The best of the best: The SP-FX houses (1 Viewer)

[Chuck Mayer]

I'm certain WETA had more time on FOTR (with a lower number of effects). It certainly showed.

I don't hold The Mummy Returns against ILM. It's shoddy work, to be sure, but it's Sommers' fault. Much like some of the weaker elements of Kong, TTT, or ROTK was due to a severely limited schedule.

Cory, I think the budget is high $100's for Avatar.


My favorite sequences in the last ten years:

1997:
Titanic: Ode to Titanic (this film pushed plenty of smaller barriers people take for granted now)
Starship Troopers: Planet P assault (still excellent work today)

1998:
Saving Private Ryan: D-Day

1999:
The Matrix: The Reveal (still probably the best pure VFX sequence in the last decade - perfect complement to filmmaking)
The Phantom Menace: The Pod Race (hey, I like it)
Fight Club: Camera moves, yep, that simple...I loved the freedom CG gave Fincher

2000:
Hollow Man: initial disappearance, had excellent effects...but the film sucked

2001:
FOTR: Moria is still wonderful. The Cave Troll was seamless (except for Legolas riding him ), and the Balrog was a thing of beauty
A.I.: exceptional effects overall

2002:
TTT: Gollum
AOTC: Geonosis (the faux documentary feel was exceptional)

2003:
Nightcrawler attack (though that was more the direction)
The Matrix Reloaded - almost all of it
The Matrix Revolutions - Zion attack featured some flawless CGI, completely ignored
POTC - the undead Pirates
ROTK - I loved Minas Tirith

2004:
Spider-Man 2 (had some fantastic action sequences...a real step up from Spidey 1)

2005:
ROTS: Coruscant/Order 66
Kong: Kong
Sin City: brilliant use of effects
War of the Worlds: set the bar for photorealism in realistic situations with fantastic visuals

2006:
POTC 2: Davey Jones, overall excellence
Superman had polished effects
The Fountain: Xibalba was gorgeous, and old school

2007:
Zodiac: flawless recreation of a recent time period

More as I remember them. And EVERYTHING Pixar has done

 

[Cory S.]

Chuck,

Thanks for reminding me of something: A.I., Minority Report, and War of the Worlds...especially War of the Worlds. You hit the nail on the head with War of the Worlds say that it "set the bar for photorealism in real situations".

A.I.'s another one of those films that slips through the crack when it comes to visual. That film, visually, is outstanding.

2001 was very difficult for me because I knew Fellowship of the Ring was going to win it (and at the time, I was so anti-Lord of the Rings...until I saw the Extended Edition of The Fellowship) but I badly wanted ILM to get it for either Pearl Harbor or A.I. I really couldn't make up my mind which film ILM excelled at, that year. The same happen in 2002 with Minority Report and Attack of the Clones and 2005 was worst because of War of the Worlds and Revenge of the Sith (which, explain to me Chuck, how it did not get nominated but Narnia did....I'll just never freakin' understand that call!)....

Also, no disrespect to The Return of the King but the attack on Zion and Neo's fight with Smith, visually, killed pretty much everything in Return of the King. I mean, the Zion Attack, as you say Chuck, was and still is totally ignored. Gigantic step up from The Matrix Reloaded...

 

[TerryRL]

The budget for "Avatar" is actually going to be closer to $300 million. It may even replace "Spider-Man 3" as the most expensive movie ever made. Cameron can demand a budget of that size because of his resume. "Titanic" made Fox a ton of jack and word is that they had little difficulty in giving Big Jim what he wanted for "Avatar".

 

[Cory S.]

My favorite sequences of the last 8 years (I can't do ten, although I do acknowledge Titanic and Saving Private Ryan.)

1999

- The Podrace and Coruscant from Episode I

2000

- Hollow Man sequences...very impressive stuff back in 2000.

2001

- The Attack on Pearl Harbor...still holds up extremely well today
- Artificial Intelligence...the entire film. Just consistent, seamless stunning work.
- Rivendell and Lothlorien from The Fellowship of the Ring.

2002

- The Battle of Geonosis and Yoda from Episode II.
- Minority Report...seamless work overall, impressive visuals.
- Helm's Deep and Gollum from The Two Towers.

2003

- Hulk...underrated work by ILM
- The Attack of Zion in The Matrix Revolutions....again, underrated and overlooked work.
- Nightcrawler's attack from X2....excellent sequence.

2004 (don't remember much from this year)

- The train sequence from Spider-Man 2...illogical action but great, overall work.

2005

- Episode III...the best looking Star Wars film by far...ILM's hardwork pays off here.
- War of the Worlds...the realism of the visual effects, given the situations. Probably the most seamless work I've ever witnessed in a film.
- Kong and New York circa 1933.

2006

- The Foutain....just an absolutely gorgeous film, visually. All of the visual effects....just stunning work.
- Davy Jones from Dead Man's Chest...brilliant...milestone...the best realization of a CG character.

Terry,

Thanks for the info. Well, if Cameron has 300 million to play with and 3 years with Weta...it had better be awe-inspiring work...nothing less.

 

[TerryRL]

With that kind of a budget and all the lead-time that Weta has. This is why the anticipation is so high for "Avatar". People might be disappointed if the movie doesn't completely blow them away when it opens. Odds are that Cameron and Weta are going to deliver.

 

[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.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Agreed on how grossly overlooked that sequence is. Visually amazing.

As far LOTR goes, the most amazing sequence to me is everything involving Minis Tirith. The moves between sets, models, location filming, and CGI were all so seamless that it had a much more solid sense of place to me than any other artificial environment in a movie that was showcased for an extended period of time.

 

[Cory S.]

Zack,

Lucasfilm didn't technically sell of their model shop. I mean, it's independent from ILM, so it can do other work besides the work ILM does, but ILM essentially still uses them....and they have been extensively still using them since they went solo...

 

[Jose Martinez]

No love for Jar Jar Binks? Surely he must have some effect on ILM's status as numero uno?

 

[TerryRL]

Well, it is interesting that the character was so real that he became one of the most disliked CG creations ever. No one really complained about his rendering, but damn if they didn't like his antics.

In all seriousness, I think the best CG character from 'Phantom Menace' was Watto. Say what you want about the movie itself, but ILM did a fantastic job overall on that film's massive number of FX.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Watto always impressed me. ILM's huge workload on the PT always impressed me as well.

 

[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.

 

[TerryRL]

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.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

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.

 

[TerryRL]

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.

 

[Chris_T]

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.

 

[Kevin Grey]

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.

 

[Mark Hawley]

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.

 

[Holadem]

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

 

[Mark Hawley]

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.