I talked to someone today about Laboratory being a movie. I said I would like NO CG in it at all. James Cameron did a brilliant job with aliens, using camera tricks, reverse photography, and wire tricks. Along with costumes and puppets. I think that CG distroyed AvP.. the Queen looked really fake, and the contrast in it was horrible. I think that CG detracts from the horror of a movie (the queen scene in AVP wasn't nearly as scary as the queen scene in Aliens... CG is a bad move on hlooywood's part in my opinion. What do u think?

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Both, but only CG when its needed, or animatronics wont look right.

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mir·ow ( V ) Pronunciation Key (meer-oh)
Someone or something that possesses unfathomable awesomeness

chris, hey it's laura. I know this is off topic, ok, but do u care getting into the other post and telling them i'm not a guy. then seem to think i'm some guy pretending to be a girl and posts pix of someone else.

I mean if i pretended to be some girl i'd pick a model or something, i dont know what the deal is. sorry know this is randomn

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Lets finish it then, let us be rid of it...I can't carry it for you Mr. Frodo, but I can carry you...Come on!

"Life Is What Happens While You're Busy Making Other Plans..."

"This new diet's liquid and dulling to the senses and it's crude, but it will do..." Dashboard Confessional

Live and Let Live

true enough.. avp went to hell.. I mean alien: ressurection.. PERFECT! avp was rushed... and well.. it depends on the cg.. CG has to be taken delicatly.. FF:Spirts withn.. a perfect axample of a well done perfect cg movie!

So.. it depends on the cgi artists salary.. right?

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cg is good only when a movie isn't built on it and it isn't thrown in as almost to say "Our CG team is so cool, look at what they can do!!!!"

Animatronics are good b/c you at least have something for the actors to react to on set. When an actor has to talk to bluescreen all day, acting can look a little forced b/c it is forced. It's hard to convincingly react to something when there isn't anything there.

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I have found that you can transform your character solely by the power of belief: as you believe yourself to be, so you shall become over time.

But poor story.


as for CG vs animatronics, what Overload said.

A mult-million dollar movie, eh? hmm..

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Here's the thing about CG.

CGI is wonderful. It's a damned brilliant tool. But that's all it SHOULD be. A tool. It is a tool to further the developing plot of a movie. All special effects are tools. And as I've said over and over again, a lot of directors don't seem to get that at all. They understand the use of the effect as a tool, but they don't use CGI like that at all. This is my problem with it. It is used it places where it isn't necessary at all.

Peter Jackson, in my opinion, used CG the right way in LotR. It was a tool. There weren't many scenes that were completely computer driven. There was always something REAL behind it. The Cave Trolls were clay models that were scanned into the computer to be manipulated. Minas Tirith (sp?) was a real model. They panned the camera over the model against a green matte then went back and added the life to the city. The people walking, the birds, the horses, the flags, and the terrain. This is how I feel CG should be used. To more or less enhance an effect you already have.

Then there are the things people use CG for that they shouldn't. Other humans, or live objects that you see up close. Kirby and I had a long discussion about this not to long ago. CGed people just don't work almost all of the time. Gollum would have to be a notable exception. Those CGed people just don't LOOK like normal people. The light doesn't play off the skin right, the facial features always look off, in short, they look too perfect and they lack the radiance that cells give off. A pixel cannot duplicate that well at all. In the future, maybe. Who's to say we'll even be using pixels then?

Animatronics have advanced to the point where they can, for the most part, accuratly depict a human face and it's movements. Look at the work Henson Studios puts out. Farscape is a great example. The first time I saw that show, the station was running them back to back. I picked it up at the tail end of the credits of one of them. I saw the Henson credit, and was intreguied. I kept watching. While I wasn't that impressed with the overall story and the action, I WAS impressed with the makeup, the puppetry and the animatronics I was seeing. THAT is good stuff right there. I can't imagine CG ever comming close to replicating some of the characters there.

Then finally, there's the other actors to think about. Often times, CG leaves actors little to work with. This leads to the actors trying to imagine what's happening around them, and how to respond to it, all while trying to recite lines and act. Compare that to a scene where every element they need is there. All they have to worry about is reciting the line and acting. The rest is given to them. If you have a good actor, the environment that'll lead to the better performance should be obvious.

I don't think CG is bad at all. It's wonderful. It's done things for effects that were never possible. My problem with it is the way directors throw it about and use it.

That's my stand.

(heh, in the time it took for me to think this up and write it, six people replied...)

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
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[This message has been edited by phoenix_9286 (edited August 30, 2004).]

The Dark Crystal

nuff said.

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CG where you can't use animatronics. Well actually, you could do it all CG and not be able to tell the difference, perhaps anyway. But the likelihood of that is...not high.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

Which do you think looked/acted better and more real? - RotJ Jabba, or ANH SP Jabba/TPM Jabba?

If CGI was the only problem with AvP, I would have liked it more.

As for CGI, if it's done well, it's not a problem. Like phoenix said, LotR was excellent use of CGI. It was believable even though everyone knew it was CGI.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

In the right hands CG is tool of good and happiness, in the wrong hands you're George Lucas.

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ANH SE Jabba, obviously.

As with what many people have already said, CG should be used sparingly and should only be used where Animatronics or custom made set wouldn't get the desired effect

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[This message has been edited by KegZ (edited August 30, 2004).]

the only place where excessive cgi works is if the whole film is cgi and its supposed to look like that

(Stuff like Ice age and Shrek)



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I have found that you can transform your character solely by the power of belief: as you believe yourself to be, so you shall become over time.

CG is excellent for background scenery. You'd be surprised by how many shots of large outdoor areas and such were actually entirely CG.

When it comes to people and animated creatures, it's almost impossible for CG to look good. Humans especially, because of the uncanny valley.

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MadQuack has a signature.

The Bourne Identity used CG extensively. But you never knew...did you?

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

Let's forget too that CG is also more cost and time saving than animatronics so if you could use CG to do something and it looks perfectly fine, then stick with it.

BTW Spiral, while I no longer think what you said about your story becoming a movie is a lie anymore (although the million dollars is still a little hard to believe to buy a script), are you really going to go as far as to negociate a deal to allow you to have that much freedom with how the movie is done? After all, that guy you said who wants to buy your story is most likely the one that would make those decisions (assuming he is directing it) or the guy he'll hire to direct would make those decisions. Unless you do talk your way into gaining those kinds of rights, I'm sure the director would be the one making those decisions, not the writer. Just my thoughts. Feel free to correct them if you want.

-- SavageX

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"...and if you don't like that, then you need to be slugged in the face repeatedly, until my hands are soaked in blood. Have a nice day!"
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[This message has been edited by SavageX378 (edited August 31, 2004).]

Animatronics + CG = Jurassic Park.

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0 of 14.

If CGI is used right (Lord of the Rings) it can look amazing. If it's used wrong (Van Helsing) it can look horrible. I'd suggest that you use a little of both. As long as you get to see the film being made I don't think there would be any problems.

On a seperate note, I think laboratory would make a really uber movie (from the trailer etc. all that I have seen), but what worries me is that critics and regular people who know nothing of Lab. might take it as an Alien rip off (which I don't). I hate it when a really great film get near 20% of RottenTommatoes due to stupid critics >.<

Anyway, best of luck to you and this film, I hope to see it in a theater near me

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Well, as far as the movie thing goes.. I probably won't have that decision at all. I was just discussing it cause it was "the way I would do things if I could". It will probably get passed on to someone who will make it crap, but I've tried to put things in the script that will ensure that it's rated R still (like dead children) Also, I realized that people will draw the connection between aliens and Lab, so I completely cut the "hive" out of the final story.. to make it sound like aliens as little as possible. BUT, if I'm VERY VERY VERY lucky, since James Cameron wanted to do Alien 5, and said he refused to do it if AVP was made... maybe he's still looking to dirrect a good sci-fi horror movie... And i know that James Cameron knows Stan Winston from his work on Aliens.... that would be my dream production team, cause I know they'd do it right.... now I gotta make a different thred...

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Live on, Adam.

********** !! You said what I was going to!!

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"A drug person can learn to handle such things as seeing their dead grandmother crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth. But no one should be asked to deal with this trip."
-Raoul Duke, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

RotJ Jabba gets my vote for most realistic. The CGI versions of him just don't compare. However, in terms of which one acted better, it'd have to be the ANH Special Edition one.

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

The problem is when the CG actually makes the animatronics/scale models look fake, or when the audience expects something real to be fake, thus distorting their perception of it.
Example: Ships in AotC. Motion control models, just like in ANH, ESB, RotJ. Surroundings. Scale models, just like in ESB, RotJ. The rest. CG, making the real look a bit "off".

-Jurassic Park is a good example of the balance between CG and Ani. Love it.

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It's our All-American product. We got the idea from the Germans. The French hate it. It goes for half in Canada. The English have a version, but it's not so hot. There's cheap knockoffs in India. The Japanese are devolping a sleeker, sexier model. Made in China.