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As someone in the VFX industry myself (but as a software dev writing the tools the artists use), I'd argue those examples are generally useful work being done o
by berkut 4y ago
As someone in the VFX industry myself (but as a software dev writing the tools the artists use), I'd argue those examples are generally useful work being done on the movie to make things "more real". Whether it's worth it, is going to be very opinionated.
However, I would say: I re-watched GoldenEye recently, and - maybe it was because I'm in the industry and notice these things more - but the blatantly different stunt men (especially landing the Cessna in Cuba: the man looked totally different compared to the actor who should have been flying!) compared to the actors did make me personally go "hang on a moment, who's that?"
Some of this stuff can now also be automated to a degree (not completely, it still requires artist input, and sometimes a lot), but it's not often Rotoing every frame like it used to be ten years or so ago.
Things I'd personally argue aren't worth artists having to work on, but I know they do, are things like skin wrinkle removal on leading actresses, removing mustaches on actors, etc. And the biggest issue is clients changing their mind at the last minute, often having previously signed off on lookdev or anim at the earlier stages, or just generally having to deal with bad set preparation because the 'talent''s time on set is 1000x times more important than the unseen artists, who then have to do loads of work to compensate for badly lit (very un-evenly lit) greenscreens or lighting on set, because the on-set VFX supe was likely ignore when he complained ("Oh, they can just fix it in post").
- croes 4y agoBut Superman with a mustache would have looked weird.
- ihateolives 4y agoOk, now I want to see Magnum P.I. era Tom Selleck as Superman.
- slim 4y agodeep fake to the rescue
- ssrc 4y agoHe would have looked like Omni-Man.
- deebosong 4y agoto be fair, Henry Cavill looked even weirder with his CGI-removed "shaved" face as well. they should have made a movie about the behind the scenes debate on this matter. execs, the star, the VFX team, and the final reception. coulda been really hilarious, entertaining, and use the situation to their advantage.
- WalterBright 4y agoOnce I knew what process shots were, I just can't unsee them in older movies. In particular, where the actors are driving in a car, when the background is clearly a rear projection on a screen. It's also obvious that the windshield has been removed for the filming.
- xattt 4y ago> It's also obvious that the windshield has been removed for the filming. Also elevator shots!
- _the_inflator 4y agoNot not mention that they tug the steering wheel back and forth as if they were playing real life frogger just to signal that they are "busy doing something". This doesn't make sense either.
- loonster 4y agoIt always seemed to me like there was a simple solution. Record the steering wheel movements of the stunt car. Use a motor in the fake car to replay the steering wheel movements.
- BlueTemplar 4y agoNot so simple before widespread computers in cars ?
- beebeepka 4y agoMy personal "favourite" is the driver constantly turning to face the person on the other seat because they are having a conversation, you see. Is Hollywood intentionally normalizing this dangerous behaviour? Assholes
- Archelaos 4y ago> Is Hollywood intentionally normalizing this dangerous behaviour? Not to speak of all the car races and shootings ...
- slim 4y agoYou're on point. I think the issue is the fourth wall is becoming thinner. When you watch an old movie, you don't get the immersion you got watching it when it was out
- cm2187 4y agoActually older movies (80s-90s) didn't have much special effect, I find the more realistic, rougher nature of the scenes much better than the cartoonish, hyper-polished SFX today. When you see a fire, it's a real fire, not something digitally added, etc.
- gsatic 4y agoYup I was watching old James Bond movies recently and there is barely any visual effects. But it's still pretty entertaining.
- deebosong 4y agoAs much as I love advances in tech & art & visuals, I'm also getting pretty tired of live-action films that are basically computer generated. It has a certain look to it, too clean & precise & shiny, even as they industry overall gets better at matting things down. I wanna see a larger counter-reaction to all the gloss, and have movies get a lil rougher around the edges, while having the stories & characters be way more refined. Draw attention to the medium's limits, rather than try to make it real, and then it becomes hyperreal/ uncanny. But I'm guessing the industry will wanna go full immersion (like VR) rather than take a few steps back. Maybe there's room for both, if studios were willing to be more experimental (doubt it!).
- hef19898 4y agoI did a rewatch marathon of sorts with the kids, Alien, Aliens, Terminator 1-3, stuff like that. Those new action flicks, especially the super hero movies, cannot compare against those. An opinuon my son shares, and he grew up with Marvel. He was glued to the screen when we watched Alien for the first time together, because it did build up astory ajd tension (his words, not mine). Compared to Marvel were the CGI orgy starts 2 minutes into the movie. Heck, I'll take the Terminator 1 stop motion effects over any scene in the forst half of the last Dr. Strange "movie" (I couldn't bring myself to watch more than that, even Meg is more fun to watch...) any day of the week. Because T1 is still scary and conveys emotion (despair mostly for being chased by an unstoppable killet machine), while those Marvel effects are, well, boring by now. They have no wow effect (we see them in almost every single modern day movie), the convey no emotion (difficult to properly act, I think, when you are in front of a green screen and everything just plays out in your imagination) not do those effects actually drive the "story" forward. As compared to, e.g., the Expense, a ton of sci-fi short films (Dust in a great channel for that on Youtube) or the Mandalorian. I think the over use of CGI is just an easy excuse for bad story telling, and people swallow it.
- b112 4y agoWhat really gets me are two things. The jiggle cam, and "let's film stuff but obscure what is happening in post". I have watched so many 2005+ movies, where all the action scenes are just replaced with 'jiggle the screen around', and thus, you see nothing. Worse, I've seen fight scenes with no/little jiggle, but then every move, punch, dodge, car stunt is replaced with a fast cut, so you don't actually see... well, anything. Someone else mentioned that the reason stunt doubles are changed vfx wise, is because maybe they couldn't find one similar enough. I call hooey on that, the real issue is cost. Generic stunt doubles are far cheaper than "stunt double who looks like top tier star". And the jiggle cam is cheaper than a real action scene, and fast cuts are too, because who cares how well it is timed/shot if you can't see it. I think, much like any industry, all this junk is just cost savings. It also shifts blame, and requires less talent from the director and actors. I doubt any modern director, or actor, could handle the pressure of expensive shots, dangerous shots, with people running through explosions, or car chases, stunt doubles or not. Nope. Just throw all that at sfx, and all the stress, cost, and reputation risking shots are no longer an actor's or dieector's issue. Ah well.
- ogogmad 4y agoTo me, this seems subjective and grouchy. It might be that when you were growing up, things were a certain way, and now they're a bit different. You have a minor aesthetic disagreement. Some people like the shaky cam.
- BLKNSLVR 4y agoThe only people who like shaky can are those who haven't experienced real, well choreographed, action sequences that are clear and visible. It works in some scenarios but really has been used a lot, likely predominantly, to obscure unreality.
- b112 4y agoYou may like the shakey cam, and that's fine naturally, but claiming age has something to do with it is weird. It is also unfair to call me grouchy. All I know is that shakey cam is incredibly unreal to me. I have never, in my entire life, experienced scenarios where my vision was like a shakey cam, and I say this as someone with a history of racing, stunt driving, and a variety of athletic activities which jostles one about. When in such real life situations, my body senses motion, my brain sorts it out, and there is no shakey cam effect. I liken it to making a sound track for a movie, but imagine two people talking, while someone randomly cranks the audio up and down, and changes the aurial position of the speaker randomly. Sure, that's going to create tension and stress in the movie goer too, but it draws one out of immersion, and is just lazy work. Intensity can be created with real actual intensity, the shakey cam is a crutch.
- kungito 4y agoWhat's funny to me is you can have all this "immersion" and then for most bigger markets you get some rando voicing for Brad Pitt. I can't believe e.g. Germans are ok with this. I can't watch Spanish movies with English voiceover, I'd rather have subtitles
- tryfinally 4y agoSubtitles vs dubs/voiceovers are largely a cultural thing. I envy countries where movies/tv shows are pretty much exclusively subtitled, for example Sweden. Coincidentally, Swedes seem to be really fluent in English on average. It's a win-win: you absorb languages for free as a child, and you later get to enjoy art in its original unmutilated form.
- thendrill 4y ago"you absorb languages for free as a child"... This is the reason thou. You call it a win win, government calls it "foreign influence"....
- BurningFrog 4y agoFor countries/language areas with less than 20M people, dubbing isn't economical, so they end up speaking better English.
- inglor_cz 4y agoCzechia is a dubbing stronghold with 10M people. The tradition is just too strong.
- BurningFrog 4y agoIs that tradition from the Communist era? Those regimes had a... less practical approach to economics, and maybe they didn't want the population to know western languages as well.
- 4y ago
- gonzo41 4y agoOne point regarding Goldeneye and fx generally. From a lay persons perspective Goldeneye has pretty snappy pacing so from memory some of the sets, such as the starting chemical plant explosion look a little fake, but the movie just chuggs along and and has a fairly good storyline that doesn't stall out. I find I notice effects a lot more in movies when the story has flat spots. And as I learn more and more about visual story telling. All I think about when watching movies that go heavy on stunts and action "how does this progress the storyline".
- makeitdouble 4y ago> skin wrinkle removal on leading actresses Supposing she has a contract on the line for a skin care brand, wouldn’t these “little details” be literally millions’ worth to her ?
- loonster 4y agoSounds like fraud.
- nickserv 4y agoOnly if you think movies are reality ;-)
- makeitdouble 4y agoActors are selling an image.
- kofejnik 4y agoBut also billions of wasted consumers’ money
- makeitdouble 4y agoI’m not holding my breath on makeup and skin care becoming meaningless in our societies for another 50 years.
- olivertaylor 4y agoYep! And it’s part of a contract.
- snowpiercer 4y agoSince you say you have experience in the vfx industry. Do you think someone can release a killer app that can reduce the use of many visual artists and just make vfx with the use of software instead? And how feasible is this?
- skhr0680 4y agoIt always tickled me that James Bond in all of the dam scenes is very obviously not Pierce Brosnan. It's all part of the fun!