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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Jan 10, 2007 21:15:42 GMT
Now, Fallingstar, I think we are on the same wavelength. Yes, a stylistic slightly exaggerated look but with detailed textures would look great if done right. And thanks for your kind comments Actually a good example of what I would like would be the comic version of TWOTW that was online by Darkhorse. Did you see the artwork and characters in that Fallingstar? Basically, the people had a realistic look, yet slightly exaggerated features- a lot like we are discussing. Now the same style but using highly detailed cg work would come across very well I think. Which reminds me! - I'll have to have another look at the Dark Horse strip but I seem to remember I only saw a couple of pages and for some reason I forgot to look at the rest. Again, I suppose it could work but I would have serious reservations about it and if I'm brutally honest - I still think the only route is to either have ultra realistic cgi humans - even better than F.Fantasy Advents Children or something like the way Sky Captain was done - real humans with computer generated every thing else. I can just imagine some people saying this about stylised humans - "The film was good but the humans looked weird"
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Post by jeffwaynefan on Jan 11, 2007 0:00:18 GMT
Lol, and not forgetting Hines flying Big Ben which looked as if it was made of plasticine! ;D It was!
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Post by wastedyuthe on Jan 11, 2007 10:19:13 GMT
Now, Fallingstar, I think we are on the same wavelength. Yes, a stylistic slightly exaggerated look but with detailed textures would look great if done right. And thanks for your kind comments Actually a good example of what I would like would be the comic version of TWOTW that was online by Darkhorse. Did you see the artwork and characters in that Fallingstar? Basically, the people had a realistic look, yet slightly exaggerated features- a lot like we are discussing. Now the same style but using highly detailed cg work would come across very well I think. Which reminds me! - I'll have to have another look at the Dark Horse strip but I seem to remember I only saw a couple of pages and for some reason I forgot to look at the rest. Again, I suppose it could work but I would have serious reservations about it and if I'm brutally honest - I still think the only route is to either have ultra realistic cgi humans - even better than F.Fantasy Advents Children or something like the way Sky Captain was done - real humans with computer generated every thing else. I can just imagine some people saying this about stylised humans - "The film was good but the humans looked weird" Well this is where opinions will vary. You see there is the other side of the coin too, which I touched upon on my first post. If you have 'ultra realistic' humans as you put it, then they too will be critisized for looking wierd- in every single cg film yet that has attempted to have realistic humans animated, they have all only come close to being real, but never real enough, and viewers will pick up on that. Not only that, but viewers will be looking out for that too. Instead of viewers watching the film for the story, they will be looking at the characters and thinking 'ooh, that looked quite real then, but this bit looks quite fake'. My point is this- if something is pretending to be something else (in this case cg pretending to be real) then people will pick at it, yet if it's cg acting as nothing but cg, people will take it for what it is and just enjoy the film. With your other point about Sky Captain- yes that could work if done right. But it must be hard for actors to associate themselves with their surroundings when they only see bluescreens and blue boxes etc. And what about crowd scenes- it would be more cost effective to have a cg crowd than having to hire thousands of extras. And you wouldn't want the same trick of duplicating actors like they did with the stage show cg would you? By the way Fallingstar- good discussion going here
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Post by Lensman on Jan 11, 2007 10:59:25 GMT
Films like "Spirited Away" and "Ghost in the Shell" show what you can do with the animated film, even *not* going for a photo-real look, and still tell an absorbing story which is not at all aimed at kids. I believe a *good* adaptation of Wells' novel could be made that way, but still I'd prefer to see something which looks real, or as close to it as possible.
Depicting humans or near-humans in animated form should either go for as much realism as possible, or pull back and leave them as obvious cartoons. The problem with films like "Final Fantasy" was they tried to make them look real, but we *know* what humans really look like on film, so when it doesn't quite match the result is jarring. And on a similar note, Disney made a big mistake by trying to make the central character in their animated features more and more realistic. Snow White was fine, but then Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty tried for more realistic appearance and movement, but the result was the opposite-- they wound up looking like Barbie dolls.
Fortunately, with Disney's more recent crop of Animated hits, such as "Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast" they have pulled back from too much realism. Allowing them to *be* cartoon characters allows much more expression and freedom of movement, which better fits with the cartoon style.
For realistic human-like characters in an animated film, film-makers should use motion capture and a real human performer. That greatly contributed to the realism of the Gollum character in "Lord of the Rings", and facial motion capture was recently used on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequel to capture the expressions and moods of the Davy Jones character-- quite successfully.
Using real humans and doing motion capture brings a spontaneity and realism to the performance, which otherwise is mechanical and lifeless-- which is a lot of what's wrong with "Final Fantasy".
If the CGI on Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds" is up to the level of character animation on Gollum or the various creatures in "The Chronicles of Narnia" then I think most of us will be quite happy with the result.
I say "most" rather than "all" because there's just no pleasing some people. There were outraged responses from some of the die-hard purist Tolkien fans over the liberties Peter Jackson took with "The Fellowship of the Ring". I expect to see the same thing on this forum even if Jeff Wayne manages to pull off something of equal quality.
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Post by wastedyuthe on Jan 11, 2007 12:30:26 GMT
Well put Lensman, as always
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Jan 12, 2007 4:52:42 GMT
Which reminds me! - I'll have to have another look at the Dark Horse strip but I seem to remember I only saw a couple of pages and for some reason I forgot to look at the rest. Again, I suppose it could work but I would have serious reservations about it and if I'm brutally honest - I still think the only route is to either have ultra realistic cgi humans - even better than F.Fantasy Advents Children or something like the way Sky Captain was done - real humans with computer generated every thing else. I can just imagine some people saying this about stylised humans - "The film was good but the humans looked weird" Well this is where opinions will vary. You see there is the other side of the coin too, which I touched upon on my first post. If you have 'ultra realistic' humans as you put it, then they too will be critisized for looking wierd- in every single cg film yet that has attempted to have realistic humans animated, they have all only come close to being real, but never real enough, and viewers will pick up on that. Not only that, but viewers will be looking out for that too. Instead of viewers watching the film for the story, they will be looking at the characters and thinking 'ooh, that looked quite real then, but this bit looks quite fake'. My point is this- if something is pretending to be something else (in this case cg pretending to be real) then people will pick at it, yet if it's cg acting as nothing but cg, people will take it for what it is and just enjoy the film. With your other point about Sky Captain- yes that could work if done right. But it must be hard for actors to associate themselves with their surroundings when they only see bluescreens and blue boxes etc. And what about crowd scenes- it would be more cost effective to have a cg crowd than having to hire thousands of extras. And you wouldn't want the same trick of duplicating actors like they did with the stage show cg would you? By the way Fallingstar- good discussion going here Thanks! I see your point about something pretending to be something else and people picking up on that but I get the feeling that for a start - if the exaggerated humans route was taken, then that would be an excuse to not have things like very realistic skin, eyes and hair etc and we'd end up with something a bit dodgy. Again I'm not saying it wouldn't work but I think that they could only make very slight exaggerations to the human form anyway - otherwise the people could look ridiculous. On to the Sky Captain thing - well I don't really buy this thing about actors not being able to react/associate themselves with just a blue screen etc. I think if they're good actors that they would take that in their stride. As for the crowds well those scenes were from what we know knocked up fairly quickly and I think it's fairly certain that if they were doing the film then they wouldn't have the same people duplicated and they wouldn't have to hire thousands of extras etc as crowds can be done convincingly by cgi.
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Post by wastedyuthe on Jan 12, 2007 9:12:33 GMT
I like your description- 'a bit dodgy'! Ha! Of course I wouldn't want the characters TOO exagerated myself, and I think that would work with the detailed textures. Again, I refer you to the Dark Horse comic (you can still read it online for free). The characters in that would be ideal I feel- not too over the top, but not pretending to be real life at the same time. Perhaps a realistic cg crowd might work with the Sky Captain route. I think if they do go down that route, then I would be happy with it. If they don't, then I would be happy with the Dark Horse comic type characters instead of imitating real life. Either way suits me. What do you think?
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Post by jeffwaynefan on Jan 12, 2007 11:52:22 GMT
With the realismn that can be used in todays CGI for creating landscapes and buildings, my ideal vision of this film would be to see live actors, live surroundings with CGI buildings and added CGI landscapes with CGI martians & machines.
Though a fully blown CGI film would be neat, or even a obvious looking cartoonish appearance would also work in favour of the 1978 paintings, a 'live' approach would be my preferred choice.
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Post by Rob on Jan 12, 2007 11:55:41 GMT
agree completely Horsell
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Post by Thunder Child on Jan 12, 2007 13:21:12 GMT
Same here!
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Post by Killraven on Jan 14, 2007 14:44:52 GMT
With the realism that can be used in todays CGI for creating landscapes and buildings, my ideal vision of this film would be to see live actors, live surroundings with CGI buildings and added CGI landscapes with CGI martians & machines. Bearing in mind however that that's exactly what both Hines and Spielberg tried to do...with limited success KR
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Post by mctoddridesagain on Jan 14, 2007 15:01:17 GMT
With the realism that can be used in todays CGI for creating landscapes and buildings, my ideal vision of this film would be to see live actors, live surroundings with CGI buildings and added CGI landscapes with CGI martians & machines. Bearing in mind however that that's exactly what both Hines and Spielberg tried to do...with limited success But that was because: - Hines had sod-all budget and no professional technicians, which is like asking a plumber to do brain surgery and then being surprised when the patient dies. - Spielberg completely changed the entire plot/setting/characters etc. So it's a bit unfair to use those as examples of how real-people-in-CG-settings doesn't work.
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Post by Lensman on Jan 14, 2007 15:55:01 GMT
McTodd is entirely correct. *If* Spielberg had decided to to a faithful, period adaptation of the novel, we wouldn't be complaining about the FX.
But a completely faithful version from Spielberg was never gonna happen. Read the original novels for Jurassic Park and Jaws and you'll see what I mean. Spielberg has to put his own spin on things.
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Jan 14, 2007 17:50:39 GMT
I like your description- 'a bit dodgy'! Ha! Of course I wouldn't want the characters TOO exagerated myself, and I think that would work with the detailed textures. Again, I refer you to the Dark Horse comic (you can still read it online for free). The characters in that would be ideal I feel- not too over the top, but not pretending to be real life at the same time. Perhaps a realistic cg crowd might work with the Sky Captain route. I think if they do go down that route, then I would be happy with it. If they don't, then I would be happy with the Dark Horse comic type characters instead of imitating real life. Either way suits me. What do you think? Hard to say - but I seem to be drifting more and more to the Sky Captain route.
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Jan 14, 2007 17:56:45 GMT
Bearing in mind however that that's exactly what both Hines and Spielberg tried to do...with limited success But that was because: - Hines had sod-all budget and no professional technicians, which is like asking a plumber to do brain surgery and then being surprised when the patient dies. - Spielberg completely changed the entire plot/setting/characters etc. So it's a bit unfair to use those as examples of how real-people-in-CG-settings doesn't work. Exactly! Even though the tour cgi trailer was just for the tour and rushed - it still captured more from the book than any of the others combined. The only thing that was better in Spielbergs version was the realism and perhaps design of the tripods.
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Post by Killraven on Jan 15, 2007 14:17:17 GMT
Bearing in mind however that that's exactly what both Hines and Spielberg tried to do...with limited success But that was because: - Hines had sod-all budget and no professional technicians, which is like asking a plumber to do brain surgery and then being surprised when the patient dies. - Spielberg completely changed the entire plot/setting/characters etc. So it's a bit unfair to use those as examples of how real-people-in-CG-settings doesn't work. The point I was actually trying to make is that with a concept like WOTW with its requirement for falling cylinders, marching tripods, exploding buildings and burning humans it is nowadays a practical necessity to use CGI, especially since model work is so time consuming and period locations so hard to find. So basically any sci fi action film nowadays is a blend of real locations, real people, and added CGI. Which is not AFAIK what Jeff Wayne is planning to do. He is making a wholly CGI film. If it were to become as 'live action' as H_C is suggesting, then it simply turns into a what would now be seen as a conventional film. That's not to say that if Jeff DID do a regular film it wouldn't be better than either Pendragon's or Dreamworks' efforts (after all he couldn't do much worse! ;D) KR
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Jan 15, 2007 17:26:36 GMT
But that was because: - Hines had sod-all budget and no professional technicians, which is like asking a plumber to do brain surgery and then being surprised when the patient dies. - Spielberg completely changed the entire plot/setting/characters etc. So it's a bit unfair to use those as examples of how real-people-in-CG-settings doesn't work. The point I was actually trying to make is that with a concept like WOTW with its requirement for falling cylinders, marching tripods, exploding buildings and burning humans it is nowadays a practical necessity to use CGI, especially since model work is so time consuming and period locations so hard to find. So basically any sci fi action film nowadays is a blend of real locations, real people, and added CGI. Which is not AFAIK what Jeff Wayne is planning to do. He is making a wholly CGI film. If it were to become as 'live action' as H_C is suggesting, then it simply turns into a what would now be seen as a conventional film. That's not to say that if Jeff DID do a regular film it wouldn't be better than either Pendragon's or Dreamworks' efforts (after all he couldn't do much worse! ;D) KR First off - what's wrong with it being seen as a conventional film? If it's all cgi then that could be just seen as a conventional cgi animated film too - so it works both ways! I think the humans are going to have to look VERY convincing for a wholly cgi film to work [ even slightly stylised ones ] and don't forget Sky Captain was - apart from the humans - all cgi. The ONLY advantage I can see with ALL cgi is that the people would automatically be fixed in the mind as WOTW characters and nothing else - but again I think the humans would have to look really convincing and not video gamish for it to work.
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vibe
New Member
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Post by vibe on Jan 21, 2007 15:41:06 GMT
To me there's no point in trying to do a photo real all CG movie. Why spend enormous ammounts of cash to achieve something that can be captured with a camera more effectively & much more cheaply? The only reason CG is used in a photo real capacity is to create shots that can't be done any other way, ie dinosaurs, Davy Jones, tripods, etc. The rule is, if it can be filmed, then film it. The only reason to attempt a photo real GC human is for shots that are too dangerous for a stuntman to perform. Any other kind of performance should be performed by an actor. There is at present an attempt to resurrect Bruce Lee in a new film. This is a diferent ball game as Bruce is unable to perform for a new role, so good luck to the makers of that venture. It may well be entertaining, but if they are going to bill it as a photo real character performance, they are setting themselved up for a fall, it's just not possible. That's where final fantasy came undone, it should never have been called photo real. It's a visually beautiful piece of work, but in a style. There's nothing wrong with being stylized. It's where a medium like GC excells. You can still fill it with lovingly crafted textures, lighting, modelling, animation, etc in a realistic pallette, but it doesn't have to always try to fool people into thinking they are watching something photographed. It's like if people dimismissed paintings by Da Vinci because, although it's very realistic, it's not real enough to fool anyone that it's a photograph. It's a well crafted piece of work, to be enjoyed for what it is.
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Post by Killraven on Jan 21, 2007 21:12:00 GMT
The point I was actually trying to make is that with a concept like WOTW with its requirement for falling cylinders, marching tripods, exploding buildings and burning humans it is nowadays a practical necessity to use CGI, especially since model work is so time consuming and period locations so hard to find. So basically any sci fi action film nowadays is a blend of real locations, real people, and added CGI. Which is not AFAIK what Jeff Wayne is planning to do. He is making a wholly CGI film. If it were to become as 'live action' as H_C is suggesting, then it simply turns into a what would now be seen as a conventional film. That's not to say that if Jeff DID do a regular film it wouldn't be better than either Pendragon's or Dreamworks' efforts (after all he couldn't do much worse! ;D) KR First off - what's wrong with it being seen as a conventional film? If it's all cgi then that could be just seen as a conventional cgi animated film too - so it works both ways! I think the humans are going to have to look VERY convincing for a wholly cgi film to work [ even slightly stylised ones ] and don't forget Sky Captain was - apart from the humans - all cgi. The ONLY advantage I can see with ALL cgi is that the people would automatically be fixed in the mind as WOTW characters and nothing else - but again I think the humans would have to look really convincing and not video gamish for it to work. FS...like I said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with JW making a 'conventional' film, if that's what he chooses to do. But I sense you're playing semantics with me just a leeetle bit ;D When I say conventional film, I just mean a regular film made in the traditional way with live actors and sets. I know the boundaries have blurred of late, especially with the latter Star Wars films, but in essence they are still films and not animations. The way I see JW's film is being made in a way not dissimilar to the way Pixar make films... just in a less cartoonish way. As I said, I would be happy with 'Watership Down' or 'The Wall' style animation, but done in CG with all the rough edges ironed out. Or even a much enhanced version of the animation for the Rage computer game with smooth scrolling. Much like the Bluemonkey (?) trailer in fact. KR
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Jan 23, 2007 19:38:48 GMT
First off - what's wrong with it being seen as a conventional film? If it's all cgi then that could be just seen as a conventional cgi animated film too - so it works both ways! I think the humans are going to have to look VERY convincing for a wholly cgi film to work [ even slightly stylised ones ] and don't forget Sky Captain was - apart from the humans - all cgi. The ONLY advantage I can see with ALL cgi is that the people would automatically be fixed in the mind as WOTW characters and nothing else - but again I think the humans would have to look really convincing and not video gamish for it to work. FS...like I said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with JW making a 'conventional' film, if that's what he chooses to do. But I sense you're playing semantics with me just a leeetle bit ;D When I say conventional film, I just mean a regular film made in the traditional way with live actors and sets. I know the boundaries have blurred of late, especially with the latter Star Wars films, but in essence they are still films and not animations. The way I see JW's film is being made in a way not dissimilar to the way Pixar make films... just in a less cartoonish way. As I said, I would be happy with 'Watership Down' or 'The Wall' style animation, but done in CG with all the rough edges ironed out. Or even a much enhanced version of the animation for the Rage computer game with smooth scrolling. Much like the Bluemonkey (?) trailer in fact. KR When you say you wouldn't mind seeing W.Down or The Wall type animation with all the rough edges ironed out - surely you don't mean you wouldn't mind seeing virtually conventional hand drawn type animation KR - or do you?
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