Recreation content from Machine Design: Jerome Chen had an arsenal of technologies and “tricks” available as effects supervisor on the new comic-book-driven movie, the Amazing Spiderman 2 from Marvel Comics and Columbia Pictures (opening next month). But he also had to balance the goals of realism and excitement against safety, cost, and time.
6 comments:
This article is just confirming my belief that CGI is great but sometimes the best solution is to use real technology. While CGI can get very close to the real thing if there is anything not right it can be very easy to tell it is not real. On the other hand CGI can be used to accomplish things that are incredibly difficult to achieve, fairly easily. That is why I think that more films should do what Spiderman did and use both CGI and real effects.
I completely agree with Hunter. CGI can do neat things, but often practical effects are the way to go. Or, in many cases, a blending of the two can create an effect that neither would be able to get right on their own. Although CGI allows you to do really neat things, it doesn't have to signal the death of practical effects.
It is really refreshing to hear a production team be concerned about safety. More often than acceptable, we read articles about teams that have disregarded safety for the sake of a good shot and lost members because of it. I think that it is great that Spiderman is thinking outside of the box to get the shots they want without risking life and limb. Hopefully, the movie turns out well.
It's always interesting to see how special effects are created, especially done well. I definitely agree with Hunter in that sometimes the lower-tech solutions are the best ones. Not only are they more practical in many situations, but sometimes they even just look better. Right now, I don't think our CGI technology is quite perfect, but it will be interesting to see if it ever is -- and if so, will it ever become so ubiquitous that it becomes both easier to make and less expensive than using physical manipulations?
I really like the choices that this production team made. It's so easy today to go straight to CGI, and the option to do everything for real can sometimes be super expensive and dangerous. The way the design team integrated both CGI and and actual effects was really cool. I also like how they used old school methods of doing effects when they could, like the cables pulling people backwards. Also, the way they match up the exact lighting and feeling of the shots in order to make the CGI and real footage look realistic is great.
I really don't know the importance of using CGI or not low tech techniques in capturing Spider-Man's world. That said, it is certainly is interesting how much of film work happens in post-production. More and more of how films are not an actor's medium. It is exciting how realistically fantasy can be made into the image of reality.
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