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Speculation on 'Contact' - Design Impact of Chair - Page 4

post #91 of 104
1/10/06 at 11:24am
Weta did the FX in "Contact"? I had no idea.

As far as the movie, the thing that struck me about the movie versus the book is that the movie is a much more "emotional" experience, whereas the book is a much more "intellectual" experience. I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's how the two different experiences played to me.
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post #92 of 104
1/10/06 at 11:39am
Not totally, WETA did a small portion. Most of the effects were done by SPI...Sony Picture Imageworks. Which I don't believe exists anymore. Zemeckis was a staunch supporter of PJ early on, hence his "throwing a bone" to WETA after The Frighteners. I have no idea what they did for the film, but I know the big stuff was SPI. They even had a logo and everything

And I do recall they really were good. The DVD has some excellent VFX features, including a Machine flyaround that I still love. I wish more folks did that with CG models.
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post #93 of 104
1/10/06 at 12:32pm
SPI won the Oscar for "Spider-Man 2" last year.
You better believe they are still around, Sony Pictures Imageworks is one of the biggest FX houses in Hollywood.

It was Warner's FX house that went away.

Industrial Light & Magic also contributed heavily to "Contact", but the bulk of the work was SPI.
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post #94 of 104
1/10/06 at 12:45pm
I also caught this the other night on HBO HD.

Still a great movie IMO, haven't seen it in 4 or 5 years. Forgot about the assembled talent of actors involved in this picture.

The HD transfer wasn't too shabby either, considering it's probably 7 years old?

It was disappointing that it was only broadcast in 2.0 Surround. IIRC, the DVD had a pretty good Dolby Digital 5.1 track.
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post #95 of 104
1/10/06 at 1:21pm
That's right, Peter. I knew it was somebody. Is Dykstra the creative head of SPI (as Muren effectively is for ILM)? I knew Dykstra was the power behind Spidey...I was unaware the banner of SPI was still alive.
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post #96 of 104
1/10/06 at 2:18pm
Ken Ralston moved to SPI as a senior supervisor, and this was his first project there.

Zemekis had always used ILM as "his" FX house since "Back to the Future", where he established a working partnership with Ralston that resulted in:

The Back to the Future trilogy
Death Becomes Her (oscar)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (oscar)
Forrest Gump (oscar)

So when Ralston moved from ILM to SPI Zemekis followed.

Since "Contact" Zemekis & Ralston at SPI have done:

What Lies Beneath
Cast Away
The Polar Express
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post #97 of 104
1/10/06 at 8:19pm
I believe Weta was responsible for the "worm hole" sequence.
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post #98 of 104
1/10/06 at 10:12pm
Quote:
I believe Weta was responsible for the "worm hole" sequence.


Actually, a lot of that was ILM. They played cleanup for the film the same way they did for "Titanic" and recently "The Chronicles of Narnia"
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post #99 of 104
1/10/06 at 10:34pm
Quote:
How do the VFX look in HD? As good as they did in 1997?
They look very good to me...the Japanese (BS Hi) HD broadcast (OAR 1920x1080i) I witnessed is the best I have ever seen Contact. Easily trumps the HBO HD broadcast, which looked overly soft and lacking in detail. On the other hand, the HBO broadcast didn't have burned in subtitles like the Japanese version. Still, I would watch the Japanese subtitled version over the HBO HD broadcast any day - it is a night and day difference. Too bad the BS Hi broadcast was also only 2.0.

Quote:
As far as the movie, the thing that struck me about the movie versus the book is that the movie is a much more "emotional" experience, whereas the book is a much more "intellectual" experience.
That is exactly what I felt! The book and movie are different yet complement each other perfectly.
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post #100 of 104
1/11/06 at 5:26am
Quote:
They played cleanup for the film the same way they did for "Titanic"
Easy Peter. ILM had four composite shots. FOUR. Four extremely difficult shots; they were farmed to ILM not because DD couldn't do them...but because DD had bigger problems (and not enough time), and ILM was the only house that had the experience and ability to create the composites in the limited time. You are overstating ILM's input on the big T to say they cleaned it up.
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post #101 of 104
1/11/06 at 7:14pm
Quote:
You are overstating ILM's input on the big T to say they cleaned it up.


No, no, no no. I meant as in "clean-up batter", like in baseball. A go-to heavy hitter who has one job and one job only at the very end.
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post #102 of 104
1/12/06 at 5:37am
Then that makes perfect sense, because that's what they did

Moving back to Contact...
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post #103 of 104
1/12/06 at 1:05pm
Just curious what the meaning of the glowing dots in Ellie's hand at the end when she handles the dirt. I know that star pattern seems to repeat itself several times throughout the movie, but what is its meaning?

- Colton
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post #104 of 104
1/12/06 at 2:09pm
You guys are making me rush home this evening to pop in the movie. It is also one of my favorites, and it hasn't come anywhere near my DVD player since my kids were born 4+years ago.

Near classic and a film that deserves the royal treatment on next-Gen DVD.
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