We were mainly shown footage from the remake 'Total Recall', which had an incredible amount of digital work in it, and the processes it took to get to the final result.
This film, we were told, had a lot of CGI in it, which isn't necessarily ideal for the artists visualising and creating environments and sequences. Though it allows them wide range of creative possibilities it also means there is a lack of a base, a source of reference, between the live action footage and green-screened footage which has the potential to make it difficult to realise the directors vision. A lot of concepts had to be drawn up with notes such as 'don't make it look like Bladerunner ' to work from. Something I picked up on from the talk at BAF was a comment regarding working with Christopher Nolan and the cinematographer Wally Pfister. It was implied that the collaboration between them and Double Negative was creatively easier due to the fact that they had a clearer visualisation as to what they were supposed to create as well as being provided with a lot of imagery and details from the real physical sets and locations.
Christopher Nolan is quite well known for being a Director who likes to create as much as possible physically in shot, using VFX to enhance his films rather than fully take over them. This however does not hinder the VFX work as shown when Inception 'dominated the 9th annual Visual Effects Society Awards winning the top prize of Outstanding Visual Effcts in a VFX-driven feature. The mind-bending film won all four categories that it was nominated for' (www.imbd.com)
THIS ARTICLE is a detailed description of the work put into Inception by Double Negative and is worth reading. It describes how pre-vis became incredibly important when creating concepts and designing complex camera movements and technical plans which would be later translated to film like, for example, the endless staircase scene. It illustrates a dynamic between the VFX team and Christopher Nolan that is advantageous to the overall production of the film. (The following quotes in italics are from said article)
'As with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, the role of vfx was to support and enhance the narrative. Still, Nolan wanted the film to be extraordinary and to offer startling and arresting visual concepts. "In many respects, the vfx has ended up much more to the fore than in the Batman films, mainly through necessity as the surreal nature of some of the images could only be achieved through a vfx approach," Franklin contends.
As with most successful CGI the less it is noticed for being an effect the better it is and when coupled with a strong narrative that captures the audience's attention it creates a large sense of realism and believability, no matter how bizarre the scene becomes. For example the scene where the city is folded is impressive because the detail and texture of the VFX makes you believe those are real buildings doing that. This was achieved by taking in-depth measurements and scans of the actual buildings in the city then recreating them.
"The visual effects of Inception needed to integrate seamlessly with Wally Pfister's stunning cinematography which -- for the most part -- was hand-held in full daylight, giving it an immediacy that placed extraordinary demands on the vfx pipeline and the team at Double Negative.'
Because of these daylight shots the importance of rendering and lighting became even more important that usual (than say in other films such as Harry Potter). It seems in almost all films and animations I've seen that lighting is a key factor in setting the tone and, in this case, compositing and combining assets to a believable standard.
This article also makes it clear that VFX covers a range of processes from small details, such as deleting wires the actors suspend from, to recreating parts of the settings. As seen in the text below:
"Weightlessness was achieved through a clever combination of actors on wire rigs in a vertical hotel corridor set and a hand-operated seesaw rig on a horizontal version of the same rig," Franklin continues. "Joseph Gordon-Levitt trained intensively with Tom Struthers' stunt team for weeks with the result that he appears as himself in the vast majority of the finished shots. Double Negative 2D lead Astrid Busser-Casas and her team removed all of the wires and rigs, carefully rebuilding the sets where necessary. Costume Designer Jeffrey Kurland came up with fantastically stylish outfits that were also vfx friendly, adding little touches like stiffened shoelaces that didn't flop about giving away the direction of the vertical. One particularly demanding shot, which shows Arthur wrapping the dreamers in cable in preparation for their journey to the elevator, was shot in the hotel room set turned on its side. Numerous wires ran across the stunt actors' faces and CG lead Stuart Farley created digital doubles of Cillian Murphy and Ken Watanabe to hide the fact that the actors themselves weren't in the rigs.
I think the way they made the above-described scene was fantastically clever and exciting and illustrates how taking a practical approach to some effects can bring massive benefits visually. Combining practical and VFX can create some really interesting outcomes and allows the concept to be clear throughout the process for everyone to see.
Inception raises the bar in a number of areas," Franklin concludes, "especially in photorealistic daytime environments and complex dynamics work. For me, it also marked a new level of interaction with the filmmakers where I was able to talk directly with Chris and the other department heads, which made a huge difference to the end result.
Maybe I'm a little bias because I enjoy Christopher Nolan's films but I definitely prefer this methodology, attempting to create as much physically in-shot as is plausible, than to spend months with an actor and a green screen 'imagining' what is happening. I personally think it adds a lot more depth to performance and over all detail of the shots and allows the VFX to shine through in more creative, interesting ways rather than just saturating the screen.
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