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Is CGI going to kill American Cinema (1 Viewer)

Greg Br

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My problem lies with the CGI being the center of the movie. For me replacing the cinematography of say Lawrence of Arabia with CGI it would definatley take away the experience of the film. When the central character of the film is CGI then I believe that the final product will suffer, as it did to me in TPM. CGI can be very usefull in certain situations where it was just not possible to make the film.

Obviously kill was creative title, films will never go away but in the end I think for me the cinematic experience will be lessened.
 

Jason Seaver

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merely said:
I'm reminded of another thread where someone cracked that it's tough to get a movie made without CGI or raunchy comedy, and my response that it's probably pretty tough to get one made with CGI or raunch, too. How sure are you that doing effects with CGI doesn't require a bunch of sheer, painstaking work? I've done enough math and programming in other areas to know that developing the tools must be tremendous work, and I wouldn't bet against using them properly being pretty tricky, as well.
Oh, and it's not just American cinema. Brotherhood Of The Wolf and Amélie used plenty of CGI, too, so French cinema is in danger. And, lord, the amount of CGI work Peter Jackson's doing will put New Zealand cinema into the ground several time over! And, hey, there seems to be a lot of CGI going on in that Zu Warriors trailer, too...
Lest you think I believe CGI to be a panacea (or are planning to quote from this column when I slam some awful CGI-intensive movie in a review thread :)), understand: There's more bad CGI than great, and a lot of directors who don't use the tool properly. Well-rendered CGI that's unappealing visually should be condemned not because it's CGI, and not because it doesn't advance the plot, but because it's no fun.
Similarly, many directors will just say, okay, this scene which will be digitally-generated isn't my problem, and will just leave it to the effects house. Now, these effects houses employ many creative people, but when you consider that many productions use multiple effects houses, you'll often get a big visual with little artistic guidance. Not good.
This, by the way, is why I think certain CGI-intensive movies will stand the test of time - Terminator 2, The Matrix, A.I., Fellowship Of The Ring (and, yeah, I'll include The Phantom Menace, although I know it's far from a unanimous choice). They had directors, cinematographers, and art departments who got involved with the effects crew, and really made sure that the guys in the lab were part of the team. That way, the conventional filmmakers knew the limits and powers of the technology, and the tech guys knew exactly what the director/DP/etc. wanted... Just like the on-set tech guys.
Collary: If you see interviews where the director is astounded by how well the visual effects worked, or how well it came together, that's a bad sign. He should be saying that ILM made it possible to get exactly what he wanted on-screen.
 

Damin J Toell

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Spartacus said:
Scott: do you also dislike every film that uses matte paintings for a background instead of creating a massive set? they are certainly inauthentic and are shortcuts done to save time and money. and yet i don't think we'll ever see a thread around here entitled "Are Matte Paintings Going To Kill American Cinema?" how about miniatures? they're inauthentic. is a film destined to be non-classic if it uses miniatures?
much of filmmaking is inauthentic; people often talk about the "magic" of filmmaking and how "inauthentic" effects help suspend the disbelief of the audience. this happened long before CGI. is CGI going to kill American cinema? just as much as any new special effect did. it's up to talented filmmakers to use it correctly; it's not the technology's fault if it's used incorrectly. CGI is just the newest way of getting the same old thing accomplished.
DJ
 

Jeffrey Forner

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This discussion reminds me of something Roger Ebert talked about during his commentary for Citizen Kane. He mentioned that Orson Welles used deep focus photography so that the audience could see character far in the distance and so that all of the backgrounds look crystal clear. Apparently, he did this so as to give the film a more realistic look. However, the audiences of the time were not used to such a look and to them the movie looked odd and unrealistic.

Perhaps the same could be said about the use of CGI in films. After all it is a relatively new tool, and to many it doesn't look as realistic as the methods used before its rise in the '90s. I'm willing to be that the most young people, especially the kids growing up today, CGI will look perfectly realistic when done well, and they won't have any idea why anyone would ever want to go back to the days of matte lines and bad miniatures.

Movies like Ben-Hur weren't great because they employed thousands of extras to give the film a massive scope. They're great because the stories move people and are as amazing now as they were when they first came out. Whether they'd be as good if the filmmakers had CGI at their disposal is something we'll never know. All we can really do is focus on the films being made today and evaluate them on their own merrits.
 

Greg Br

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I have a hard time believing anyone could watch the AOTC trailor and think that it does notlook a bit cartoonish, It sure is hard for me to relate to CGI characters as well, could you imagine Chewbaca, guarenteed he would be CGI in AOTC.

And the age argument, please I am 27, I have grown up with computers.
 

AaronP

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It's a cool technology, but almost NO-ONE understands how to use it.

I have seen CGI that just makes me crings, EP1 I thought was horrible. The crash at the end of Air Force One was a joke, just about every CGI monster is horrible, (deep blue sea, godzilla, LOTR monsters) etc...

However, some movies get it right, the CGI in the MAtrix was very well done, I consider that movie to be the pinnacle of CGI. I think that for teh most part, the CGI in The Perfect Storm was good, and the CGI soldiers in the distance in The Patriot were good.

I HATE CGI spaceships though. The good old models just look better. I hate the last star trek, and I can't say enough how I hate EP1's CGI in all aspects.
 

AaronP

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Less is MORE! Since they have the ability to use CGI, lousy movie makers think it needs to be used 100 times in every scene.
 

Jeffrey Forner

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And the age argument, please I am 27, I have grown up with computers.
Yeah, but they weren't using them in movies like they do nowadays. You don't start seeing CGI finding its way into films on a regular basis until the early 90s. I'm talking about the kids growing up today, as in right now. I don't think they will even think twice about the use of CGI in films
Just out of curiousity, what did everyone think when they first saw the sauropod in The Abyss or the T-1000 in Terminator 2? Were those good effects or did everyone complain about how fake they looked?
I swear, you would think that the fact that Hollywood often makes films with spectacle over substance is a recent phenomenon. Here's a hint, folks: Bad movies and bad special effects have been a staple of the film industry since its inception. What we're seeing these days is no different. Quit blaming the tools used to make the movies and start blaming the people using those tools. You know, George Lucas. ;)
 

Aaron Reynolds

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Two different comments:
was there never a pre-CGI film that had special effects for the sake of special effects?
Yes, virtually every 3-D film ever made. Now, Pixar's Knicknack is a noteable exception, and I'm sure that there are others. I would not say, "As soon as you make a movie in 3-D it is garbage".
Oh, and about the Schindler's List comment: there is CG in Schindler's List. Don't you remember the little girl in the red coat?
Uh oh, Schindler's List sucks now, too. ;)
Also, I bet Resident Evil would have been a genuine classic if only they hadn't used CG.
 

David Rogers

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---

For me, yes, CGI is killing the movies. Not just CGI, but computers in general. Everything in movies today is fed through NASA-like computer laboratories. 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.

---

I fail to see how rolling dice randomly makes something art.

Because, basically, that's what you're saying with your statement. You indicate that "scientific" makes it not-art, makes it less real, less good, less beautiful, less amazing.

CGI is a tool.

Your attitude is the same reactions when they went from silent to sound movies (what, no pianoist in the theater anymore? That's so impersonal!), from black and white to color (what, you're going to color the film; that removes the art of the grayscale, it changes the whole look of the films!), and probably even from 1:1.33 to 1:2.35 ratio (what, going to put all this extra picture on the sides? Jeez man, like people can watch all that screen at once anyway. It's a waste, and distracts from where you should be watching)

I could haul DVDs out of my library and give example after example after example of CGI you probably DIDN'T know was CGI when you watched and enjoyed the film. Here's just one off the top of my head:

Contact: When Ellie's father is having the heart attack, and Ellie runs down the hallway. The camera tracks ahead of her, looking back at her as she runs into the camera. She runs to the very end of the hallway and opens the medicine cabinet door, and in unbroken shot we're looking at the interior of the cabinet. This shot is physically impossible to do with 'conventional' camera techniques, yet isn't even noticed by the vast majority of the audience as an impossibility.

What you are objecting to are "effects event movies". You're objecting to bad movies that were bad pre-CGI, and are bad now. The difference is instead of filling the trailer with closeup reaction shots of people's eyes widening in fear, of people screaming in terror, of the two hokey stars walking arm and arm at the director's backyard pool … most of today's bad films give a few million to a hack effects house to crank out some beauty shots to put in the trailer.

Whether or not a location works as the director envisions is random. It is scientific when they go scout for the location; he gives his specifications to the location scouts (I need a cliff vista looking across a river valley, west facing so we can film with the setting sun behind them, no trees because I don't want shadows in the way, and it needs to be rural without cities or civilization in the background because this picture is about the last two people on Earth). They go look and look and look. It's random that such a location exists, and that they find it, and that the director then agrees that it matches his internal vision. It's scientific in that he told them precisely what he wanted, and they use it as a checklist.

With CG, you find a great cliff overlooking a stunning river valley. But it's North, so you can't film against the setting sun when your hero and heroine have their first kiss, and there's San Franciso in the background. But you film there, then you take the stupid city out of the back, and you film a separate plate of a REAL setting sun and composite it together, and use some CG (that will use REAL physics to model the light and where the shadows should go) to create the look that they really were on a cliff at the edge of a river valley looking west into the setting sun across a desolate and untouched landscape.

How is it more artistic to look and look and look until you find a "real" scene like this? How is it more artistic to use the actual sun caused shadows when the science that creates the shadows from the light is utterly predictable and without variance, and thus can be modeled perfectly?

It isn't. It just isn't. You film real people against a real location, then fix the minor stuff that interfered with your vision as a director. You don't sigh and accept that you can't have what you want; you get close then CG people finish your vista for you, making it as perfect as it was in your head. Because you sit there and can pick everything about it you want. You can have them place the sun at just the right angle to create a touching shadow pattern across the heroine's face as she looks downcast, then as the hero tips her chin up with a gentle finger, the light spills across her formerly shadowed visage and when she smiles, the combined effect is enough magic for the audience to feel the moment as the hero breaks into a wide smile and professes his undying love for her. Then the camera pans up and out across the cliff, into the air, soaring over the landscape free and clear; an impossible shot to do in one unbroken take except with perhaps a helicopter; but then the downdraft would whip the actors' hair all about and ruin it.

The unbroken shot part aside, I suppose you COULD film and film and film until you got the one perfect shot in reality; spending days with your actors repeating the lines over and over as you film and watch the sun, reposition the camera, time the moments so you get that perfect Stellar (literally) moment where the sun and Earth are aligned just perfectly to give the shadow and light effect you want … and then the actor has an attack of the giggles and you have to wait until tomorrow .. but then it's raining so you come back a week later, but now the actors are tired of this crap….

You need to be much more specific when you complain Scott. If you don't like Star Wars, don't friggin' see it. If you don't like vapid effects films, don't friggin' see'em. But to sit there and type "CG is ruining films, it is utter crap and adds nothing to the beauty of film, to the joy of movies" … that statement is not only fantasy, but also so unsupportable it indicates you're either very narrow in your outlook or indicates a lack of full understanding of the reality of modern film making.

CG is a tool. Like all tools, it can be used well or poorly, for good or evil, often or sparingly.

Used properly CG is a dream tool for directors. It allows you to build the vision you have for the film ever more closely to match mental perfection with visual reality.

I do not and will not agree that a film is "more artistic" if they never use CG on it. Period. It just doesn't compute. A film is artistic if it moves me, if it strikes me with beauty or awe or deep appreciation for what I’m watching. Lucas does it in his way by creating fantastic scenes that could definitely not be done without CG; and he does them to look pretty damn real as far as I'm concerned. Cameron uses CG to help create reality; without CG Titanic is just another disaster film where it looks like actors running around on sets being splashed with buckets from off-camera. Spielberg uses CG to fill in around the reality of actors and locations, to blend seamlessly that which is impossible with that which we already have.

A bad director is a bad director.

A good director is a good director.

A bad director with an effects house behind him makes crappy films that have a few "oh neat" moments.

A good director with a good effects house behind him makes magic.

I'll take a stab in the dark here; you listen to LPs (records) because they "sound better", right? Or do you listen to CDs?
 

Greg Br

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Aaron,

completely agree on the Matrix, T2, Abyss, those movies were very well done, Perfect Storm ehh ok I guess.

CGI really comes down to the director, if he uses it right it can be a very usefull tool, when abused it does not make a movie any better.
 

Jack Briggs

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Now the conversation is going well!

I point to Jason Seaver's post as an example of how to argue persuasively and correctly: he carefully and intelligently presents his case in a point-by-point sort-of rebuttal that invites further intelligent discussion.

The reason I'm offering this little observation is to point out that this is the preferred method of debating an important issue involving modern moviemaking in a style appropriate to Home Theater Forum--as opposed to the accusatory and combative stances taken earlier in the thread.

If this new tenor of the discussion prevails, I truly look forward to seeing how the thread pans out.
 

Paul P

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As for the generational thing, I still get a bad taste in my mouth from some CGI, namely the bad stuff. And I'm 24. Yes CGI is a tool, and when used badly for the sake of using CGI, when really it wasn't necessary for the sake of the story, and was also created badly so the audience sees it's CGI, it pulls the audience out of the moment. At least it does for me.

Matrix it served the story and was used well. Tomb Raider- it really didn't. Yes that movie was a video game, but there was no story, and the "wow" effects really weren't as interesting as they wanted them to be. Personally I think Hollywood right now is using CGI as they used to use explosions in the 80's. It's their new toy for their blockbusters. They used to think they needed sex and explosions to sell a movie. They still think that about sex, But explosions have been replaced by CGI.

All I can say is thank God for independent filmmaking. A somewhat tangential topic is just the lack of originality in Hollywood. CGI is a shortcut that at this point in technology is not always believable looking. Instead of finding another way, CGI is always used, at the expense of suspension of disbelief of the audience. This lack of originality bleeds into movies topics in general. How many movies in the last 10 years that were well budgeted and successful can you remember that were completely original-- not a rip-off of another idea, book, story, fairy tale, or other movie. There may be exceptions, but by and large there's few examples. Depressing.
 

mark_d

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David, you're a bastard. ;)
Why can't I ever get a point across as eloquently as that?
Big, flashy CGI effects heavy sequences tend to look fake. Big, flashy optical effects heavy sequences tend to look fake.
My personal sensibilities mean that CGI tends to look less fake than optical, which is lucky.
Mark
 

Chuck Mayer

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One serious point that keep getting brought up is very critical:

Audience response to a visual effect.

Much of this is STORY-based. There's a certain suspension-of-disbelief factor an audience member has. The amount of SoD is varies per person, per film. I am much more forgiving of effects when I am emotionally or mentally (or both, preferably) involved with the film. T2 was an effects juggernaut, but the imagery's impact was made exponentially larger due to the skillful directing and storytelling of the film.

Put simply, a film connects with the viewer...or it doesn't. If it does, the visuals become much easier to accept.

That connection is often lacking on today's Hollywood. Very often, knowing the story isn't worth #$%& thanks to studio tinkering for proper demographics, they'll try and find some selling point. CGI films did very well in their infancy (T2, JP) so the suits have assumed that their success was due to the "dazzling" visuals. And that's only partly true. As usual, Hollywood only looked at the surface of success to judge the cause.

I am a fan of CGI, mostly for the camera freedom it allows. Moderation and creativity are the keys in my mind, but unfortunately, MORE is usually what we get from the studios. But, as already discussed, that trend will slowly dissolve as filmmakers discover STORYTELLING, and grasp the many choices they have.

Take care,

Chuck
 

RogerB

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CGI IS American cinema.
Most CGI work in big budget films looks awesome. I think what some people are calling "fake" is actually their brain telling them that "this isn't possible". What if you saw a real man dressed in spider-themed spandex flying through the air? People who witness extraordinary events often say that it was like something out of a movie. The thing is, we buy the tickets and then we buy the DVD's.
As much as I like 2001 I wouldn't call it "realistic" looking. Some of the space flight shots remind me of the Enterprise fly-by shots from the original series.
Sometimes models look like....models.
 

Scott Calvert

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Aaron, I'm sorry if I touched a nerve with you as my intent wasn't to piss you off. 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".
 

BrianB

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Scott, just as much love, care & attention is put into good cgi compared to good model work.
 

Greg Br

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Das Boot versus U-571, I do not think there were any CGI in Das Boot but it was everywhere in U-571, while it was still a good movie for me, it did not have the "real" fell that Das Boot portrayed. I think that the way things had to be constructed, shot, etc made that movie, with todays CGI I just do not think we would be talking about it 20 years later.
 

Scott Calvert

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Your attitude is the same reactions when they went from silent to sound movies (what, no pianoist in the theater anymore? That's so impersonal!), from black and white to color (what, you're going to color the film; that removes the art of the grayscale, it changes the whole look of the films!), and probably even from 1:1.33 to 1:2.35 ratio (what, going to put all this extra picture on the sides? Jeez man, like people can watch all that screen at once anyway. It's a waste, and distracts from where you should be watching)

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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.

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You need to be much more specific when you complain Scott. If you don't like Star Wars, don't friggin' see it. If you don't like vapid effects films, don't friggin' see'em. But to sit there and type "CG is ruining films, it is utter crap and adds nothing to the beauty of film, to the joy of movies" … that statement is not only fantasy, but also so unsupportable it indicates you're either very narrow in your outlook or indicates a lack of full understanding of the reality of modern film making.

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One, don't misquote me.

Two, I am well aware of the challenges and issues surrounding the "reality of modern filmmaking." I'm not more specific when I comment (notice I didn't say "complain") because I'm talking about these issues on the macro level. My whole stance has been that CGI and computers have had an overall negative effect on the American film industry. That's my opinion, and you might not agree. That's cool, but condescention is not necessary.
 

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