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21 green screen shots before visual effects

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C

Camoxide

Unconfirmed Member
curb said:
Using a green screen has been the norm for years. It feels like it's been forever since I've seen production shots using a blue screen.
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300_comparison.JPG



Doesn't matter what colour they use, it's what ever works best with the shot and props.
 
M

massoluk

Banned
I can't imagine the '90s series "Movie Magic" being as entertaining today because of all these green screen and CGI, in place of miniatures, camera tricks, and practical effect.

:\
 
S

Septimus Prime

Member
Dommo said:
They need to have human sized actors appear to be different sizes (dwarves, wizards) in the film. In LOTR, a lot of the time, they used forced perspective to achieve this - real, in-camera illusions. Because The Hobbit was being shot in 3d, this kind of stuff doesn't fly, so you've gotta move onto other techniques, in this case, digital insertion.

I admit, I'm not 100% sure why it needs to be on a completely green screen set. Couldn't they have just filmed it on a real set, just without the actors? Either way, the thing that Ian McKellen found most frustrating was the lack of actors to work off of. It's a good example of going so far in the direction of scale and spectacle that you've missed the core necessity of filmmaking - that human emotion that bubbles and ignites from human actors interacting. I'd say that's far more important than 3d. 3d isn't going to be more immersive if your actors are wooden, frustrated and confused.
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I think, due to the size difference between Gandalf and the other characters, you'd have to build multiple sets to accommodate for each shot. So, you really have a few options:

1. Build two green screen sets (one for Gandalf and one for everyone else) and CGI the set.
2. Build two practical sets (one for Gandalf and one for everyone else) and then use CGI so scale and superimpose them.
3. Build two green screen sets, plus one practical set, shoot the actors on the green screen sets, shoot a separate shot of the practical set, and then use CGI to scale and superimpose them all.
4. CGI everything. Fuck it.

Option 1 is probably the best balance between cost and finished look.
 
V

ViciousDS

Banned
green screen and too much CGI though is what made the the hobbit such a shit movie........way, waaaaaayyyyy to fucking overused.

I'm re-watching LOTR right now and the costume work and make-up on the goblins and urak-hai just makes it so much more natural and real looking.

To me fellowship of the ring looks better than any of the hobbit movies just because its more natural looking imo.
 
C

crimsondynamics

Member
These pictures give you some insight as to how they achieve the visual effects we all see in movies, but at the same time it takes away some of the movie's sense of scale and grandiosity.

It's like seeing someone perform a magic trick for which you know how to perform yourself.
 
S

Setsuna

Member
ViciousDS said:
green screen and too much CGI though is what made the the hobbit such a shit movie........way, waaaaaayyyyy to fucking overused.

I'm re-watching LOTR right now and the costume work and make-up on the goblins and urak-hai just makes it so much more natural and real looking.

To me fellowship of the ring looks better than any of the hobbit movies just because its more natural looking imo.
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First off CGI is not why those movies are bad. They are just boring movies.

Secondly, the moment you see anything that's not a human on screen you know it's a prop and you know it looks bad. You just don't want to admit that it looks bad
 
S

Switzer

Member
dan2026 said:
Just why?

Why did that need to be a green screen?
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Gandalf is composited back into the scene like 2 times larger than normal, making the rest look like, well, halflings. It works because the actual set is human-sized, but the greenscreen set is half sized. Throughout LOTR and the Hobbit movies, normal sized people and halflings are rarely in the same shot together, because it requires either SFX or VFX trickery to make it look right.
 
L

Loxley

Member
It's worth noting that part of why McKellen was greenscreened into Bag End was because the 3D cameras used to film the movie completely broke the forced perspective trick which was used so prominently in the LOTR trilogy. As for The Hobbit, the dwarves were on the real set, which was right next door to the green screen version for McKellen. The Bag End set was also bigger and more elaborate than the one used for the LOTR trilogy.

Also, the exact same digital compositing trick was used a number of times for the Bag End scenes in The Fellowship of the Ring where forced perspective wasn't enough.
 
S

see5harp

Member
I really dislike when directors do those "impossible" CGI assisted camera moves. Like zoom in from space into a window and then transition right into a scene. They did that shit throughout Gatsby and even decent movies like Kingsguard. Just makes it seem cheap.
 
P

PipefishUK

Banned
I thought the CGI in Peaky Blinders was really well done. Some of the locations I recognised from real life, a lot of it was filmed round where I grew up - it was like, hang on, that's that place? But it's not actually really like that?

Because obviously places like that don't really exist anymore.


https://youtu.be/BKDcCb2KCdA
 
BarringGaffner

BarringGaffner

Member
I'm a visual effects compositor and the shot from Enders Game is actually my shot, cool! :)

I loved working on that final battle sequence.
 
Z

zoozilla

Member
It's funny - nowadays I'm more impressed when something isn't CG.

Like the way the skies outside the apartment in Oblivion were actually just huge screens with video playing on them.

Screen-Shot-2013-04-18-at-1.27.17-PM.png
 
K

Kozak

Banned
zoozilla said:
It's funny - nowadays I'm more impressed when something isn't CG.

Like the way the skies outside the apartment in Oblivion were actually just huge screens with video playing on them.

Screen-Shot-2013-04-18-at-1.27.17-PM.png
Click to expand...

How is that any different to green screen though?
 
M

Mutanthands

Member
HIGH DEF JEFF said:
Pathetic:
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In what way? Most shots that require approximations of historical landscapes that don't exist anymore use green screened CGI with select real world props and sets. Before that, it was the same thing, with matte paintings. Same problem, variations on the same solution.
 
BarringGaffner

BarringGaffner

Member
Verger said:
What is sad and depressing is how poorly compensated the artists who make the effects possible are. Or all the work is outsourced to countries with even lower pay.

And then the workshops shut down due to bankruptcy even if the film gets accolades (See Life of Pi and Rhythm and Hues controversy)
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We are generally paid well... at major studios 6 figure incomes for most people considered senior artists. Much more for supervisor positions.

Lower level/entry positions are being outsourced unfortunately... which sucks for anyone wanting to start in the industry. I was lucky 11 years ago this wasn't the case (I got hired at Double Negative in a rotopaint role... I look back fondly at when I painted out Harry Potters pimples... and painted out the blood from the lens in Children of Men :p )

I think the crappy part is the possibility of companies leaving town to chase tax breaks somewhere else. The other issue is that VFX studios basically have to do ANY change the studios want at any time. Enough unexpected changes can break the budget...
 
Z

zoozilla

Member
Kozak said:
How is that any different to green screen though?
Click to expand...

Here's their explanation:

We were tired of blue screens. We knew what blue screens would mean to the production design of the set. There’s a scene in the movie with a building that’s up in the clouds. It’s an all-glass structure, very modern and very open, with very shiny surfaces. Usually, if you get a situation like that and you’re doing blue screens, VFX will say, “Okay, let’s take all the glass out.” In fact, that’s what they told us to do, “Take all the glass out and consider using more matte surfaces and get away from shiny things.” Because, with so much glass things get too shiny. When using blue screen the set just disappears and then they end up having to digitally reconstruct the set in post, which gets expensive.
Click to expand...

Actually, most of the lighting on set was accomplished through the projection, too. It's a neat idea.
 
H

HomerSimpson-Man

Member
dan2026 said:
Just why?

Why did that need to be a green screen?
Click to expand...

It's used to composite two filmed sequences in one shot, it's a composite for the different scaled characters. Composite shots is a really old and effective way for visual effects to be honest, we just got better at it. Whether forced perspective or edited together in a computer to get the same shot, I really don't see the complaint of this one.
 
K

Kozak

Banned
SchrodingerC said:
My guess would be the actors can actually see what they're suppose to be looking, fearing, surprised, amazed, etc at instead of relying on what the director is describing the scene to be.
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I hadn't thought of that.

It is quite impressive of these actors that they normally act without even seeing what they should be reacting too. With that said, I can see how much more emotive movies could be if the actors were really reacting to what they saw.

zoozilla said:
Here's their explanation:



Actually, most of the lighting on set was accomplished through the projection, too. It's a neat idea.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I would have thought it made it cheaper, not more expensive.
 
R

Retro

Member
The Matrix one is the best because you also get to see all the cameras (all the black circles; yes, really, all of them) used to record the fly-around effect.
 
W

Warm Machine

Member
massoluk said:
I can't imagine the '90s series "Movie Magic" being as entertaining today because of all these green screen and CGI, in place of miniatures, camera tricks, and practical effect.

:
Click to expand...

You saw those Star Wars Prequel models right? They use loads of models in film. They just digitally composite them now.
 
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