Sunday, February 23, 2014

The Fall: Real vs. CGI generated sets

The Fall became one of my favorite movies because of it's visual beauty and the endearing story. I recommend trying to watch the movie, but I selected this clip because it shows a little bit of the beauty of on location shooting.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHfieDi3xwc

Hopefully you've seen this movie before. If not go no further there are SPOILERS.




Roy and Alexandria are recovering in a hospital. Alexandria fell from a tree and broke her collar bone. Roy, a stunt double, was injured during filming. Roy just took some "morphine" pills which Alexandria smuggled to him. He has been telling Alexandria a story in exchange for the pills. The scene is about the masked bandit and his wedding.

I'm going to compare the Great Gatsby (2013 film) with The Fall. Watch this clip so see the Visual effects in the Great Gatsby. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_NreiUYdbw 

Mechanical effects are effects captured by the camera on set. Visual effects are usually done in post-production and added in. Green screens and blue screens are what I'm gong to compare against natural locations.

So as you saw The Great Gatsby was composed of sets and green/blue screens. Green screens portray static backgrounds like buildings known as architectural or fractal (landscape) animation. A blue screen is more advanced, it can create motion. Such as planes flying (Avatar) or eagles (Lord of the Rings). The Fall went to several locations (India, Indonesia, and Africa) and all that you see was real in terms of buildings and background.

Non-animated films should not rely so much on CGI and special effects. Too much animation and why not just animate the movie. Special effects do add to the movie but they should not be a crutch. On location filming is difficult (crowds, the weather, rights), but the results are better than entirely created worlds that don't exist. Location shooting also shows the beauty of the world and give the actor/actress an environment to work off of.



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