I was remarking a week ago to a friend that I yearn for days gone by. Specifically in regards to special effects in movies and television. Once upon a time, you really had to think hard to come up with a way to turn a person into an animal, or superimpose a gigantic beast over a tiny city. You had to work with angles, layers. In Citizen Kane, they sliced through a table so they could split it beneath the screen and allow a camera to pan through a room.
Today, you can do anything and everything you want. All you need is millions of dollars and a CGI studio. Sure the visuals are astounding, but they're less fulfilling, at least to me. You can only have your mind blown so many times before it's dry.
If you're like me, you'll LOVE this video. It's 5 minutes documenting the history of visual effects in the cinema. And yes, Chris, it was doubly inspired because you're on here with me today.
xoJR
I was about to say - everyone's gonna think I wrote this one!
ReplyDeleteVery cool :)
Wow... that video just blew my mind! Especially the last clip with Benjamin Button- I'd always wondered how they did it, but just took it for granted. Special effects used to be so awesome in how bad they were, especially grade B horror films and stuff. I met one of the dude's who worked on the movie The Blob, and even he had to laugh at the stuff they were doing. But I think that the kind of work that they are doing on Benjamin Button is sort of redeaming the name of CGI effects- its enhancing the world, subtly, blowing your mind in a different way. Thanks for this post, you just made my day. :D
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