Tag: special effects

For real? Furious 7 carries the torch for practical effects in movies

The latest entry in the Fast and the Furious franchise is apparently on-track to crush April box office records. There’s a plethora of reasons why the series has been so successful – this entry in particular attracting attention after the death of actor Paul Walker – but its greatest asset might be its continued use … Continue reading “For real? Furious 7 carries the torch for practical effects in movies”

The latest entry in the Fast and the Furious franchise is apparently on-track to crush April box office records. There’s a plethora of reasons why the series has been so successful – this entry in particular attracting attention after the death of actor Paul Walker – but its greatest asset might be its continued use real, practical effects. In era when films can use CGI to portray all manner of spectacle (something that audiences no longer find as appealing), the Fast and the Furious movies still use real cars and real stuntwork. Yes, even Furious 7‘s ridiculous cars-falling-out-of-a-plan scene actually happened.

HitFix quickly points out that despite the recent glut of CGI, Furious 7 is only the most recent movie to use practical effects in stunning ways. Writer Emily Rome points out twelve other examples – some recent, some quite old – when filmmakers did the real thing instead of faking it. Our favorite tidbit? Christopher Nolan actually upended a truck in Chicago’s financial district for The Dark Knight. And the Red Sea in the 1956’s The Ten Commandments came as close to parting as possible: effects workers simulated the scene by reversing footage of a studio tank filling up from the sides.

The human eye can somehow tell when something is computer-animated. Films like the ones mentioned by HitFix might have cost more to produce, but they undeniably pack powerful that you can’t get from rendering software. Pick up the DVDs for any of those films and check out the special features for more in-depth looks at how they pulled off their madness.

Super Bowl trailer offers a rare insight into the modern CGI process

You may have watched the Super Bowl yesterday and caught the new trailer for Jurassic World. Pretty cool, right? Dinosaurs! Panic! Familiar music! But between the screaming crowds and velociraptor herds, you might not have noticed the significant changes to the film’s general tone an appearance. As Slashfilm points out, the two trailers are a … Continue reading “Super Bowl trailer offers a rare insight into the modern CGI process”

You may have watched the Super Bowl yesterday and caught the new trailer for Jurassic World. Pretty cool, right? Dinosaurs! Panic! Familiar music! But between the screaming crowds and velociraptor herds, you might not have noticed the significant changes to the film’s general tone an appearance. As Slashfilm points out, the two trailers are a fascinating window into the extent to which special effects and color correction allow filmmakers to alter their original shots dramatically.

Wired specifically focuses on the shot of a giant aquatic dinosaur (creature?) eating a baited shark. Within the three-to-four months since the initial trailer, the special effects artists have completely changed the backdrop of the scene, improved the quality of the water, and adjusted the overall palette – all without refilming the scene. We sometimes get to see this sort of work-in-progress technical magic as a DVD special feature, but it’s somehow more entertaining to see it happening in real-time. We don’t just get to see where they put the green screen: we get to watch the art direction change.

We’re of course looking forward to Jurassic World, but now, we sort of just want to see how the final product differs.

Celebrating Petro Vlahos, father of modern visual effects

Petro Vlahos, an unheralded genius of modern filmmaking, died yesterday at age 96. Though not a household name in special effects like James Cameron, Peter Jackson, or Michael Bay, Vlahos laid the foundation for all future filmmakers. Vlahos invented bluescreen (“chroma key”) technology, first used in 1940 for The Thief of Bagdad and still used … Continue reading “Celebrating Petro Vlahos, father of modern visual effects”

Petro Vlahos, an unheralded genius of modern filmmaking, died yesterday at age 96. Though not a household name in special effects like James Cameron, Peter Jackson, or Michael Bay, Vlahos laid the foundation for all future filmmakers. Vlahos invented bluescreen (“chroma key”) technology, first used in 1940 for The Thief of Bagdad and still used today in nearly every film with a visual effects shot.

Vlahos’s initial uses of the bluescreen were fairly tame, allowing Charlton Heston to race chariots in Ben-Hur or letting Dick Van Dyke dance with animated penguins in Mary Poppins. Nowadays, entire sets are constructed from chroma key backdrops, and most video editing software supports some form of greenscreen technology. Vlahos’s work has been improved over the years but remains conceptually unchanged from his original idea 73 years ago.

It would be ridiculous to list every movie that uses some form of Vlahos’s chroma key technology, as it would probably include every major film of the last half-century. Instead, here are a few movies to which Petro Vlahos directly lent his visual effects wizardry. Each one of these won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

Ben-Hur – HU DVD 3857
Mary Poppins – HU DVD 7850
The Thief of Bagdad: An Arabian Fantasy – HU DVD 8101

Check out this Motionographer interview about the creation of the opening titles for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

“Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Title Sequence by Blur from Motionographer on Vimeo. Check out this great Motionographer article/interview with Blur Studio where they discuss the creation of the opening titles for David Fincher‘s the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Blur Talks: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Titles (Posted by Motionographer Staff) If you … Continue reading “Check out this Motionographer interview about the creation of the opening titles for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”

“Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Title Sequence by Blur from Motionographer on Vimeo.

Check out this great Motionographer article/interview with Blur Studio where they discuss the creation of the opening titles for David Fincher‘s the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Blur Talks: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Titles (Posted by Motionographer Staff)

If you haven’t seen Blur’s opening titles for David Fincher’s rendition of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, now would be a good time to climb out from under your rock and check them out (above).

In addition to listing the top-billed talent in a film, the role of a good opening credit sequence is to mentally prep the audience for the ensuing film. In that regard, Blur’s titles are an exemplary specimen — perhaps the best from 2011. When the final frame flickers past, your heart rate will have doubled and your pupils will have fully dilated. Consider yourself ready.

Blur’s Tim Miller was kind enough to give us some background on the titles and share some making-of videos with us. Make sure to read on past the jump for all the goodies.

I don’t typically think of Blur as a designer of film title sequences, but it seems you guys are making a push to be regarded as much for your design chops as for your animation skills. Is that a fair assumption? What’s the plan?

We’ve always had an inhouse design group, it’s just not a large as the animation/FX side. So we’ve always been in the game. As for movie titles, I would say this was more a project of opportunity than part of some uber-plan. We’ve done other projects with Fincher in the past, and we have several on-going film development projects with him. For what David had in mind for this title, we were just a natural fit.

But with that said we would like to capitalize on the work. We enjoyed the process, and we like to mix it up and do different styles of work. So hopefully there will be other opportunities for us like this. It’s nice to do something that doesn’t have a big explosion, aliens or gunfire for a change. Though, of course, we love all that stuff!

Excerpted from Motionographer

See the rest of the interview, including some additional videos here.