Practical Effects and CGI - Insert REEEEing here

[TheClorax]

Discuss the use of the two types of effects; Practical and CGI. Be it their use in upcoming movies, or their uses in past movies.

 

[XYZpdq]

Nothing motivates an actor to express that shit is blowing up around them as well as shit really blowing up around them. Like the end stunt in Gen-X Cops. They gotta go fast to avoid getting caught in a giant ball of fire. And so do the characters.

CG is great for energy beams and stuff like that and computers are eight jillion times better for matteing effects shots together.

I think as long as there's some aspect of the CG tied to a real thing you can get a lot done effectively, but once it's people staring at a tennis ball it's easy to go off the rails.

iirc that new Thunderbirds series does a nice job of mixing CG and miniatures

 

[Tranhuviya]

IDK. Having seen some classic Ultraman stuff, there definitely is some cool shit you can do with just practical effects. But some things can just only be created with CG.

 

[Benine Bovine]

I like practical because I always feel jarred by how cgi has slightly off lighting or how the physics are just a little wonky

I love animatronics and I think that those combined with CGI gives best result, that being said a very skilled artist who knows the weight and light of things can pull it off and have it look good (why are most cgi monsters so glossy and seem to weigh 50 pounds?)

Idk I like when things appear tangible like I could actually touch them

 

[Dr. Tremolo]

Depends on the context. In some cases CGI has made practical effects obsolete where they'd be just a hassle, in others practical cases still look far more convincing.
People accuse the Star Wars prequels of abusing CGI, but the truth is that they used practical effects really extensively - Revenge of the Sith had more practical sets made for it than the whole Original Trilogy. The issue was just the design aesthetics that people felt were not Star Wars.

 

[Lensherr]

CGI is better used for stuff in the background, whereas stuff in the foreground looks better if it's done practically. See: Star Wars, the most recent Planet of the Apes films, both Blade Runner movies, and Mad Max: Fury Road.

The exception to this rule IMO is the use of motion capture for creatures that would be too difficult to portray convincingly with practical effects. Plus the actors don't have to sit in a chair for hours at a time every day before shooting.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Depends on the context. In some cases CGI has made practical effects obsolete where they'd be just a hassle, in others practical cases still look far more convincing.
People accuse the Star Wars prequels of abusing CGI, but the truth is that they used practical effects really extensively - Revenge of the Sith had more practical sets made for it than the whole Original Trilogy. The issue was just the design aesthetics that people felt were not Star Wars.

Not to mention how the later films were shot in digital, which gave everything (even the actors) an artificial, CGI look.

As for the CGI/Practical debate. As mentioned, it depends entirely on context. Sometimes CGI works better than an animatronic or actor in makeup would do, sometimes not so much. Personally I'd love more 3D/Practical mixes, but with technology as it is, I get the feeling a big movie with an even blend of both methods is not going to happen anytime soon.

 

[Sable]

CGI is better done to make extensive backgrounds or to convince the audience something isn't there than it IS, but it has certainly come a long way from even where it was in the mid-late 00's.

Practical effects when done right are amazing though, the brain knows they're there and it's easier for actors.

I think in a perfect world a mix of both is ideal.

 

[weirdMcGee]

both is great though i have issues with cgi.

 

[Htom Sirveaux]

I think practical effects will always hold an important place in my heart. I'm always impressed by the ingenuity of the classic filmmakers like Cecil B. DeMille, Ray Harryhausen, and Willis O'Brien. They brought us amazing visuals at a time when computers were only the fevered dream of a madman. I always use the original Star Wars as my example of practical effects done well. George Lucas and his crew had to invent most of the special effects processes used in the film and even after 41 years they still hold up quite well.

I've always loved watching old movies and trying to guess how certain effects were created. Sometimes the behind-the-scenes documentaries were just as interesting as the movies themselves. It's funny though that I can't think of a movie in the last ten years where I've stopped and asked myself how something was accomplished. I know the answer nowadays is always going to be "computers ". To me it feels like the movies have lost a little bit of their magic.

 

[Sperglord Dante]

Practical effects clearly had the upper hand two decades ago when CGI was still in diapers, but it's kinda hard to say the same still holds true today...pretty much the same you could say about any technological advance ever.

I think CGI gets way less credit that it deserves, and people do wrong when they compare average CGI to cherry picked top-notch practical effects. Yes, the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park have aged better than most CGI-based blockbusters from the last decade, but most of the blockbusters from the last decade weren't headed by Steven fucking Spielberg.

 

[omori]

I'm a giant fucking sperg for practical effects. It's more visceral to see an actor make eye contact with a monster/creature/what have you instead of staring over the shoulder of something that looks like it came out of a PS3 game. It's as much an experience for the actor as it is the audience and the amount of detail that is put into creature costumes, puppets, animatronics is just incredible.

 

[KO 864]

I prefer practical effects. No matter how good CG gets it's obvious that it's not actually there with few exceptions.CG is also just lazier. Why take time and effort to work out how to have cool monsters or bloodshed as costumes and stuff when you could just CGI that shit up and call it a day.

 

[whatever I feel like]

I feel as though CGI still hasn't got the weight and reflections of real objects down effectively. As others have said, practical effects also tend to give a better performance from the actors involved in them.

I think CGI gets way less credit that it deserves, and people do wrong when they compare average CGI to cherry picked top-notch practical effects. Yes, the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park have aged better than most CGI-based blockbusters from the last decade, but most of the blockbusters from the last decade weren't headed by Steven fucking Spielberg.

The dinos in JP were all CGI, models were made for pre-production but not used in the film with perhaps the exception of a few giant heads. Still, they do hold up incredibly well with the sole exception of that running through the herd of grass eaters scene.

 

[vhstape]

CGI in blockbusters have seems to have went backwards in quality for the most part, The Pirates of the Caribbean movies from over 10 years ago have better cgi then the Marvel movies.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

CGI in blockbusters have seems to have went backwards in quality for the most part, The Pirates of the Caribbean movies from over 10 years ago have better cgi then the Marvel movies.

A large part of that is that Disney's adamant on getting a movie out a year, and with as few CGI companies there are, plus whatever other projects they got in the pipeline...

Yeah, the CGI has really taken a nosedive. But at the same time, a lot of the stuff there (namely the aliens like Rocket or Groot) would be far harder, if not next to impossible, to do with practical effect. Whereas at the same time, I don't get why the Spider-Man, Iron Man and Black Panther suits need to be 100% CGI all the fucking time even outside action scenes.

 

[Puddleduck]

The Orcs in the Lord of the Rings trilogy look much better than those in the Hobbit.

 

[CruzMissile]

I think in terms of action movies, Spider-Man 2 had arguably one of the best practical effect/CGI blends I've ever seen. There still are scenes from that movie I can't actually tell if they are real stunts or not. For a movie from 2004, the CG holds up remarkably well too. If more movies tried to keep CG looking as real as possible and blend it in with practical effects and good camera work instead of just saying fuck it and making it look overly cartoon-y or unrealistic, I don't think there would be so much of a debate against CGI.

 

[Raging Capybara]

I like minimalist CGI, the kind used by David Fincher and Denis Villeneuve. You simply can't get better than that, it's a state of the art effect.

Movies with monsters and giant action setpieces will always look like shit so I don't bother. CGI tends to be better anyway, but the peak of this craft was during the DVD boom with movies budget crossing 300 million dollars. Good times. I agree with @vhstape, Dead Man's Chest is impressive to this day.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

Practical effects uber alles. The absolute worst thing in the world is poor CGI in films that don't need to use poor CGI for the shots they use it for. CGI blood spatters or whatever. Just use some fucking squibs, jesus christ