ST Filming Techniques and Technologies for the ST

He was ILM's VFX Art Director for Age of Ultron. I have no word that he will actually be doing any SW projects, but his past involvement with that franchise and return to ILM increases that likelihood.

I'm sorry you don't like his work. I think Church is a great artist. Chiang is my favorite as the heir to McQuarrie but Church is great at mood and emotion. I think they compliment each other actually. McCaig is a whole other ball of creativity. He's great at people and costumes.

 

His work in Age of Ultron enhances my negative perception of his work, unfortunately. His stuff is a jumble. None of it sticks in the mind. He has no sense of composition or form, IMO.

I wish I could be more generous toward Church. But I just can't. His taste is almost entirely the opposite of mine.

But Chiang, as far as we know, has been playing a huge role in TFA, so I am at least content that the first film will look great.

 

Yes TFA has been Chiang, McCaig, and at ILM, JJ regular Yanick Dusseault(JJ Trek, ILM, and LOTR veteran).

 

I'm a film purist...so that's GREAT news. And yes, TFA was shot on 35mm celluloid. The only question mark is whether Rian Johnson will shoot on IMAX like JJ did.

 

I was watching a Ray Harryhausen documentary on Netflix and it had a interview with Spielberg where he states that he could see audiences turning away from the big CGI spectacle and back to the more tactile and real. It is something that a few years ago was on the big minds of film and its interesting to see happen now.

 

Given that Jurrasic World has had one of the biggest openings of all time, I'm not sure these kind of movies are going anywhere just yet... And personally speaking, I think Jurassic World shows that these type of effects are great.

 

I love Harryhausen movies, but never did the creatures look "real".

 

I still think believability, not realism, should be the gold standard.

 

What do you mean by "believability"?

 

If the effect works on a subjective level, it's achieved its goal. Roger Rabbit does not in any way look "real" but we believe he exists nonetheless.

 

I get you.

However, realism is just as important. If the dinosaurs in Jurassic World don't look real life creatures, then it all falls apart.

 

You said Harryhausen's creatures never looked real. My point is that this never affected their success as effects because audiences were swept up in their magic. They were believable.

 

You are quite right AD. 'Believability' is not the same as 'realism'. And whilst the two are not mutually exclusive, it's an element often overlooked, understated or not fully appreciated. I knew Yoda was a puppet, Roddy McDowell was an actor in makeup, that the starship flying overhead was not actually 'real', but I believed in the situations and characters the films were depicting. That's far more important IMO.

 

Exactly. And we all have different tastes and thresholds for the moment that an effect ceases to be "believable" and takes us out of the story.

 

No, they aren't believable either.

 

I'd actually be interested to know what people who watched Harryhausen's effects actually thought of how real they were back when they were first seen on the big screen back in the day. Also remember that there are CGI effects that look embarrassingly bad now, but people thought they looked amazing when they were first released in the 90s or early 2000's.

 

Clash of the Titans is the only one I can comment on as I was one of those old timers.

I didn't think the effects looked amazing, real or believable but it was great fun. I wasn't taken out of the story by any of that.

Same with the rancor in RotJ. Not real looking or believable, but it didn't push me out either.

I get what you mean, Darth PJ, about believing in the characters and situation, but that isn't the same as believing in the VFX.

 

I'd agree with that. Jason and the Argonauts was always my favourite Harryhausen movie. The original King Kong is another movie old school effects film that amazed me as a kid.

Great question and one we've been going back and forth on for ages now. I remember watched the aforementioned Harryhausen films and knowing that the effects were models but it didn't affect my enjoyment. I used to love watching the old serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, with the small models or the 1950's sci-fi b-movies were you could see zips on aliens costumes, but I loved watching those. I can't say they ever took me out of the film, so is that a sign of good stories or good effects? Growing up watching Star Wars and they were the benchmark of effects back in the day, but the first films I can remember where the effects made me think 'wow, thats bad' were The Last Starfighter, Superman 3 and Jaws 3.

Jump forward to modern day effects and 1999 seems to be the year that effects took a leap with The Matrix, The Mummy and TPM in particular. Some of those from The Mummy have dated really badly. Go back a few years from that and the effects from Jurassic Park still hold up now IMO. But all those films I can still watch and think they are good. But then I see stuff in AOTC and The Mummy Returns for example and it really drops me out of the film.

I'm rambling now because its such a subjective thing to try and describe. Especially when logic says to you that modern effects should look better than those from the 40's through to the 90's, but thats not always the case, so it must be down to the story and the film and other factors rather than how good the effects were and how believable the whole package is

 

I think it's 'other things' that ultimately make the effects work or not... If the characterisation or story doesn't make one invest in what's on screen then, for example, Yoda is just going to look like a rubber puppet or a digitally composited character. I definately think there's too much onus on big effects movies these days, but I don't think the issue is in the application of the effects themselves, or techniques used, but rather the lack of attention to character and story. That's what's often missing from the usual big summer blockbusters IMO.

 

Thats been my big problem with the majority of the superhero films over the last 15 years or so, zero story and then a big effects **** off at the end. The ones I've enjoyed have been (the first) Ironman and Batman where I think the main characters and their stories were much more interesting.

 

I think it's both. As someone who's both story and visually-oriented, I think there's both bad storytelling and a lot of junky, overdone effects that override good framing and composition. A lot of blockbuster filmmakers generally do a poor job of telling a story in both the visual and aural language departments.

 

Exactly....

Well yes... a bad visual effect is a bad visual effect... but what we (*we* as in the last few posts) seem to be agreeing on is that if the other elements work, a 'bad visual effect' doesn't/shouldn't detract as much.

 

maybe not to you but at the time they were. clash was one of the last but the ones from decades earlier were believed in by people

 

Exactly.

Only if you want to be.

Star Wars is one of the things that got me into Doctor Who. I saw SW in 77 and then TVO in Ontario which had been showing a package of 3rd Doctor stories that I didn't watch (because it was too scary for a 5 or 6 year old!) then started with the 4th Doctor package around 1980 when I was 8.

Obi-Wan was British as was the Doctor. Obi-Wan had a young companion as did the Doctor etc etc. So I got into Doctor Who which was SF fantasy. Now even as a child I could see that Doctor Who was no Star Wars.

I didn't care and still don't.

I don't care that the OT relative to the PT and the new movies is closer to Doctor Who.

I can watch all the "fake" RH movies or all the other "fake" movies no problem.

The OT is as I said far closer to those "fake" movies now.

The "OOT" far more so than the SE's which fixed a lot of "problems."

The question for people like yourself though is why do the very dated effects of the optical era come off as "charming" while the effects you perceive as dated from the digital era aren't also "charming"?

This of course goes back to the entire. Why is it that when something is dated a bad thing anyway?

I really don't mind at all the dated VFX of the past. I don't find them "charming" that is simply the best that they could generally do at the time. Of course what of those is actually "bad" or "good" is a whole other thing.

Watching AOTC in HD now as opposed to SD takes me much further in than ever before outside of course of seeing it in the theater in the first place. Since I just got that this year it's like I haven't really seen it since 2002. Which probably explains why I am watching all the films more in the last 6 months than the last 6 years. Like constantly.

 

I agree that character and story come first.

However, sometimes the VFX can carry a movie - Avatar is a poor adaptation of Pocahontas featuring characters insufficient to be classed as one dimensional (except Stephen Lang of course) but I watch it again just for the VFX. I could sit through a Transformers movie just to see the robots.

I was going to say that bad effects can ruin an otherwise great movie, but, to be honest, I can't think of any off the top of my head.

"believed in by people" implies believed in by all people. I find that unlikely since everyone is different and people don't agree 100% on anything.

Regardless, I wasn't speaking for anyone but myself. This, I thought, goes without saying, since we are all voicing opinions.