• halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      This 100%. CGI should be used to enhance traditional special effects, not replace them entirely.

      Also, planning properly for CGI can dramatically reduce both the cost and quality of CG. For instance, recording reference lighting to provide the CG team so they can more accurately make any fully-rendered elements. Don’t just say “they’ll fix it in post”. That’s where CG cost skyrockets.

      • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.works
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        6 days ago

        And if your practical effects are good enough, you don’t need CGI at all. Look how the CGI in The Thing remake absolutely fucked up their beatiful puppet monsters, so that everything looks so off that it destroyed willing suspension of disbelief.

        • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          That’s exactly most likely an example of my last point. CG can look perfectly real. If you have the tools and references needed, or the time to do everything manually frame by frame, which adds up extremely fast.

          Based on the result in The Thing, CGI team almost certainly had no references from actual shooting apart from the bare footage, and even composited shots were inconsistent from each other.

  • xep@fedia.io
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    6 days ago

    Or the market is saying that it doesn’t want blockbuster movies.

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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      6 days ago

      It is probably not looking for movies as big as Avatar.

      A24 has been killing it recently with its small movie strategy, making a lot of bets on small movies that don’t break the bank.

  • Num10ck@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    real artists thrive in constraints. an interesting character having an interesting story arc in an interesting place can all be done at any budget. throwing hundreds of millions at spectacle is missing the point.

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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      6 days ago

      There was a scene in a 70’s movie that James Cameron worked on that needed a computer animated tracking shot of a city. They couldn’t afford the computer time, so they put reflective tape on black painted blocks and manipulated the lighting levels to make it look like the shot was from a computer.

      Maybe do more of that.

      • thessnake03@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        They did the same thing in Escape from New York. The tech existed to make a wire frame nyc skyline when they flew snake in. But the GC was too expensive, so they built a model.

    • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org
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      6 days ago

      I don’t mind his avatar stuff. At worst they are just not good. But they still push boundaries with cgi. But his ai remaster slop is just infuriating

  • BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Yes. Use AI to replace the CEO and suddenly more works gets done without having to capitulate to whinny people, and it is a whole lot cheaper.

  • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    You would think that the guy who produced two movies that are thinly veiled criticisms of humanity exploiting the environment and disturbing native inhabitants for profit would not be supporting the exploitative shit that uses as much electricity as an entire city.

  • Jerkface (any/all)
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    6 days ago

    Why would we want big budget studio movies to survive? Been waiting for them to die for decades.