scanners: As far as I'm concerned, that's the sub-head of the year -- for the first section of Greg Ferrara's perfectly observed (and, for me, exhilaratingly cathartic) Cinema Styles blog post, Five Years, Five Peeves, Five Reasons to Go On. It's so sharp (and not just when I happen to share his point of view) and funny that I feel like offering an annotated response. You should read the whole thing (I couldn't even get past the first item without stopping to leave an enthusiastic comment), but I will refrain... sort of.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
"Thomas Kinkade has won and we, all of us, have lost"
scanners: As far as I'm concerned, that's the sub-head of the year -- for the first section of Greg Ferrara's perfectly observed (and, for me, exhilaratingly cathartic) Cinema Styles blog post, Five Years, Five Peeves, Five Reasons to Go On. It's so sharp (and not just when I happen to share his point of view) and funny that I feel like offering an annotated response. You should read the whole thing (I couldn't even get past the first item without stopping to leave an enthusiastic comment), but I will refrain... sort of.
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2 comments:
I think that there is a time and place for CGI and a time and place for stopmotion/animatronics/minatures. Just because a technology is newer doesn't make it worse, and by the same token doesn't make it better. I think for a movie, you want to try to have as many things in your frame be realistic as possible. I think that sometimes people and directors get so distracted by the "shiney" they can create using the most modern technique that they forget that other methods are available that might work better. I for some reason thought of Jurassic Park while I was reading this article. Places where the actors were interacting with a dinosaur, touching it, were often animatronics. I image this is easier for the actor as well as giving a sense of presence to the stage, as the actor then has something to react to.
I, generally, feel the same way as this article. I have not seen Hugo. I didn't go to see it because I was so skeptical about the CGI aspect of it. By the time I was convinced by the world that it was actually a great movie, it had left the theaters. I agree that there is a time and a place for CGI. I will admit to anyone who asks me that I am a huge fan of Avatar. Yes, I am struck by how "pretty" it is, the exact reason why many hate the movie. I get so caught up in all of the pretty moments with the epic music in the background that I forget that those pretty things were not actually filmed on a set but generated by a computer. In this case, I am fine with CGI because, lets be honest, that is what makes the movie. Without it, Avatar is actually Pocahontas.
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