Movie Advances - Round Table

Ratteler · Forum Member Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 561 Location: NYC

But then where would they put the adertisments! :mad:

Hasdrubal · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 9:07 am Post subject: Re: Movie Advances - Round Table

Having put the suggestion out, I recognize that If the corporate studio idiots allowed toons to be made again, we would probably see a lot of politically correct garbage, with commercial product endorsements, or something stupider than 1970's Tom and Jerry tailored for kids in the special class.

I recently read an interview with John K, the director of Ren and Stimpy. He said the executives are generally idiots without a normal sense of humor.

Marathon · Forum Member Joined: May 04, 2004 Posts: 18

For some reason I'm not very surprised by that. Cable and broadcast executives have to be ultra-sensative about making sure everything can squeek by the relatively uptight censors.

I recently read an article about how, in spite of all the political correctness, and the censoring, and the rating of violence in movies, cartoons, video games, etc... that the "teen violence factor" is still rising.

Perhaps the powers that be should buy a clue, and realize that changes that've been made to the entertainment media haven't had a bit of impact on real world violence.

Or better yet, take a closer look at the other source of sensationalized violence: The News Media.

Have you noticed how every little story about a high-school kid going berserk gets massive amounts of News coverage? Do you think seeing it on tv and hearing on the radio over and over is good for our impressionable youth?

Bah... I went off on a tangent there. Sorry. What were we talking about again? ;-)

Ahh, the bringing back the cartoons for the movies.

I think a great way to open up what is a relatively unknown medium to the public would to begin showing independent artist Animated Shorts. All types; 3d, cell animation, live film and so on.

What a great way to get some of the absolutely wonderful and creative work individuals are doing into the public eye, besides a grainy, overcompressed web video at Atom Films, or some other website.

Hasdrubal · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 3:03 pm Post subject: Re: Movie Advances - Round Table

Including some toons linked to this forum.

It's ridiculous to think that toon violence has any real world influence. We could only hope that El Quaida would start buying weapons from the Acme Corporation, or that falling anvils, Burmese tiger traps, and giant rubber bands would replace real weapons. The courts that allowed Mike Judge to be sued for the kid who burned down a house are the real danger.

Ptrope · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 9:30 pm Post subject: Re: Movie Advances - Round Table

I kind of hate to get back to the topic, given that I'm all for well-done toons, no matter what the venue, but ...

It depends on what one calls "worth it." Are we asking this only about movies that mix the real world with the virtual one? Can we say that the use of CGI in movies like The Incredibles or Robots isn't worth what was spent? After all, these are films that are nearly 100% CGI (the smart CGI artists are those who freely admit and accept that there are times when an effect, even in a totally-CGI film, can be executed more effectively and more cost-efficiently by doing it practically), though they would have been virtually (no pun intended) impossible to do any other way. The results speak for themselves.

The trap, as always, is in the skill of the people doing the work. As more and more films are filled out with CGI, in ways both large and small, the risk is in the fact that the people doing the work (as described, the "pimply-faced teens") have less and less experience with the real world, and less desire to have that experience. CGI is "cool," and it can be done relatively easily, at relatively low expense. That makes it especially attractive to movie studios, who want to maximize their profits; of course, they're going to push for more and more CGI because the perception is that the public is increasingly accepting of CGI, even increasingly eager for more of it. As the workflow becomes increasingly digital, the people working professionally will become, as a group, younger, more homogenized, more generalized (in order to preserve their job prospects), and as always happens, less skilled as a group. Eventually, of course, the industry will get shaken out, as they all do, but it's very likely that, after a big upswing, CGI filmmaking will get far worse before it matures and the realization comes, as it always does, that practical skills, artistic and storytelling ability, and a thorough knowledge of the real world are all necessary in order to create believable CGI films.

Yes, it probably is worth it, in the long run. It's the price of admission. In 10 years, we'll probably be asking what the big deal was

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OrcaDesignStudios · Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:11 am Post subject: Re: Movie Advances - Round Table

I have a love-hate relationship with CGI. I'm talking about CGI in live-action movies, not stuff like Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, both of which I loved.

My personal feeling is that while there are certainly directors out there who know how to work with CGI and make it as seamless as possible in the film -- i.e. avoid making it look out of place -- those directors are few and far between. Spielberg used to be one of them, but he's almost completely fallen into the "hey, look at this cool digital effect!" category of director, at least in his genre films, ever since Lost World. Though I didn't really like the movie, Ang Lee did an excellent job of making a ton of CGI look like it fully belonged in The Hulk, Nick Nolte's transformation notwithstanding. My biggest problem with CGI is how it's used. It's not always used because it fits the story or because it can't be done with traditional effects -- it's frequently done because directors think it looks cooler and they can distract people with CGI from the fact that they can't tell a coherent story without relying on music video clichés. One thing I absolutely HATE about CGI is that about 75% of the times it is used, it is used to make objects fly at the camera after explosions. I mean, really, how B-movie can you get? This isn't the dawn of cinema, where people got freaked out thinking that the train coming toward them onscreen was going to drive off the screen and plow through the theatre.
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Marathon · Forum Member Joined: May 04, 2004 Posts: 18

Lol, Jim! You mean that stuff really ISN't going to come through the screen and hit me?!?

Hehe, I agree. There are too many times that excessive CG work is used to cover up a lack of a story. Not that I don't enjoy watching such flicks occasionally, but it does get disappointing when that's all there is, if I was anticipating more.

Case in Point; Van Helsing. A peachy example of CG gone wild. I certainly found it fun to watch, and have done so several times already, but if breaking the film down into it's component plot lines, you end up with virtually nothing.

Lots of eye-candy CG monster work, chock full of actiony goodness, but very little story. It plays more like an encounter in a pen and paper game: Hero arrives, Hero kicks butt, hero kicks some more butt, two tiny little plot points get revealed (Helsing is Gabriel and Dracula wants to have babies), and CG fight sequences are used to cover up the lack of any further plot.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying the plot there a little, but there's not MUCH more than that. =)

If the writers had spent a little more time creating an engaging back story, and directors a little less time using CG for everything, it might have been a top-notch movie that could have survived in theatres for longer than a few weeks before being ported to DvD and the movie channels.

regaltwo · Forum Newbie Joined: Oct 13, 2003 Posts: 5

I wasted my money last night going to Sin City. It's all well and good to have cool effects, and big name actors, but if the script sucks, no amount of cgi can save the movie. I realize that the writing in Sin City was SUPPOSED to be noir, but unfortunately it was written by someone who knew the cliches, and none of the substance.

Morkath · Forum Newbie Joined: Apr 23, 2005 Posts: 1

Personally I prefer watching bad CGI to watching bad wirework or men in obvious rubber suits.

Not that I dont enjoy the old godzilla movies occassionally. But I would probally watch them more often if they were done in overdone/bad cgi.

Oh and whatever Marathon says are just smelly hippy lies!

(j/k, me and mara have known each other for awhile)

DrDestruction · Forum Newbie Joined: Oct 23, 2001 Posts: 3

I really have to laugh when I hear about how cost-effective CG is in regard to live film.

Take "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" for example- not many realize that the reason for why the film was completed for such a low budget was that the bulk of the work was already done by the time the studios got their hands on it.

The fella who created the short took it upon himself to make an "exploded" version complete with close-up shots for performers using his own computers at his own expense. I shudder to think what would have happened if the studios didn't take the guy's project- he would have been out several years of time and several thousands of dollars.

All the studios had to do once they got the project (which THEY did not green-light) was to pay for the actors, who did their green-screen shots, and VOILA!- the film is made. If anything, it was a boon for corporate Hollywood in that they literally spent no money to get the film made, while making whatever profit they made off of the film and its merchandising...

And then you have the fact that CG films still take an incredibly long time to finish- mostly up to five or six years. This was the case with "The Incredibles", which was in production since 1999. About a dozen or more real-action films could be finished and released in the time ONE CG movie is done, so any claims of cost-effectiveness is basically a moot point.

Ironbear · Forum Member Joined: Nov 06, 2001 Posts: 1038

Joseph_OBrien · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 10:03 pm Post subject: Re: Movie Advances - Round Table

With regard to DrDestruction's comments on Sky Captain, what he's said here is not correct.

Kerry Conran created a six-minute short version of his film that was used to pitch the project. At that point independent producer Jon Avnet, not a studio, picked the project up and got it funded on the basis of that and Conran's feature-length script. They did not simply take Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, et al. and just insert them into pre-existing footage.

It was made the same way any film is, with a pre-production, production and post-production phase. In the case of this film, the production phase was unusually short -- just under a month -- while pre- and post- were quite a bit longer than average, due to the amount of previsualization and visual effects required. .

GhostofMacbeth · Forum Member Joined: Sep 21, 2001 Posts: 619

If the effect can be done seemlessly then it works. That is about all I will say

Things like the fight scene in "Daredevil" against Bullseye realyl totally sucked since it went from fairly grounded action to bouncing around like a puppet. The same thing happened in "Blade 2" with suddenly bouncy, weird CG taking over for the actors.

electranaut · Forum Member Joined: Jan 03, 2004 Posts: 91

I remember seeing a CGI guy on TV talking about his movie work. He said that he was always being asked what he thought his best piece of work had been and he always answered "Bridget Jones' Diary". He said this always caused people to look confused and say that they couldn't remember seeing any CGI in that film, to which he replied "Exactly!" and that was how he knew he'd done a good job, because no-one even knew it was there. (It turned out the CGI in question was creating and then compositing some extra falling snow in a few scenes).
So there's obviously much to be said for and to be gained from CGI that serves other, more mundane purposes in film making rather than always shouting its presence from the rooftops. Perhaps this is another angle to consider?

Ironbear · Forum Member Joined: Nov 06, 2001 Posts: 1038