• From: Red Deer, AB
  • Registered: 2009-11-23
  • Posts: 4,044
  • User Karma: 664

Topic: Practical and Visual Effects

I don't really know what I hope to accomplish by posting this but it's just something that struck me and I wanted to share it.

I've had a sudden burst of fascination with practical effects and especially practical creatures (I mean more of a fascination than usual) over the last week or so and I found this /\ video, and in the comments someone posted Ian Malcolms quote from Jurassic Park: "You didn't earn the knowledge for yourself, so you don't take any responsibility for it, you've stood on the shoulders of Genius' to accomplish something as fast as you could." And that poster likened that to the state of the visual effects in modern movies today. Which...Idk, sorta made me look at the entire thing a little different I guess, it certain struck a very strange chord that hadn't been struck before.

Anyways.

I guess if I have to actually make this thread about something. What do guys think the likelihood of returning to a, certainly not entirely practically based effects world, but reintroducing those ideas back into mainstream film making is? Where do practical effects even have a place in an HD world? And how SHOULD a modern filmmaker go about balancing practical and CG visual effects?

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2012-06-05 04:30:15)

ZangrethorDigital.ca

BigDamnArtist's Website

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • Dave
  • Dave
  • Australian Correspondent
  • Offline
  • From: Melbourne, Australia
  • Registered: 2009-12-01
  • Posts: 1,594
  • User Karma: 341

Re: Practical and Visual Effects

Related; Phil Tippett's Mad God project is funded, with over $100,000 pledged and 12 days to go.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mad … ts-mad-god

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • From: Red Deer, AB
  • Registered: 2009-11-23
  • Posts: 4,044
  • User Karma: 664

Re: Practical and Visual Effects

That is awesome to hear. That should be a hell of a thing.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

BigDamnArtist's Website

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • From: Scotland
  • Registered: 2010-01-19
  • Posts: 2,430
  • User Karma: 264

Re: Practical and Visual Effects

British mag Total Film have a '50 Worst Special Effects' feature on their site- click

Hope you don't mind me posting that here, BDA smile

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • From: Red Deer, AB
  • Registered: 2009-11-23
  • Posts: 4,044
  • User Karma: 664

Re: Practical and Visual Effects

Please post away. The thread's already dying anyways.   tongue

ZangrethorDigital.ca

BigDamnArtist's Website

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • From: Kent, England
  • Registered: 2010-02-09
  • Posts: 1,327
  • User Karma: 146

Re: Practical and Visual Effects

I think some directors have said that they're keen to use mostly practical effects, Nolan for instance. And even Peter Jackson and Jon Favreu have attempted to stay as practical as possible on some of their films, at least when starting out.

I'm really hoping that we'll get more of a return to practical stuff in the coming years, as I think the technology and techniques have vastly improved over the last 3 decades and we could see some truly timeless effects (as I think CGI tends to date itself rather quickly, Exhibit A being Jabba in ANH:SE). The advances in compositing and rotoscoping especially (or rather, the ease of these techniques with digital stuff) and the use of computers to better combine and blend elements should make the entire visual effects process a lot easier and more seamless than it was its heyday (that I would argue culminated with Independence Day) - which were its greatest weaknesses.

Just imagine had the industry continued to refine and hone their puppetry, animatronic and motion control skills where we would be today, using the incredible sophistication of make-up and costume arts as an example of the leaps and bounds possible.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

Thumbs up Thumbs down