ST Filming Techniques and Technologies for the ST

Well, let's set aside the "real desert" stuff for a moment.

IMHO, Lucas was interested in exploring the limits of CGI. I honestly believe the only things holding him back from doing the whole film on a green stage were budgetary considerations and.technical limitations. He was a pioneer who should be credited as such.

But that's been done. It's no longer unexplored territory. Abrams seems to believe in reasonably keeping things in-camera where possible. You start with the real world and augment it with CGI.

 

Again correct me if I'm wrong but MSW was referring to the sequence where the Millennium Falcon flies through the burned out crashed Star Destroyer on jaku he said the whole sequence was CGI but we know that from the trailer there are Live action cutaways in the said sequence. and I stayed up late last night reading up on what a sequence is and I am pretty confident that 22 or 27 sequences out of 357 sequences is not that much. I also tried to go on MSW To get the actual story in question to see how MSW actually worded it and to post it on here, but i tirelessly searched his site and couldn't find the article in question, if any one can post it I would be much obliged?

 

Because JJ is going for a very practical approach, the CG artists be able to spend more time making the shots look better.

I do wish that the Star Destroyers and larger Rebel ships would be models. Use models for the ships the camera focuses on and have the background ships be CGI, since they will be less detailed.

 

Leoluca Randisi Here you go:

http://makingstarwars.net/2015/07/how-many-shots-in-star-wars-the-force-awakens-are-cgi/

 

it may be passing shots and close up shots of the ships might be models, we just dont know yet, combat shots are most likely cgi.

 

I think for your sanity you should let this go.

Let's say MSW is wrong (based on your interpretation of scenes and shots, etc)...what does it really matter?

Let it go.

And now you have THAT song in your head.

You're very welcome.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Even though msw said the entire sequence is cg, he's excluding cutaways to actors faces. He's just talking about the flying parts

 

then he should have said that, I pick up on little Minute Details of what people say I am an attention to detail kind of guy and I have a memory Like an Elephant, I guess in that regard to my memory retention I take after my Mom, and she takes after her mom it's in the genes, It's my OCD

@Leoluca Randisi Here you go:​

​

http://makingstarwars.net/2015/07/how-many-shots-in-star-wars-the-force-awakens-are-cgi/​

When the Falcon goes through the crashed Star Destroyers to lose the TIEs in pursuit, that IMAX sequence is entirely CGI. Later when the Falcon escapes and is caught by the giant freighter, that is also CGI, as are the ships destroyed during the array attack. The Sledgehammer that steamrolls the Star Destroyers are computer effects-driven shots too. The Falcon flying to meet Luke is… you guessed it, CGI.​

​

Get it? Most of the space shots are CGI sequences.​

from that what I am taking from MSW wording is the entire scene is CGI and we know it Isn't,
But I promise this will be the last thing I say on this subject BACK ON TOPIC MY FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Obviously entire scenes or sequences won't be completely CG, they will cut back to shots with stuff in camera. Frankly, other than the obvious confirmation that the flying/space parts will be most of the CG heavy stuff, that article didn't really further my understanding of anything, now I think about it. There's not much you can really get from it.

My understanding seems to be that 28 scenes or sequences (I'm leaning toward scenes between those 2 options), will contain shots, or multiple shots that are entirely CGI. The lightsaber falling might consist entirely of multiple CG shots, but other scenes will involve cutting from entirely CG shots to shots with stuff in camera, and back again. I think it's scenes containing shots that are entirely CG. The math doesn't work for sequences it's 28 out of 357 or something. 357 sequences makes no sense to me.

Now I think of it, frankly even "scenes" is pushing it. A 2 hour movie (likely even less with crawl and credits), with 357 scenes? That's about 3 per minute, or an average of one every 20 seconds, and some scenes are going to last way longer than that (talking scenes lasting minutes) so that math doesn't really add up to me at all. What are we going to have a bunch of 7 second scenes in the movie? Seems like an elastic use of the word "scene" to me. That's basically closer to a "shot", than a "scene". It's obviously not 28 total "shots" for the entire movie, because that makes no sense either. It must be 28 "mini scenes" either containing, or are in some cases in totality, entirely CG shots.

The production probably gets pretty specific about how it breaks each scene down into parts when they are planning, and Jason Ward is going off those numbers.

Is there something I'm not understanding here?

 

I'm assuming you are being sarcastic (???) but I don't think there's a problem favouring a more 'in camera' approach where deemed appropriate.

 

Not sure I agree. I think Lucas is/was much more pragmatic that that. From the way he storyboarded sequences, it's clear that the idea/concept came first, and then they'd sit down and determine what was visual effect/practical set etc. I'd posit that Lucas probably never sat there and thought 'what sequence can I come up with that's pretty much exclusively digital?'.

 

I can't wait for the making of stuff on the Blu-ray. Roger Guyett will be all like "we shot the Kylo Ren landing scene with real green screens in the background."

 

I totally agree I can't wait for the Making of Documentaries on the Blu-Ray!

 

For what it's worth i asked Fon Davis if he was working on ep7 and if he thought they would be using model ships in the space battles, he responded with this...
https://twitter.com/fonhdavis/status/627549602166669312

 

that's cool that he responded to you personally !!!!!!!!

 

Uh, yeah, you did. You said, "General audience don't know that they're burned out on CGI.". That is you speaking for people.

That's because so much is possible now, compared to forty years ago. At best what audiences might be wowed at would be where CGI was used and no one would think otherwise. Like "The Wolf Of Wall Street" using it for something mundane, yet it was done and most didn't know until it was pointed out.

 

I was part of the letter writing campaign that got Futurama back on the air, we wrote the casting Director for the show, the head of the fox network, Matt Groening's office, and David X Cohen's office. I got a personal E-Mail back from Matt Groening and David X Cohen That I have printed and put behind a plastic sleve, it hangs on my wall !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Sorry, I didn't mean that. I just meant that he'd write the script first then try and achieve as much of that in CGI as feasible, per technical and budgetary limitations.

 

We need to amputate the leg in order to save the patient!

 

We knew there were practical sets and explosions. That is not news.
However, what is interesting is Fon said he couldn't discuss Star Wars. That implies he's under a NDA on at least one of the SW films.

He is also ILM Model Shop alum and has worked at 32Ten in the past. Very

 

I'd posit that Lucas never sat there and thought 'Is there a way I make this work in-camera so it looks real'. He had no distinction between digital and real, and often times yes I believe you can't rationally disagree he and his team were proving what they could do with digital, rather than trying to make something practical at all.

 

Here's the deal about all the "Lucas wanted to use CG or wanted to push CG".

Yes. He did want to do that. But, he didn't set down and actually declare "I am going to write this part of the story because it will really push the boundaries of CG".

If you've ever watched the Making of Episode One documentary called The Beginning, it gives insight into this.

Lucas wrote a story and then let ILM determine how they were going to accomplish it, with input from Lucas(creative) and McCallum(budget).

Sometimes the three separate vfx units working on TPM, led by Dennis Muren, Scott Squires, and John Knoll respectively, would allocate resources for models rather than CG because the CG department was already full of work. Sometimes they allocated things for models because it gave them more flexibility for scenes or sequences requiring multiple shots and they could build one model and shoot it over and over, spreading the cost out.

In fact, Lucas didn't even envision Jar Jar as a fully CG character or not. He just wrote the character. ILM and Lucas didn't even figure out which way to go until they had already started shooting.

Lucas just set out to tell a story freely and then figured it all out.