Most people nowadays seem to instinctually think the latest technology must therefore be the best. And this is true in a sense, but after all those that do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, right? John Lasseter probably knows this best, for whilst his company PIXAR, are best known for some of the world's greatest computer generation animated films, such as The Toy Story series, Wall-e, Up, Monsters Inc and The Incredibles, his whole approach to animation not just the computer stuff is based around what he learned from the old men of the Disney Studios. The technology of producing animated films has changed but he saw a need to preserve what was important about Disney animation to begin with. He didn't simply dismiss all the animation work done before because the methods and moved forward and radically changed.
And I think this is a lesson that the rest of the film-making world still needs to learn, including James Cameron. You don't need to shoot in 3D, in motion- capturing suits and have actors inhabit entirely computer-generated worlds to have a film worth of being called a ground-breaking work of effects.
Films like Blade Runner, Gattaca, Moon and District 9 prove this.
Firstly Blade Runner was an entirely in-camera special effects production all achieved with live action sets, model work, lighting, matte painting etc. It was as they say the last truly analogue film. And yet this analogue approach brought forth a film of epic proportions, was considered incredible (eventually) and still remains infallible even today, when we are over-whelmed by megabytes and microchips.
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| All the effects in Blade Runner were created in camera, like this scene of a future Los Angeles. |
Gattaca, a personal favourite of mine, showed that you don't have to have big set pieces of action for a film to fit into the science fiction genre. Yes is wasn't that greater success on it's release, but then again neither was Blade Runner. The film focuses on character and emotional development over scintillating plots of explosions and big pull backs of intergalactic ships. Indeed the emotional development of the film's main character Jerome is more important than the murder plot that draws us into Jerome's story at the start. The effects here are subtle. Set in a future where space travel beyond the boundary of our own Moon is possible. People drive in Prius like cars that have almost no sound as they go by. The world is a much cleaner, slciker place and about the biggest traditional effects shots you'll get are the fleeting glanes of the space vehicles that are the tip of Jerome's drive to succeed in a world where genetic manipulation of the Human race has gone so far that discrimination has become as science.
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| Effects in Gattaca however, were inconspicuous. From miniature effects of spacecraft taking off in the distance to the use f existing architecture to suggest a future Earth, they weren't the focus of the film but were important to it nonetheless. |
Finally there's District 9 and Moon. Two successful science fiction films of the past couple of years that achieve great success with very limited effects budgets. What they lacked in Cameron finances they gained in originality. Moon has a lot of model work to create the activity and action surrounding the character Sam Bell played by Sam Rockwell. But there is also computer stuff there too. Dust falling off the back of vehicles as the traverse the lunar landscape and other small effects combine with all the other effects elements of the film to create a very satisfying film as a whole.
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| Both Moon and District 9 combine both the computer generated and the practical effect tin seamless slight of hand. |
It's not a CGI movie, it's not a model work film entirely, like Sharlto Copley's Wikus in District 9, it's having elements of both that can solve problems the best. Or as Peter Jackson might put it, number 8 fencing wire- whatever works best!
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