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Spielberg comments on digital alterations to his films — Page 8

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timdiggerm said:

Harmy said:

Yeah, I think CGI can be a great tool when in right hands. Jurassic Park is a great example of that, because they used it with moderation and more importantly in combination with animatronics, where that worked better.

Except the damn CATG shadows on the raptors in that one scene. Super-distracting.

Er...I thought that was an animatronic raptor and the CATG was imprinted in the ceiling tiles....

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Let's not also forget another way in which CGI is detrimental to the film-making process: the fact that acting without any sort of frame of reference (i.e. against a blank green screen instead of on an actual set) does not encourage good performances by your actors. As CGI gets cheaper we can expect less and less use of actual sets.

Also, CGI replaces actual stunts and the danger associated with them. Most people would, of course, see this as a  good thing, BUT IT IS NOT SO. The element of real danger adds to the films. This is one of the reasons I enjoy Jackie Chan's classic films; you have to respect a guy willing to die to entertain us! CGI encourages what Nietzsche called the "slave morality" in film-making.

 

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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greenpenguino said:

Needs moar FRY DAY

You can say that about all music.

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TV's Frink said:

greenpenguino said:

Needs moar FRY DAY

You can say that about all music.

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I'm not afraid to admit it when CGI works and that looks pretty good. Is the background created with CGI, or is it real photos/film inserted using CGI?

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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 (Edited)

I'd say it's a mix. I'd say the one that really got me was when the lady walks into the bus-stop panel. I would have never guessed that it was entirely greenscreen.

This quote is undeniably true

theprequelsrule said:

acting without any sort of frame of reference (i.e. against a blank green screen instead of on an actual set) does not encourage good performances by your actors. As CGI gets cheaper we can expect less and less use of actual sets.

but I wonder if actors aren't getting better and better at it? Or directors?

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timdiggerm said:

You're going to hate this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clnozSXyF4k

 That's a great clip.  I roll my eyes when I hear people say, "The CG was so obvious.  I could tell everytime it was used."  It would probably shock them to know how much it was really used.  They probably noticed less than 10% of it. 

But they don't know what they don't know.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

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A good director and or FX guy will help the actors visualize what they can't actually see.

If they do that, acting in front of green screen shouldn't be any more difficult than doing a stage play in which there's just a couple chairs and a black backdrop.

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Where were you in '77?

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SilverWook said:

A good director and or FX guy will help the actors visualize what they can't actually see.

If they do that, acting in front of green screen shouldn't be any more difficult than doing a stage play in which there's just a couple chairs and a black backdrop.

 Stageplays.  Psh.... since when was that considered acting?

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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SilverWook said:

If they do that, acting in front of green screen shouldn't be any more difficult than doing a stage play in which there's just a couple chairs and a black backdrop.

It is more difficult. A single act of a stage play can go on uninterrupted for more than an hour. This gives an actor a chance to lose himself or herself in a role. Films, on the other hand, have a lot of downtime where an actor must either remain in that emotional state off-camera or be able to return to that state on cue, after hours of sitting in a nice trailer, surrounded by crew, the noises of set construction, snacking, making calls, planning their appearances, etc.

Stage acting also allows significantly more rehearsal time than film acting, which also helps with finding the right tone and delivery for a performance.

That is why film actors have often said they like elaborate sets and location-shooting, because it helps bring the situation to life and maintain that illusion even between takes.

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 (Edited)

asterisk8 said:

SilverWook said:

If they do that, acting in front of green screen shouldn't be any more difficult than doing a stage play in which there's just a couple chairs and a black backdrop.

It is more difficult. A single act of a stage play can go on uninterrupted for more than an hour. This gives an actor a chance to lose himself or herself in a role. Films, on the other hand, have a lot of downtime where an actor must either remain in that emotional state off-camera or be able to return to that state on cue, after hours of sitting in a nice trailer, surrounded by crew, the noises of set construction, snacking, making calls, planning their appearances, etc.

Stage acting also allows significantly more rehearsal time than film acting, which also helps with finding the right tone and delivery for a performance.

That is why film actors have often said they like elaborate sets and location-shooting, because it helps bring the situation to life and maintain that illusion even between takes.

There is that, but cgi and greenscreen are exceptionally lazy, whereas real sets or locations add to the realism where cgi takes you out of the moment and renders it at the level of a bad children's cartoon if not done well.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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I think a big distinction should be made between the cgi which has been used in a pretty great and brilliant way for television (compare stuff now to seeing the same goddamm dirt road on every A-Team/Knight Rider/whatever every week) and an expensive movie like Wolverine that doesn't have a discernible reason for looking so schlocky.

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Baronlando said: (compare stuff now to seeing the same goddamm dirt road on every A-Team/Knight Rider/whatever every week)

I remember that dirt road. It somehow made their tyres squeal. Even though it was dirt...

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 (Edited)

What do we make of this?

Steven Spielberg: This is the best it's ever looked because in preparation for the eventual release on Blu-Ray (applause), we had to go and correct the print again and get the original negative out of the salt mines (laughter) and then we had to do the separations and basically, the files which were just amazing with all the technology today, without changing any of the movie materially, like we haven't removed anything (applause) we haven't added CGI...This is the movie that some of you may remember from 1981, looking at the age of the audience, most of you don't remember it from 1981 (laughter). But it is THE movie, it just looks so much better.

Some are suggesting the guide wires and cobra reflection will be back in but I think they're still digitally removed in the recent HD broadcasts (can someone confirm this?)that will probably be the same transfers used for the Blu-rays.

 

 

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Help us, Steven, you're our only hope...

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I am actually very happy to have read that interview with Spielberg. Alterations are basically up to the creator. (Don't get me wrong. I am totally against any "Nooooooo" debacles or annoying characters.)

Ridley Scott, i.e., can actually make any alterations to Blade Runner. I will even watch them because he has the decency to give the audience all versions (and while some won't understand it, I love the Ford commentary at the beginning.) It's is up to me do decide which version I would like to watch. Once given this choice for Star Wars I think none of us would really be against any alterations for all versions to come. At least, I wouldn't mind. As long as we can go back to a high quality scan of the version we all love.

Back on topic, I would like to say that Spielberg altered E.T. quite heavily (political correctness yeeeeaaaahhhh). Unfortunately, the original version was not available at first. Due to massive feedback the original got released as a double feature if I remember correctly. I still have that altered version on DVD on my shelf. Haven't watched it a single time after I found out that the original version wasn't on it. If Spielberg changed his mind (which rectified the whole situation for me), might it just be possible that one day Lucas will too?

Anyway, CGI is neither bad nor good. It's another tool in the box and for some scenes it is the right tool. While I totally agree that CGI make some things look utterly fake I have to say that it worked in so many movies where old school techniques would have failed. The T-1000 being only one example. Some directors try to substitute a plot with flashy CGI. This has never worked. I guess it will all balance itself. Some stuff will be done with green screen and other stuff the old fashioned way. Except for some of the battle scenes LOTR is the perfect example for a mix of CGI and the old tricks working hand in hand.

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 (Edited)

Serling1979 said:


Back on topic, I would like to say that Spielberg altered E.T. quite heavily (political correctness yeeeeaaaahhhh). Unfortunately, the original version was not available at first. Due to massive feedback the original got released as a double feature if I remember correctly. I still have that altered version on DVD on my shelf. Haven't watched it a single time after I found out that the original version wasn't on it. If Spielberg changed his mind (which rectified the whole situation for me), might it just be possible that one day Lucas will too?
Actually, the ET 20th Anniversary Set always had both editions, however the newest single-disc edition is SE only, I believe.

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I more or less agree with Mr. Spielberg. However, I have mixed feelings when new flaws begin to occur as a result of the cleaning up the image for modern HD.

He uses the original War Of The World as an example and states that he would not want to see the wires digitally removed. I respect his idealism of not wanting to mess with things, but the fact remains that those wires were never visible in the original film prints (all of the FX tests were done taking into account the kind of film stock they were using). Over the years however, different versions of the film appeared on different kinds of film stock, and the wires started to become slightly visible. The original DVD release actually used a print that thankfully did not have too much wire work showing at all. Then, when the anniversary edition was released, it featured a remastered transfer that had great color, but made the wires pop out as plain as day! In this case I think that removing the wires might have been acceptable, since it is being done just to return the film to it's original theatrical intention.

Or perhaps there is another solution... don't remaster everything the same way. Older movies were shot taking into account the resolution of the film image of the day. When these images are remastered with modern digital clarity, often the results are horrible. Backdrop paintings start to look way more obvious, as do make-up and wardrobe defects that were never intended to be visible... and out-of-focus backgrounds just look plain weird. These details personally take me out of the film.

Is it possible to remaster an image for HD without changing the film's original image? To just provide high quality images that match the theatrical image with quality color... and without any enhancements? I know very little about the processes used to do these things, but I hope there's a way, and I hope it gets used on some of these classic films. In the case of War Of The Worlds, I just watch my older DVD and only pop in the newer version if I want to hear the commentary.

Just my humble opinion...

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Astroboi2 said:

I more or less agree with Mr. Spielberg. However, I have mixed feelings when new flaws begin to occur as a result of the cleaning up the image for modern HD.

He uses the original War Of The World as an example and states that he would not want to see the wires digitally removed. I respect his idealism of not wanting to mess with things, but the fact remains that those wires were never visible in the original film prints (all of the FX tests were done taking into account the kind of film stock they were using). Over the years however, different versions of the film appeared on different kinds of film stock, and the wires started to become slightly visible. The original DVD release actually used a print that thankfully did not have too much wire work showing at all. Then, when the anniversary edition was released, it featured a remastered transfer that had great color, but made the wires pop out as plain as day! In this case I think that removing the wires might have been acceptable, since it is being done just to return the film to it's original theatrical intention.

Or perhaps there is another solution... don't remaster everything the same way. Older movies were shot taking into account the resolution of the film image of the day. When these images are remastered with modern digital clarity, often the results are horrible. Backdrop paintings start to look way more obvious, as do make-up and wardrobe defects that were never intended to be visible... and out-of-focus backgrounds just look plain weird. These details personally take me out of the film.

Is it possible to remaster an image for HD without changing the film's original image? To just provide high quality images that match the theatrical image with quality color... and without any enhancements? I know very little about the processes used to do these things, but I hope there's a way, and I hope it gets used on some of these classic films. In the case of War Of The Worlds, I just watch my older DVD and only pop in the newer version if I want to hear the commentary.

Just my humble opinion...

 

Whether it CAN be done isn't the problem.  The issue is whether the person in charge of the conversion for a given film KNOWS whether to take film stock and other factors into account or is just running on auto-pilot and following standard procedure because they have a deadline.

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I didn't know about film stock, regarding the WotW wires. That's an interesting example, because it really does put you in a bind: release a film "unaltered" but in a way that greatly betrays the original look due to poor duplication, or alter a film so that it is closer to the way it was supposed to and originally did look. I can't believe the wires were completely invisible, but I would believe they were less visible/mostly invisible. So getting rid of them entirely is actually betraying the original look, though only by a little.

Interesting example.

Unfortunately it is pretty unique. Most films aren't faced with this kind of decision, and, I might add, that anniversary edition is just one single release. It's not like the film always has and always will look like that on video, earlier ones got it right and latter ones will hopefully too.

So, it's not so much as HD scans revealing "too much" detail as much as it is that they simply happened to use an incorrect print as their source. This was exceptional in the film's history, as far as I understand, and not related to the picture quality of the disc.