3 ms·

I don't think we need a shift back to practical FX or 2d animation in general. Only for those situations CGI can't handle yet. What we need is good stories and

I don't think we need a shift back to practical FX or 2d animation in general. Only for those situations CGI can't handle yet. What we need is good stories and unambitious effects that support those stories. The author touched on several key problems: * Color Grading: > Notice the color differences. Every movie now takes place as if it were in The Matrix, appearing in deep greens or blues or in gray shades, like the complex colors of the world have been bleached out. * Shadows: > In the 2021 Dune, it is a monochrome chunk, despite the billowing fabric around the character. In the 1962 Lawrence of Arabia, the shadow of the fabric is actually see-through. It has dimensionality, thinness and thickness. Because it’s a real shadow. * Over-ambition: > how could the same filmmaker go from making a movie as good as The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001 to a movie as bad as The Hobbit in 2012? It’s not budgetary. The Fellowship cost 93 million to make, while The Hobbit cost 180 million. Jurassic Park (1993) was so good and stands the test of time because the primitive CGI was hidden by night-time darkness. The filmmakers knew what was achievable and believable relative to the technology of the time. If in 2022 you make a movie with flat colors, fake shadows, and 3D characters (like Maz Kanata in Star Wars) who need to interact in scenes with human characters, then yeah: it's going to be bad. Modern movies fail because they're too ambitious. The battle of the five armies in The Hobbit was too ambitious: our technology can't make it look as good as live action yet. The answer is to make movies we can make with a mix of practical + CGI, and wait for the technology to catch up. And to fix the damn color grading. Songs used to sound good. Movies used to look good.

sleepybrett 5y ago
You don't get better by waiting until you can be better, you get better by doing your best, falling short and discovering how to overcome your shortfalls. You don't get a budget to 'try to build the battle of five armies perfectly and only then will you get to put it in a movie'. Overambition is frankly BAKED into the movie industry and has from the beginning. So yes, cutting edge effects will fall short, they have since the beginning of film. But the techniques are always getting better. When golum was introduced in the LoTR he was not perfect but you can see the improvement just within that series from movie to movie, he's always looking better... 'touch' interaction between cgi human actor also improves quite a bit but still lacks, the wrestle that frodo and golum have at the cracks has .. cracks.
- newsbinator 5y ago
  Yes, each movie should aim to push the boundary out a bit. But you don't try to film Avatar in 1978 (without completely changing the scenes), because with puppets and matte paintings it'll be relatively unwatchable. 2D Lord of the Rings as an animated film in 1978? Sure. Live Action Lord of the Rings? Wait till 2001 for it to be good.
greedo 5y ago
Color grading has nothing to do with CGI. That's a production choice not a technical limitation. DPs and directors have been favoring a limited or neutral color palette for the last two decades. Like any fashion, this will change.

sleepybrett 5y ago

You don't get better by waiting until you can be better, you get better by doing your best, falling short and discovering how to overcome your shortfalls. You don't get a budget to 'try to build the battle of five armies perfectly and only then will you get to put it in a movie'. Overambition is frankly BAKED into the movie industry and has from the beginning. So yes, cutting edge effects will fall short, they have since the beginning of film. But the techniques are always getting better. When golum was introduced in the LoTR he was not perfect but you can see the improvement just within that series from movie to movie, he's always looking better... 'touch' interaction between cgi human actor also improves quite a bit but still lacks, the wrestle that frodo and golum have at the cracks has .. cracks.

newsbinator 5y ago
Yes, each movie should aim to push the boundary out a bit. But you don't try to film Avatar in 1978 (without completely changing the scenes), because with puppets and matte paintings it'll be relatively unwatchable. 2D Lord of the Rings as an animated film in 1978? Sure. Live Action Lord of the Rings? Wait till 2001 for it to be good.

greedo 5y ago

Color grading has nothing to do with CGI. That's a production choice not a technical limitation. DPs and directors have been favoring a limited or neutral color palette for the last two decades. Like any fashion, this will change.