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CGI About to Boom In Hollywood 340

Posted by CmdrTaco from the whats-your-vector-victor dept.
FortKnox writes "Because of the success of "Monsters Inc" and "Shrek", many major hollywood studios are scrambling getting on the CGI bandwagon. Looks like we're about to get smothered by CGI movies left and right. For those that like to tinker with CG, it might be a good time to go jobhunting..." Several upcoming movies mentioned. Some ven look like they might have potential ;)
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CGI About to Boom In Hollywood More

CGI About to Boom In Hollywood

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  • Hey Hollywood... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Spackler ( 223562 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:28PM (#2775909) Journal
    Don't forget that Shrek (and both Toy Story movies for that matter) was a great movie because it had a good script! If you just put out the same crap (*cough* FF *cough*), it will not be successful.

    1. Write a good script

    2. Make it with good actors (LOTR) or CGI.

    3. Make money.

    It is really pretty simple.

    • Re:Hey Hollywood... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by stew77 ( 412272 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:32PM (#2775933)
      Definately true. Shrek would even have been a great success if it wasn't high quality CGI but bad cartoons like the Tracy Ullman Simpsons. At least, I went to see Shreck because of the graphics, but I ended up laughing my ass off and couldn't pay any attention to the rendering at all.
      • Definately true. Shrek would even have been a great success if it wasn't high quality CGI but bad cartoons like the Tracy Ullman Simpsons. At least, I went to see Shreck because of the graphics, but I ended up laughing my ass off and couldn't pay any attention to the rendering at all.

        I disagree. Many of the visual jokes in Pixar's creations would not work with cartoons. They are incredibly skilled at finding what works with their chosen medium and using it. Do you honestly think that "For the Birds" or the infamous "Luxo Junior" or "Tin Toy" would be funny as a hand-drawn cartoon? I don't. But as rendered animation, it works, and is funny as can be.

        I actually had this discussion with my girlfriend in the theatre for Monsters, Inc. about "For the Birds" and she, even though not the rendered animation freak I am, agreed :)

    • Re:Hey Hollywood... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DeadVulcan ( 182139 ) <dead,vulcan&pobox,com> on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:34PM (#2775948)

      Unfortunately, there's a principle in movies called MOTSS ("more of the same stuff"... or for the cynical, "more of the same sh*t").

      And even more unfortunately, sometimes that principle actually works, really REALLY well.

      *sigh*

    • Re:Hey Hollywood... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rgmoore ( 133276 ) <glandauer@charter.net> on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:47PM (#2776019) Homepage
      2. Make it with good actors (LOTR) or CGI.

      Any real animation fan will tell you that using CGI (or conventional cell animation) doesn't eliminate the need for good actors. The quality of the voice acting in an animated feature can make a huge difference in its overall quality.

      To take a particularly strong negative example, consider JarJar Binks. His antics in Phantom Menace were certainly distracting, but it was the awful voice acting that made him so utterly annoying. On the positive side, look at your examples of Shrek and Toy Story. Both movies had top name actors providing the voices for key characters. In Japan, the best seiyuu (voice actors) in anime can be nationally famous just for their vocal talents.

      • Re:Hey Hollywood... (Score:5, Informative)

        by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @08:22PM (#2776459)
        On the positive side, look at your examples of Shrek and Toy Story. Both movies had top name actors providing the voices for key characters.

        Indeed. Much of the success of the two Toy Story movies was due the fact they very effectively used voice talent--they got famous actors whose voice really made the movie go.

        A Japanese seiyuu can become extremely famous if they do a large number of very good anime series. A good example is Hayashibara Megumi: she voiced Lina Inverse in three Slayers TV series, Ayanami Rei in Shin Seiki Evangelion, and Lime in two Saber Marionette TV series (among many other voice acting credits). She also has two radio shows in Japan and is a frequent guest on many Japanese entertainment shows. Even though most of use don't understand Japanese, you can understand why she's so famous in Japan--her voice acting skills range from very subdued to over-the-top hyperkenetic, and she pulls it off extremely effectively.
  • Good! The best part about CGI are the bloopers and outtakes. Funny!

    Oh, that's sarcasm btw.

    • Re:Bloopers (Score:3, Funny)

      by Alsee ( 515537 )
      Good! The best part about CGI are the bloopers and outtakes. Funny!

      Oh, that's sarcasm btw.

      I guess you haven't heard about the Toy Story scene where Mr. Potatohead pulls his eyes off and sticks them under Bo-Peep's dress!

      I *REALLY* want to get my hands on that!

      AFAIK it hasn't escaped from Pixar's private insider collection.

      -
      • I liked the way they did 'bloopers' on the Shrek DVD. Instead of contrived bloopers, they showed rendering errors. The result of a small tweak to one particular rendering algorithm (I won't spoil it) was CLASSIC.
        • In the triple pack they put on sale a few months ago. The third DVD contained a shitload of extras, including badly rendered sequences, misplaced artifacts, etc.

          And while on the subject of contrived bloopers, I'm really not pleased with the "release the movie now, release the bloopers in 4 weeks" strategy that certain studios have adapted. Like I'm gonna sit through Monsters twice. It's cute, but in the end it's just another buddy picture. Like Lethal Weapon or Rush Hour.
  • I certainly hope that the producers of these wonder-CGI flicks understand that the reason that movies like "Shrek" and "Monsters, Inc." did well is that they had funny and original plots; the fact that they were digitally rendered was simply an added bonus.

    Don't get me wrong; I'd like to see more CG films, but I don't really want that all-familliar Hollywood trend of copying an idea to death.

    I predict that there will be a few good flicks out of this rush, and a whole bunch of lousy, plotless, kindergarten-quality films about wombats and potatoes.
    • What I'm afraid of is when movies like "Antz" do better at the box office than movies like "A Bug's Life".

      Then, the era of "garbage CGI" will have truly dawned. Understand that Pixar are geeks. They get into nerdy things like developing the next coolest rendering technology. IIRC, "Gerri's Game" (the short about an old man who gets into a chess game with himself, and loses) was more of a technology demonstration about rendering hair more realistically - a proof of concept for the technology in Monsters Inc.
      Us geeks watched Monsters Inc. and wowed over the supremely cool hair rendering, and wondered where they got enough CPU to do it all. While the "unwashed masses" went to go see a piece of crap like Jimmy Neutron, which was, while amusing, - it was technically a peice of crap. In the end, per dollar invested up front in engineering and production quality, I'll bet movies like Jimmy Neutron are going to end up being more profitable in the end. Which sucks.
      Which business model do YOU think Hollywood will favor?

  • Hmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DeadVulcan ( 182139 ) <dead,vulcan&pobox,com> on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:29PM (#2775919)
    I just hope they realize that the success of "Shrek" had nothing to do with the fact that it was CGI, and that merely using CGI will not necessarily guarantee them the success of "Shrek."
  • With the rise of all these computer generated images in film there might be no real actors soon !!!
    This is very bad !
    Real actors often act as projection surfaces for the phantasies of people like Natalie Portman. I doubt that CG actors will do the same, at least they are really artificial.

    Also actors act as role model for little children making them bright, healthy and law-abiding citizens.
    Without real live actor these will be gone. The only role models for little children will be the other people they see on news on TV - politicians and terrorists.
    Would you like George "Duyba" Bush, Tony Blair or even Osama bin Laden to be a role model for your children ?

    So all these CG movies are really very bad and might lead to reduction of morale in the free modern western civilization.

    • Real actors often act as projection surfaces for the phantasies of people like Natalie Portman. I doubt that CG actors will do the same, at least they are really artificial.

      So wait...you're saying Aki didn't do anything for you in FF? I left the theatre depressed because (unlike Catherine Zeta-Jones) I was attracted to someone who didn't even exist...damn them
      • I know what you mean. I totally want to fuck Dot Matrix in Reboot (Third season, in the Elvira costume, none of that first season unibreast crap).

        Talk about a totally submissive woman! Write the right macro, and she's your love-slave for ever!
    • I guess the little children's parents are no longer a factor then.

      Damn. And I was so looking forward to bringing up my own kids...


    • Would you like George "Duyba" Bush, Tony Blair or even Osama bin Laden to be a role model for your children ?

      No, yes, and no, respectively.

  • Okay article, but... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by gkbarr ( 124078 )
    they never mentioned "Final Fantasy" when talking about big-time CGI films. Maybe I'm just a geek, but I thought the CG landscapes (and the whole film) were amazing. Certainly much more realistic than Shrek's cartoonish CG scapes.

    I still live action actors, so maybe a combination (Roger Rabbit, Cool World, etc.) of CG and live action is on the horizon.

  • Molly Star Racer (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:32PM (#2775931)
    Is an Anime-style cartoon from Sav! The World productions, which is french. (So anime-inspired that it's even got a JPop soundtrack) It's entirely CG, although it's flat-shaded so that it looks like traditional cel animation, albeit with spectacular eeffects and attention to detail. It looks neat, but will cost about $300,000 per episode to produce.

    You can see an Mpeg format trailer here:

    http://www.savtheworld.com/ [savtheworld.com]

    • Re:Molly Star Racer (Score:4, Funny)

      by talonyx ( 125221 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:41PM (#2775983)
      For $300k per episode you'd think they could at least spell "save".
    • I can't help but think 'I have no nose and I must sneeze!' when I see this, but otherwise it's pretty nifty...
    • Wow, I liked it.

      And the reason I think it's so uber-cool is because it's not brainlessly trying to look like Japanimation (like recent Disney efforts). The French influence is very strong - it almost has that 1970's French comic-book look to it. And as a die-hard Moebius fan, that makes me very happy.

      I also like the way they did the CGI. It's very laid back, and it gives the 3d motion a lot of life that would otherwise be missing in hand-drawn animation. But UNLIKE the same attempt in The Iron Giant, it doesn't jump off the screen and smack you in the face with "CGI precision!!!". It retains some semblance of unity. The only problem I had with it was the running scene at the end, there girl running looked a bit stiff and unnatural. There's just something that hand animators do that CGI just can't seem to handle yet, and that's the human form at a gallop.
      (in all fairness, I think that Pixar licked that one in Monsters. Hell, they even got the pee-pee dance down!)

  • animation trends in general (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nanojath ( 265940 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:33PM (#2775936) Homepage Journal
    Not to ignore the tech aspect, but I think that this speaks just as much to a steadily increasing profile for animation in general. From the Simpsons, MTV's experiments with Liquid Television and series like Aeon Flux, the increasing profile of anime (major full lengths now debut with national albeit limited distribution in a place like the States): I think it's safe to say that the ability of animation to drawq a broad crowd with diversity of gender and age has been proven - certainly just as important as developments in CGI and the sucess of CGI projects.


    Of course, as ususal many studios will slap together formulaic, crummy projects driven by the idea that CGI means a movie on the cheap (no locations! no actors!). They'll tank, and some burned studios will think twice before the next one. And even if the product is decent - I watched "Osmosis Jones" on video this weekend and enjoyed it quite a bit - it may pan because there are no sure things in entertainment.

  • MORE CLONES!!

    MORE SEQUELS!!!

    MORE PIXELS!!!!

    HIGHER BUDGETS!!!!

    MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE!!!!!

    One. ONE decent memorable character. ONE good storyline that wasn't licensed from a book. (Notice where the REALLY good movies come from?) ONE skillful use of setting, or non-canned music, or silence, or symbolism, or metaphor.

    All the money in Hollywood, and NONE OF THESE THINGS can be produced, apparently.

    But they can spend NINE FIGURES on CG!! Oh, sure. No problem.

    Funny. The game industry is trying desperately to be Hollywood, and Hollywood is trying frantically to be the game industry.

    Maybe instead of the THX thing, they'll put up a sign that says:

    "The audience is yawning"
    • Well, let's look at it this way. The general public does NOT want clever characters, insightful plots, witty writing, etc.

      It wants jiggling breasts, special effects, fight scenes, puerile humor, big explosions, men with almost no bodyfat, and a plot simpler than the rules to a tractor pull.

      The guy that brought up Hidden Tiger Crouching Dragon or whatever the hell it is - please remember that it's basically fight scenes, lovemaking, people waving swords around, special effects, etc. as well as a plot you can summarize in one sentence.

      RULE ONE - if you can't tell me what the movie's about in one sentence, forget it.

      RULE TWO - if there's no T&A, forget it.

      RULE THREE - if there's no violence, forget it. Unless it's a French film, in which case double up on rule two, but realise noone outside France will ever watch it.

    • Re:This is what the Market Wants!! (Score:5, Funny)

      by BluedemonX ( 198949 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @08:11PM (#2776420)
      Hollywood's ideal movie:

      Just-turned-18 year old Justinia wakes up, and slinks completely unclothed into a shower, where there's a very long, extended shower scene interspersed with the credits and the extremely violent murder of her cute brother by stereotypical Muslim/arab/mafia/other ethnic people. She finds out her brother has been killed, and they want to kill her next, because she somehow wound up through some unlikely but trivial twist of fate to have the map to something very valuable. She meets up with Mack Dolan, an incredibly muscled tough guy who rides a Harley. He also beats nine colors of heck out of more ethnics who show up just to be beaten up. They drive away, and along the way pick up a wisecracking skinny black guy sidekick played by a flavor-of-the-month filth-mouthed comedian. Along the way someone (not the leads) breaks wind, falls into a vat of manure, or otherwise has something vile happen. They then head to the desert/warehouse/safe house where they pick up lots of guns (shown just as pornographically as scene one) and after a requisite 30 second "character development" scene (she cries, he admits he's not been the same since those same people killed his puppy and standing up, grits his jaw) which leads to the two having steamy sex. They then suit up a la A-team for the glorious final scrumdown with lots of explosions, bullets, corpses, etc. and finally it turns out that Justinia can kick ass too. She dispatches the head/most stereotypically ethnic person and they grab the valuables, riding off into the sunset, sidekick in tow, who makes one last vulgar joke as the credits roll- cue hiphop song over the credits. ("Yo dat ma brotha Dolan, we be rollin...." BOOM chicka-pap chicka BOOM chicka-pap) Fake out-takes from the film in between credits optional. The script must be 90 pages EXACTLY, film to about 83 minutes total, and feature

      a hot heroine

      a hot hero

      a slinky Asian/California babe evil chick

      a overacting character actor or ethnic bad guy

      A father figure, who dispenses some kind of Zen-like wisdom at a critical point

      A dumbass, skinny black guy, or "mook" for comic relief

  • You know, it's not just CG-only stuff (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mystery_bowler ( 472698 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:34PM (#2775947) Homepage
    Movies like Shrek and Final Fantasy (especially Final Fantasy) have done a lot to show what total CG movies can be, but movies like Lord of the Rings and (to a lesser extent, IMHO) Star Wars: Episode One have shown how the effective use of CG can not only compliment human acting, it can bring the immersion and suspension of disbelief to another level.

    I don't think anyone is going to dispute that the scenery and cinematography in Lord of the Rings was fantastic. Granted, the perspective (swooping high above in many cases) allows for loss of detail in such a way that you fool the eyes of the audience in a lot of cases, but the close-up scenes have become finely detailed as well, showing that the possibilities for effectively integrating CG in a live action scene are greater than in previous years.

    I agree that a bumper crop of CG movies are coming, but here's another trend to watch out for: actors that do especially well with blue-screens and acting with things/people that aren't really there.

    Oh, and just a side note...I think all this effective CG stuff is going to really hurt the traditional latex/foam rubber movie monster special effects industry. In years past, things like the cave troll in LotR would have been done with a guy in a suit, or hydraulics or such. But, it probably wouldn't have seemed as fluid or expressive, so, eh no loss, right? :)

    • A good example of what you point out as the twilight of the latex/foam rubber monster special effects would be the Jurasic Park series. In the first movie there was a scale T-Rex built that fully interacted with the characters. It LOOKED real which was the important thing. In JP2 there was the scene with the raptors fighting and rolling around whilst the actors tried to avoid them. That was also fairly impressive because the raptors made dust fly and moved objects the real actors interacted with. Two different mathods of making dinosaurs with pretty much the same effect on film. On the otherhand look at the difference between the technology used between SW:ANH and SW:TPM. Specifically in the last fight scene between in both movies. In ANH they used some blue screens overlayed with glass matte paintings in post production. It gave the same sense of scope that the same technique using computers did 20 years later. The goal is realism by whatever means, I don't think all filmmakers are going to abandon their old style of making realistic images just because of new wizbang technology.
    • Oh, and just a side note...I think all this effective CG stuff is going to really hurt the traditional latex/foam rubber movie monster special effects industry. In years past, things like the cave troll in LotR would have been done with a guy in a suit, or hydraulics or such. But, it probably wouldn't have seemed as fluid or expressive, so, eh no loss, right? :)

      I wouldn't say that yet, some of the LOTR stuff looked suspiciously close to stuff from Braindead, a truly excellent rubber and latex splatter film. I wouldn't be suprised if it brings on a whole new wave of films that use *more* FX because the director knows anything is possible.

      And I still find that CGI spaceship models do not have the same impact or feel as a well done model. I say they will compliment each other's strengths.

      Xix.

      • I wouldn't say that yet, some of the LOTR stuff looked suspiciously close to stuff from Braindead, a truly excellent rubber and latex splatter film. I wouldn't be suprised if it brings on a whole new wave of films that use *more* FX because the director knows anything is possible

        There'd be a reason for that...!
    • "In years past, things like the cave troll in LotR would have been done with a guy in a suit, or hydraulics or such."

      How soon they forget Ray Harryhausen. In years past he would have done the cave troll and it would have looked..... about like it did in LOTR. That thing had a definite Golden Eye of Sinbad vibe to it.
    • >> but movies like Lord of the Rings and (to a lesser extent, IMHO) Star Wars: Episode One have shown how the effective use of CG can not only compliment human acting

      To a lesser extent? You are far understating that comparison.

      Peter Jackson specifically went away from the overuse of CG in LoTR. He, instead, made excellent use of miniatures that were completed by CG effects. That's why the effects in LoTR are so good. They completed the movie and story, not distracted and demanded center stage.

      We must all thank the Old Took, that Lucas or a film maker like him didn't get ahold of LoTR. Who knows what lifeless and disgusting Jar-Jar-Hobbits we would have had to deal with.

      The careful use of CG in LoTR distinguishes it from the CG crazed film making of George Lucas.
    • I don't know about that--part of the charm of Godzilla, Gamera, et al. comes from the cheesy guy in a robber suit feel.

      "Gamera will save us--he's the children's friend!" -- from Gamera vs. Guiron, in which Gamera fights an Exacto knife with legs from outer space

  • Will Astroboy still be a lying bastard? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ian stevens ( 5465 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:35PM (#2775955) Homepage
    Sony also is getting into the act by developing its first all-CGI feature, "AstroBoy," a tale about a robot boy who uses his powers to protect Earth from an alien invasion.

    Will the end of the movie feature Astroboy lying to the computer as he files his report just so he can have some fun with the audience? Or will this be fleshed out to reveal a deeper mistrust between superior, smarter AI entities and their more mundane, inferior counterparts in the information sector?

    ian.

  • I know that Shrek [imdb.com] had a big name or two (Cameron Diaz, Mike Myers, John Lithgow and Eddie Murphy) doing the voices, but I guess they were somewhat cheaper than a physical appearance by the same stars.

    Does it mean a lot to have a 'name' when it is just a voice? Not really, there are plenty of other lower profile (and cheaper) actors who can do the voices.

    The current star system is getting a little bit out of order and this could provide an excellent antidote.

    Unfortunately, I guess this will go the say of modern SFX. Wow, great, it looks good, lets have lots of it! Whoops, shame about the plot, direction and acting. Those good films like Shrek came about because some people (i.e., Dreamworks in this case) did a lot of work. Pixar are good too, but let us hope that the industry does not become led by the idea of turning out CGI dross.

  • a friend of a friend of a friend works for the company producing this:
    [apple.com]
    http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/ice_age/

    it looks funny as hell..
  • Another CGI film they forgot to mention is BloodQuest from Exile Films [exile-films.com]. (They must have forgotten it, *Everyone* knows about Warhammer :) )

    It's based on Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K universe [games-workshop.com], and looks like it has to possibility to be exciting (atleast to people who follow the hobby) Check out the Exile films site for some neat preview animations and renderings.

  • If you must render, (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:53PM (#2776055) Homepage Journal
    Please make Ender.

    Ender's game that is.

    Probably one of the FEW novels that really NEED CGI in order to get it done (try finding a few hundred kids, who can act, and stay young enough for the sequels).

    Too bad OSC allowed the screenplay to get ruined.
    • Too bad OSC allowed the screenplay to get ruined.
      <perks up> Huh? That's news to me. Please explain. I still held out some hope that they weren't going to ruin it a la Starship Troopers...
    • Not saying the idea doesn't intrigue me, though it seems to likely to be butchered. Still, I don't think you need to worry about the child actors because a) there's only a couple in the book who really need to act, and if you focused on the teenage years it wouldn't be so painful and b) in the sequel, Ender is several thousand years old (Earth observer) or middle-aged (Ender observer). So no big deal :)
    • (try finding a few hundred kids, who can act, and stay young enough for the sequels).

      What sequels? None of original kids appear in any of the sequels. (except for Ender, of course, but he's an adult). If you're talking about Shadow of the Hegemon, it's a sequal to Ender's Shadow, which is itself not a sequel, but a parallel novel.

      Besides, who says you have to make any of the sequels?

      • Shadow of the Hegemon is a parallax-type novel, but the rest of the four books in the Bean series are not. OSC was planning on letting other authors "field" stories about all the main characters, and I believe eventually such will happen, whether or not its OSC.

        As for movie-making material, I've always thought the only real way to do the movie well would be CGI -- the ability to do zero-G "Battle Room" type-effects is possible, but would be much easier to do and portray through CGI than compositing live action actors.

        I still don't think you can find enough actors who are young enough (4 or 5 in Bean's case, 5 o 6 in Ender's case) to truly bring out the "youth" factor in Ender's Game.

        Speaker for the Dead and the rest of the Ender Quartet won't make it as movies. The books reside more in the mind of the characters than in actual vocalizations and physical contact -- very hard to convert to a screenplan. Ender's Game is probably as difficult, but at least I can visualize a movie.
        • It's not that hard to find a 10-year-old actor who can look like a 7 year old. The problem as I see it is how much the kids age during the book. I don't have a copy, but as I recall, Ender starts the book about half as old as he is when he finishes it.

          In any case, I don't really think an Ender's Game movie should be made. So much of the book is Ender just thinking to himself that a movie version would have to either be completely butchered or be mostly Ender just sitting there as you hear his voice with a corny reverb filter pretending to be his thoughts.

  • CGI killing traditional animation? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:54PM (#2776064)
    "I think CGI is starting to phase out traditional animation," Swallow said. "But I think that is very much because of a generational divide. For a generation that is used to seeing these kind of digital images in video games, this is what they start to expect."

    Hmmm... Apparently these guys are talking about Dizney and Dizney alone. The animation houses in Japan have done a great deal to convert over to digital CG production without sacrificing the look of traditional animation.

    Take a good, close look at 'Love Hina', 'Excel Saga', or any newer anime and notice that the cels have all been 'painted' in Photoshop. On some of the closeup shots, you can make out typical Photoshop resizing residue and common filter effects.

    CG may be killing the fatiguing process of 'pencil-paint-photograph', but not traditional animation.
    • I'm glad you mentioned the fact that Japanese animation companies are heavily using computers nowadays.

      The reason is simple: FujiFilm a few years ago said they would phase out the production of the thick transparent film used in animation cel production. Because of that, the Japanese animation companies had to quickly adopt what Disney has been doing since the early 1990's with their Computer Aided Production System (CAPS)--the final cel is completely painted by computer and then directly transferred to film.
  • CGI is a tool that allows you to make scenes impossible to do with conventional models.

    People like interesting epic stories that stimulate their imagination... go figure...

    This was probably said already, but I wanted to repeat it.. we've been spoiled with good CGI lately.. I really hope we're not in line for a truck load of crap.
  • Many CG studios have gone through some rounds of lay offs the last year.
    And Shrek was not that good of movie. The script was so-so and the character movemnt was only believable on the donkey... and sometimes Shrek.
    Monsters, Inc on the otherhand did an excellent job. Pixar does a good job of making things look right.
    Also .. another studio making a feature length CG movie is Big Idea [bigidea.com] doing an adaptation of Jonah [jonahthemovie.com]. (Got to throw a plug in somewhere ;)

    • Although there are layoffs at many CG studios right now, look at how many more studios there are when 6 years ago we saw the first CG film and until recently there had been only been two. As for the quality of the movies, I'm sure we'll see capitalism sort them out. Square Pictures certainly found that out, although I would rather have seen another studio go, since they did some great modeling and shading, even if the script was more than a bit lacking, but Pixar is still growing like crazy to try and reach their movie per year goal; in the last earnings call Steve Jobs reported that they've had to start renting space across the street from the bigger HQ they just finished constructing.
  • I fully agree with the point that you have to have a good plot, not just CG for its own sake. But while I loved Toy Story and Bug's Life, I thought that Shrek was in fact the poster child of CG for its own sake, with no redeeming plot. If you got rid of the fancy graphics, it's just a totally basic fantasy movie with a plot that is obvious in the first five minutes.

    Gee do ya think Shrek is going to save the Princess and fall in love with her? Gosh what a surprise. It had some cutesy side jokes, and Cameron Diaz's avatar was certainly a render-o-babe, but that was about it. Diaz's reading was terrible, and Mike Myers talking in a Scottish accent is funny only if you know that he is actually Canadian (although that accent was actually his own idea I gather and a late change in the movie). I can picture some film execs watching this and cracking up each time Myers says "Donkey!" and Eddie Murphy does his thing. But they are only meta-funny, not actually funny. Just the fact that you think of the characters by their human voicers as opposed to their CG selves shows one of the problems.

    - adam

    • Well, I must admit I haven't seen Shrek, but I remember lots of critics disliking it as well, mostly because of its "trying too hard to be cool", with intellectual-wannabe jokes etc. Perhaps it's just more aimed at younger viewers than Toy Story or Bug's life?

      I did like Toy Story (and even its sequel), mostly because it had both decent plot and good (voice) actors. Even the jokes were actually funny. I didn't really like Bug's life; although its plot was ok, I hated whiny voice acting of the main char, plus the animation wasn't all that good. The latter was probably because they tried to use lots of 'close ups', and where CG still pretty much sucks is animating faces and facial expressions. In Toy Story clever thing was that being toys, their facial expressions are supposed to be plastick-y (or whatever material they were made of); contrast to 'humans' was remarkable... (ie. animated Andy sucked worse than anything else in the movies IMO).

    • I fully agree with the point that you have to have a good plot, not just CG for its own sake. But while I loved Toy Story and Bug's Life, I thought that Shrek was in fact the poster child of CG for its own sake, with no redeeming plot. If you got rid of the fancy graphics, it's just a totally basic fantasy movie with a plot that is obvious in the first five minutes.

      I agree with you, absolutely. The script was shallow, rude and referenced non-fantastic elements way too much (Tag Team Professional Wrestling, for example? Way to kill the atmosphere...). All of that rock music blaring out during the film.... I liked the concept of being overrun by Disney characters, but apart from that sequence the plot bored me, and all of the main characters annoyed me. Add to that fart and smell jokes, and other examples of high wit, and I'm afraid I walked out feeling pretty damn cheapened...

      The CGI was brilliant, although I do prefer the visual look of the Pixar films. Probably just bias on my part, though.

      I've seen all of the Pixar films (just saw Monsters Inc. tonight :) and also saw Final Fantasy and Shrek (missed Antz though). One thing I can say about the Pixar films is that there are always multiple things to look for; visual clues in the background, minor characters doing their thing out of focus, etc...

  • CG Movies "all of a sudden" have an impact. Not! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Thagg ( 9904 ) <thadbeier@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @07:49PM (#2776319) Journal
    What the article fails to mention is that PDI and Pixar both have been working toward these CG animated films for 20 years; the article makes it sound like Dreamworks was able to make their first animated film very quickly and easily -- it could only do so because they bought Pacific Data Images who had been laying the foundations for these films beginning in 1980 (disclaimer -- I was at PDI from 1983 'til 1995).

    Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar, has been trying to make animated films since the mid-70's, starting at the University of Utah, then going to the New York Institute of Technology's Computer Graphics Lab, then to Lucasfilm; whose computer division was spun off to become Pixar.

    The film that did seem to happen amazingly fast was Jimmy Neutron; Boy Genius. While Pixar and PDI have used proprietary, in-house systems to do their animation; DNA used pretty much off-the-shelf software (although today's commercial software is very customizable, so the line is blurrier than you might think at first glance). DNA was able to make the jump from hand-drawn 2D animation to a 3D feature very quickly indeed. And while the characters are goofy and the rendering is not (even attempting to be) photoreal -- it is still amazing to me that a small group of people actually can pull off an animated film in a reasonable amount of time.

    Jimmy Neutron will not be the box-office smash that Shrek or Monsters are; but it is the more revolutionary film.

    thad
    • What Thagg didn't mention (yet I am positive he/she knows) is that not only was Jimmy Neutron made with an off the shelf package, it was made with a very inexpensive ($2500) one called Lightwave 3D. That, and an $800 plugin called Messiah were the backbone of the entire movie. It was bound to happen eventually and proves that if a large group of people got together who were talented enough, and had enough money to live off of for a year or two, the first "basement" movie could be produced. I see this as a step closer to that dream.

      I guess I should mention that Final Fantasy was made mostly with Maya and Photorealistic renderman, (two programs that can be purchased) but it really isn't in the same league as Jimmy Neutron.

      P.S.
      All hail Edwin Catmull!
  • Disney laid off nearly a third of its animators and cut the pay of much of the rest. Dreamworks/PDI had layoffs. Didn't FOX/Bluth close down their studio? Very little recruiting and parties at the 2001 World Animation Convention & SIGGRAPH this year. Forty resumes for every job offer on the SIGGRAPH employment board. Five years ago if you knew how to use SoftImage or Alias you were guaranteed a cushy job. Hope success turns things around.
  • I see Ice Age (completely computer) and Peter Pan II (mixed computer and art) have been announced.
    Pixar and Dreamworks/PDI are taking a rest after immense successes in 2001. Both are working on animal movies for 2003. What else is in the works?

  • Arrgh! Get it fscking right! (Score:4, Informative)

    by gblues ( 90260 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @08:09PM (#2776409)
    CGI: (n) Common Gateway Interface. Used primarily as a means of getting and responding to user input via a Web interface.

    CG graphics: (n) Computer Generated images. Typically used to describe animations created completely through computers, as opposed to images created through photography or traditional cel animation.

    SGI graphics: (n) Refers specifically to those CG graphics created on SGI workstations.

    Pick the right term and use it. Thanks!

    Nathan
  • The last part of CGI that depends strongly on humans are the voices. When will they be computer generated?
  • From the first time I saw tron that CGI was not just a passing fad. Tron should win an award in groundbreaking CGI. It paved the path for the future.
    • Tron is considered in the industry to have set CGI acceptance back ten years. The movie was heavily hyped and a disaster financially.

      Many of the scenes in Tron that look like CGI, those that involve both live actors and effects, are actually hand-painted cel animation. Most of that glowing-line stuff is not CGI at all.

  • There have been many stories about computer animation switching to Linux boxes because of cost savings and availability. I wonder if the adoption of Linux is helping the industry and in turn will this growth help Linux. Either way here are some Computer Animation\Linux articles to read:

    Linux Goes Hollywood [slashdot.org]
    Linux Goes To The Movies [salon.com]
    Linux takes Hollywood by storm [zdnet.com]
    Maya ported to Red Hat [slashdot.org]

  • Clever Use of CGI: Amelie (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @08:19PM (#2776451) Homepage Journal
    In a french film, Amelie, there's probably the most subtle, yet effective CGI I've seen in years. Too often, IMHO, CGI is gaudy or simply overused to generate eye-candy. In a few years people will be so accustomed to CGI that, like the introductions of Sound and Color, it'll have to survive on more than just novelty or eye-candy appeal. If you get a chance, see Amelie and note how effective a little CGI can be, particularly the bed table creatures. ;)
    • You are so correct!

      Amelie was a fantasitic movie, and a great example of how best to use CGI. We're going through a period where movies treat CGI as a main focal point, simply for it's own selfish beauty. While this can be acceptable for films such as Final Fantasy, which was very much meant to break obvious boundries, most films abuse CGI only because they can.

      There are many CGI scenes in movies that, while beautiful, really don't do it for me. When I see a camera sweep of a CGI generated landscape, I want to take in the scene, not the CGI. It most often comes across that the only reason the camera has moved a certain way is to show off the CGI, not what the CGI is representing.

      Amelie is one of the first movies (in memory) that has treated CGI as it should be: a supporting effect, meant to add to a scene qualities that could not have otherwise been brought about. It doesn't linger on the screen yelling "Look at me! I'm CGI", and it's use is very subtle, but precise. Given, Amelie can get away with it a little easier since it is not a Fantasy or Sci-Fi based story, but it is films like Episode I and FotR that could stand to learn how to put effects on the back burner once in a while. Having said that I must also say that I have never been so absorbed into a movie as have with FotR. It was stunning.

      I'm happy to hear that CG effects are being widely adopted, but it will take a few years for the industry to realize they can be well used in films not dealing with space, trolls, and superheros. I don't have anything against digital animators, but I will enjoy the day when CGI is truely treated on the same level as more tried and true film techniques like lighting, cinematography, and even general character placement. When CGI becomes that prevalent it will absolutely be a sight to (not) be seen.

  • If you think today's CGI movies are cool... (Score:3, Funny)

    by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @08:23PM (#2776467) Homepage
    ...wait until they start using servlets!
  • Now they can just pay you a fat check, scan your image and voice once and use it in as many films as they like. Anyone want to take bets on how long it will be before they bring out a modern movie with John Wayne plaing the starring role? It's possible, even easy. After all, they did it with Brandon Lee in The Crow, but that was because they had no other choice. How long before that becomes an accepted way of making a film?

    I'd give it 10 years at most before we see mainstream pictures using dead actors. That could go to a really bad place... corporations and movie studios with licenses to particular actors' digital counterparts, licensing of their digital avatars, patents on the technology... we could see a very real mess develop... after all, precedent of a sort is already set with currently existing animated characters (Mickey Mouse, Aki Ross, Jar Jar Binks, Gollum, etc.) and if those rules were applied to living actors I expect people would not be pleased...

    Some of you will say that computer actors will never be as good as the real thing. You'd be wrong of course... not to say it would be easy, but 99% as good as the real thing is close enough for 99% of the people. Readers on this site in particular should know exactly what CGI technology is capable of, and it's definitely not out of reach. Better start thinking about it now, if we see it happening perhaps we can do something to prevent it from going down the wrong road.
  • See how many of the same reactions there is?

    The main problem with hollywood is they are running a buisness. Some people in "the company" are brilliant, but the others (majority) are just seeing and "understanding" the numbers.

    Pixar's been around for quite a while, Disney's been around forever in the realm of 2D animation. If you look at both entities, what made them a success is the mix of mastering their art (2d, 3d) AND the storyline. Obvious you might say? well for us, yes, but think "marketting guy" (no no!!! I don't mean like "what would I do if I had unlimited spending money and a ferrari" :) ) and like I said before, they see only numbers. It's obvious that hollywood has a kool-aid receipe to make movies and bring in cash. The 3D CGI movies got in only because it was a continuation of the 2D art, so it blended in without causing too much noise. It fitted well and Hollywood noticed it generated quite an amount of cash. That's good in a way, that means we'll still se quality content like Pixar's and Dreamwork's, but the downside is we'll probably start seeing a LOT of crap in the next years in that field as well.

    Hollywood sees something that makes money, and they use use use and abuse it until it runs dry and people puke when they see that again. Instead of "risking" new material or storylines. How about a movie that doesn't end well? How about a movie where the good guy gets killed in the middle and you see the movie from the bad guy's perspective until the end (something bad/good happens to him?), How about an ecological catastrophe that CAN'T be avoided and resulting on the mass destruction of the human being with stuff like pollution/asteroids/younameit, instead of having some crap about one guy that defeats nature?

    Yes it might flop, depending, again, on the story and more importantly, how it's told. But I don't think I'd see anyone SERIOUSLY pissed and boycotting hollywood because of a different ending. Of course there's always alternative movies from other countries or independant films if you want something special, but usually only hollywood has the cashflow to push effects in a film to give it that extra "magic".
  • ...who started thinking of "CGI scripts", in the sense of perl/PHP/etc server-side stuff? Or was it just me? :-\
  • BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!

    (wipes away tear)

    You really kill me, Rob. "About to", hehe!! ^_^

    Ooh! Here's the next joke you should post as a story, to make me smile:

    "US 'about to' sacrifice neccessary freedoms to catch 'terrorists'"

    Or how about:

    "Enron 'about to' go bankrupt."

    Keep the silliness coming! ^_^

    -Kasreyn
  • Here's my more practical question: What industry or industries will benefit from an increased use of CGI characters? If you know this, and you know it well, you can make some really good investments right now. The market is down, especially for technology, so it seems like a good time to strike. Sure technology stocks and technology investors are fickle, but if you have the money to make a few informed bets, you might just make yourself some money.

    What do you think? What companies can capitalize on this trend?

    (Note: People on Slashdot should ask these kinds of questions more often. Business questions would benefit many people here.)
  • How can anyone think that using CGI would add value to Curious George, or especially to Where the Wild Things Are. Both of these are books, and quite frankly will be impossible to make into a compelling motion pictures.

    I can just imagine the pitch session:

    Producer: Ok, we can do Where the Wild Things Are, Sendak has agreed to supervise an army of sensitive consumptive artists to hand paint every cel. It'll be beautiful, and about 10 minutes long, but it'll be a shoe-in to win Best Animated Short.

    Studio Exec: No way. Its gotta be feature length CGI or nothing! I can't put out a family film that isn't CGI! Not after Shrek!

  • There's been a minor upsurge of reasonably good CG character animation for TV. The TV series "Starship Troopers" is a good example. This is something people in the industry watch closely, because it's been hard to do much CG on a TV episode budget.

    "Reboot" was the first all-CG TV show, and it was produced by about 30 people doing one episode per week. That's an incredible level of productivity for CG work. When that level of output can be sustained at what we now consider theatrical quality, the CG revolution will really happen.

    I know some pro animators who are looking forward to that. They'd like to head a small team and do their own projects, rather than being a small cog in a huge project outsourced to ten animation houses.

  • "Technology is making it easier for people to exercise their creative freedom," executive producer Marc Adler said.

    Well, yeah, provided the system of intellectual property law doesn't interfere with it too much. The legal regime that the big studios are making will eventually make it nearly impossible for any form of major creative production to move ahead without a large, skilled, and well paid legal department, which raises the bar quite a bit...

  • Yes, production companies have been getting on the CG bandwagon (like for the last decade, folks) but right now there are a lot of jobless folks in the industry--people with years of professional modelling/animation/compositing experience.

    In six months, this, like the tech industry in general, may be a happier place, but they're hurting right now, too.

    -db

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