CGI is killing the art

[Buck-Beaver]

Its nice to hear some optimism - i myself am pessimistic with the prospect - a recent interview with Joe Dante whose success was at its height in the 80s, and of course most famous for the Gremlins movies, said that he WOULD'NT and COULD'NT make a third Gremlins movie because studio involvement would force the creatures to be CGI and added 'the prosaicness of the puppetry and all that stuff we had in the first two movies really defined those pictures'

I think what Joe Dante is probably not saying is that the reason the studio wouldn't give him the money to do a Gremlins 3 (with a big enough budget to pay for animatronic effects) is that there's little evidence the movie would make back it's cost. Starship Troopers 2 ran in to the same problem. The first one used tons of animatronic effects but they couldn't justify the cost in the sequel (which went straight to video) so it was either all CG or no movie. The reality is that these movies are a business. If they won't make money they won't be made.

Even Quentin Tarantino, like him or not, has had his say....
"This CGI bulls**t is the death knell of cinema. If i'd wanted all that computer game bulls**t, I'd have stuck my d**k in a Nintendo"

Then why does Quentin use CG effects in his films?

I've read the interview that quote is from here it's slightly out of context. What he was condemming is the over use of CG effects in movies like The Matrix Reloaded. He also is known for his grandstanding and loves to give a great sound bite.

Blade Runner (1982) is an excellent example, beautiful and timeless effects - at the helm Ridley Scott, well known as being the best visual director of the past twenty years, HOWEVER, Gladiator (1999) he used CG, and used it poorly (those shots of the colleseum look amatuerish)

But Ridley Scott didn't do the effects in either and can't really be blamed for their level realism. Blade Runner was deliberately set mostly at night which is much more forgiving than the broad daylight realism needed in Gladiator so comparing them isn't really fair. It's also important to remember that the techniques used in Blade Runner had been developed for almost a century when it was made. Most of the FX techniques used in Gladiator had been around for 10 years or less. CG isn't perfect (yet) because it's still a relatively new and emerging field.

One thing that bothered me in Spiderman was the sometime hokey CG stunt doubles. That movie was still an incredible achievement FX-wise but it wasn't perfect. In the sequel there were still some giveaway FX shots but they weren't nearly as distracting.

Granted Gollum was a triumph, however *many* of the other CG based effects in the LOTR trilogy looked 'hokey' IMDB this week did a poll asking which current movie stereotype are you sick of, and 'CG armies in battle' came in top.

To be fair though, LOTR did the CG armies first and best. I do think that type of thing is overrused, but that's more the fault of other movies like Troy (even the FX in the trailer were bad) than LOTR. I'm curious to know which other FX in the trilogy looked "hokey" because they actually did as much as possible practically. Peter Jackson is one of the few directors with a proper understanding of FX and how to best use it.

Saying that 'CGI is killing the art' was a bit melodramatic on my part, but do you blame me for my pessimism?
Because, i haven't seen a 'Hayao Miyazaki' waving the flag for Jim or the creature workshop.

Well, why should there be? I don't think you should be ruled by dogma and work in a technique for the sake of working in it. Hayao Miyazaki works in "traditional" animation because he loves it and it's the medium that best suits his stories (I also believe he uses the old Disney trick of incorporating 3D animation that looks like 2D for certain shots). Ditto for a company like Aardman Animation and stop-motion. Most of the directors/films complained about here aren't made to celebrate a technique. In many cases the filmmakers could care less how the movies were made. They just want to tell a story.

In most cases it's not about old vs. new. It's about what is the best way to tell your story.

 

[Dash X]

Actually making a Gremlins 3 would be closer to making a Ghostbusters 3, or Back To The Future 4 - there is a large fanbase and a cult status surrounding them, let alone a legacy - comparing Gremlins 3 to Starship Troopers 2 (with far less cult status and hardly a beloved or memorable legacy) is way off the mark.

You're right QT's quote was out of context, but it was interesting to add and was quite funny.

Ridley Scott is to blame, he used CG almost seamlessly in Black Hawk Down, is down to execution of the technique within its limitations, and where neccessary (again look back to Jurassic Park) a mix of models and CG (ala Independence Day or LOTR) would've been more appropriate, and Scott is a strong enough director to have realised this - and you're theory is flawed due to the rate of developing tecnology and tecniques is ever increasing.

Miyazaki and Aardman are very much concerned with their respective crafts (especially Aardman), and so was, and should be a fantasy with the 'Jim Henson Productions' stamp - Jim was known for 3 things - taking a piece of felt and turning it into a thing of great power - being a master storyteller - and for pushing his chosen craft almost as far as his imagination went, exploring outside of the special effects industry to find puppet and performance based effects not seen within film ever before (Landstriders, Ludo etc).

I'm not saying that CGI should'nt be used in MirrorMask, but not where puppetry would suffice - remember CGI is not neccessarily being used in film because it is the best medium

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Actually making a Gremlins 3 would be closer to making a Ghostbusters 3, or Back To The Future 4 - there is a large fanbase and a cult status surrounding them, let alone a legacy - comparing Gremlins 3 to Starship Troopers 2 (with far less cult status and hardly a beloved or memorable legacy) is way off the mark.

Actually it's a very valid comparison. Not because of the size of the Starship Troopers fanbase (I completely agree that franchises like Gremlins, Ghostbusters, BTTF, etc probably do have bigger built-in audiences) but because the process they went through on ST 2 is exactly the same as what Gremlins 3 would go through. The studio figures out how much they can possible make on a film and then tells the filmmakers to draw up a budget based on the number they come up with.

Joe Dante's comments seem to suggest that they couldn't get anywhere near the budget for a third Gremlins he'd want. A producer facing that dilmemma has two choices - make the movie on the cheap or don't make it at all. ST 2, Dragonheart 2 and few other genre franchises all had the same problem. In those cases they made a sequel for cheap. The Gremlins folks seem to want to stand by their principals, which is commendable.

Ridley Scott is to blame, he used CG almost seamlessly in Black Hawk Down, is down to execution of the technique within its limitations, and where neccessary (again look back to Jurassic Park) a mix of models and CG (ala Independence Day or LOTR) would've been more appropriate, and Scott is a strong enough director to have realised this

With respect, how can you possible "know" that Ridley Scott is to blame? It's impossible for anyone to know who is to blame for what on a film unless they are either present during production or speak directly to several of the people involved. Studios interfere, budgets get cut, post-production schedules get shortened. Lots of things happen to movies in the studio system that are outside the director's control.

Miyazaki and Aardman are very much concerned with their respective crafts (especially Aardman), and so was, and should be a fantasy with the 'Jim Henson Productions' stamp...I'm not saying that CGI should'nt be used in MirrorMask, but not where puppetry would suffice

I would, (again, respectfully) suggest that a fantasy with "the 'Jim Henson Productions' stamp" should concern itself with telling an interesting story first and foremost. Who wrote the rule that JHP had to use conventional puppetry all the time? After all, they've got a pretty successful track record of taking advantage of the latest technology and techniques available.

 

[OverUnderAround]

Well, I do agree with the original poster (Dash X) that CGI is killing the art.
Specifically employment for Video/film puppeteers.

Let's see to make a standard Puppet cost from $3,000-$8,000.
And that's a plain puppet mind you for TV/fim production.
Add into that development, scouting out materials, hiring a puppeteer, etc.
And it can be a hefty cost for a producer.

I don't know what CGI cost, but I have heard that the cost has gone way down.
True they also do lots of research and development too for CGI.
But how can CGI be cheaper when sci-fi movie production budgets have
sky-rocketed to rates between $100 million-$200 million dollars in cost!

However I do miss seeing in a movie the actual physical puppet character interact with a human.
Such as Star Wars Jabba interacting with Mark Hamill.
Or the Shark in Jaws eating Robert Shaw.
In the film 'Alien', Sigourney Weaver's battles with the creature.
And even E.T. interacting with Elliot.
It's not the same (at least to one's imagination) if it's CGI.

CGI looks great for Shrek and Jimmy Neutron and the new fall CGI TV show by Dreamworks
called 'Father of the Pride." But overall, I enjoy CGI when it's mainly used as a background element,
and not as a star of a picture. The Harry Potter series has done well I believe in there use of CGI.

But it's nicer when a production actually creates an actual puppet for a film, given the time and budget of course. Looking at the movie trailer of 'Alien versus Predator', it appears that the Alien is not CGI.

I think given time TV will become flooded with CGI and some people will tire of going to see movies that are half-live action and half CGI, and producers will start to develop actual puppet/alien characters again in plots and put puppeteers back to work.

Oh! another profession that has lost jobs to CGI are stuntman.
Why pay a stuntman $10,000 dollars for a 2 second fall, when you can
do it as CGI instead.

****************************
Cool showbiz news...
Harrison Ford goes back into space!
A new movie starts production this fall called 'Godspeed.'
"Godspeed" takes place on an international space station, where a life-threatening situation develops that could kill all the inhabitants on the station.

 

[Dash X]

Personally i feel that CGI isn't an effective enough tool at the moment in relation to its use - all of the best SFX movies that have used CGI have intermixed it with puppetry/animatronics/models and other practical effects (Jurassic Park, T2, ID4, etc) movies now are being made with fully CGI universes, and do in fact look like video games - what i love about the general art direction of DC and the Labyrinth is its emotion, sense of history, tactility, and its textural depth

Interaction is a big problem with current CGI - imagine ET fully CG.

CGI maybe superior in its scope, but not yet in its quality - CG Gollum vs hundreds of wonderful utterly convinving and magical characters that have held up for 20 years (which is a testement to the extraodinary talents of the performers working for JHP) - There is no contest.

Since starting this thread i have found out that MirrorMask is only finacially backed by JHP, and is not a fully fledged puppeteers and muppeteers production 'in the vein of The Dark Crystal and The Labyrinth' as was first reported - and the effects are going to be done by director David McKean's own digital studio.

MirrorMask is not going to the long awaited JH fantasy world follow up to DC and The Labyrinth.

Also claiming that puppetry is relativly unimportant to the story (on this website especially) is akin to saying that visuals are unimportant in a film with a good script;

Film, at least partly, is telling a story through images - if it wasnt it would be a radio production and JIM HENSON productions is synonymous with telling wonderous and powerful stories by means of wonderous characters and wonderous puppetry.

I'm not saying outright that CGI shouldn't be used (were necessary), it simply doesnt need to be.

 

[Dash X]

A bit off topic but...

I was reading that, adjusting to inflation, Star Wars (1977) and Gone With The Wind (1939) are still the highest grossing movies of all time (both earning over $1 billion).

Investigating this i found out that, adjusting for inflation, The Dark Crystal (1982) and The Labyrinth (1986) both cost, get this; $100 million to make.

Just thought that was interesting.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

I'm so sure about the Dark Crystal and Labyrinth (I would peg them around $75-80 million each with inflation) but Star Wars is the #2 movie of all time before you adjust for inflation (it grossed $460 million or so). It easily made over $1 billion in today's dollars.

 

[rexcrk]

I myself am sort of anti-CGI. I mean, there are a couple times I liked it, like Jurassic Park and Lord of the Rings (that's really all I can think of ) and there are tons of times when I didn't like it, the new scenes in the Star Wars original trilogy "special edition", the new footage in E.T., Yoda in Episode II (they could've at least used a puppet for the non-fight scenes) and more. I was watching Gremlins today, and I think it is absolutely amazing how well they did with puppets and animatronics. Same thing with the Ninja Turtles movies. A while ago my friend said they should do a new Ninja Turtles movie and I said that they shouldn't 'cause they'd use CGI on the Turtles and the Foot Soldiers and it would look like garbage. Like, how can people not notice how out of place the CGI Jabba the Hutt looks in A New Hope Special Edition, or the CGI E.T. in the new scenes of E.T.? I mean, the scenes are cool, but the effects make it look out of place.

 

[elz]

I don't like the way CGI is going- I think when its included in small doses its very effective but with whole films done just with computers it just looks trashy. I think maybe that finding nemo got away with it, but only because of the lack of human faces left to be stretched and made into rubbery cartoons (although the dentist scenes that included these were a disappointment). As for live action, again, its okay in small doses, but great visual concepts ruined by smooth and lifeless interruptions (see spiderman and van helsing) have got to stop. I'm confident that mirrormask will be okay, simply because mckean will make sure it is, but I'm not happy about CGI generally. Bring back prosthetics and paint!

 

[Kimp the Shrimp]

I don't like the way CGI is going- I think when its included in small doses its very effective but with whole films done just with computers it just looks trashy. I think maybe that finding nemo got away with it, but only because of the lack of human faces left to be stretched and made into rubbery cartoons (although the dentist scenes that included these were a disappointment). As for live action, again, its okay in small doses, but great visual concepts ruined by smooth and lifeless interruptions (see spiderman and van helsing) have got to stop. I'm confident that mirrormask will be okay, simply because mckean will make sure it is, but I'm not happy about CGI generally. Bring back prosthetics and paint!

the cost in money and time dictate the use of CGI