap to its heights, its no wonder Cameron wanted them for Avatar (I don't know if its been said directly but Avatar will rely heavily on these skills). Yet even though they're so well known for CG characters, CG is not their first stop when presented with an FX challenge. Their love and willingness to blend decades of traditional FX work with modern CGI is probably what I enjoy most about them. This in a time when ILM has completely sold off their traditional modeling sector.

But all that being said the real determining factor of quality is the finished work they do, and WETA falls up short every time. Throughout the LOTR trilogy and King Kong there are numerous shots that are just plain bad. Even simple things like basic Compositing and matting can be so poor its as if they were done in the pre-digital age. And for all their digital character pioneering, ILM's Davey Jones is miles ahead of Kong.

Now honestly I'm not trying to slam them, nor am I saying I disprove of the effects work they've done because I know all too well of the limitations that caused some aspects to fall short. My point is simply that all of Weta's work so far falls into the category of "apologetic." So when I, and numerous other people/articles etc., speak of them it often comes out as "The SFX in LOTR was amazing... for their budget/time constraints/other limitations etc." And that may seem unfair, but I think if their goal it to create FX work that looks real to the eye (as opposed to something stylistic like 300) they often don't meet their goals, and should be judged accordingly.

ILM, simply by having done so much work over they years, has plenty of sore spots to be seen. They also have numerous knock-outs, absolutely perfect work in every frame of the film. That's something that Weta hasn't come close to yet.

And I personally found the work in "I, Robot" and Van Helsing to be some of the worst in modern SFX. Van Helsing on every level, from concept to execution. "I, Robot" more on a design level, no amount of SFX work could bring such pedestrian ideas to life.

Zack, I'm glad I'm not the only one with this opinion - I was going to post something very similar.

I'm almost always disappointed with work that WETA has done. Like "This is good, yes...but could be better." Other times, it's downright bad.

I'd be willing to put WETA behind R&H, who I think tends to be criminally overlooked when it comes to their effects quality.
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post #54 of 97
5/14/07 at 8:33am
Thread Starter 

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

R&H is a great FX house and they also are greatly underrated. They've only received two Oscar nods in their history, winning for "Babe" back in '95 and a nomination for 'The Chronicles of Narnia'. I think their work in X2 should've been recognized in '03, but that year also saw both 'Matrix' sequels fail to earn nods. 'Return of the King' had the prize locked up that year anyway.

R&H are looking at nabbing a third nod this year for their work in "The Golden Compass", plus they are also handling the FX on "The Incredible Hulk" and "Alvin and the Chipmunks" next year.

With WETA, the company got a big shot in the arm with bringing Gollum to life in 'The Two Towers', although I've always thought Gollum was a triumph in terms of performance rather than how well he was rendered. Plus, regardless of how bad some of the FX were in "King Kong", Kong himself was easily one of the best CG creations ever. Because Kong was so well done (as well as the solid work on the Spider Pit sequence), many were willing to ignore the disaster that was the Bronto stampede.
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post #55 of 97
6/4/07 at 10:15am
Thread Starter 

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

With the new footage from "Transformers" revealed on MTV yesterday, it looks like ILM is looking to garner Oscar #16 in their 32 year history. Looks like their biggest competition will come from "The Golden Compass". Rythm & Hues work on the movie is said to be outstanding, plus they have only won one Oscar in their history (for 1995's "Babe").

Do not be surprised if "Transformers" and "The Golden Compass" end up being the two front-runners for this year's FX Oscar.
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post #56 of 97
6/4/07 at 10:43am

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

What about Pirates 3?
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post #57 of 97
6/4/07 at 11:19am

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

From the look of the trailer for The Golden Compass, so far it doesn't look like anything special so I would put my money on Transformers. But they do have 6 months, where a lot can happen.
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post #58 of 97
6/4/07 at 11:31am

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

Yes R&H has some work lined up that keeping me employed!

However I have to correct some mistakes on TerryRL's list of fx work.
Starship Troopers - Planet P Outpost Attack. The bug work was done by Tippett Studio on ST. They handled all the bugs in ST1 and ST2.

Matrix 1 was done by Manex. However after Matrix 1, Manex shut down due to creative and managing differences. Basically a bunch of ex-Manex people left the company and formed ESC (Escape) studio. ESC done the finished work on Matrix 2 & 3 along with Sony, Cafe FX and some other companies.

ILM AND Weta may be the big boys on the block but don't count out some of the great work done by mid-sized and smaller companies like R&H, Tippett, Framestore (check out the birth scene in Children of Men), Cafe FX, Cinesite, Giant Killer Robots, The Orphanage and so on.

I hope you guys are enjoying some of that fx work because it's killing us...

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...goryid=13&cs=1
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post #59 of 97
6/4/07 at 2:36pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

Great article George. Hollywood needs to be careful, or they will kill the goose who laid the golden eggs.

I like the democritization of the workload...plenty of the smaller studios do GREAT work. ILM and WETA have the biggest resources, so they can do more (the quantity of their quality is what amazes me).

I didn't see the Transformers bit on MTV (though I'm sure they'll replay it every 10 minutes). I'd see the movie before I make any claims about Oscars I think the voters like to see more than extremely polished CGI creations. Pirates (and LOTR before it) did well by going a bit further, soup to nuts, concept through execution.

Edit: The clips are spectacular, but if the movie is a turd, it'll hurt. But I doubt the movie is a turd. Nice to see some Jazz love finally (he was my first [and still favorite] Transformer). I also didn't see a thing in the Golden Compass trailer that looked anywhere near as good as Pirates, much less Transformers. So far, ILM is competing with ILM.
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post #60 of 97
6/4/07 at 7:31pm

Re: The best of the best: The SP-FX houses

The major thing that could act in Golden Compass's favor is it's release closer to the awards season- if it's a well liked film that does very well at the box office then that might make some feel like rewarding it with a VFX award (assuming it gets nominated of course). Transformers and AWE will be old news at that point.
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