There is CGI and then there is CGI
- Thread starter sanaxe1
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There are lots of films and tv shows that are very in your face with the cgi effects, but then theres just as many that balance it with traditional techniques.
Theres a time and place to use it, it's just another tool in the filming arsenal. I look at stuff like District 9 and LOTR and that has a great balance between physical props and techniques and the use of cgi.
It really is surprising just how much some shows use computer generated stuff, even for the most mundane and simple scenes. You have stuff in that video, like the ship on fire, i probably wouldn't have given it a second thought unless i saw how everything in image was layered and composited together. It works surprisingly well.
Theres a time and place to use it, it's just another tool in the filming arsenal. I look at stuff like District 9 and LOTR and that has a great balance between physical props and techniques and the use of cgi.
It really is surprising just how much some shows use computer generated stuff, even for the most mundane and simple scenes. You have stuff in that video, like the ship on fire, i probably wouldn't have given it a second thought unless i saw how everything in image was layered and composited together. It works surprisingly well.
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Soldato
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blackhawkdown springs to mind, the amount of cgi in that film could rival avatar yet you wouldnt know it unless you were told what was and wasnt cgi.
Man of Honour
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Same, I always thought it would just be much cheaper to film on location instead of green screening it.
I saw one of these Stargate Studio videos last year and I am not surprised by this at all. With this and computer animation film/tv production costs can be made very manageable. It's just a natural progression in the art of film making.
Soldato
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It's amazing stuff but i cant help but feel the human element is being lost more and more, seriously why even bother going anywhere when you can just do everything inside some giant green room!
On location filming is just not cost effective anymore. Especially for tv series. A film can more often afford it but using Monk as an example (because it was one of the few shows there I recognised), shutting down a street to shoot a scene might not seem difficult/costly, but doing it for 30 - 40 scenes an episode, for a show that has new episodes weekly, it adds up.
Obviously numbers there are made up and I could probably have picked a better example show but you get what i'm saying i'm sure.
Obviously numbers there are made up and I could probably have picked a better example show but you get what i'm saying i'm sure.
On this topic, Cracked have a very good article showing some films that look like they use CGI, but in fact don't. Batman and LOTR are especially impressive imo. Gives you heart that at least some filmmakers are still willing to do it properly.
An impressive video, but most of it is not really CGI. The parts that use 3D models are CGI, the parts where they replace green screens with video footage / images are not. That's just video editing. Unless that is classed as CGI, I don't think it is.
Soldato
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If you watch Sanctuary, that is about 99% CGI. Basically everything that the actors do not directly interact with is green screen CGI.
Season 2 of Heroes did it....badly!
Has anyone seen the Galaxy advert? The one with a woman looking for her secret stash of chocolate and finds in a book (or something similar). I swear they use CGI on the bloody chocolate when she breaks a piece off, if so please for the love of God tell me why you need to use CGI on someone breaking off a piece of chocolate!?
Has anyone seen the Galaxy advert? The one with a woman looking for her secret stash of chocolate and finds in a book (or something similar). I swear they use CGI on the bloody chocolate when she breaks a piece off, if so please for the love of God tell me why you need to use CGI on someone breaking off a piece of chocolate!?
How would it be cheaper? You'd have to pay for flights/transport, hotels, food for cast and crew (probably ~100 people at a guess). You then run the risk of having to reshoot if the weather is crap, possibly multiple times. There's just so much that can go wrong.
I was going to post (although I think it's well known) that none of Episodes (that was on BBC2 recently) was filmed in LA. They never left the UK. Pretty impressive although I have to say the effects weren't that great. There's some good before/afters on their website, including Episodes: http://www.stargatestudios.net/gallery_beforeafter.html
Not really. Green screen stuff has nothing to do with editing. Editing is putting one shot after another to tell the story. CGI is a very broad term but I'd use it to describe green screen stuff. More specifically it's called compositing, but that encompasses a lot of different things as well. Who models the CG 'things' to go in place of the green screen, who textures it, who lights it, who animates it, who puts it together to make one shot. There's a lot of different jobs involved in doing that, hence why a lot of these vfx places are turning into glorified factories (and outsourcing the work to India). Sad, but true.
Great article. I've seen the real table they used for LOTR. The forced perspective is genius!
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I was about to post something similar. As you say, a lot can go wrong with a shoot and the costs could be immense for what might just be a shot lasting a few seconds.
Logically it is much better to film your actors at the studio where you can control the lighting, weather, set etc. Meanwhile, send out a fraction of the people to go grab the background shots on a perfect day/time/whatever.