ST Filming Techniques and Technologies for the ST

Amen. And whatever they use, they're all for nought if the script, story and characters aren't up to snuff.

 

Now you've gone too far...shut yo mouf.



But it's probably true

 

I hope that when they're shooting the battle sequences, they're going back to this level of in-camera work where possible (and obviously EoT used a stack of CG and digital creations as well). You can't tell me that kind of in-camera work doesn't help the actors on set.



And for people still confused by what people mean when they mention a video game aesthetic, I refer you to the Amazing Spiderman 2 fight between Electro and Spidey, which might as well be for a PS4 game cut-scene. See also the Goblin Town escape or the Barrel sequence from the Hobbit films (both of which I enjoy for the choreography even if I feel there is pretty much zero sense of peril). It's really not that confusing or difficult a concept to grasp.

 

Agreed re the Spidey vs Electro showdown. It looked terrible. The following showdown between Spidey and Goblin, which was largely in-camera and much more up close and personal, was much better by comparison.

 

Indeed. Such sequences often actually feel like they are laid out like a level in a video game and include gamey obstacles for the heroes to overcome too. A good example would be the 'hit the log with an axe to make the orcs fall into the river' level in the aforementioned barrel sequence in the Hobbit. Some scenes in these films feel like they should just display hit points over the bad guy's head to indicate how much punching the good guys need to do in order to bring down the boss.

 

Like Pong or PAC Man?

 

I didn't see The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but those descriptions are what I would have expected based on the many teasers and trailers. And while I enjoy the Hobbit movies overall, I agree about the goblin town escape and the river barrel sequence; those look really bad (especially the goblin town escape, IMO).

 

It's not an absurd debate at all. Digital lighting hasn't caught up to the realism of light produced by a lightbulb yet. Don't believe me? Watch this video on the dynamics of digital lighting and rendering by John Carmack, who has been on the forefront of developing graphics for 25 years, and is now working on Oculus Rift. Light is an extraordinarly complex physical phenomenon, and accurately replication via computer is something that hasn't been achieved yet. The particle effects alone are mind-bogglingly complex. There's no anti-intellecalism in stating that CG lighting hasn't caught up to real world lighting yet; it's just cold hard fact.

 

Or watch the PT which had puppets, men in masks and CGI creations.

As far as I can tell, based on what I've read, I would assume that Morrison was just on set in a green or blue screen bodysuit. Given that we only see one shot of the interior of the ARC-170, I think that he sat on something like this...



As opposed to this...

Lucas had reasons for using whichever tool that he used for each PT film. Clonetroopers being bodysuit and all digital was to achieve what he wanted, which was to create something that would allow the actors and stunt doubles to perform their scenes, without having to build multiple suits. As well as getting around the issues in the OT, such as those seen in the blooper outtakes in ANH and the stories that were well documented about Stormtrooper armor. Stormtrooper armor in the new film is only because Abrams feels that he can deal with and live with all the imperfections and issues associated with the suits.

If they can be used, then there's no reason to not use them.

 

I stand on the fence there. I think it looks great, but where I think the problem lies is that the scene is trying so hard to be grand and epic that your brain is telling you that it is unreal the whole time. What I love about Star Wars is that while it does have it's big and epic places like Coruscant and Theed, much of the adventure takes place in the wilds of the galaxy among smaller settlements and such.

 

Spider-Man's battles are often going to be big. How big depends. Marc Webb chose to have the fight take place in Times Square, since it is one of the biggest electronic locales in NYC. For the fight between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, it was more personal because that part of the story was written to be personal, especially since it was the climax of a plot thread from the first film and a loose adaptation of one of the most well known comic storylines of all time.

 

I urge anyone who wants to keep the illusion of JJ not using all modern tools available to him to please not watch the extras of his two Trek films with all extras now included as part of the new Compendium.

JJ's movies using all digital tools and have the digital sheen and use GASP! greenscreen and digital models and all the rest.

Also note that since Trek is very specifically set on Earth he can actually go to places on Earth and film there then digitally extend them.

Hard to find places like that in Star Wars as it's not on Earth.

As I've said many times I expect that JJ's aesthetic will be to go with a design style rooted in the OT look as a starting point though realized with all the advantages of the digital tools the prequels helped to innovate.

On top of that I expect we will also get some stunning images especially if some of the worlds said to feature actually happen.

I don't follow you. Green and Blue screen use are practical effects methods and they did make them count.

Kamino looked spectacular. It was a stunning mixture of practical effects and CG.

Yes, you already know that.

All that means is VII and the other films have an incredibly high standard to live up to from I-VI.

Of course script, story and characters can only take you so far if the visuals and sound aren't up to snuff because they are as much a part of the storytelling as anything else. It's all connected. No one thing is more important than the others.

 

I'm not flat-out opposed to the use of digital effects where necessary, or where they can actually make something better, without jumping out of the screen due to heavy handedness. I'm also under no illusion about the fact that the ST will very likely use a lot of digital work to flesh out sequences. As I've said before, I think a nice blend of practical and digital makes a really well-rounded effect that makes it hard to see where one ends and the other begins.

What I am opposed to is the misguided belief that digital effects can be used to do it all, without any limitations, to the point where the film maker says 'You know what? Why even make the troopers armour? I'll just CG it later.' I don't care how you spin it, that was just going too far, quite frankly. The scenes in ROTS where TM's head is digitally superimposed onto the clone trooper's body are shockingly bad. After all the hours of work that went into pulling that off in the computer back in 2004/5, I doubt it even saved any money in the end.

In my own personal experience of watching films, I've found that practical effects have aged a lot more gracefully than cgi stuff as well. Much of the digital work done in the prequels, simply by the very nature of the fact that it was cutting-edge at the time, is now looking rather dated. The funny thing about that is that the practical work on those films still looks great, but it's just so easy to pick it apart from the digital stuff. Meanwhile I find most of the OT stuff, while aged, is not nearly as off-putting due to the fact that it's all in-camera or composited from multiple cameras (sans the even more dated SE additions).

But that's just me.

 

Why don't they count? Because I am still taken right outta the movie when the CG overshadows everything else in the scene, whether it be actors, props or whatever. You want to call blue screen use a "practical effect"? Your call.

 

Prove it then, show me a pic of them using practical armor or helmets for the clone troopers then...

 

The script is more important than every other element. The real reason most of these debates keep popping up is actual due to the various failings of the PT scripts. Because of flaws in George's writing (he himself admits he is not a very good writer - he's not wrong even if he had a fantastic overall vision that few others can match) re story execution and the characters CG becomes an admittedly lazy stick to beat the PT with.

And for the millionth time, no one is saying they don't expect JJ to use cutting edge digital effects either. We're saying (as everyone involved with the production is saying but I'm sure you would tell them they are mistaken as well) that it seems the balance is shifting back towards practical/ in camera somewhat.

 

BTW, again, out of interest, was there any location shooting done at all for ROTS? I know they filmed some Tatooine shots while they were there for AOTC.

It is all about the blend for me (unless you go the full animated route, in which case there are joins to spot). I still find it hard to think of a film that has balanced practical and CG better than Jurassic Park. They used every technique they could to blur the lines and make the illusion and fakery seem as real as possible to draw you into the story. They could have gone full CG. SO glad they didn't. Timbob is correct - it's things like the CG armour (or the CG helmets on the clone pilots for Christ's sake) or the CG crates they turned into a speeder. Give me full practical armour every time, give me a real location (which can be digitally expanded later if need be) or a full set wherever possible, or give me the fully built troop transport we can see in those Greenham common pics over a bunch of green crates every time. It works better onscreen and it's better for the actors too.

Also re the above comment on the importance of the script, this Akira Kurosawa quote sums it up:

With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. That is what makes a real movie. The script must be something that has the power to do this.

 

I like how Rian Johnson brought this debate back to the impossibility of what the FX are representing (content) rather than the FX themselves (tool). The problem isn't a particular FX, but, in the case of digital for example, the FX allowing the representation of ideas (actions) that go against the basic laws of physics. The problem isn't that the FX is failing somehow, but that there are some ideas that shouldn't be represented at all. The FX might make them look real on the surface, but in many of the viewer's minds they're thinking, "That's impossible, and I will not suspend my disbelief." To be sure, this is partly a problem of what most viewers are willing to accept.

While it's true some people just don't like the look of some digital work, the better the work the more plausible the impossible can seem. But I think that I agree with Johnson that the bigger problem is often that the content is just too implausible and it would be better to see something more believable represented.

In other words, my problem with the Anakin and Obi-Wan Coruscant "falling" scene has less to do with the digital effects than it has to do with some of the contradictions in it and the general implausibility.

EDIT: Digital effects are only culpable here insofar as they allow some filmmakers too much freedom. Sometimes constraints are better.

 

That's a good point. I would take the actual danger of the simple horse to tank leap from the Last Crusade over any supposedly epic/ intricate or complex stunt involving digital doubles. I like the feeling of peril and danger in action scenes and sometimes simplicity works better for that - compare the barrel chase sequence in the Hobbit (which has spectacular choreography but lacks any sense of peril) vs Aragorn fighting off the Orcs in Amon Hen in FOTR. Look at the way the Obi-Wan digital Double gets squashed by the falling platform in ROTS. It kind of looks real in a 3D sense, but the physics of the scene are laughable. He should be cut in half. Why not make a rig and shoot that in camera with Ewan (safety aside - though that is a good reason)? Often the digital stuff is keeping some people (I appreciate not everyone) out of the story, when the effects should merely be a tool to draw you into the story. Kersh got it - there is no greater special effect than a close up of the human face.

To paraphrase Jurassic Park: just because you can, doesn't mean that you should.

 

One other problem is in digitally portraying something that really exists, something that in reality we can see with our own eyes and compare to the digital representation. You can portray a robot spider or a weird alien however the hell you want, since I have no real life reference to compare it to. I will just take it as presented and say "Alright, cool, guess this is how this guy moves and breathes." Give me a human in a suit of armor, on the other hand, and the fakeness becomes all too obvious.

I will not believe for a second that there was any real problem in making 10 real suits of armor for the troopers that appear in the forefront of several shots. CGI all the mass scenes and all that, of course, but these real troops would've looked so much better in closer shots. Making each and every trooper CGI was a bad decision that seems to have been based, unfortunately, on the logic "let's just do it cause we can."

 

I agree that many filmmakers confuse the elaborate for other effects more designed to evoke pathos -- pathos in the sense of effects creating specific kinds of feelings, like tension, fear, dread, or joy, in people.

Writers and poets also can fall into the habit of too much decoration or ornamentation, believing that more is always better. But one of the problems of more for the sake of more is it often makes it impossible for the viewer to know how to feel, due to information overload. Or that ends up being the created feeling: overload. Or even worse: the viewer can't feel anything and begins to view the elaboration from a distance with a cold analytical eye.

Once again, the issue in films comes back over and over again to the lack of story and character and emphasis on the visual aspects, which should only exist to serve story and character.

Too many lazy or untalented directors and writers just think of crazy things to do, rather than an interesting story.

 

I disagree, a great script can survive dodgy effects but great effects won't save a poor script.

There are some scenes on Earth but also Vulcan, a Vulcan moon, the Klingon homeworld and others.
Also if the setting is a desert planet, why not film in a desert here on Earth?
Earth offers quite a variety in locals and settings.

To me the problem SOME CGI have is weightlessness, they seem to have no weight. The other is that they don't always fit the scene, due to light not matching, it looks "unreal". The third is sometimes that the human actors look in the wrong direction when talking to a CGI person, eye lines not matching etc.

You can do great things with CGI, ex Gollum, Ceasar but it shouldn't be used lazilly.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

Implausibility is a big reason I watch Star Wars and a few other series of a similar vein. Luke falling from the height of the walker and immediately getting up and running off was not very plausible, but it looked cool and fit in with the fantasy adventure aspect of the series. Similarly, I'm fine with Anakin's plunge in AOTC and the barrel sequence in The Hobbit. But then again I don't watch these films for realism. And no, I'm not ignoring story and character simply because I appreciate action scenes. Some moments of execution could've used more polish, but even as it stands I think the PT had a more interesting story than you usually get with big budget adventure films of more recent times (and maybe not so recent--actually I don't think OT's overall story is anything that special).

 

I don't really have a problem with Anakin's AOTC jump cause it was a bit of crazy Jedi business that worked, in a space fantasy setting where we've seen crazier stuff work out. Also, it is short and is just one stunt in a longer scene which is overall an alright chase.

I do have a problem with the Hobbit escape scenes because they lack any sort of tension or immersion, look like a damn videogame, go on endlessly for no reason and are overall plain pointless and dumb.

 

I'm not really looking for realism, I just prefer something that actually draws me into the story, or rather sometimes, doesn't take me out of the story. The weaker the story, the easier it is for me to be taken out of it by other elements.