Excellent Branded Entertainment from Philips!

Good usage of cgi: check. Good usage of branded entertainment: check. Excellent plots: check!

Head to:
> http://www.cinema.philips.com/

or where the whole-lot are found (aka all the shorts):
> http://www.facebook.com/philipscinema

Cool site worth visiting

.

It's all about traditional and digital effects. Be sure to check out!

> http://makingfx.net/

The Usefulness of Styrofoam Heads - cheap Special Effects

Cut the long story short I had an epiphany today about styrofoam heads. They are cheap!

What can you do with them?
1. Fake heads
2. Masks (see picture below)
3. And of course, this (from instructibles)

How to do..?
1. Fake Heads
- buy a styrofoam head from a shop and colour it
2. Masks
- make papermass/pulp/papier-mâché (very cheap, only adhesive will pay) to build contours


The Above Head
(Brian Penikas, the Creeps head in the making)
Of course, the above head is a bit advanced and not made from pulp, obviously. But pulp molds well and can be coloured easily so it's not a bad choice at all for zero budget productions!


Have fun!

More Self-Made Special Effects!

A link my friend send me

How to make a Hollow Man

(courtesy of vision02.com)
Go to: http://vision02.com/hollow-man/

A Nice Web Site for making movie effects !

And I'm talking about hands-down, not cgi effects!!



Enjoy!

http://www.instructables.com/id/Hollywood-Gunshot-Blood-Effect!/

Special effects inspired by Re-Animator

(Head when carried from front)

PRELUDE

I got lucky and made a discovery from our nearest market. Behold and lo, there was the original Re-Animator (1985) -a dvd which has been almost impossible to find. So, I spend the last of my dimes and shall eat macaroni for the rest of this month.

POINT

The movie didn't get kudos for its special effects and esp. makeup for nothing. I scribbled down some (easy and obvious) how-did-those-effects-got-made +one extra not in the movie, in case I need them later.

THE EFFECTS - THE ART OF FRAMING

Most of the work is done by thight framing. And I might say this works better than CGI in some movies. Here they are, Enjoy!

# Headless body:



# Head when carried:



# Head in a box + head being carried sideways:



# And the extra I learned recently,
how to show hanging:



Real pro things, eh ;)?

Rotoscoping

"Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films. " freedictionary

Examples of Rotoscoping:
* Bakshi's Lord of the Rings
* Scanner Darkly trailer

I happened to come across a thorough review of Bakshi's Lord of the Rings and finally got the name for the technique that is used in that film. To say, I favor Bakshi's version over the high-over-the-hills-and-far-away Jackson's tidious 9 hour boredom. I saw the original Lotr as a kid and still think its better and more scarier.

> Review of Bakshi's the Lord of The Rings <

What I find best at rotoscoping is that esp. horses' movement is correct. To be honest, I don't always find rotoscoping a good technique because in most cases the outcome is far too poorly done. In Bakshi's film, however, it has been well intergrated and works for me. Another film that uses this technique is a Scanner Darkly. Well.. to be honest it does irritate me but I liked the film. I must admit that I don't have a point here other than I wanted to let everybody know about this technique. Well, here you go!

* Rotoscoping, freedictionary
* Rotoscoping, animation wikia

Moderate CGI in fight scenes (part 1), my weekly rant

Why to put CGI where you don't need it? Why to go over-the-top when something less suffices? My heart cries for so many spoiled fighting scenes with pointless CGI addition. Who self-aware movie maker allows this to happen.. Yes, yes easy & cheap but once again, if you make a megabudget movie then why cut here?

I guess it started with Matrix Reloaded. Yes, this is an actual
footage from the movie and very realistic indeed. Perfect example.


Even Quantum of Solace did it while flying with ropes.
Why? Why? Why? Now the scene, that would've been okey, the movie can be remembered for its Tarzan-tricks (except, Tarzan did it better). Besides, if James Bond wants to be more down-to-earth and believable than, let's say Die Another Day (gee, wonder why it wasn't such a big hit), why to add something that isn't needed?


Same with Hellboy II. What is very disappointing is that the whole fighting scene could've been quite awesome had not excess CGI spoiled it.

Bottom line: Viewers are not stupid and are not fooled, yet there is still somebody making it hard for viewers such as me to enjoy a good fighting scene. And I don't think I'm the only one out there wanting more hard-core action.

If you use CGI, make it fit... -my weekly rant

What bothers me the most about the usage of CGI is that it is usually done on big budget movies without any discretion whatsoever. If it does not fit, it irritates. Bad usage of CGI is cheap, granted, but there are plenty of examples of good special effects done on small budgets. Even if we are talking about plastic, clay etc. Golden rule is, the effects must fit the mood and world of the movie. Then nobody gives a toss how they are made.


Darkman - the low budget effects that Sam Raimi used
always hit the mark


Sky Captain.. wasn't even trying to imitate concretely
the real world. Everything was blended into something more
beautiful "comics-esque" world.


Last, Raising the bar for future productions.

CGI vs 'Analog' recycling, my weekly rant

There has always been image-recycling in Hollywood.
Especially when it comes to special effects. I guess we
just have to accept it in some level. Still, I hate the usage
of same things over and over and over again. And what is
more cgi does nothing to improve the situation.

CGI RECYCLING

The creature from the Descent (=not scary):

Jaw-opening, I give you that, but not scary (I Legend):

ANALOG RECYCLING

Looks what it is intended to look (Lotr):

Touchable, I'd say (Blade II):

So, If you are going to do it, please don't or
be more creative than the first two.

CGI evolution, my geekly rant

This is the current evolution of CGI effects.
It's a bad evolution.

Dino 1: It started with an obvious toy
(- Arrgh!! - Gulp gulp gulp!)

The 1900s dinos did not fool anyone but let's face
it: special effects were not that sophisticated then.
And they had the feeling.

Dino 2: The Jurassic Park Monster
(- MRrr ... )

the Real thing. No biggie. It was *hit scary.
(ps. this is a pic of T-Rex toy and even
this is scary)

Dino 3: - Groan! Slurps! Squeak!


Computer, ugly, unrealistic, fake. What just happened?
R.I.P. realistic monsters.