The Transition from Traditional Movie Sets to CGI
The Transition from Traditional Movie Sets to CGI
The days of practical FX appear to be numbered: What interesting side effects will this cause?
If you have ever taken a trip to London to visit Warner Bros’ Harry Potter studio tour, you might have found yourself a little disappointed by the exhibits on display. Back in 2018, Huw Fullerton wrote a piece for the Radio Times where he described the experience as a “monument to wasted effort”.
Why would he say this? In his own words, “Nearly every exhibit lifted the lid on a complicated, live-action technique the production team had created to bring J.K. Rowling’s magical world and creatures to life – before they just gave up and did the whole thing in a computer instead”.
Since Huw’s visit, both the tour itself and its website have been heavily updated to reflect the true experience offered by the tour. A dedicated SFX & VFX area on the website goes into great detail about how several of the films most memorable moments were created using computer graphics.
Props such as the invisibility cloak and whomping willow simply could not have been created using traditional methods. In a clever twist, the first item on the page is the Chamber of Secrets door, which the site explains is NOT any kind of CGI effect, but a fully operational door created by the Special Effects team based upon sketches provided by their art department.
The Star Wars Controversy
When George Lucas was working on his three Star Wars prequels back in 1997, he decided the time was right to update the original trilogy using some of the same CGI techniques that would be used in the forthcoming prequels. Lucas had always been dissatisfied with the original movies, believing that many of the action scenes looked “cheesy” and entirely unbelievable.
Whilst some would argue the changes made were a dramatic improvement over the practical FX used in the original theatrical releases of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, most fans felt that the changes were unnecessary and looked even more unrealistic than the versions they were intended to replace.
Lucas continued making changes to his movies every time a new release was made – particularly the DVD box set released in 2004, the Blu-Ray release in 2011, and the 4K Ultra HD release in 2019. That’s five alternative versions of each of the three films!
Whilst CGI and VFX are certainly effective techniques, and look better than ever today, many film fans believe that older movies are left just the way they were – practical FX and all. How do you feel about this?
Quentin Tarantino & The Hateful Eight Controversy
In 2014, an antique Martin guitar was borrowed from the Martin Guitar Museum to be used as a prop in an upcoming film directed by Quentin Tarantino. The script of The Hateful Eight called for actor Kurt Russell to destroy the instrument in a fit of rage, so six replicas were made for that purpose.
Unfortunately, things did not go quite to plan and Kurt accidentally destroyed the priceless antique guitar whilst filming the scene. Kurt’s co-star Jason Leigh immediately recognized the mistake, and his look of shock and horror was said to be “absolutely delightful” by Quentin Tarantino.
This incident has led to many museums and art galleries refusing to lend original pieces to film studios over the past few years. This seems a little unfair – of course, more precautions should have been taken, but it seems very unfair to blame the entire movie industry for this one mistake.
Famous Paintings & Other Artworks Featured in Movies
The transition to filming most scenes against a green screen before adding backdrops, creatures and even virtual people into the scene later has raised some interesting questions concerning seeing genuine works of art on the big screen. Take a look at Dorit Levinstein's collections and it’s easy to understand why some artists are worried about this.
Simple paintings, such as the famous portrait of the Duke of Wellington in James Bond’s Dr. No, might be easy to replicate inside a computer. Highly intricate sculptures on the other hand, such as those created by Levinstein, are going to be extremely difficult for CGI artists to implement into their work if access to the original piece is blocked because of incidents such as the one described in the previous section.
It’s too early to tell if this will be a major problem moving forward, but what is not in doubt is that the skills required to create live-action effects are no longer being passed on from one generation to the next. Over the next two to three decades, we may well see the end of the art of practical FX altogether.
