Cinefex Blog: But just how do you choose between a sexy robot, monumental vehicular carnage, extra-terrestrial super-science, trials and trauma in the North American wilderness, and an entire galaxy filled with beeping droids and exploding spaceships? In an age where seamlessly-integrated, photoreal effects are taken completely for granted, what constitutes a “good” visual effect?
3 comments:
I thought this article was super interesting, and I think it’s very telling how many of the film artists/ designers/ technicians/ directors had a very similar idea of what a “good visual effect” should entail. Even though I’m not a very big movie buff, I definitely do appreciate an impressive movie visual effect, and I have definitely fallen into the trap of liking a movie just for it’s aesthetic/ impressive CGI rather than for it’s actual story. At the same time, I think that a lot of what’s being said in this article is very easily translatable to theater. When are you using too much “technology” to the point that the story is no longer relatable to the audience? What scenic, lighting, sound, and media elements need to converge at just the right time to create something that fits into the world of the play while also capturing the audience’s attention? I really appreciated how the writer and many of the people who were quoted acknowledged the duality between impressiveness and believability. Every artist wants to create captivating and interesting art, but, at the end of the day, art in the world of performance and entertainment serves a very specific purpose; purporting the director’s vision into something an audience is able to emote with.
This article was very eye-opening and goes to show how technology and artistic creativity (which may sound like two opposite things) can blend together and create beautiful products. As technology evolves, art no longer strictly belongs to paint and canvas. It's so interesting to see how valued the importance of realism is for visual effects, and I think in this age where technology is rapidly developing, this can be something that's easily forgotten. It's also intriguing how just like theatre, good visual effects are the ones that blend so well with the story that they go unnoticed, even by professionals in the field, when viewed for the first time. A big takeaway I got from this article is that good visual effects fit seamlessly with the reality of the film's world, but great visual effects push the boundaries of this reality without breaking it. This sounds very hard to achieve, but hopefully after my 4 years here at CMU i will be able to do that regardless of what area I go into.
i honestly am so happy that the regards to the best visual effects first and foremost importance is how it tells the story. Because i think in a great movie with great visuals, if it doesn't aid the narrative who cares. Like with Avatar, the entire movie was about the visuals, with a sort of thrown together plot that was obviously put on the back burner. But for me, like when he mentioned Jurassic Park, it's about a visual fitting in so seamlessly, even if its not the most realistic, but rather if its artistic, that it works and it takes your breath away. The real effects in Mad Max were incredible, but also the beautiful effects of the robot in Ex Machina where entire characters were CG were just as impressive. They're right. It is hard to compare. Because they are both impressive and I'm sure hard to do, but I suppose in the end it's which aided the story and gave the most visual depth.
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