2.6 Evaluation of General Sources

While searching for controversies in video production, most of what I stumbled across were controversies about specific television shows or movies.  But I finally found an issue that I've heard a lot about: the over-reliance on CGI.

CGI (computer generated imagery) basically refers to film/video effects done inside a computer.  The art form began in the 1990's with films like Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park.  Ever since then, there's been a controversy about whether films rely on them too much.

Marine, Joe "Here's How the Controversial 'Photoshop' Music Video Was Created" 01/31/14 via No Film School

The first article is about a controversial music video featuring a singer being 'photoshopped' into a more attractive, glamorous star.  The music video itself is a commentary on the industry needed to 'edit' actresses to make them more attractive.  Ironically, although the video focuses on a fake image editor being used to fix the actress, most of the effects were done practically.  The CGI portion of the video was more in establishing transitions between takes rather than actually editing the woman directly.  Most of that was done through make-up and lighting.

The article focuses more on the 'making of'' aspect of the video rather than the social commentary, but does link to interviews with the directors about the video.

Wong, Freddie "Why CG Sucks (Except it Doesn't)".08/04/15 via Rocketjump

The next article discusses a sort of flip-side to the debate on the over-reliance on CGI.  It's not the over-reliance on CGI that's a bad thing, it's that bad CGI is a bad thing.  Practically every film that comes out nowadays has CGI packed into it, but we only notice the bad parts.

Freddie Wong shows numerous examples of films that you wouldn't have realized even had CGI to show how it can be used effectively.  The bulk of his discussion is in a video posted on his site (which as film is a visual medium, makes sense), but scroll down lower and he has links to behind-the-scenes shoots from all sorts of films.