The Art of VFX: I used to be an avid gamer but the Uncharted series actually wasn’t something I played before. I did my research at the beginning of the show just to get a gauge on the overall look of the original game and to understand the different sets and levels within the game. This might sound controversial to anyone who is a fan of the game, but to be honest, I didn’t want to get inspired too much by the game visuals anyway. I would rather study the photography that was shot, and get ideas from the art department’s work. It’s important to look at real photography like the island scenery in Thailand, paintings of Spanish Galleons, images of C17 air-planes or crazy parachute stunts and things like that and get ideas from those kinds of material.
3 comments:
I don’t know much about the Uncharted movie, given that I have yet to see it, but I am somewhat familiar with the video game that it was based off of. I have to admit that I was a little dismayed to read that the movie’s VFX director, Sebastian Von Overheidt, didn’t even play or heavily research the original game’s contents when designing his elements for this film. I did hear that the film got some bad reviews and critiques regarding its very loose relevance to the Uncharted video game, and in my opinion, that is definitely something of importance to consider. Disregarding the original work that something is based off of costs authenticity and is almost disrespectful. And while the insane VFXs of this movie are no doubt very impressive and adds well to the action impact of the plot, the fact that it has little to do with the original content of the video game is really off putting.
Only had to read the first paragraph to understand that I wasn't going to like what I was reading. I've gone on rants before about the absolute unwillingness of film studios to maintain authenticity in video game adaptations, and while I don't wish to write a novel here, all I'd like to say is that you can't just make an adaptation of a franchise (especially one that has a well established story and theme) and then simply disregard that history while slapping the name of the franchise on the cover. Who are you making the movie for then? It's insulting when you essentially act as though there's nothing good there to work with. 90% of video game adaptations have this problem sadly, and there are few good ones that pay proper respect to the source material while still telling their own excellent stories (Castlevania, Arcane, for some examples).
All that aside, the VFX work is actually really impressive. You can tell this guy is really invested in what he does, and honestly I do somewhat agree with his desire to work more with what his collaborators have created vs what he has researched. I understand that goes directly against what I said above, but sometimes if it is the will of the production, the only thing you can do to make a polished product is simply work with what is there.
Still disappointed though.
I always find it really funny when film adaptations of books or movies pay almost no heed to the actual source material and make some bland movie of a similar genre but mildly flavored like the title. It definitely is a situation where you need to ask yourself who it is they are trying to appeal to. In the case of a book for instance, if you aren't sticking to the source material you are going to annoy the people that came expecting to see a faithful representation of something they are passionate about, and the people that aren't familiar with the source material will either not pay to see it because they think they will lack context, or they will come see it, be told by fans of the IP that they changed x, y, ort z so it sucks and shouldn't be thought about, and that unfamiliar viewer will simply shrug and move on with their day.
I think it's a fear of failure on the producers part. Why put in effort and have it be hated when you can half ass it and have it be hated?
Post a Comment