The short films of Floris Kaayk and Sil van der Woerd blend live-action footage and computer animation. Metalosis Maligna. Swim. Duet. Order Electrum.
posted on Dec 22, 2007 - View this thread

The Steam Tank is a brief visual effects reel by Chris Paul, from the Vancouver Film School. It begins with a somewhat mundane steam powered tank attacking a mounted gun in a downtown building, but then replays the event shot by shot, showing the original filmed plate, and adding on each cgi component, to give a good idea of how cg & reality interface in an effects piece. warning: link goes to direct download of 56MB QuickTime mov
posted on Feb 7, 2006 - View this thread

Seeing The Matrix yesterday (and just before it, the preview for the third Terminator movie) reminded me of this old David Foster Wallace essay"F/X Porn", in which he points out how Hollywood blockbusters have become the equivalent of your average "2 for $10.99!!" XXX rentals. [Google cached version here.]
posted on Jun 13, 2003 - View this thread

It's the plot, stupid. USA Today runs their usual insightful commentary about the upcoming release of Lilo and Stitch. It obsesses over the absence of CGI graphics pointing to Atlantis as evidence for the failure of traditional animation to draw box office. Funny me, I thought that Atlantis bombed because of a plot better left in 50s serial format, a cast of sterotypes rather than characters, and no sense of humor beyind dirty French jokes repeated over and over again. And is huge success of Pixar due to their pioneering animation, or their brilliant comic talent? What causes FX myopia anyway? Granted I can understand why fanboys obsess over the wrong things in a movie. Do the studios set it up by trying to hype each new summer release as the next big technical development (while the artistic development gets trumped by Waking Life and Insomnia?)
posted on Jun 18, 2002 - View this thread

Computer Review While Final Fantasy is the first movie to have only computer generated actors, it's gotten few good reviews. All Things Considered, found a reviewer who wholeheartedly liked it: their Mac G3. Listen with RealAudio: 14.4 or 28.8 (via Macintouch)
posted on Jul 12, 2001 - View this thread

Episode II loses the 'humanity' of R2-D2 Artoo to be totally computer-generated? Kenny Baker smells a rat as the Industrial Light and Magic boys wire up a dustbin for motion capture...
posted on Aug 31, 2000 - View this thread

Admittedly, this is nerdy-precedent cool, but methinks it will yield celluloid hemlock. Although, if it does work, maybe they can start augmenting the often less-than-lifelike performances of certain flesh-and-blood starlets (who are usually already augmented in other ways). HOO-ah! indeed. Brave new world, and all that.
posted on Aug 15, 2000 - View this thread