Commentary: Digital EFX

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sorry it has been a while since I posted anything here, life has been topsy turvy lately, and I am hoping to get back on track with posting here.

The world of visual effects has been steadily advancing since they started being used. Digital effects came along and so much changed, and for the most part, the change has been good. I have been seeing a lot said about this topic on other websites, but something that one person said really made me mad, it was something to the effect of "If you complain about digital effects, YOU ARE OLD and can't get past blue screen and obvious stuntmen". I am guessing that statement was meant to say that older visual effects techniques are outdated and useless, and that digital effects are the new thing and should be fully embraced and accepted.

I do applaud the advancement of digital visual effects and their use in film. My problem with them is that they are used way too much in film. It seems like the lazy way out, instead of building something that looks like whatever it is you want it to look like, just make a digital image of it and it will look just as good. WRONG. I was watching a few older sci-fi movies recently, circa 1979-1981, and I noticed something. Spaceships that were made from models and NOT digital images, look way more real, because they were real, the detail, the lighting, was all real, not computer generated. Shadows and lighting just don't look as good when produced digitally. The T-Rex from "Jurassic Park" was real, it looked real, someone took the time to make it look as genuine as possible. Look, I am not opposed to technology improving the way movies are made. There are a lot of things you can do with digital effects that you could never do with bluescreen or stuntmen or models. But just because you can use digital effects for everything, doesn't mean you should. In this years "Iron Man", director Jon Favreau used a nice balance of digital and practical effects, a good example of a director taking the best of both kinds of visual effects and using them where they were best suited, not for everything. Unfortunately, not all film makers take that direction. Even in the new "Star Wars" movies, which I loved, digital effects were overused. I absolutely loved "I Am Legend" with Will Smith, but even in that movie the biggest gripe with a lot of people was that the creatures were very obviously CGI. While that is true, I felt the movie was powerful enough that I was able to overlook that. But that is just another reason why digital effects are overused, for some people it can take away from the overall movie experience if the effects are not convincing. In many movies, explosions and fire are digitally produced, and it is usually pretty obvious. For me, that creates no illusion of danger, and therefore I feel no excitement. Yes when the fire and explosions are real it makes you feel the danger, because it IS REAL, doesn't matter if it is stuntmen or staged sequences, it still looks real.

I don't want to get rid of digital effects, I just want film makers to look at what works best and use it, not just decide that digital is the only way to go. I want to look at a movie and believe what is going on around me, not sit there and say "Oh that is so obviously CGI", which is what I find myself doing now more than ever.