Love how VFX artists are the first to say “your story, performances and planning should go first, and VFX should dress up what you already have”. Many lazy directors think that those people will simply do the work for them. It’s basically like being a costume designer, you can have extremely well crafted costumes, but if you don’t have a living, breathing person to put them on, they aren’t as impressive. We can be impressed by the work, but we don’t get the full impact, which also impacts the artists themselves, since their work isn’t appreciated to the fullest.
@@alexman378 Just a clearer understanding of what you mean by having the VFX dress up what a director should have. Would storyboarding be a good way for a director to engage in planned scenes for a VFX artist? I’d imagine that would go hand in hand with story telling? How would one avoid being lazy
2 most important things I learnt about vfx over the years: 1. Place your virtual 1 camera exactly where you would if you were shooting it in real life and it will look much more realistic. Movies like Geostorm and Midway are terrific examples on how to get this wrong 2. Vfx need to be art directed
VFX is art directed. It's the notes we get more often that muddy the water. Pretty much every Effects shot I get landed at work has many, many notes on it. More often than not it is director intervention that pulls shots away in a particular direction. Directors ought to have a different approach to effects, and be more open to teams doing as they do.
I think the first iron man was the perfect balance of real / CGI. Use actual physical sets and props but use VFX to improve them and make them look better, if you look at behind the scenes of the first iron man you will know what im talking about.
To be honest first and second Iron Man movies were both smart use of CGI and practical props. For example Iron Man suits were an actual suits half way. Top was realistic looking prop and legs were done by CGI obviously to ease up movement of actors and stuntmen. Spider-Man 2 2004 is also good example of smart use of CGI. Doc Ock tentacles were very realistic because they used real tentacles with puppeteers for non action scenes. Only issue i found in that movie was that Spider-Mans CGI movement was grounded, realistic and smooth, but all the practical wire jumps ruined the magic. They were very glunky and stif. This is rare example of situation where practical stunts are less convincing than CGI.
@@erickim1739 Right the point being special effects be they practical or CG don't make a movie. The exception being unless its one of the stars of the film eg Jurassic park where good CG characters were critical for the films success.
The most damning part of CGI, especially in something like the Marvel films is the amount of usage gets to the point where one can't help but ask "if it's mostly CGI anyway, why not just make it fully animated?"
2:07 The Ruffalo-head in the bad animated Hulkbuster. The Ruffalo-head....really sad. I'm not an expert, BUT I think even I could tell easily how to do that in a better way. Just create a real model of the upper part of the hulk buster and then merge the animation to the model instead of merging a Ruffalo-head with the CGI-Hulk-buster. Really lazy for such a big production.
Back in the day, these films were considered animated movies. There are plenty of animated movies that have used real-life footage but are still considered to be animated movies. Tron is a perfect example, and it has less animation than any of the Marvel movies.
@@LP12576 what's time got to do with the quality of vfx in a movie? That 2013 movie still looks a million times better than 99 percent of god awful vfx in mcu movies today. Hell even terminator 2 a movie from the 80s still holds up.
@@LP12576 What exactly is goofy about its CGI? All the Jeagers still hold up render-wise and the Kaiju still look life-like. I think you're thinking about the second pacific rim that threw away all the weight of the first movie
even better. most of the cgi in lord of the rings trilogy still looks good. there's some wonkiness going on in places but for a movie that was made over 20 years ago now it's very impressive
It makes me think that what happened is that, as tools got better over time, directors realised that they could just rely more on the VFX teams to get it done, and done cheaper. So rather than shoot in a practical set, they'll just green screen it all together, because the technology can do that with greater ease now
it reminds me that even at lower levels, like in TV or corporate, where I work, some newbies/younger people do not bother to make a shot steady because we have a warp stabilizer on Premiere or a gimble. I had the experience that even on gimble they found a way to get shaky shot because they thought the gimble does all the job. So, no posture, no bending knees, too fast bumpy movements etc. So frustrating!
Something I learned from my dad growing up is that more often than not the easiest solution isn’t the best solution. And so far in life I’ve found that to hold up pretty well.
I think the over reliance on CGI to wow audiences without real, story driven reasons for it being there is Hollywood's biggest issue. Like if they just have enough of that, they don't need to care about story, character, plot holes, etc. Very nice video and excellent visual examples.
I totally agree! The story and characters are the most important part, but have been taking a backseat to deadlines and schedules, as well as the unnecessary CGI like you said. Thank you for your comments and for watching these videos!
@@BoundlessEntertainmentFilms yea I do wish people would do practical effects as much as possible while reducing the use of CGI is good but it depends on what the shots are and such.
im so glad you brought up the michael bay transformers movies. like them or not, the cgi in specifically 2007 and dark of the moon is so incredible and lifelike. its aged so well.
The directors and artists forget that Less is More. Watching a boss battle in a superhero movie is like watching an epileptic extravaganza of absurd choreography, fast cuts, impossible camera moves and an overwhelming light and explosions shows which makes it unbearable to enjoy. Recently I've watch The International (2009) with Clive Owen. In one of the scenes there is an intense shoot out inside NY Guggenheim's museum. I've have been there many times before so it was incredible to see the gun fight inside that landmark. Checking IMDB, the production team re-created the museum with the original plans. There are things that CGI can't still replace...
"epileptic extravaganza of absurd choreography, fast cuts, impossible camera moves and an overwhelming light and explosions" absolutely NOTHING to do with VFX and all to do with art direction, preplanning, editing choices, directorial choices, and most importantly, money and time constraints. But ok sure.
It's not the artists fault at all. It all boils down to the directors and the upper management. Artists create what the directors give them and more often being overworked to get there.
I’ve been noticing the issue with overuse of CGI from a young age when I noticed how unreal certain shots in Avengers looked compared to films like the original Iron Man, Batman Begins, and 2007 Transformers. It makes me pretty sad to see how far we’ve come with technology when you look back on movies like the original Star Wars trilogy, Ghostbusters, and Back to the Future.
i like that michael bay's style is getting some love, since i have a soft spot for his work seeing as i was the target demographic around the time his first 3 transformers movies came out. people back then criticized his "overuse" of CGI, and now look at what we have nowadays. how ironic that nowadays michael bay uses less cgi than most other blockbuster movies
Excellent points, and I will follow. The audience knows, even if only subliminally, when vfx are being overused, or used improperly. When a character, say, is swinging on a web through NYC, fine, I can accept that. In the world of the film we are given that some guy has the strength and agility to make it work, and the web is strong enough, etc. Accepted, through the willing suspension of disbelief. But when that same character suddenly take a sharp left in mid-swing my brain KNOWS that's not possible, and I'm out of the scene (same with forced dialog and a lot of other filmic shorthand, but that's another topic). We all know how basic physics works...how a ball flies through the air, how something floats on the water, how weight and mass affect motion...we see it every day, even if it's not a UFO or a monster or what have you. When CGI animators bend those rules too far, no matter how thrilling, we notice, and we are lost at least for a moment, and out of the story. Filmmakers hate it when the audience is taken out of the movie.
That's a great point! I agree, the physics in animation are incredibly important, and a lot of filmmakers have been pushing it too far, especially in some of the examples I showed in this video. That's part of what made the animation in Transformers so great. Because the animated robots had to interact with real objects in the scene, the physics and their animations had to be more realistic and grounded in reality. Very good point, thank you for your comment and thoughts!
@@BoundlessEntertainmentFilms = I haven't seen a lot of the Transformers, but the animation does look good and 'real world'. The main problem I have with them IS physics, though...when the cars unfold and the legs, etc., pop out...where does the engine live? (or whatever runs the robot). There's not enough room!
Lack of unions. That is the real problem with modern VFX. The artists simply don't have enough time to properly work, so they put out "trash" looking stuff. It really is just about studios refusing to give artists enough time in order to save budget.
Lack of unions didn't stop earlier cgi from not looking like absolute wank. Unions might well discourage the use of vfx in films which would make their misuse less common though they would also hinder the lower budget films that actually make decent use of vfx already. The trouble is a lot deeper with a growing cultural predisposition to complacency. Unions can be great but their application in this sense is a bandaid on a tumour
Unions all over the rest of production don't stop 14 hour days to stuff ten weeks of shooting into seven weeks of time. The only thing they do for people in film production is get them paid for the OT they are basically forced to work. This is all that would happen if VFX studios were organized. The timelines would still be just as short.
@@PaulGuy - This is because Unions don't have as much leverage as they used to in the past. If VFX Unions try force studios for better hours and longer timelines, then studios will just threaten to ship the jobs to overseas VFX houses in India and China that will create VFX at an insanely cheap price.
I’ve also noticed that CGI just seems to be absolutely tanking recently. Tori final Ironman was so good I genuinely thought that they built him an entire fiberglass suit for filming.
I think stylistic usage would be a good topic to cover. Such as Speed Racer's usage of it - the odd rendering actually fits with the cartoony aesthetic the movie has, with its bright and varied color palette and frenetic editing.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR INCLUDING THE TRANSFORMERS MOVIES!!! They are really beautiful to look at, I grew up watching these movies and I love them Amazing content!
Haha same here, the first Transformers movie was what really triggered my interest in film and made me want to make movies! Thanks for your comment and for watching!
I think the MAJOR thing that's going on isn't just price, but that the current method is ideal for executive oversight. If you shoot a whole large action sequence with practical effects and max in CGI, it's really hard for an executive to come in and nitpick minor things and change small parts. Doing everything in CGI, means execs can come in and totally rework shots, scenes - you name it. And you can do that up until a few days (or even after) release.
This is absolutely false. You cant just change one aspect of a shot in CGI like clicking "delete fire1" and expect the rest of the scene to look good lol. Only NOW can you see changes you made in real time and its not even 100%. Good VFX companies know how to make great CGI like in the movie dune, but people never fucking talk about that do they? There are plenty of movies, shorts, shows that use amazing VFX and sometimes have whole scenes that are VFX but noone even realises it because it was done so damn well. People only notice the bad ones, just like how we also notice really shitty practical effects as well.
@@erickim1739 Right. The reason Marvel looks like shit, and Dune looked good was because Dune had a combination of practical effects and CGI, and the CGI was used to expand the world, rather than using it to create the world from scratch. A lot of Marvel sequences now are being shot basically entirely on green screens so they can just click 'delete fire1'. They did a TON of work when filming Dune to get the lighting correct, down to timing light bursts to go with what would later be CGI explosions. Marvel is not going that far, because once you've filmed the scene with the 'correct' light, you can't go back and change a lot about it, so instead you film it with flat lighting and use CGI to fix it all in post.
@@Lupine49 but here’s the issue…people keep bringing up marvel movies as if all of their VFX is bad but it’s not…they put out so many movies and shows that of course they can’t have perfect VFX in every single shot lol. Moon knight was great was it not? It had great VFX in certain scenes and not so good ones in others. People are just expecting so much from marvel that it’s an impossible bar to reach
@@erickim1739 well Marvel is creating the problem themselves by pushing out so much stuff. It's not really a high bar, if marvel is setting themselves up to not meet it when they did before.
@@exlordinthedude8080 I agree that its on noone else but Marvel if they continue to put out subpar material but there are always plenty of VFX shots that are truly amazing in Marvel films/shows even today...People are only bringing up the bad ones as if thats whats important.
It's not like modern CGI has gotten worse, there is just a selection bias when it comes to older movies that have good effects. We always remember the standout movies with good effects, even the ones that had shit ton of CGI like Avatar or Pirates of the Carribean 2 (even then, those movies are still pretty recent in the grand scheme of things). But we just forget about the bad ones. Meanwhile, we can still remember recent bad movies so it feels like things have gotten worse. The truth is that movies have basically always been this way. We do this even though there are still plenty of modern examples of good CGI, like Logan or Top Gun Maverick or all of Denis Villeneuve's movies. I find it ironic that you point out Gravity as a bad example when Cuaron went through painstaking efforts to make sure that the lighting of the CG environment always perfectly matched the lighting on the actors. Imo Gravity is an incredible showcase of CGI.
Has anyone considered that the CGI workers are *perhaps* overworked after Marvel keeps crunching out 10 products a year with veterans of the field literally making statements about how it’s ruined everything?
Jurassic Park was the best possible use of CGI because the ENTIRE film was meant to be physical shots and animatronics, the CGI was only added when the special effect teams PROVED that they could do better with CGI than using any other known special effect and that is why it still looks incredible even 25 years later, so as far as I am concerned the benchmark is make a film as realistic as possible using physical effects and THEN ask if CGI can improve on those effects instead of relying on CGI from the outset. The best analogy I have is that a good cook will use salt and other seasoning to make a good meal great but a bad cook thinks 'fuck the food quality, I'll just keep adding salt until it tastes good'. CGI is seasoning to a production that can make it even better but without a good production to begin with it just leaves us all with an unpleasant taste in our mouths.
Curious to hear your thoughts on shooting on an LED soundstage, as they still require the same digital environments and other assets as traditional VFX, but now they've been moved up in the process so that much of lighting and composition that would traditionally be done in post are now done in prep and can be seen on set.
I think they are good in certain situations, Star Wars for example used them first on the Mandalorian and they work great for more static shots like Mando camping out in the desert, but then they decided to film the entirety of obi wan on them and the flaws start to show up, like in any chase scenes they'd have to cut every time the actors ran 5 metres across the sound stage.
The real problem with the whole Hollywood vfx situation is the lack of unionization. Nearly every other job is unionized. But vfx isn't. Creates lower quality products.
This is hitting the nail right on the head. CG used to be the cherry on top, now it's the whole damn meal and there is just no longer the time to give the major set pieces the time they need to pop when ever frame now has 20 layers of digital trickery going on.
As an amateur 3d artist(I only do it as a hobby), I’ve noticed there are a few different things that play into making your CG look real. I guess, in a way, they’re different layers of realism that all work together. First is lighting. If the lighting is even slightly off, people will be able to tell. The human brain will subconsciously tell something is off, if your light direction is slightly off. Second, there’s detail imperfections. No matter how good you are at making things, your creations in the real world will always have imperfections. Things like knicks, lumps, scratches and micro scratches, smudges and so on. Especially around edges, since those get scuffed the easiest. If it’s too clean and perfect, the brain recognizes that it’s unnatural. Thirdly, the performance/behavior of the elements in question. If something doesn’t move right, or doesn’t behave like it should, that sets the mind off too. Whether it’s falling debris, or a character moving, we can tell when something isn’t moving like it’s supposed to. And like someone else here said; that all takes a lot of PLANNING. A lot of studios will just throw work at their VFX people and expect a good final product. The film director has a lot of stuff they need to give in order to get a solid looking VFX shot. The VFX department is not there to make up for your lack of planning. It’s there to, in a sense, reward _good_ planning.
Interestingly for Andor it seems like they've adopted blending on set foreground with CG background and it works so great, I don't ever get pulled out the story (save for recognising some of the locations as it was mostly shot in the uk 😀)
It's weird, I think pretty much everything you said was right in a vacuum, but I disagreed with almost all the connections lol CGI 100% is best when used to enhance what's already there, but some things can't be done practically and look good. Full CGI characters are going to be harder to do, but can look fantastic if they do it right. Also, people have been saying VFX are getting worse for as long as VFX have existed, same with practical effects, same with movies in general, because people only remember the best examples from older movies, while everything coming out now is fresh in our minds. I think it's fair to say the average movie VFX from a decade ago was worse than the average of today, and if for no other reason but our technology and techniques continuing to improve, today's _best_ movie VFX is going to beat out older effects.
Another problem with this too is that we only notice the worst vfx, the best vfx usually goes unrecognized unless you’re a professional in the industry because the best vfx shouldn’t be noticed by the viewer
(There could be things that are done well that people might not even notice because they think they are real but then one bad shot and now it’s a movie with bad vfx)
I am tickled by how much of what you said has already been known for ages. Back in the 80's, before CG was even a thing, Robert Zemeckis made a big transition on the visual effect shots in Back to the Future 3 after finishing the second movie. He found that he was able to pull off far more convincing composite shots by staging them the same way we would if it was just a normal scene with two actors rather than a special effect shot. Effectively, he discovered how to make special effects look better by not trying to draw focus to them. And before that, George Lucas had made public statements about special effects, stating "A special effect is a tool; a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing." Thus, in his very heyday as the king of visual effects, he was already advocating a focus on storytelling over the visuals. Half of the advice you gave in this video was already understood 40 years ago, but people have lost that insight over time.
I agree. I think early CGI like in Jurassic Park or Terminator 2 still mostly hold up today because the teams knew they could only push the limits so far, and so they had to get creative with a bunch of little tricks to make it look believable. Nowadays VFX programs are a lot more versatile and user friendly, and so the higher ups just kinda take it for granted.
I’ve always preferred to see movies and shows shot on real locations, with real costumes, and real stunts. Then I worked on one of those shows and learned exactly why so many don’t do it 😂 Still think it’s entirely worth it, both for the final picture and for my bank account 💰💰💰
Color grading also plagued the MCU films. The Paramount-era films looked great because of the balanced color grading, when Disney took over everything looked too desaturated and was topped up with too much Instagram filters to look stylized.
@@memesjack3615 yes indeed in fact first Avengers film is my favorite the last one Endgame is good but it didn't impressed very much especially that final battle I felt it was kinda dark and dull
I'm so happy I stumbled on your channel. As a fellow visual storyteller I appreciate your insights greatly. We do most of our storytelling for cultural projects commissioned by fortune 50 companies and governmental entities that don't get much public airtime, but I'm super interested in venturing out into the indie spectrum. I guess it all starts with a script right?
I see your point. Most of the time bad CGI completely takes me out of the fantasy and reminds me that everything was shot in a blue room somewhere out there.
I remember some of the behind the scenes stuff for the original Iron Man movie and was surprised to see that RDJ was wearing a physical suit for a lot of it. It didn't look that convincing but gave good reference for VFX, which made the film hold up way better. Meanwhile, Endgame is looking more and more like a next-gen video game.
I generally disagree with this perspective, and the title is clickbait. It doesn't suck. Your premise is just a testiment to how much better it is getting. VFX is in a non-linear transition to playing a bigger role which in some cases falls short, usually do to time and money. I think that's an expected part of the process.
The Transformers live action films can't be topped, to this day a part of me thinks Transformers are real because of how good and believable the CGI looks
This is the problem I'm running into. I want to make a trailer for a movie that's 1 minute long. I have to have a desert area, and I need to have a car scene. So I created the world in Unreal Engine 5, and plan on filming it in green screen. I'm trying to think of how to make this look as real as possible, since the entirety of it has to be done in green screen, since where I live there is no desert.
I'm actually working on a tutorial for this exact type of thing, and I hope to have it posted sometime this week! One way to do this is to shoot your footage, 3d track it if you have movement, and then you can enable the Image Plane plugin in Unreal Engine, import your footage to that, and set up your scene how you like according to your footage. I go into detail on this in the video so hopefully that could help you when it comes out!
@@BoundlessEntertainmentFilms buddy, I'll tell you what. You need to do one of your in depth purchasable ones for that. Because I'm not kidding, I'd pay $100 easy for something that covers everything on that. I purchased your bundle pack tutorial, and loved that. Could you consider doing an in depth one? One of the biggest hurdles I'm trying to figure out is the filming of inside the car in a car chase involving a gun out the window firing at another cars tires. I have to rent a car, then have the same car in Unreal Engine 5 that's a 3D model (luckily the scene takes place at dusk). As well as purchasing a replica gun, which I then have to animate the firing of. This stuff isn't too hard to figure out, but I'm stressed on making sure I film everything properly for it. I own a Blackmagic 6k Pro. I am currently the 2nd camera operator on a movie being made. So I know how to film on set. But still new to green screen filming.
Ummm....they don't? What are you freaking talking about? The only time they suck is when artists aren't given enough time or money to do something right....
I can remember playing the early 3d graphics games in the 90's where they always used fog to hide the limited draw distance. Like literally every game of that period. So I still get triggered when I see a bunch of fog in modern games and movie CGI.
These video essays are really great! I have been really interested into the core aspects of why vfx nowadays are getting lesser in quality and this basically helps me to have a broader view of this particular issue. It is entertaining, please continue this
Like any form of art being used in filmmaking, it’s about knowing when, how, and if you should use it. There are many factors such as Will making a model, set, puppet or whatever better immerse the actors. Will you be able to achieve what you want only with CG. How much will it be compared to alternatives? I believe in the current day and age, if making big budget fantasy, sci-do or basically stories that are beyond our world, the best movies are made by directors who understand the strengths and weaknesses of cg, and choosing to use it for a purpose. Even The Batman 2022 uses CG but it’s so subtle in most cases you basically won’t ever think about it.
Heck you can see how important fog and haze is in video games. The Grand Theft Auto Trilogy remastered relied heavily on AI upscaling and increased draw distance, but without the haze it showed in glaring detail the weakness of the world design itself.
If one major studio holds most of the projects I imagine it will be difficult to negotiate terms for VFX artists especially when the market is so saturated with new talent.
This was a very educational video, and I say this as a man trying to make my own movies. I'm thinking of a sci-fi story, but I don't want the VFX to suck. I never thought about how believable it is for the actor as much as the audience, but yeah, it makes sense. In order for the actor to get into character, they have to see the world that their character inhabits in, but how do they do that if they are reciting their lines in front of a green screen?
Smoke and fog is the cheapest and easiest way to Blend Cgi with footage. Everytime u can work without u should. But when the scene Desiree it of course use it. And if u can t get it Look better without
I wonder if the issues around CGI is why I am in the minority for disliking Captain America Civil War. I cannot get over the bland setting of an airport roof for such an important fight. Why not a forest or the city? Now I realise it makes the CGI way easier: One flat grey surface.
I would say that the fog gets misused and overused a lot. I see many shots in movies and tv where fog and mist are used and I cannot normalize it, cause it would be as if real life was like silent hill.
I think part of it is that VFX are a lot easier to do now than 15 years ago (newer programs are more user friendly, AI can handle particle/smoke/fluid effects better, there's a lot of pre- downloadable content, ect.), that the higher ups don't really think about that stuff anymore and tell the artists "I don't care, just get it done." I'd hate to be that person who missed their kid's birthday because they had to finish animating She-Hulk twerking.
As a fan and someone who’s dabbled, I think you hit it right on the head about why VFX of films of early 2000’s seem more photorealistic and grounded. Because they are added to live plates. I’ve always thought that the grounding of reality is what really helped sell the VFX from films like Transformers 2007. The VFX had to conform to what was captured in a camera that moves realistic around a set and not anime style like a bullet. Which there’s nothing wrong with that when done right and sparingly. I love seeing the use of virtual sets. Do not take it the wrong way, but I feel like they get overused and therefore lose the sense of novelty and suspension of disbelief. Great video.
As a film Director myself this is why I typically like to film on location and uses a little green screen as possible. even the next feature film that I’ve been hired to direct I believe there’s only maybe five shots in the entire film never gonna have any sort of visual effects everything else will be completely practical on production. Like you said in your video over reliance on VFX is a terrible idea especially when the filmmakers become lazy and not creative with camera movement basic lighting prop design on production.
Kind of why the Lord of the rings films worked and the Hobbit films didn't. Practical effects and sets with minimal use of CGI versus " Hobbits in barrels floating down a river "
A more important issue is that The Lord Of The Rings is a trilogy of adult novels made into an epic movie trilogy. The Hobbit is a children's book padded to make a trilogy of films.
I loved how Iron Man’s suit used to pieces of armor he had to put on rather than the lazy ass nanobytes that just appear out of nowhere and coat him like paint.
Nothing particularly new to me here but really cool to see your own work and experience highlighting your points. Practical sets/effects etc. go such a long way to providing a good basis for post-production effects. Really wish they were becoming more common and not less. :c
People don't talk enough about how certain local laws and costs of film permits have gotten worse to the point where a lot of films (big budget and especially indie) are forced to either rely on just using a studio space for nearly 2/3rds of the movie or to use not-so-good locations just to compensate.
It is not the VFX that sucks these days, it's the people who made them are suck. Before they had money, they put their heart and soul in to those movies, giving everything they got to those project, to entertain the audience around the world. They were, basically, living in their offices, to make their movies look, feel and be cool. But, after they got those huge money, became rich and stuff like that, they stoped caring about quality, and start thinking about, how to make even more money, without investing too much in VFX, to become even more rich than usual. That is why VFX, CGI and stuff like that, sucks these days. Big film studios doesn't care about quality anymore. They only care about earning more money, and puting a political sub text in those movies, or straight up policy without even hiding it, telling people that, that is right. So yeah, the only way this all can be fixed, is via showing to those big film studios that, we don't want that crap. By taking their money back from them, telling them to go back to the drawing board or stop existing. Otherwise, we will get the same crap over, and over and over again.
I totally agree! I think it's short sighted on the part of the big studios because already some people are starting to gravitate towards the films that smaller production studios put out because they are just better. Thanks for your comment and for watching!
I would like an explanation of why some scenes in Thor love and Thunder look so off. I saw they used a curved screen instead of normal green screen. This was supposed to make it better, why didn't it? It looked worse, like if you were on a fairground with an obvious screen behind you. You could see were the practical set ended and the screen began.
time - they didn't give the VFX artists enough time to "smooth" the edges between the set and the LED walls, or to touch up the issues, plus they probably didn't have enough time to properly make the very high resolution backgrounds, making them look _odd_ compared to shows like the Mandalorian, which uses them to amazing results
As a video game enthusaist, I really enjoy this trend in blockbuster movies because it's resulted in a situation that I find hilarious: Blockbuster videogames look MORE realistic than blockbuster movies, because the high quality character assets are lit identically to the scene so they don't look like cutouts like Marvel movie actors on greenscreen do. They are more grounded and fit naturally in the scenes. This has already been the case on occasion and with UE5 and next-gen engines finally releasing games next year, more and more games will look more photorealistic than movies do. And it's so delightfully surreal that we're in that situation.
hmmmm i wonder if a lot of modern vfx artists today are possibly overworked and underpaid by employers and thats why a lot of films (mainly comic book films) have crappy vfx today
Generally agree with *all* of that. Though I do have one question.. I've never seen Gemini so I don't know much about it but that ship at 4:30... Is that the Razor Crest from Mandalorian that flies overhead? Because it looks pretty much exactly like it.
I'll point to Titanic as the standard for vfx. Everything was either shot on location or on a set, and cgi was used to fill in the blanks for certain areas. Don't be afraid to use vfx, but don't let it become a crutch.
I remember watching Godzilla 2014 in first grade and my fucking mind was blown. The quality of VFX, sound, music, and ground to reality made me fall in love. Then Godzilla KOTM came out and was disappointed. I didn’t even finish Godzilla vs Kong.
your video makes excellent well researched points about the use of CGI in modern cinema, however, have you considered bumping up the exposure on your talking head shots a few stops so we can actually see your face?
Lazy is never a word I would use to describe a filmmaking process - your points are all well taken, but it’s lazy criticism to call someone else’s work lazy
The issues are simple. Not enough time to allow Passion thrive, overreliance on CGI means more work on it which means less time to perfect it, and the best CGI are the ones that give illusions, not replace what can be made. Forrest Gump shocked me with how much CGI it actually had. Goes to show how convincing it is when it's used strategically instead of using it on Live Action to a level where the work should've been done on a 3D Cartoon. Most of us saw it coming that post Endgame would turn the MCU into a real monopoly and with Disney, it was gonna get butchered. I didn't think it would reach the extent it would but being part of the gaming industry where most AAA monopolies like to prioritize money over passion, it's all too familiar.
@@Joshua_N-A Ye. That scene was real convincing. And the mass crowd at DC was just copy/pasted group of a smaller audience. It was just done in a way where you wouldn't catch it.
Great video. I totally agree with you, the story is what matters. May I give you a little advice? A soft warm light in the shots where we can see you would improve the visual greatly. The grey dark color and YT's compression do some strange tricks.
This is why i love the mandolorian. They figured out how to get the best of both worlds with their really cool new tech that got practical elements in the space with the CGI as they shot it
Unfortunately they don't mention the fact that the majority of the shots done on the "volume" stage end up getting rotoed so they can replace the background. It's really only good for the actors and reflections.
Pacific rim, original Iron man and original Transformers are good examples of realistic CGI. Also LotR trilogy is a handbook on how to make grounded in reality scenes
I clicked this video on a whim. I'm not someone who watches movies often, and most movies that I do end up watching are older movies with my dad. I'm pretty out of the loop for movies that have come out in the past 15-20 years, but a few I do know I've seen are the first MCU Iron Man, Captain America, 2007 Transformers, and Mad Max: Fury Road. The effects are pretty damn good in those ones I remember. Especially Mad Max but I know that one was like 85% practical. Seeing clips from all these movies that are so recent is astonishing. They look so bad! Like plastic clay! The lighting and texture is smooth and the physics feel wrong. I can't believe that each of these films has a higher budget than the last and they come out looking like that.
As much as the 2001 version of _Planet of the Apes_ is maligned and derided, I really like it in large part because of the sheer amount of practical effects it uses, with very minimal use of CGI. Besides the space scenes and some distant backgrounds, almost everything is real and using practical effects, with the biggest amount of "visual fakery" being just some stunt wires removed in postprocessing. Heck, even the apes outrunning galloping horses was a practical effect, no CGI trickery. I highly recommend that film, if for nothing else, because of that.
GENUINE QUESTION = At 1:06, Why was Batman v Superman included here as bad VFX? And that also right after the notorious Black Panther sequence? I was under the impression BvS has very good effects (maybe with some exceptions like Doomsday design due to changing at last moment after MoS backlash)?? Is it because dark lighting/hyper realism (used in MoS) = bad or something? Also there are multple “color corrected” versions available, are they all bad?
While some VFX and CGI creations can be absolutely amazing or quickly useful for certain shots, I’ll always prefer classic practical effects. Three of my favorite films of all time (including their subsequent sequels) Terminator, Robocop, and Predator never ever used lame effects. Everything in those films was put together so well. Ed 209, Robo-Cain, the Predator faces and suits, the Terminator endo, the puppet for Arnold, and so much more was so well made. The little visual effects done back then was sparingly used and looks better than most films today
Stan Winston, had he still with us today, he'll grab the people from Boston Dynamics to create an even realistic looking and moving T-800 endo. Look how far has robotics become. Plus, 3D printing today should be able to make scale model making easier and cheaper.
Love how VFX artists are the first to say “your story, performances and planning should go first, and VFX should dress up what you already have”. Many lazy directors think that those people will simply do the work for them. It’s basically like being a costume designer, you can have extremely well crafted costumes, but if you don’t have a living, breathing person to put them on, they aren’t as impressive. We can be impressed by the work, but we don’t get the full impact, which also impacts the artists themselves, since their work isn’t appreciated to the fullest.
This is a great way of putting it! Thanks for your comment and for watching!
@Question man what?
Can you go into depth? This sounds useful for a development I’m working on rn 🙏
@@king_kai28 What is it you need?
@@alexman378 Just a clearer understanding of what you mean by having the VFX dress up what a director should have. Would storyboarding be a good way for a director to engage in planned scenes for a VFX artist? I’d imagine that would go hand in hand with story telling? How would one avoid being lazy
2 most important things I learnt about vfx over the years:
1. Place your virtual 1 camera exactly where you would if you were shooting it in real life and it will look much more realistic. Movies like Geostorm and Midway are terrific examples on how to get this wrong
2. Vfx need to be art directed
Great input, I completely agree! Thanks for your comment and for watching!
Pacific Rim is another great example as well.
VFX is art directed. It's the notes we get more often that muddy the water.
Pretty much every Effects shot I get landed at work has many, many notes on it. More often than not it is director intervention that pulls shots away in a particular direction. Directors ought to have a different approach to effects, and be more open to teams doing as they do.
@@FinnReinhardt Pacific Rim 2 is the entire opposite.
@@MaxIronsThird wait, so you’re saying you like the VFX in the second better?
I think the first iron man was the perfect balance of real / CGI. Use actual physical sets and props but use VFX to improve them and make them look better, if you look at behind the scenes of the first iron man you will know what im talking about.
rewatch terminator 2. that was good cgi.
The Paramount era MCU films looked great also because of color grading. Modern MCU films just have too much filters and desaturation going for it.
To be honest first and second Iron Man movies were both smart use of CGI and practical props. For example Iron Man suits were an actual suits half way. Top was realistic looking prop and legs were done by CGI obviously to ease up movement of actors and stuntmen.
Spider-Man 2 2004 is also good example of smart use of CGI. Doc Ock tentacles were very realistic because they used real tentacles with puppeteers for non action scenes. Only issue i found in that movie was that Spider-Mans CGI movement was grounded, realistic and smooth, but all the practical wire jumps ruined the magic. They were very glunky and stif. This is rare example of situation where practical stunts are less convincing than CGI.
True - i was dissapointed how the subsequent Iron Man movies actually looked worse..
Can we also implore the idea that VFX should “perfect imperfection”?
Lesson: CGI can't be a crutch for your film, it should just be an addition.
Which is why movies can have bad CGI and still be good.
@@SDfan2002 And which is why movies can also have 100% practical effects, on location shoots, 100% real costumes, and still be bad lol.
@@erickim1739 Right the point being special effects be they practical or CG don't make a movie. The exception being unless its one of the stars of the film eg Jurassic park where good CG characters were critical for the films success.
Yes it can. But you have to spend a lot of money and time (check James Cameron)
Oh Yes they can, almost all modern super hero movies are carried by the CGI, hell almost all modern action films as well.
The most damning part of CGI, especially in something like the Marvel films is the amount of usage gets to the point where one can't help but ask "if it's mostly CGI anyway, why not just make it fully animated?"
Haha, so true. I thought about the same thing too.
2:07 The Ruffalo-head in the bad animated Hulkbuster. The Ruffalo-head....really sad. I'm not an expert, BUT I think even I could tell easily how to do that in a better way. Just create a real model of the upper part of the hulk buster and then merge the animation to the model instead of merging a Ruffalo-head with the CGI-Hulk-buster. Really lazy for such a big production.
Back in the day, these films were considered animated movies. There are plenty of animated movies that have used real-life footage but are still considered to be animated movies. Tron is a perfect example, and it has less animation than any of the Marvel movies.
watching this video, i was just asking the same exact question
The action scenes in those films look like cartoons anyway so they might as well.
Pacific Rim still has some of the best looking CG I’ve ever seen, holds up incredibly well even today
@@LP12576 what's time got to do with the quality of vfx in a movie? That 2013 movie still looks a million times better than 99 percent of god awful vfx in mcu movies today. Hell even terminator 2 a movie from the 80s still holds up.
@@LP12576 What exactly is goofy about its CGI? All the Jeagers still hold up render-wise and the Kaiju still look life-like. I think you're thinking about the second pacific rim that threw away all the weight of the first movie
Transformers was way better.
2005 King Kong is one of my favorites
even better. most of the cgi in lord of the rings trilogy still looks good. there's some wonkiness going on in places but for a movie that was made over 20 years ago now it's very impressive
It makes me think that what happened is that, as tools got better over time, directors realised that they could just rely more on the VFX teams to get it done, and done cheaper. So rather than shoot in a practical set, they'll just green screen it all together, because the technology can do that with greater ease now
They can get it "done cheaper" because of the lack of unions
Also, VFX Departments are generally unionless, whilst stunt coordinators, costumers, prop artists and set artists do... it's a very sad reality
it reminds me that even at lower levels, like in TV or corporate, where I work, some newbies/younger people do not bother to make a shot steady because we have a warp stabilizer on Premiere or a gimble. I had the experience that even on gimble they found a way to get shaky shot because they thought the gimble does all the job. So, no posture, no bending knees, too fast bumpy movements etc. So frustrating!
And i have nothing against CGI, but if you have to put lot of CGI in movie then at least make it look real.
Something I learned from my dad growing up is that more often than not the easiest solution isn’t the best solution. And so far in life I’ve found that to hold up pretty well.
I think the over reliance on CGI to wow audiences without real, story driven reasons for it being there is Hollywood's biggest issue. Like if they just have enough of that, they don't need to care about story, character, plot holes, etc. Very nice video and excellent visual examples.
I totally agree! The story and characters are the most important part, but have been taking a backseat to deadlines and schedules, as well as the unnecessary CGI like you said. Thank you for your comments and for watching these videos!
@@BoundlessEntertainmentFilms You're welcome, and they're fantastic. 😊
Best vfx are invisible. Nothing jumping at the camera, impossible spinning camera moves or explosions in super slow motion.
the only thing Hollywood is carrying for now is diversity and anti white and anti family and anti conservatives propaganda, rest is optional nowadays.
@@BoundlessEntertainmentFilms yea I do wish people would do practical effects as much as possible while reducing the use of CGI is good but it depends on what the shots are and such.
im so glad you brought up the michael bay transformers movies. like them or not, the cgi in specifically 2007 and dark of the moon is so incredible and lifelike. its aged so well.
There is no golden rule other than the ratio of time, talent, and money. Those are also the ingredients to any movie wether SFX are involved or not.
You don't know how to spell "whether"?
@@DarthHater100 I sertanlee hop yu dont spent awl yor tyme lohkin four tipos on da intrwebz.
@@risingtide_official LMAO these commend mayd mi laf.
@@erickim1739 How did the translation ai think you were saying dead body 💀
@@erickim1739 So I put it into google translate and it thought you were speaking Somalian lol
The directors and artists forget that Less is More. Watching a boss battle in a superhero movie is like watching an epileptic extravaganza of absurd choreography, fast cuts, impossible camera moves and an overwhelming light and explosions shows which makes it unbearable to enjoy. Recently I've watch The International (2009) with Clive Owen. In one of the scenes there is an intense shoot out inside NY Guggenheim's museum. I've have been there many times before so it was incredible to see the gun fight inside that landmark. Checking IMDB, the production team re-created the museum with the original plans. There are things that CGI can't still replace...
@Novelty Court | Weird & Wild B-Movies This observation describes it well. It's sort of intangible but this is indeed the sort of result you get.
"epileptic extravaganza of absurd choreography, fast cuts, impossible camera moves and an overwhelming light and explosions" absolutely NOTHING to do with VFX and all to do with art direction, preplanning, editing choices, directorial choices, and most importantly, money and time constraints. But ok sure.
If less is more, then no movie is the best movie.
It's not the artists fault at all. It all boils down to the directors and the upper management. Artists create what the directors give them and more often being overworked to get there.
I’ve been noticing the issue with overuse of CGI from a young age when I noticed how unreal certain shots in Avengers looked compared to films like the original Iron Man, Batman Begins, and 2007 Transformers. It makes me pretty sad to see how far we’ve come with technology when you look back on movies like the original Star Wars trilogy, Ghostbusters, and Back to the Future.
i like that michael bay's style is getting some love, since i have a soft spot for his work seeing as i was the target demographic around the time his first 3 transformers movies came out. people back then criticized his "overuse" of CGI, and now look at what we have nowadays. how ironic that nowadays michael bay uses less cgi than most other blockbuster movies
Excellent points, and I will follow. The audience knows, even if only subliminally, when vfx are being overused, or used improperly. When a character, say, is swinging on a web through NYC, fine, I can accept that. In the world of the film we are given that some guy has the strength and agility to make it work, and the web is strong enough, etc. Accepted, through the willing suspension of disbelief. But when that same character suddenly take a sharp left in mid-swing my brain KNOWS that's not possible, and I'm out of the scene (same with forced dialog and a lot of other filmic shorthand, but that's another topic). We all know how basic physics works...how a ball flies through the air, how something floats on the water, how weight and mass affect motion...we see it every day, even if it's not a UFO or a monster or what have you. When CGI animators bend those rules too far, no matter how thrilling, we notice, and we are lost at least for a moment, and out of the story. Filmmakers hate it when the audience is taken out of the movie.
That's a great point! I agree, the physics in animation are incredibly important, and a lot of filmmakers have been pushing it too far, especially in some of the examples I showed in this video. That's part of what made the animation in Transformers so great. Because the animated robots had to interact with real objects in the scene, the physics and their animations had to be more realistic and grounded in reality. Very good point, thank you for your comment and thoughts!
@@BoundlessEntertainmentFilms = I haven't seen a lot of the Transformers, but the animation does look good and 'real world'. The main problem I have with them IS physics, though...when the cars unfold and the legs, etc., pop out...where does the engine live? (or whatever runs the robot). There's not enough room!
@@nelsongoforth6254 they're not cars, they just look like that
@@nelsongoforth6254 Transformers are not cars they are alien robots. They just have the ability to transform themselves
@@nelsongoforth6254 bruh
6:00 This might not be feasable for some movies, but it's the perfect mindset to start from.
2008 Iron Man looks like a guy wearing a suit of armour, every thing after Iron Man 2 feels like a CGI model moving around
if it wasn't for Transformers 1, the Iron Man 1 wouldn't see success and the MCU would not exist
literally. it's well known the iron man team took many notes from transformers
@@novustalks7525 Both ILM so it's not exactly surprising....
Lack of unions. That is the real problem with modern VFX. The artists simply don't have enough time to properly work, so they put out "trash" looking stuff. It really is just about studios refusing to give artists enough time in order to save budget.
Lack of unions didn't stop earlier cgi from not looking like absolute wank. Unions might well discourage the use of vfx in films which would make their misuse less common though they would also hinder the lower budget films that actually make decent use of vfx already. The trouble is a lot deeper with a growing cultural predisposition to complacency. Unions can be great but their application in this sense is a bandaid on a tumour
Unions all over the rest of production don't stop 14 hour days to stuff ten weeks of shooting into seven weeks of time. The only thing they do for people in film production is get them paid for the OT they are basically forced to work. This is all that would happen if VFX studios were organized. The timelines would still be just as short.
@@PaulGuy - This is because Unions don't have as much leverage as they used to in the past. If VFX Unions try force studios for better hours and longer timelines, then studios will just threaten to ship the jobs to overseas VFX houses in India and China that will create VFX at an insanely cheap price.
Eh, unions also are responsible for crazy activist teachers being un-fireable.
@@reservationatdorsias3215 We're not talking about teachers. This is VFX unions.
I’ve also noticed that CGI just seems to be absolutely tanking recently. Tori final Ironman was so good I genuinely thought that they built him an entire fiberglass suit for filming.
I think stylistic usage would be a good topic to cover.
Such as Speed Racer's usage of it - the odd rendering actually fits with the cartoony aesthetic the movie has, with its bright and varied color palette and frenetic editing.
As George Lucas said it: "A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing"
George Lucas is the gold standard.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR INCLUDING THE TRANSFORMERS MOVIES!!!
They are really beautiful to look at, I grew up watching these movies and I love them
Amazing content!
Haha same here, the first Transformers movie was what really triggered my interest in film and made me want to make movies! Thanks for your comment and for watching!
I think the MAJOR thing that's going on isn't just price, but that the current method is ideal for executive oversight. If you shoot a whole large action sequence with practical effects and max in CGI, it's really hard for an executive to come in and nitpick minor things and change small parts. Doing everything in CGI, means execs can come in and totally rework shots, scenes - you name it. And you can do that up until a few days (or even after) release.
This is absolutely false. You cant just change one aspect of a shot in CGI like clicking "delete fire1" and expect the rest of the scene to look good lol. Only NOW can you see changes you made in real time and its not even 100%. Good VFX companies know how to make great CGI like in the movie dune, but people never fucking talk about that do they? There are plenty of movies, shorts, shows that use amazing VFX and sometimes have whole scenes that are VFX but noone even realises it because it was done so damn well. People only notice the bad ones, just like how we also notice really shitty practical effects as well.
@@erickim1739 Right. The reason Marvel looks like shit, and Dune looked good was because Dune had a combination of practical effects and CGI, and the CGI was used to expand the world, rather than using it to create the world from scratch. A lot of Marvel sequences now are being shot basically entirely on green screens so they can just click 'delete fire1'. They did a TON of work when filming Dune to get the lighting correct, down to timing light bursts to go with what would later be CGI explosions. Marvel is not going that far, because once you've filmed the scene with the 'correct' light, you can't go back and change a lot about it, so instead you film it with flat lighting and use CGI to fix it all in post.
@@Lupine49 but here’s the issue…people keep bringing up marvel movies as if all of their VFX is bad but it’s not…they put out so many movies and shows that of course they can’t have perfect VFX in every single shot lol. Moon knight was great was it not? It had great VFX in certain scenes and not so good ones in others.
People are just expecting so much from marvel that it’s an impossible bar to reach
@@erickim1739 well Marvel is creating the problem themselves by pushing out so much stuff.
It's not really a high bar, if marvel is setting themselves up to not meet it when they did before.
@@exlordinthedude8080 I agree that its on noone else but Marvel if they continue to put out subpar material but there are always plenty of VFX shots that are truly amazing in Marvel films/shows even today...People are only bringing up the bad ones as if thats whats important.
Randomly came across this video. I really appreciate the depth you took me into when it comes to VFX. makes so much sense
It's not like modern CGI has gotten worse, there is just a selection bias when it comes to older movies that have good effects. We always remember the standout movies with good effects, even the ones that had shit ton of CGI like Avatar or Pirates of the Carribean 2 (even then, those movies are still pretty recent in the grand scheme of things). But we just forget about the bad ones. Meanwhile, we can still remember recent bad movies so it feels like things have gotten worse. The truth is that movies have basically always been this way. We do this even though there are still plenty of modern examples of good CGI, like Logan or Top Gun Maverick or all of Denis Villeneuve's movies. I find it ironic that you point out Gravity as a bad example when Cuaron went through painstaking efforts to make sure that the lighting of the CG environment always perfectly matched the lighting on the actors. Imo Gravity is an incredible showcase of CGI.
Has anyone considered that the CGI workers are *perhaps* overworked after Marvel keeps crunching out 10 products a year with veterans of the field literally making statements about how it’s ruined everything?
ayo, i when i saw " (And How to Make Yours Not Sick)" i was sold
Jurassic Park was the best possible use of CGI because the ENTIRE film was meant to be physical shots and animatronics, the CGI was only added when the special effect teams PROVED that they could do better with CGI than using any other known special effect and that is why it still looks incredible even 25 years later, so as far as I am concerned the benchmark is make a film as realistic as possible using physical effects and THEN ask if CGI can improve on those effects instead of relying on CGI from the outset. The best analogy I have is that a good cook will use salt and other seasoning to make a good meal great but a bad cook thinks 'fuck the food quality, I'll just keep adding salt until it tastes good'. CGI is seasoning to a production that can make it even better but without a good production to begin with it just leaves us all with an unpleasant taste in our mouths.
Curious to hear your thoughts on shooting on an LED soundstage, as they still require the same digital environments and other assets as traditional VFX, but now they've been moved up in the process so that much of lighting and composition that would traditionally be done in post are now done in prep and can be seen on set.
It’s certainly something
I think they are good in certain situations, Star Wars for example used them first on the Mandalorian and they work great for more static shots like Mando camping out in the desert, but then they decided to film the entirety of obi wan on them and the flaws start to show up, like in any chase scenes they'd have to cut every time the actors ran 5 metres across the sound stage.
The real problem with the whole Hollywood vfx situation is the lack of unionization. Nearly every other job is unionized. But vfx isn't. Creates lower quality products.
This is hitting the nail right on the head. CG used to be the cherry on top, now it's the whole damn meal and there is just no longer the time to give the major set pieces the time they need to pop when ever frame now has 20 layers of digital trickery going on.
Why do I love how straight forward this title is 😂
As an amateur 3d artist(I only do it as a hobby), I’ve noticed there are a few different things that play into making your CG look real. I guess, in a way, they’re different layers of realism that all work together. First is lighting. If the lighting is even slightly off, people will be able to tell. The human brain will subconsciously tell something is off, if your light direction is slightly off. Second, there’s detail imperfections. No matter how good you are at making things, your creations in the real world will always have imperfections. Things like knicks, lumps, scratches and micro scratches, smudges and so on. Especially around edges, since those get scuffed the easiest. If it’s too clean and perfect, the brain recognizes that it’s unnatural. Thirdly, the performance/behavior of the elements in question. If something doesn’t move right, or doesn’t behave like it should, that sets the mind off too. Whether it’s falling debris, or a character moving, we can tell when something isn’t moving like it’s supposed to.
And like someone else here said; that all takes a lot of PLANNING. A lot of studios will just throw work at their VFX people and expect a good final product. The film director has a lot of stuff they need to give in order to get a solid looking VFX shot. The VFX department is not there to make up for your lack of planning. It’s there to, in a sense, reward _good_ planning.
Interestingly for Andor it seems like they've adopted blending on set foreground with CG background and it works so great, I don't ever get pulled out the story (save for recognising some of the locations as it was mostly shot in the uk 😀)
It's weird, I think pretty much everything you said was right in a vacuum, but I disagreed with almost all the connections lol
CGI 100% is best when used to enhance what's already there, but some things can't be done practically and look good. Full CGI characters are going to be harder to do, but can look fantastic if they do it right. Also, people have been saying VFX are getting worse for as long as VFX have existed, same with practical effects, same with movies in general, because people only remember the best examples from older movies, while everything coming out now is fresh in our minds. I think it's fair to say the average movie VFX from a decade ago was worse than the average of today, and if for no other reason but our technology and techniques continuing to improve, today's _best_ movie VFX is going to beat out older effects.
Another problem with this too is that we only notice the worst vfx, the best vfx usually goes unrecognized unless you’re a professional in the industry because the best vfx shouldn’t be noticed by the viewer
(There could be things that are done well that people might not even notice because they think they are real but then one bad shot and now it’s a movie with bad vfx)
I am tickled by how much of what you said has already been known for ages.
Back in the 80's, before CG was even a thing, Robert Zemeckis made a big transition on the visual effect shots in Back to the Future 3 after finishing the second movie. He found that he was able to pull off far more convincing composite shots by staging them the same way we would if it was just a normal scene with two actors rather than a special effect shot. Effectively, he discovered how to make special effects look better by not trying to draw focus to them.
And before that, George Lucas had made public statements about special effects, stating "A special effect is a tool; a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing." Thus, in his very heyday as the king of visual effects, he was already advocating a focus on storytelling over the visuals.
Half of the advice you gave in this video was already understood 40 years ago, but people have lost that insight over time.
I agree. I think early CGI like in Jurassic Park or Terminator 2 still mostly hold up today because the teams knew they could only push the limits so far, and so they had to get creative with a bunch of little tricks to make it look believable. Nowadays VFX programs are a lot more versatile and user friendly, and so the higher ups just kinda take it for granted.
Um…am I the only one that feels the Gemini VFX look like a video game?
I’ve always preferred to see movies and shows shot on real locations, with real costumes, and real stunts. Then I worked on one of those shows and learned exactly why so many don’t do it 😂 Still think it’s entirely worth it, both for the final picture and for my bank account 💰💰💰
Color grading also plagued the MCU films. The Paramount-era films looked great because of the balanced color grading, when Disney took over everything looked too desaturated and was topped up with too much Instagram filters to look stylized.
The Avengers looks very colorful and vibrant compared to Age of Ultron, Infinity War and Endgame.
@@memesjack3615 yes indeed in fact first Avengers film is my favorite the last one Endgame is good but it didn't impressed very much especially that final battle I felt it was kinda dark and dull
I'm so happy I stumbled on your channel. As a fellow visual storyteller I appreciate your insights greatly. We do most of our storytelling for cultural projects commissioned by fortune 50 companies and governmental entities that don't get much public airtime, but I'm super interested in venturing out into the indie spectrum. I guess it all starts with a script right?
Don’t understand why movies suck in every aspect nowadays. Lazy filmmaking definitely takes the cake. Thanks for the video.
I love this video, It's one of my biggest problem with modern VFX, they don't feel as real not on location
Thanks for watching and for your comment!
I see your point. Most of the time bad CGI completely takes me out of the fantasy and reminds me that everything was shot in a blue room somewhere out there.
A 7 minute 48 second self indulgant rant and plug for this own business
I remember some of the behind the scenes stuff for the original Iron Man movie and was surprised to see that RDJ was wearing a physical suit for a lot of it. It didn't look that convincing but gave good reference for VFX, which made the film hold up way better.
Meanwhile, Endgame is looking more and more like a next-gen video game.
Remember the times before art was made out of passion, instead of cutting corners anywhere possible?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I generally disagree with this perspective, and the title is clickbait. It doesn't suck. Your premise is just a testiment to how much better it is getting. VFX is in a non-linear transition to playing a bigger role which in some cases falls short, usually do to time and money. I think that's an expected part of the process.
The Transformers live action films can't be topped, to this day a part of me thinks Transformers are real because of how good and believable the CGI looks
This is the problem I'm running into. I want to make a trailer for a movie that's 1 minute long. I have to have a desert area, and I need to have a car scene. So I created the world in Unreal Engine 5, and plan on filming it in green screen. I'm trying to think of how to make this look as real as possible, since the entirety of it has to be done in green screen, since where I live there is no desert.
I'm actually working on a tutorial for this exact type of thing, and I hope to have it posted sometime this week! One way to do this is to shoot your footage, 3d track it if you have movement, and then you can enable the Image Plane plugin in Unreal Engine, import your footage to that, and set up your scene how you like according to your footage. I go into detail on this in the video so hopefully that could help you when it comes out!
@@BoundlessEntertainmentFilms buddy, I'll tell you what. You need to do one of your in depth purchasable ones for that. Because I'm not kidding, I'd pay $100 easy for something that covers everything on that. I purchased your bundle pack tutorial, and loved that. Could you consider doing an in depth one? One of the biggest hurdles I'm trying to figure out is the filming of inside the car in a car chase involving a gun out the window firing at another cars tires. I have to rent a car, then have the same car in Unreal Engine 5 that's a 3D model (luckily the scene takes place at dusk). As well as purchasing a replica gun, which I then have to animate the firing of. This stuff isn't too hard to figure out, but I'm stressed on making sure I film everything properly for it. I own a Blackmagic 6k Pro. I am currently the 2nd camera operator on a movie being made. So I know how to film on set. But still new to green screen filming.
Maybe there is a beach or sand dunes?
Ummm....they don't? What are you freaking talking about? The only time they suck is when artists aren't given enough time or money to do something right....
I can remember playing the early 3d graphics games in the 90's where they always used fog to hide the limited draw distance. Like literally every game of that period. So I still get triggered when I see a bunch of fog in modern games and movie CGI.
These video essays are really great! I have been really interested into the core aspects of why vfx nowadays are getting lesser in quality and this basically helps me to have a broader view of this particular issue. It is entertaining, please continue this
Like any form of art being used in filmmaking, it’s about knowing when, how, and if you should use it.
There are many factors such as Will making a model, set, puppet or whatever better immerse the actors. Will you be able to achieve what you want only with CG. How much will it be compared to alternatives?
I believe in the current day and age, if making big budget fantasy, sci-do or basically stories that are beyond our world, the best movies are made by directors who understand the strengths and weaknesses of cg, and choosing to use it for a purpose.
Even The Batman 2022 uses CG but it’s so subtle in most cases you basically won’t ever think about it.
Heck you can see how important fog and haze is in video games. The Grand Theft Auto Trilogy remastered relied heavily on AI upscaling and increased draw distance, but without the haze it showed in glaring detail the weakness of the world design itself.
If one major studio holds most of the projects I imagine it will be difficult to negotiate terms for VFX artists especially when the market is so saturated with new talent.
This was a very educational video, and I say this as a man trying to make my own movies. I'm thinking of a sci-fi story, but I don't want the VFX to suck. I never thought about how believable it is for the actor as much as the audience, but yeah, it makes sense. In order for the actor to get into character, they have to see the world that their character inhabits in, but how do they do that if they are reciting their lines in front of a green screen?
Smoke and fog is the cheapest and easiest way to Blend Cgi with footage. Everytime u can work without u should. But when the scene Desiree it of course use it. And if u can t get it Look better without
I wonder if the issues around CGI is why I am in the minority for disliking Captain America Civil War.
I cannot get over the bland setting of an airport roof for such an important fight. Why not a forest or the city?
Now I realise it makes the CGI way easier: One flat grey surface.
I would say that the fog gets misused and overused a lot. I see many shots in movies and tv where fog and mist are used and I cannot normalize it, cause it would be as if real life was like silent hill.
Fog/haze is our friend. Even in interior shots, SOME haze in the room puts the audience IN the room. It also gives those wonderful light rays.
I think part of it is that VFX are a lot easier to do now than 15 years ago (newer programs are more user friendly, AI can handle particle/smoke/fluid effects better, there's a lot of pre- downloadable content, ect.), that the higher ups don't really think about that stuff anymore and tell the artists "I don't care, just get it done."
I'd hate to be that person who missed their kid's birthday because they had to finish animating She-Hulk twerking.
As a fan and someone who’s dabbled, I think you hit it right on the head about why VFX of films of early 2000’s seem more photorealistic and grounded. Because they are added to live plates. I’ve always thought that the grounding of reality is what really helped sell the VFX from films like Transformers 2007. The VFX had to conform to what was captured in a camera that moves realistic around a set and not anime style like a bullet. Which there’s nothing wrong with that when done right and sparingly.
I love seeing the use of virtual sets. Do not take it the wrong way, but I feel like they get overused and therefore lose the sense of novelty and suspension of disbelief. Great video.
Agreed, very well put! Thanks for watching!!
"anime style like a bullet" You mean like Black Panther at 0:57?
As a film Director myself this is why I typically like to film on location and uses a little green screen as possible. even the next feature film that I’ve been hired to direct I believe there’s only maybe five shots in the entire film never gonna have any sort of visual effects everything else will be completely practical on production.
Like you said in your video over reliance on VFX is a terrible idea especially when the filmmakers become lazy and not creative with camera movement basic lighting prop design on production.
Kind of why the Lord of the rings films worked and the Hobbit films didn't.
Practical effects and sets with minimal use of CGI versus " Hobbits in barrels floating down a river "
Dwarves dammit, stupid brain.
A more important issue is that The Lord Of The Rings is a trilogy of adult novels made into an epic movie trilogy. The Hobbit is a children's book padded to make a trilogy of films.
Transformers was the perfect tale to tell in regard to comparing good from bad. Basically then vs. now. I’ve always thought that.
Transformers was epic. CGI is still better than just about all other films I have seen.
💯%
except modern VFX doesn't suck
I loved how Iron Man’s suit used to pieces of armor he had to put on rather than the lazy ass nanobytes that just appear out of nowhere and coat him like paint.
Nothing particularly new to me here but really cool to see your own work and experience highlighting your points. Practical sets/effects etc. go such a long way to providing a good basis for post-production effects. Really wish they were becoming more common and not less. :c
People don't talk enough about how certain local laws and costs of film permits have gotten worse to the point where a lot of films (big budget and especially indie) are forced to either rely on just using a studio space for nearly 2/3rds of the movie or to use not-so-good locations just to compensate.
It is not the VFX that sucks these days, it's the people who made them are suck. Before they had money, they put their heart and soul in to those movies, giving everything they got to those project, to entertain the audience around the world. They were, basically, living in their offices, to make their movies look, feel and be cool. But, after they got those huge money, became rich and stuff like that, they stoped caring about quality, and start thinking about, how to make even more money, without investing too much in VFX, to become even more rich than usual. That is why VFX, CGI and stuff like that, sucks these days. Big film studios doesn't care about quality anymore. They only care about earning more money, and puting a political sub text in those movies, or straight up policy without even hiding it, telling people that, that is right. So yeah, the only way this all can be fixed, is via showing to those big film studios that, we don't want that crap. By taking their money back from them, telling them to go back to the drawing board or stop existing. Otherwise, we will get the same crap over, and over and over again.
I totally agree! I think it's short sighted on the part of the big studios because already some people are starting to gravitate towards the films that smaller production studios put out because they are just better. Thanks for your comment and for watching!
Big movie studios have never cared about quality, they only exist to earn profit for their investors, and art has always been political.
I remember replaying the suitcase scene from IronMan2 over and over. Blew me the hell away
I would like an explanation of why some scenes in Thor love and Thunder look so off. I saw they used a curved screen instead of normal green screen. This was supposed to make it better, why didn't it? It looked worse, like if you were on a fairground with an obvious screen behind you. You could see were the practical set ended and the screen began.
time - they didn't give the VFX artists enough time to "smooth" the edges between the set and the LED walls, or to touch up the issues, plus they probably didn't have enough time to properly make the very high resolution backgrounds, making them look _odd_ compared to shows like the Mandalorian, which uses them to amazing results
HD and higher tellys are to blame. Old films got remastered in their own time. Now there's tight deadlines to get it beach body ready.
As a video game enthusaist, I really enjoy this trend in blockbuster movies because it's resulted in a situation that I find hilarious: Blockbuster videogames look MORE realistic than blockbuster movies, because the high quality character assets are lit identically to the scene so they don't look like cutouts like Marvel movie actors on greenscreen do. They are more grounded and fit naturally in the scenes. This has already been the case on occasion and with UE5 and next-gen engines finally releasing games next year, more and more games will look more photorealistic than movies do. And it's so delightfully surreal that we're in that situation.
I found it! the most unhinged comment in this insane comment section.
hmmmm i wonder if a lot of modern vfx artists today are possibly overworked and underpaid by employers and thats why a lot of films (mainly comic book films) have crappy vfx today
HMMMMMMM🤔
There is so much value in the video my god. THIS is how to use VFX properly.
Thank you! Thanks for your comment and for watching!
Generally agree with *all* of that. Though I do have one question.. I've never seen Gemini so I don't know much about it but that ship at 4:30... Is that the Razor Crest from Mandalorian that flies overhead? Because it looks pretty much exactly like it.
1 second into the video and the cinematic production value caught me so off guard I instantly subscribed
Transformers 5 no matter how bad it is he also had the best CGI in movie industry released yet, they did such a GREAT work
I'll point to Titanic as the standard for vfx. Everything was either shot on location or on a set, and cgi was used to fill in the blanks for certain areas. Don't be afraid to use vfx, but don't let it become a crutch.
I remember watching Godzilla 2014 in first grade and my fucking mind was blown. The quality of VFX, sound, music, and ground to reality made me fall in love. Then Godzilla KOTM came out and was disappointed. I didn’t even finish Godzilla vs Kong.
overreliance and "fix it in post" without adding time and money budgets is the biggest issue of modern CGI
your video makes excellent well researched points about the use of CGI in modern cinema, however, have you considered bumping up the exposure on your talking head shots a few stops so we can actually see your face?
Lazy is never a word I would use to describe a filmmaking process - your points are all well taken, but it’s lazy criticism to call someone else’s work lazy
The issues are simple. Not enough time to allow Passion thrive, overreliance on CGI means more work on it which means less time to perfect it, and the best CGI are the ones that give illusions, not replace what can be made. Forrest Gump shocked me with how much CGI it actually had. Goes to show how convincing it is when it's used strategically instead of using it on Live Action to a level where the work should've been done on a 3D Cartoon.
Most of us saw it coming that post Endgame would turn the MCU into a real monopoly and with Disney, it was gonna get butchered. I didn't think it would reach the extent it would but being part of the gaming industry where most AAA monopolies like to prioritize money over passion, it's all too familiar.
Those two soldiers got blown up use plates. One the actors themselves and two, the use of dummies and explosions. Compositing do the rest.
@@Joshua_N-A Ye. That scene was real convincing. And the mass crowd at DC was just copy/pasted group of a smaller audience. It was just done in a way where you wouldn't catch it.
Love this video please make more, I love these kind of vfx commentary videos
I plan to make more! Thanks for your comments and for watching!
Great video. I totally agree with you, the story is what matters. May I give you a little advice? A soft warm light in the shots where we can see you would improve the visual greatly. The grey dark color and YT's compression do some strange tricks.
This is why i love the mandolorian. They figured out how to get the best of both worlds with their really cool new tech that got practical elements in the space with the CGI as they shot it
Unfortunately they don't mention the fact that the majority of the shots done on the "volume" stage end up getting rotoed so they can replace the background. It's really only good for the actors and reflections.
@@dezfoto7534 darn
I was always told that fog and smoke are used in VFX to hide mistakes or mismatches, etc. It's kind of a crutch or Band-Aid.
Often yes, but it's also used as a depth cue.
Pacific rim, original Iron man and original Transformers are good examples of realistic CGI. Also LotR trilogy is a handbook on how to make grounded in reality scenes
Great Video!
Please make more, especially about Unreal Engine and CGI in film making.
How did you do outdoor haze on Gemini? It looks fantastic!
I clicked this video on a whim. I'm not someone who watches movies often, and most movies that I do end up watching are older movies with my dad. I'm pretty out of the loop for movies that have come out in the past 15-20 years, but a few I do know I've seen are the first MCU Iron Man, Captain America, 2007 Transformers, and Mad Max: Fury Road. The effects are pretty damn good in those ones I remember. Especially Mad Max but I know that one was like 85% practical.
Seeing clips from all these movies that are so recent is astonishing. They look so bad! Like plastic clay! The lighting and texture is smooth and the physics feel wrong. I can't believe that each of these films has a higher budget than the last and they come out looking like that.
As much as the 2001 version of _Planet of the Apes_ is maligned and derided, I really like it in large part because of the sheer amount of practical effects it uses, with very minimal use of CGI. Besides the space scenes and some distant backgrounds, almost everything is real and using practical effects, with the biggest amount of "visual fakery" being just some stunt wires removed in postprocessing. Heck, even the apes outrunning galloping horses was a practical effect, no CGI trickery.
I highly recommend that film, if for nothing else, because of that.
i will never get sick of people praising bay's vfx on transformers.
GENUINE QUESTION = At 1:06, Why was Batman v Superman included here as bad VFX? And that also right after the notorious Black Panther sequence?
I was under the impression BvS has very good effects (maybe with some exceptions like Doomsday design due to changing at last moment after MoS backlash)??
Is it because dark lighting/hyper realism (used in MoS) = bad or something? Also there are multple “color corrected” versions available, are they all bad?
While some VFX and CGI creations can be absolutely amazing or quickly useful for certain shots, I’ll always prefer classic practical effects.
Three of my favorite films of all time (including their subsequent sequels) Terminator, Robocop, and Predator never ever used lame effects. Everything in those films was put together so well. Ed 209, Robo-Cain, the Predator faces and suits, the Terminator endo, the puppet for Arnold, and so much more was so well made.
The little visual effects done back then was sparingly used and looks better than most films today
Stan Winston, had he still with us today, he'll grab the people from Boston Dynamics to create an even realistic looking and moving T-800 endo. Look how far has robotics become. Plus, 3D printing today should be able to make scale model making easier and cheaper.
The 3 elements of GOOD CGFX:
1. Time.
2. Money.
3. A Director who UNDERSTANDS what "Pre-Rendering" is (Not Tom Hooper!).