VFXhack

What is “Nuking The Fridge”, you ask? Well, according to Urban Dictionary it’s…

A colloquialism used to delineate the precise moment at which a cinematic franchise has crossed over from remote plausibility to self parodying absurdity, usually indicating a low point in the series from which it is unlikely to recover.

Guy 1: “Wow. Did you see the new Indy movie? What the hell was that? It was like I was having some kind of flu induced absurdist nightmare.”

Guy 2: “Yep… did or did not that series permanently Nuke the Fridge?”

“Nuke The Fridge” has official replaced “Jump The Shark” as the term du jour on many Blogs and websites as well as IN the vernaculars of many VFX professionals. Does it trouble anyone else out there that a phrase previously used to conjure nostalgic memories of 70’s era schmaltz and lameness (c’mon Fonz, who wears a leather jacket while they are water skiing?) is now linked to an overwrought effects sequence? I’ve been bemoaning the fact that the modern VFX world is a lot more coulda’ and not enough shoulda’ on this blog for almost a year now and there are signs that things are coming to a head. Are Indy’s CG gophers and the technicolor dragon vomit that made up Speed Racer eliciting a collective cry of “Enough with the CGI already!” from the general public?

A case that a shift in popular opinion might be made based on the recent spat of blog posts and movie reviews based on the subject of a public grown desensitized and weary of movie magic. Scott Nye postED this tidbit on chud.com not to long ago.

But much as I support CGI, I do acknowledge it’s also an overused, lazy way to create what could have been an amazing sequence if done practically

And it’s not just the Matrix Generation thats bent out of shape about the state of visual effects. Johanna Schneller, movie critic at globeandmail.com observes…

I realize that CGI is a thrilling toy, a technology that seems to advance by the minute, that gets more fun the more you play with it. And I realize that in Hollywood, it’s become a tautology: Blockbusters have CGI, so if you want your film to be a bigger blockbuster, it must have ever-more-massive chunks of CGI. But I’m not sure that filmmakers realize what a yawn it is to sit through

This simmering animosity towards VFX has also jumped from film critics and nerds to the video game community. In a post on PTD magazine, William Stapleton asks these tough questions after taking his son to see the new Hulk flick.

what happens when the ‘gee-whiz’ wears off? My grandchildren will take CGI technology for granted, because they’ll grow up in a time when it’s the norm, instead of something that’s new and exciting. I’ll admit, I’ve gone to a few films where the only redeeming quality was the power of its special effects. But what will happen when special effects aren’t ’special’ anymore?

I realize that three fairly obscure blog posts do mot a backlash make, but I have to ask. Is this the begging of the end?. Visual Effects films, like any other cinematic style, have always been subject to cycles of popularity. The cold war fueled sci-fi boom of the 50’s eventually trailed off and didn’t pick back up again until the 70’s. It could be argued that we are on the downside of peak in interest in science fiction (the key driver of the VFX film) that was spurred on by the rise of the Internet. On top of that, we are quickly coming to a point where we are simply going to run out of comic books and sci-fi classics to “re-invent”. What’s next Power Pack:The Movie? Last Starfighter 2: Electric Boogaloo??

We all need to face up to the fact that the current trend of CGI blockbusters may come to an end some day. Heck even the sun will run out of fuel and burn itself out at some point. To survive VFX has to move past the gimmick phase and become a truly integral tool in production. Some films already do a great job of this (Children of Men comes to mind) while most use the technology as a crutch to prop up aging action heros or a way to create asinine comic relief for bad screenplays. Don’t get me wrong the computer artistry that goes into a lot of these films is astounding. Too bad it’s often wasted on a disappointing, or worse yet forgettable, piece of entertainment. Let’s hope that the entire VFX industry hasn’t collectively jumped the shark, I mean, nuked the fridge.

Thanks to VFXPlanet for the links to the stories used in this post

Star Wars kid eat your heart out. Videogum has put up a list of the top 10 lightsaber mashups on the YouTubes. My fav is above (comin’ in at #2) but there are some other gems on the list as well.

LINK to the full Top 10 (via Boing Boing)

The Finns who brought you the movie Star Wreck have just released a teaser trailer for their new film Iron Sky. The basic plot is that Ratzis escape o the moon circa 1945 and are coming back to invade the Earth in 2018. The filmmakers plan to continue the theme of “mocking totalitarianism” is this release but what is more interesting to me than the actual content of the film is the way it is being made. Wreck was made using a large number of volunteers getting individual shots done in locations all over the world. Call it distributed filmmaking if you will. This endeavor seems to take the concept a step or two further and has set-up a collaborative website were users can sign onto the production and pitch shots and ideas for scenes. It will be interesting to see how a single Directors creative vision meshes with a social networking style approach to film production.

Link to the Wreck A Movie collaborative filmmaking platform

You may have seen the Boing Boing post a few days ago about a group of super fans who made there own version of Star Wars : Episode 4 with cardboard props, KFC helmets and a Bobby McFerrin inspired soundtrack. The film makers have also posted a Visual Dictionary of props storyboards and designs that really adds to the whole experience. Click on the picture above to see more.

LINK to the original video

An art student threw together this mash-up “just for fun. Not as a serious artistic endeavor” I don’t know, something like this my have added some interest to the prequels.

thanks to Motiongrapher for the link

Tired of all the Oscar rehash? Head on over to Superpunch and check out there collection of classic movie posters from the winners of the best visual effects Oscars from 1940-1979. The images are great and the site also includes handy links to purchase replicas of these cinematic milestones. Good luck getting your significant other’s permission to hang them in your living room.

LINK to Superpunch the blog

io9 has posted list with video clips of some the great spaceship destructions in film and television history. There are some great ones in here with some especially good examples of models being blasted with pyro. I have to say, the most exhilarating thing VFX is building something t hat looks really cool then packing it full of explosives and watching it get consumed in a ball of fiery oblivion. The only thing I take issue with on this list is the clip from Vanilla Sky which is a car stunt for cryin’ out loud and also the glaring omission of the Rodger Young destruction sequence from Starship Troopers.

LINK to full post on io9 (thanks to Nyarlathotep) for the link

CG Society just came out with it’s list of the 100 Greatest 3d Movies and it’s chock full of tasty links to a treasure trove of material on how the films were created. The list was generated by an online vote on entries from a short list of 150 films. Because of this, this list is a bit skewed towards newer films (Final Fantasy The Spirits Within is number 9 while TRON comes in at 18!). Aside from my feelings about the ordering of the list itself, the article is chock full of useful info. There are several charts and graphs (interesting to see that most of the fx work was done by only 3 companys) as well as a spiffy timeline. But by far the best part of this article is the related links associated with each film. You’ll find, among others, a great article on Low End Mac chronicling the birth of CGI and tid-bit from Alvy Ray Smith’s site talking about the genesis of The Genesis Effect. It’s worth taking the time to cruise through all links to get a taste of what it took to put these films together.

LINK to my vfxhistory tags on del.icio.us (feel free to add your own tags or suggest more in the comments!)

So hey, I admit it. I post a lot about what’s wrong with VFX films today and give off a generally bitter (yet loving) vibe about the industry in general. So it may surprise you to hear that I got a chance to see Cloverfield this weekend and it was great. Sure you can nit-pick, but you gotta hand it to the Bad Robot crew for updating the classic “My God there’s a giant monster trashing the city!” flick and making it interesting and relevant to today’s audience. Kudos to you, nerds who thought up Cloverfield.

Moving on to something I can mock freely…The Asylum is a flimmaking outfit with a simple business plan. Wait for Hollywood to come out with an original movie and quickly, blantantly and mercilessly rip it off . The titles these folks come up with rival the porn industry in their hilarious ridiculosity. Here’s a taste; Snakes on a Train, Pirates of Treasure Island, Transmorphers and my personal fav Da Vinci Treasure. Monster is their latest rip-off of, you guessed it, Cloverfield. In fact, it’s just like Cloverfield except it takes place in Tokyo and the monster isn’t really a monster at all but a slimy, poorly rendered tentacle. Oh I almost forgot, there’s also another important distinction that needs to be made, Monster is a godawful mess of a movie.

To be fair I can’t believe these films are supposed to be good, and it sure is fun to laugh at the trailers. Just don’t try to sit through the entirety of one of these cinematic abortions. It’s much more fun to read the IMBD reviews and save you self a few precious hours of your life that you’ll never get back. Below are some of the more choice reviews for Da Vinci Treasure.

It is impossible to overstate just how bad this film is. Bad acting, scripting, location sets, horribly transparent cost-cutting (the Ford Econoline van with obviously U.S. plates in “Italy” was about the last straw, made worse by the pedestrian attempt to electronically blot out the plate after the van comes to a stop).

And how about

this is by far the most terrible movie i have seen, do yourself a favor and don’t watch it!

Finally, I think this one sums it up nicely

My comments are straight forward; I highly recommend no one watch this movie. If you want to waste your time you’d be better off putting a bullet in your head than watch this movie. I’ve never seen such a stupid, very badly acted and the worst script writing in my entire life.I’d rather watch puke drip down a wall than watch this movie ever again

LINK to the trailer for Monster

There are certain stock visual effects that I’m asked to create over and over again for multiple projects. Creating realistic lightning seems to be one of those things that never goes out of style. If you ever need a shove in the right direction here is some of the reference footage I use most often when starting a project like this

The Real Deal

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY-AS13fl30&NR=1[/youtube]

To get lightning right, you have to look at the subtleties. A good charge has just the right amount of randomness and flow. My favorite reference of the real thing is this big-ass Tesla coil in Oklahoma. Yee-haw!

The Prestige

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOdtR_s9Yjw[/youtube]

Speaking of Tesla, this shot of Bowie walking under the coil is the best example of lightning I’ve come across in recent years. It looks organic and has a great sense of depth to it. That is hard to achieve since the bots themselves have no shading. Subtle differences in the thickness and amount of glow in the bolts realy help this shot out. Interactive lighting at the contact points is key.

Big Trouble In Little China

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2qyeZw9KaM[/youtube]

Now I’m a sucker for hand drawn lightning. In fact I’ve never seen a software solution that looks as good as an animator creating it the old fashioned way, painting it frame by frame. In this clip from the John Carpenter classic, check out the way the bolts contour around body. You just can’t do that with a plug-in. One major drawback to the hand drawn method is that if the client comes up with changes, the frames need to be painted all over again.

Star Wars Episode 6: Return of the Jedi

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsl7bVmLnMw[/youtube]

In my opinion this is the granddaddy of all lighting VFX shots. The lightning looks hella-angry and the smaller discharges on Luke between burst really make you feel the charcge. The illuminated Vader skeleton is just icing on this delicious electric cake. One thing still bothers me though. Would it have killed Yoda to say “Oh, yeah and watch out the emperor shoots lightning out of his fingers so don’t put down your light saber or anything.” before he kicked the bucket?