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this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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I do miss the "making of" features that showed behind the scenes but as computers got better and movie execs got cheaper it wasn't that interesting to just be like "well we did it with a green screen and then in post." for fucking EVERYTHING...
It was much more fun watching pure artists at their craft making models and explosions and trick camera work for practical effects.
My theory is that practical effects takes a monumental amount of knowledge and skill and as those people got more and more expensive it was cheaper for the vultures to just hire college grad artists and grind them into the ground than pay the union salaries.
I think it takes the same amount of knowledge to do well.
But cheap CGI looks better than cheap practical effects. Or it can be made cheaper. Maybe both.
Anyway, even Empire Strikes Back involved using computers for some work. Yep, late 70s' computers.
It's not one or another with these.
I think the reason for the drop in quality is moviemaking becoming corporate. Not "owned by corporations" kind of corporate (obviously that too), but "no way to get in without acquaintances or patrons inside" corporate, nepotism.
CGI gives the producers the ability to re-do complex shots over and over again. With practical effects you don't get to say "That fireball isn't red enough, make it redder" without a ton of extra work.
You can sort of redden it frame by frame, like they do when colorizing movies. A lot of work, yes.
My point was that a qualified person will do good things with CGI too. It doesn't have to look worse.
But again, about time spent - for a hobby I can spend hours on making a burning torch look realistic in my POV-Ray scene. For actual work - I suspect they just take available things from enormous libraries of ready meshes, normals, textures, shaders, which sort of fit all cases, but are not perfect. But I haven't yet even learned to use Blender, so.
Totally agree that qualified people can do good or even great CGI. But the reason everything is CGI these days - and why end credits are getting longer and why budgets are going through the roof while VFX firms are going bankrupt - is because it allows executives to send shots back over and over to get "fixed."
This is a real problem in the VFX field, and leads to a ton of burnout. They even have a term for it: "Pixel fucked."
This seems a business problem. Something in the contract should make it impossible to just go on until such a person likes what they get. Maybe pay per time. I dunno.
It is definitely a business problem. I deal with similar sorts of contract work and we always put in clauses about rework and going over time and I've got strict restrictions on what work I'm supposed to do. (Actually dealing with this now, honestly. Customer wants extra work done and I need to get approval for it.)
The problem is the VFX firms are at a disadvantage when dealing with studios. The studios have the work and all the lawyers, so they have the power in negotiations. If they studio says do more work and the VFX firm doesn't they'll get blackballed and go out of business.
So you're saying there are greener pastures outside big cinematography?..
Maybe joking, maybe not.
The making of Fury Road is quite fascinating, the bulk of the vehicles and stunts are real. A lot of the Fast and the Furious stunts and vehicles are real as well.
I always loved the behind the scenes for Eternal Sunshine. Kate was so excited about the production, she'd be like "I had to crawl through this hole into a different set and do a quick costume change so we could do it all in one take."
One thing I always appreciated about the Fast and Furious movies were their lean to practical effects, at least the earlier ones.
I want to live in the world where the F&F franchise never stopped doing practical effects, and actually launched a car into space.
In a way, Musk is part of that F&F franchise- and he could have made a good villain in there.
The first 3 pirates movies DVDs had amazing making of docs