This is one for the more Hollywood-insidery types. I know a lot of you are in the industry and are religious in your fandom of screenwriters and DOPs, etc. I think that's really cool, and I'm hoping you can help me out:


The trailers for Jurassic World look terrible and I think this movie is DOA. And while I'm happy for the Rock, I think San Andreas looks awful as well. The reason I'm disinterested in both of these films is simple; the CGI looks really fake.

The best use of CGI I've ever seen is still the first Jurassic Park. What I've tried to figure out so many times since then is whether it's really still the best or whether it made such an impression on me simply because I was so young when I saw it in theaters (about 8) and the technology was so new at the time.

Nonetheless, CGI isn't going anywhere. We first saw this frail excuse being touted when Lucas decided to make the Star Wars prequels. Of course we all know the line now - the technology wasn't available to make the movies in the 70s, but in the early 2000s the tech had finally caught up with the vision. Not only is this hilariously self-serving of Lucas to say, it also seemed to open up Pandora's box in a way. CGI now seems to be more than a tool; CGI has become a reason to make movies

Having recently read Wired's oral history of Industrial Light and Magic, I was truly surprised to see how adoring major directors like Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard are of CGI. They spoke of the technology in a way that seems to indicate they think it looks real and that it's far better than animatronics. This was strange to me. Those guys obviously know so much more about movies than I do, but does Steven Spielberg REALLY think a CG dinosaur looks better than an animatronic one? And even stranger, do Spielberg and his peers think they're getting performances from their actors that are as authentic as they were in, say, Jaws or ET or JP1?

So my larger question is this - do directors like Spielberg, Howard, Lucas, and Peter Jackson REALLY love CGI because of how it adds to a film OR do they just like the efficiency of it (sending a shot off to the computer guys, spending a day against a green screen in a warehouse versus spending a week making repairs to 20 ton T-Rex for example.)

I'm hoping one of you film guys can help me out, look forward to hearing what you have to say.

15 minute of dinosaurs, 9 done with practical. (According here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=64&v=KWsbcBvYqN8 around 7:50 in)


It still has a lot of stop motion in there. So the 8 great big scenes that happen in CGI had a lot of care applied to them.

And the director had a smaller scope in mind and expanded it when he saw the tools.

Now directors have hundreds/thousands of shots in a 120 minute movie with CGI and never consider doing it in a smaller/ different way to increase the impacts when its used.

I think of CGI as a jump scare. A movie with 2 of them gets you to jump, a movie with 25 of them is just lame.

>15 minute of dinosaurs, 9 done with practical. (According
>here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=64&v=KWsbcBvYqN8 around
>7:50 in)
>
>
>It still has a lot of stop motion in there. So the 8 great big
>scenes that happen in CGI had a lot of care applied to them.
>
>And the director had a smaller scope in mind and expanded it
>when he saw the tools.
>
>Now directors have hundreds/thousands of shots in a 120 minute
>movie with CGI and never consider doing it in a smaller/
>different way to increase the impacts when its used.

Now this may or may not be true. A director of a big-budget action film can think of and want a smaller scale all he wants to, but the people who pay his salary and will take the film from him if and finish it themselves if he does not comply very, very often give notes to make everything "bigger" and "more action-packed" because they feel the need to match or top what's already out there in order to draw audiences.
>
>I think of CGI as a jump scare. A movie with 2 of them gets
>you to jump, a movie with 25 of them is just lame.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

>Having recently read Wired's oral history of Industrial Light
>and Magic, I was truly surprised to see how adoring major
>directors like Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard are of CGI.
>They spoke of the technology in a way that seems to indicate
>they think it looks real and that it's far better than
>animatronics. This was strange to me. Those guys obviously
>know so much more about movies than I do, but does Steven
>Spielberg REALLY think a CG dinosaur looks better than an
>animatronic one?

When done correctly, of course a CGI dinosaur can look better. Easily. It can bend, move, flex, run and smash in ways that would be difficult to impossible to do with animatronics, nevermind expensive. Plus, and this is important, it's a lot easier to manipulate, change, and iterate than animatronics, especially when the studio wants granular changes to the work being done.

And yes, the directors themselves absolutely love CGI, because it makes things possible that simply cannot be achieved through other forms of filmmaking. Plus, CGI used in films is more pervasive than you think. There are special effects shots - lots of them - in rom-coms, musicals like "Dreamgirls" and "Hairspray", regular ass hour-long TV dramas, etc.

And even stranger, do Spielberg and his peers
>think they're getting performances from their actors that are
>as authentic as they were in, say, Jaws or ET or JP1?

This is dependent upon the actors and directors, not necessarily the technology being used. The actors in those films weren't always interacting directly with live props, and you have movies like "Roger Rabbit" with no CGI where much of the cast does a great job of acting opposite thin air.

>
>So my larger question is this - do directors like Spielberg,
>Howard, Lucas, and Peter Jackson REALLY love CGI because of
>how it adds to a film OR do they just like the efficiency of
>it (sending a shot off to the computer guys, spending a day
>against a green screen in a warehouse versus spending a week
>making repairs to 20 ton T-Rex for example.)

Now, I wanna answer this question with a question - why do you have it in your head that it's so damned easy to do CGI? It may be more flexible and, depending upon the application, less expensive than using animatronics, but it shouldn't be dismissed as "oh, they just sent that shot off to the computer guys". Most CGI effects you see in films are painstakingly planned out over months, maybe years, of work, planning, storyboards, layouts, filming, animation, compositing, revisions, etc. There's no big red "animate" button.

When it looks fake or cheesy, that's because the effects house(s) was (were) rushed because of other issues and ran out of time (or, the people assigned just weren't capable enough). All CGi is not created equal.

Also, CGI shots used in trailers are very often still in-progress, and should not necessarily be mistaken for final release print versions. Effects shots in movies are often in production up until it's time to start making delivery prints.

>
>I'm hoping one of you film guys can help me out, look forward
>to hearing what you have to say.

its just easier to plan, manipulate, and change

plus you're already doing CGI for color, special effects, additions, subtractions, etc so you may as well have the team do it all anyway.