CGI v. models

[kmart]

Good CGI looks EXTREMELY convincing. In the SW prequels, for example, and in LotR, most of the time you can't tell when CGI is being used.

The problem is that it's too easily abused. There are limits right now as to what we can do with texture, and we tend to try to use the CGI to create things that are impossible. For example, in Ep. 1, Yoda was made of a different material. It looked much better than it did in ESB and RotJ, but it really wasn't Yoda. The same is true of the E-E and some of the other ships. They sometimes look better than the actual models, but they simply don't have the right atmosphere.

I didn't especially like the CGI work in either "Nemesis" or "Insurrection." I felt that the models actually weren't as good as models on strings can look, but you have to realize that models are MUCH more expensive.

Even if you think that models are MUCH better than CGI, you can no longer justify using models for every shot. Do you really need an actual model for a ship that's only going to be in the background of a few shots? Even if the CGI model isn't as good, it also costs so much less and is so much easier to design that there's no justification to build a model of the thing.

It's easy to justify the expense for a hero vessel used in a number of shots, the only difference is that you don't need to build a smaller miniature for longs shots, since you CAN use CG for that purpose.

But I guess this is all extremely subjective. I can't disagree more strongly with you about your views on these last couple SW films (and LOTR as well) in terms of look and credibility, yet obviously most people eat it up without complaint. Photographic credibility has eroded a lot in the last decade or two, and I guess what Lucas is doing is just following and building on that trend. 2k resolution is good enough now, even though 35mm film is at least equivalent to 4k. Just dumb down the picture a little more, nobody'll notice (especially with bad projection, traditional or digital.)

I've written for Cinefex and other film mags, and even though I've done a lot of asking over this, I still haven't ever gotten a good explanation costwise on why shooting a model on stage is supposedly so much more expensive than the CG alternative. You only need minimal crew for a mocon shoot (often you can get by with your cameraman/programmer doing his own lighting), and if the stage isn't being used at all, then it isn't as though there are dollars being lost from some other production not employing it. The whole 'mo-con too expensive' bit seems to me to have arisen at least in part out of a need to justify the rush to CG (a matter that has got companies adding the word 'digital' to their names in order to stay competetive in the minds of corporate types who don't know better and only rush to embrace the 'state of the art' -- regardless of whether the QUALITY of the new big thing is superior.

[Darth Wong]

Visual realism is more subjective than people know. Focus groups for TPM Yoda strongly disliked the most realistic, intricately articulated models because they weren't like the Yoda they remember. However, they also disliked models that looked just like the Yoda of TESB because they remembered Yoda being more articulated than he really was.

Similarly, peoples' notions of physics are completely fucked up. A completely realistic collision of two aircraft, for example, would look much different in real life than it would in a typical Hollywood movie. But now that we've become accustomed to the physics of miniatures, we think THAT is realism.

Or, to put it another way, if people didn't know that the 9/11 WTC footage was real, they would probably think it was an unrealistic visual effect because the planes just appeared to crumple like tissue on impact, instead of exploding into big flaming solid chunks as they usually do in movies. When you watch too many movies, the "realism" of movies supersedes reality itself, and you find yourself expecting conformity to rules which do not, in and of themselves, conform to reality.

If somebody wrote the most sophisticated physics modelling software imaginable for spacecraft flight and combat and produced ultra-realistic effects, people would probably walk out of the theatre saying that the FX sucked, because the ships and explosions didn't look like miniatures and small explosive charges.

[TrailerParkJawa]

Or, to put it another way, if people didn't know that the 9/11 WTC footage was real, they would probably think it was an unrealistic visual effect because the planes just appeared to crumple like tissue on impact, instead of exploding into big flaming solid chunks as they usually do in movies. When you watch too many movies, the "realism" of movies supersedes reality itself, and you find yourself expecting conformity to rules which do not, in and of themselves, conform to reality.

This is true of fire fights as well. Our perception of what a battle should look like is molded by tv and the movies. When I watched a live fire fight of Marines in Iraq, it looks nothing like tv. Bullets dont spark, tank rounds dont blow up in a giant flame, etc. Most of the troops lay flat with their heads down as this is the first fight for many of them.

[Warspite]

If somebody wrote the most sophisticated physics modelling software imaginable for spacecraft flight and combat and produced ultra-realistic effects, people would probably walk out of the theatre saying that the FX sucked, because the ships and explosions didn't look like miniatures and small explosive charges.

You neeedn't go no further than Apollo 13, the launch sequence was so realistic, that it didn't got any mention in the academy awards for special effects. The computer graphics were too "real"...

[Peregrin Toker]

I have noticed that starship models usually look way more massive than CGI starships.

[kmart]

If somebody wrote the most sophisticated physics modelling software imaginable for spacecraft flight and combat and produced ultra-realistic effects, people would probably walk out of the theatre saying that the FX sucked, because the ships and explosions didn't look like miniatures and small explosive charges.

You neeedn't go no further than Apollo 13, the launch sequence was so realistic, that it didn't got any mention in the academy awards for special effects. The computer graphics were too "real"...

CG was only used to embellish model work for APOLLO 13's liftoff sequence, providing ice crystals and atmospherics for the most part. THAT's why the sequence looks so good (except for the really wide shots of Sinise watching the liftoff, it is pretty flawless.)

But the academy certainly should have known that these WERE fx ... I used to have the 'for your consideration' reel on APOLLO 13 and it went into great detail showing the various steps.

The picture that really got overlooked for invisible fx was CLOSE ENCOUNTERS ... there are nearly 100 matte paintings in that film, and Trumbull was asked by a pro cinematographer where they went to shoot such great time-lapse clouds (this is in regard to the clouds that were done with poster paint and/or milk in an aquarium style tank.) Very few folks realized how much great stuff was in that flick, whereas with SW, it was more in-your-face.

[kmart]

Or, to put it another way, if people didn't know that the 9/11 WTC footage was real, they would probably think it was an unrealistic visual effect because the planes just appeared to crumple like tissue on impact, instead of exploding into big flaming solid chunks as they usually do in movies. When you watch too many movies, the "realism" of movies supersedes reality itself, and you find yourself expecting conformity to rules which do not, in and of themselves, conform to reality.

This is true of fire fights as well. Our perception of what a battle should look like is molded by tv and the movies. When I watched a live fire fight of Marines in Iraq, it looks nothing like tv. Bullets dont spark, tank rounds dont blow up in a giant flame, etc. Most of the troops lay flat with their heads down as this is the first fight for many of them.

A lot of this is because the filmmakers don't have real-life experience, or choose to ignore that in favor of making it more of a movie experience. Fincher told the guy doing the building collapse at the end of FIGHT CLUB that he would take an animated very controlled and directable version of the building collapse over the real thing anytime, and that is why you have this stylized collapse that minimizes smoke and totally distorts the timing and physics of such an event. That's not true for all filmmakers, but more and more seem to feel the need to soup it up ... that's one thing I'll say for latter-day Spielberg, even though I'm not a fan of most of his stuff ... he does strive for verisimilitude on the projects he considers important, sacrificing some of the over the top aspects of modern movies in favor of truth.

I still think you can do an exciting space battle with realistic physics and no sound in space, but you have to have everybody on board with your vision, so the cutting creates contrast between interior sound and exterior silence. Likewise, you don't NEED big flame blasts in space if you do a decent zero-gee effect using light like they did with SILENT RUNNING, or a prettified version of early B5 blasts.

[Uraniun235]

I've written for Cinefex and other film mags, and even though I've done a lot of asking over this, I still haven't ever gotten a good explanation costwise on why shooting a model on stage is supposedly so much more expensive than the CG alternative.

It might be the model itself. Or it could be that after editing in all the SFX around the model shot, it comes out to more than it would have been to do the entire shot CG.

[MKSheppard]

ST: TWOK is the epitome of Star Trek F/X, even though the F/X of the
phasers and the "sizzle" damage effects of damaged hull plating look
too little "animated" now.

But nothing can measure up to the E-Nil manuevering through the Mutara
nebula as the storms rage in the background..

[kmart]

ST: TWOK is the epitome of Star Trek F/X, even though the F/X of the
phasers and the "sizzle" damage effects of damaged hull plating look
too little "animated" now.

But nothing can measure up to the E-Nil manuevering through the Mutara
nebula as the storms rage in the background..

If (that's a big big IF) only ILM had retained the paint scheme from TMP, I'd agree with you ... the interaction of colored nebula on the iridescent hull would have been awesome. Basically, if Trumbull had done KHAN, it probably would have looked great.

[Uraniun235]

Why didn't they retain the paint scheme?

[kmart]

Shiny objects were pretty much incompatible with bluescreen for most all of the era of optical compositing. That is a much more minor issue when compositing digitally, which has been the case most of the time for the last decade. Ironically, ILM did come up with a way of shooting shiny objects bluescreen for BACK TO THE FUTURE 2 that saw use on TREK 6 (you take some time and in addition to light passes and matte passes against blue, you also shoot a beauty pass against black, so you don't have the blue spilling over the shiny surface), but that was well past when it was really needed. FIREFOX, done at Dykstra's Apogee around the time of KHAN, also did shiny model mattework using a phosphor paint (I think they called it reverse bluescreen) on the miniature that showed up under UV.

On TMP, Trumbull's people shot the Enterprise using frontlight/backlight and frontlight/frontlight systems, where you shoot a beauty pass against black, then shoot additional passes with the ship black against a bright background, and then again with the ship very overexposed to look totally white against a dark background. Then you can assemble the comps by using these elements in varying percentages. It was still a hassle to deal with the reflections, but it was doable (Trumbull rarely worked with bluescreen, probably a good habit he developed out of being on 2001 with Kubrick.)

With ILM's established bluescreen setup (a really good bluescreen setup, where they had people who really practiced and refined it to nearly as good as it could be, for such a flawed system), the shiny E miniature as was just wouldn't have worked at all (in fact, even after they dulled the model down to the point of -- for me -- ruining the paint job, they still had tons of problems with shiny spots. That's when they started pulling out one of the color records and shooting with yellow light on the ship. The yellow washed out the blue, but they could dial the yellow out to neutral further down the line (which is I think why a lot of TREK 3 Ent shots have got that sort of unnatural color -- it is a synthetic color rather than a true color.)

I know the Skotak Bros bid on TREK 2, and I'm sure they'd have avoided bluescreen if they'd gotten the gig. I think the ship stuff would have looked really awesome with them doing it, but on the downside, I don't know that they'd have come up with anything like the Genesis tape, which really was mostly invention by the CG guys with Lucas at the time.

I remember ILM guys like Bill George saying that as long as you do the checkerboard light gray/dark gray thing with the paint job (which is what they did with RELIANT and EXCELSIOR), you get much the same effect as the pearlescent paint on the E, but I don't think that is really true in all instances. In fact, to double back to the Skotaks, when they shot the SULACO for ALIENS, to create the TMP ENT like shiny highlights on the ship, they got a really good effect just by putting tiny pieces of tape on the model that would catch the light, essentially art-directing the highlights.
That's the kind of ingenuity which always impresses hell out of me (and it was cheaper than having world class airbrush guys paint hell out of the ENT for months at a time, which is what happened on TMP -- there's a guy named Paul Olsen who has part of his website dedicated to painting the E for TMP, I think it is called olsenarts maybe, you should check it out.)