George Lucas talks Lord of the Rings, Film, HD and more (1 Viewer)

[Brandon Conway]

Much more. He simply meant that saving money in one area of production benefits the others. Pretty straight forward.

Or would you have rather had Peter Jackson say he would hire 50,000 people as extras for LOTR, skyrocketing the cost of the film so that New Line would have turned it down? Lucas isn't talking about his films, but film in general, and the advantages that new, less expensive methods of visual effects allow a filmmaker.

 

[Dan Kaplan]

CGI is the faster car, but I see no evidence that it saves money. It is dramatically more expensive, in most cases. Look at the highest budget flicks of all time and you'll find some extremely CGI-saturated movies. The technology cost is enormous. You might get more performance, but the economy isn't there. Thus my Lamborghini vs. Hyundai extension of his analogy.

Dan

 

[Brandon Conway]

I just gave you one. Hiring extras instead of using CGI would have increased the budget of LOTR well beyond the already enormous amount New Line put up for it.

 

[Dan Kaplan]

I won't disparage LOTR, because it's one of the very, very few movies that has done CGI right. However, it is an example of what I meant by CGI being an excuse for bigger, not better. LOTR, Matrix, and the Star Wars prequels have all found it necessary to have extremely large, elaborate battle scenes. Are the movies any better for it? Not that I can see. Other than LOTR, which was staying true to revered source material, that approach dragged the movies down into a piling heap of dung. "Yeah, look at 10,000 nearly identical computer animations get zapped! How exciting." A smaller scale worked just fine before and was much more convincing.

So, if the thinking is that movies have to be bigger, than sure, CGI use might save money in some cases. That's rather backward thinking, though, basing the value of CGI on an unanswered question (is bigger better). The Lamborghini's bigger engine can get you there faster, but is it worth an extra quarter million dollars to cut 5 minutes off your morning commute?

As for movies that just use a small amount of CGI, I'm not sure how that's relevant to the discussion or to anything Lucas has worked on... That's more akin to leather seats than a performance engine upgrade.

Dan

 

[Brandon Conway]

It's relevant because 1) Lucas is talking about how CGI visual effects can be used to help ALL filmmakers achieve their vision easier and less expensively, and 2) it shows how CGI can be subtle, and used to highlight a film while simultaneously extending the boundaries beyond what traditional practical effects can achieve.

 

[Grant H]

Never thought about it, but if that's true it backs up Cameron's comments that the film was supposed to look like actual war footage.

I don't remember if in Lucas' analogy he was talking about CGI or filming on HD vs. film. Based on this thread's title my memory indicates the latter. Could be both.

Either way, I think he meant make THE SAME CAR go faster, not replacing it with a more expensive vehicle, so tearing up his simple analogy is pretty weak. I'm thinking it's more like adding some dry gas to your tank or tuning it up instead of trading in your Hyundai for a Lambo. Things that don't cost a fortune. And the whole idea is you save time instead of wasting it in transit. (which really makes sense when you think of it as shooting on digital rather than shooting on film and then transferring it all to the digital realm so you can do your digital post production) Here time equals money. Time that you're spending on the road is time you're not using to make money or time=money wasted traveling. Pretty simple, but obviously not simple enough. Lucas must really be a genius since even when he tries to make it easy people can't understand him.

The first Matrix film had a lot of CG work to it, and it was HUGELY popular. So, I wouldn't blame the technology for the sequels' shortcomings. The W's vision just wasn't what a lot of people (myself included) wanted it to be. If they hadn't incorporated the tremendous action scenes in the sequels there would have been little to enjoy in the films. Their vision of the first film was great for everybody because you could take it anywhere you wanted to. Just as Star Wars as a saga was better before the prequels because everyone imagined the backstory themselves over MANY years. Lucas couldn't write anything to live up to everyone else's imaginations. They live up to a lot of other SF/Fantasy/Action films though.

Still don't see that a lot of LOTR CGI was that much better than other CGI. Doesn't fool me, nor did the obvious replacement of Hobbit actors with midget counterparts for scale purposes (Here, the films benefit from small-screen viewing when you can't clearly see the faces are not your lead actors), but you have to let it go if you want to enjoy the movie. You can say the CG in LOTR was "done right", but it does help that the story takes place in a place called Middle EARTH and more, but not all that much more, could be done with conventional methods.

 

[Kevin M]

This is not really associated with Dan Kaplan's meaning in this statement but just to throw it in, Ridley Scott on the Legend commentary put it rather well in regards to this idea:

"You know, today we could have done this a lot easier with CGI...if not Hellishly more expensive, right? I mean CGI is much more...efficient is the word I guess, but it ain't cheaper by a long shot!

 

[Brian]

I don't think it's fair to blame the cost increases on CGI. In fact, most big budget movies would simply be too expensive to film at all without CGI. There are many other factors that are causing the rise in costs. Big budget flicks usually have big name stars who get very large paychecks - sometimes half the budget of the movie. Advertising costs keep going up as well, as does union pay.

For a good example from current movies, just compare Hellboy to Van Helsing. Both are special-effects laden movies, but Hellboy cost $60 million, and Van Helsing was $135 million. Hellboy had great set design, make-up, and special effects, and while I've only seen the trailer for Van Helsing, the few effects they've shown (like the Werewolf) look like crap.

-B

 

[oscar_merkx]

Hi folks

I am reviving this thread as co producer Rick Porras of the Lord of the Rings talks about George Lucas

http://www.dvdfile.com/news/special_...g/effects.html

How did you come to co-produce the Lord of the Rings trilogy?



there is more throughout the interview.

 

[Chris]

Just a thought:


Well, I think you are using CGI "movies" but I think you can put this into other terms, and I'll use one as a thought of CGI film, and one not.

LOTR: ROTK did have giant battle scenes with a great number present, and yes, they were CGI. Paying a similar number of actors to stand there and get pummelled would have been an enormous budget waste; and in fact, the shared cost of the CGI development went over several movies, which lowered a few movies cost. You can argue as to whether or not it made the film "better" but it definitely made staying true to the source media much more possible.

Or, here's an example that is not thought of as a CGI movie: Saving Private Ryan. Computer effects within Saving Private Ryan allowed for a more realistic landing at the beach scene, and were used to crop out and recanvas the beach, allowing the director to do fewer shots to get the scene done. It also allowed for a much safer environment for the actors.

CGI allows for many things to happen that couldn't have happened before. There is/was a good show on HBO talking about CGI in movies "you didn't expect" which made an effective case that without modern CGI, movies would be more expensive and very difficult to get done

 

[Tim Glover]

Nice article. Seems like the media and we fans always seem to think these guys are cutthroats when in actuality, they really do help each other and seem to want each other's projects to succeed.

The Lucasfilm team and Peter Jackson's team may compete with each other for the same fan base but any "fierce rival" issues are clearly made up.

 

[Tony_Ramos]

Dan, I think you'r astute in that CGI mainly allows the director to dream bigger dreams. When the scope of the film is increased, so to is the effects budget.

For instance, creating a movie of the size that some of those old Hollywood films was is now more feasible. You don't have to create a whole effects department or find new talent, you just contract to ILM.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Hope PJ jumps in to help w/SW!

 

[Chad R]

This is not directly aimed at you Tim, just the sentiment that franchises have to compete for the same fans. It's just so silly of us as a people to turn everything into a competition when, especially in art, it is possible to like more than one series with no need to compete against eachother. I have plenty of time in a year to enjoy many things.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

The same people can watch both movies, but they're competing for fans' disposable income with their merchandise.