ST Filming Techniques and Technologies for the ST

I don't see any significant differences between the xwing and falcon videos, except maybe lighting. But the type of camera and type of lighting can make all the difference. I think the camera movement makes a difference too. The xwing video was a simple pan out, whereas the falcon video had dynamic movements

 

I got the feeling the Falcon video was a quick thing they sent someone out to do once the Greenham common pics had appeared on the net whereas the Force for Change videos clearly had a lot more thought put into them.

 

Agreed

 

Interesting how different things are received by the different people's eyes. Personally I would even go as far as saying that parts (!!) of the Falcon video are CG. I'm speaking of the upper parts of the ship in this shot:


I assume this shot was made when the falcon (or the one half of it ) was not yet finished. A state we can see on photos such as this:


The part with the details (which looks fine and real to me) is there but upper parts of the ship are missing.

 

I hant been following this but you aware these arent scenes from the movie? They're not intended to be artistic youtube videos lit naturally, with little directional effort shot on non-movie-grade video cameras

 

Thanks for the heads up, but yes I know that .

 

Thanks for that article! While I would say there's a bit of "anti-CGI snobbery" in some cases, I also see why people want to have things like stunts done live if they can. But I don't necessarily think it's about having something feel "real". Realism - at least in the sense of, "woah, look how real that is" - is not that great or relevant of a goal to strive for, since movies are all fiction. (This doesn't apply to character work, obviously). A model might look more "realistic" than a CGI image but it's still going to look fake for a whole different reason. Any movie where people are doing "fake" things is going to look fake, the question is whether we suspend our disbelief and enjoy it or not. Certainly, we accept things better that look more real, but I disagree with the idea that a model/practical effect is always going to look better than CGI in any situation. I think if something is "believable in the context" or "authentic to the style/scene" is more valuable of a measurement. In that case, whether it's CGI, live-action, modelwork, etc., the key is making the scene look as good as possible and making sure it doesn't make you stop suspending your disbelief.

When it comes to humans, though, there is definitely a difference between seeing a CGI person and a real actor. For an action scene, I'm fine with a CGI figure for a stunt or a quick shot, but there is still something about an actor's performance which can't be captured to CGI (in the context of a "replica" of that human; motion capture for something like Serkis does is different since he's not playing a CGI Andy Serkis, he's paying a monster or an alien.

I think a movie like Prometheus (say what you will about its plot) perfectly shows how CGI and Models/Sets can work together in modern cinema.

 

But the part you see in the video was finished.

 

I prefer a blend myself - and where possible, I'd always be for a "real" stunt.

That said, what I thought was good about that article was that it acknowledged both sides of the debate - by and large these are just preferences and tastes, there's no right or wrong. I actually thought the points he made seemed a bit softer than the "CG snobbery" terms that leapt out a bit, lol.

 

I agree with you about the stunts generally. Especially if something was done "live" and now is done CG. A good example is The Matrix trilogy. I don't dislike the films nearly as much as a lot of others do, but that might be because something bothers me more than any of the plot elements: The bullet-time sequences are all CG now! (I haven't seen the movie in a while, so maybe there were a couple practical ones, but I know the majority of it was CG. It's especially apparent during the Agent Smith/Neo fight in the par area, when Neo is swinging the giant pole around to hit all of the Smiths. Maybe if that's how all of the fights were in the original, I wouldn't mind it, but since we saw bullet-time done with a bunch of cameras in the original, it just looks bad. To me, this scene is a far greater crime than, say, Lucas inserting CGI shots into the first Death Star battle, because the effects in the original battle sequence weren't that great and the CGI (in my opinion) was an improvement. On the other hand, the bullet-time in The Matrix Reloaded looks far worse than the original.

 

Well actually there is a bit of one. The "new look of cinema" looks far better and more believable but of course I love the old fashioned material as well but is obviously isn't as fantastic.

I just think it is interesting that thanks to that new look ushered in by Star Wars, LOTR, Spider-Man and the like a whole new age of SF, Fantasy and Superhero films have taken these films into the mainstream on a constant basis in a way that was far more rare in the past outside of the OT and the odd film. You just couldn't do anything like the prequels, Avatar, LOTR, Avengers and the like with analog tools.

I don't quite know what you mean by procedures. You mean on the set? Anyway things are entirely different as with digital grading you can do things that were impossible. As pointed out in the documentary Side by Side the film O Brother Where Art Though? was graded in every single shot so the entire color palette is controlled to the smallest detail which if it had been shot in the 80's would have been impossible. So it's digitally altered all the way through. JJ's Trek films are completely redone from what they shoot on set in terms of color and light.

Shooting on film seems to me to be entirely irrelevant for VII in any truly measurable way besides the personal. From that standpoint I don't see what shooting on film really does as whether photochemical capture or digital capture the process will be the same. Shooting on film seems more of a comfort thing for JJ who is old enough that film was his top standard that he was looking to get to but it's not like he's going to make the movie on film.

Don't think I've put this up before. George in 2007 at a digital conference. Start at 21 minutes in.

Quite interesting:

 

Some will say that the shot in ROTS, where Anakin leaps to Dooku and kicks him is bad use of CGI. But I find it works since it fits within the narrative that a Force leap is more vertical rather than an angle like we saw in TESB with Vader coming down the steps after Luke. Just having it on wires alone creates a fake look of someone lifted on wires, while CGI does have a fake look to it, but it moves faster. There's a stronger sense of kinetic energy. Dooku in general was necessary to have CGI. We can question if Dooku's sommersault was necessary as opposed to a simple hop down, but having it for the fight was necessary.

Except the PT still used both. So "Prometheus" didn't do a better job.

 

The shots you list are ones I would consider a "quick shot" as I described in my post. Those are totally fine. Compare that to something like what they did in TRON Legacy with Young Jeff Bridges, which didn't work that well.

And yes, the PT did use both. I think you might have taken my post as relating to or criticising the PT, which I wasn't. The PT actually doesn't do any of this stuff wrong to me. Lucas never inserted a CG version of an actor unless he had to, he shot it very traditionally lighting-wise, and they also used a combination of practical, stunts, and CGI. But the PT was made over a decade ago, and Lucas is a traditional filmmaker. My post was more talking about movies in the last couple of years, made with recent trends in mind, which in my opinion tend to overrely on CGI in the wrong places (like the matrix example I listed) but I also know that a lot of my friends and others have this absolute hate of all CGI, which doesn't make sense to me either. Prometheus is a good example of a recent film that used both CGI and Sets in a way that worked well. I wasn't even factoring the PT into the discussion, since Lucas still has the mindset of an older style of filmmaking (which is good).

 

I don't know why this is still an issue - some people prefer a certain aesthetic over another. The same tastes apply to other blockbusters, not just SW and the whole OT v PT debate. It's not something that can be proved right or wrong. Why is this so tricky for certain people to grasp?

 

I know that it was finished at some point. But we also know it was NOT finished at an earlier point. We don't know when the video was shot, do we?

 

I think what's happening in this shot is that a different sky was composited in. Heck, this particular Falcon could have been on a set, or maybe there were trees in the background. Looks better in motion. You're right in that work was done in this shot, but I believe it to be the sky itself

 

I'd be surprised if that were the case. Not saying you're wrong, but I'd be surprised...

 

Could be as simple as there was some scaffolding left on the ship that they painted out or something. The edges at the top do look a little weird, but I don't believe it's an indication that the falcon itself is CG. Could even be some light correction in the shot, who knows.

 

I just read yet another yahoo story , this one claiming they are using miniatures instead of CGI.
is this true? i know they were using more real sets. but they aren't really going back to miniature tie fighters and x-wing battles are they?

 

I'm reminded of something that James Cameron said when making Titanic. Something to the effect that you should never use the same technique twice in a row. CGI looks fine when it's used in combination with practical effects and other techniques. When it's relied on exclusively without an unavoidable reason (like a CGI character or spaceships/lightsaber fights) then you can begin to sense your eyes are being fooled.

 

All Star Wars movies used miniatures.

 

I'm assuming the article might be talking about the Chess board everyone was talking about a while back.

They don't mean they're going back to using models for all the space scenes. That would be ridiculous.

 

Why it would be ridiculous?! if it works great, like it does in Return of Jedi still, I would not see any problem with it at all. Also, practical effects have been having updates since the 80's.

 

Don't get me wrong, they do look great, but as great as the end of ROTJ looked in 1983 I don't think it could compare to the quality you'd get with CGI ships. I think in order to make a space battle that's as smooth and animated as the ones from the PT, for example, you'd have to spend probably 4 or 5 times as much as you would if you were doing it digital. I'm all for more practical/model work done in regards to sets, smaller situations, etc. but for the big space battle I definitely want CG. I think it gives the director the most potential to make it look great. This is just my opinion, of course, but I think there are many places where CG is overused, and I think there are places like Space battles and aliens where CG is the way to go.

 

i think they did mean no cgi,
it's just another way to dig at the prequels, even though every movie uses cgi .