In 1991, a security guard is getting a soda from the vending machine as the digital face of Robert Patrick rises up behind him, forever cementing Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) as the backbone of cinema for the foreseeable future. The film is Terminator 2, one of the first films to utilize CGI to create a fully digitized character [4]. Since then, nearly every film made seems to have some degree of digital effect.
CGI can be great. It can take us to worlds, see people, things, and creatures not possible 30 years ago. But as some would point out, sometimes CGI is just awful. We’ve all seen a film that blows us away with how terrible the animation is. In 2001, Universal Pictures releases The Mummy Returns, which has a scene where Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson emerges as the terrifying Scorpion King [10].
Many lovers of cinema will cringe at the sight of such CGI. Some people want to return to an age of practical effects, where special effects are done through puppets, animatronics, or miniatures. These so-called “real effects” are actual physical objects, and don’t age as quickly as CGI. These opinions have led to a clash of ideals between cinema fans and producers over this central issue: are computerized graphics ruining movies?
Why use CGI at all? Shouldn’t it only be utilized for shots that can’t be done with practical effects?
Do you ever wonder why Jurassic Park’s (1993) CGI still looks so good? The fact is that a lot of the film wasn’t CG at all. Jurassic Park used a combination of miniatures, animatronics, CGI and people in raptor suits to create the effect of the dinosaurs.
Many would argue that this is the way it should still be done. CGI should be sparse, used for scenes of a T-Rex running or when an animatronic can’t quite move quick enough. On the movies community of Reddit, user Shiftyzem [9] calls out for a return to the ways things were. “Does anybody else think [that] live puppets, robots, and small scaled buildings should come back to get rid of [these] god awful CGI creatures, scenery, [and] violence people half ass for movies?”
The truth is, there are a lot of situations where using a computer has its benefits. Freddie Wong of the online film school and media site Rocketfish says that scenes such as car chases or crashes are almost all CGI nowadays [2]. The practice is safer due to not needing to endanger real stunt drivers, cheaper than real car stunts, and gives more control of the outcome.
Doesn’t CGI stand out? It’s so obvious when a shot has CG elements and it’s all I notice.
A lot of viewers feel pulled out of the moment when seeing an obvious example of CGI. Freddie Wong addresses this as well. The truth is that even films that aren’t effects heavy can have an abundance of CG effects. Even a film like 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which was praised for its use of practical effects, had an enormous amount of CG effects that nobody noticed [2]. In fact, Wong goes on to show how nearly every film that comes out nowadays has some CG animation.
As Wong points out, good CGI is “invisible” [2]. Things will be composited in such a way that you wouldn’t even think that they are fake. As Wong says, “We only notice bad CGI”.
But practical effects have a certain magic to them that CGI can’t create.
In Star Wars Episode III, Obi-Wan Kenobi faces off against the terrifying cyborg General Grievous, who drops his cloak and pulls out 4 lightsabers, spinning them mere inches from Obi-Wan’s face. Obi-Wan doesn’t flinch even a bit. Maybe it’s because the Jedi are trained to repress their emotions, putting logic and reasoning beyond all else. Or perhaps it’s because Ewan McGregor, the actor playing Obi-Wan, is standing in a green room, staring at a green wall, and has nothing to react to or act against.
When an actor is placed on a green screen set, where the only tangible thing on screen is themselves, they have nothing to base their performance on. General Grievous doesn’t exist, he’ll be added in post-production.
This may be the one place that CGI has difficulties competing with, and many viewers would agree. A twitter user named Lauber Kungar [5] tweets in response to the news that the small rolling robot in the newest Star Wars film is not a CGI construction: “I want to take a moment to express my general appreciation that they BUILT that rolling robot, it's inspiring. CGI is CGI. Real is Magic.”
But even the newest Star Wars film won’t be entirely using practical effects. The solution likely lies in a blending of the two, using CG elements composited into real footage to create more realistic imagery. It’s a technique discussed as far back as a paper on CGI effects published in 1992 by Fournier, Alain et al. at the University of British Columbia [3]. The careful blending of CGI and practical is why Terminator 2 still holds up. More of that was practical than you’d care to admit.
But what about the Uncanny Valley? Doesn’t it mean that CGI will never create effects able to trick the human eye?
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The uncanny valley is a theoretical point in animation and robotics for where something starts looking too real. As described by Jamie York on NPR [8], the more realistic you make an animation, the more accepting we become...up until a certain point. After a while, our acceptance turns to disgust when the animation gets almost human, but not quite. As described on NPR [8], “a 95 percent lifelike robot is a robot that's incredibly lifelike. A 96 percent lifelike robot is a human being with something wrong.”
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The uncanny valley is why the Scorpion King animation looks so bad. Sure, it looks like the Rock, but not quite. It doesn’t move quite right, it’s skin is somewhat plasticy, and we can tell it’s fake.
As Freddie Wong points out [2], we can animate things pretty well, such as cars or helicopters, but people are tricky. We can pass off crowds and people at distances with CGI, but we’re programed to be able to notice small details in people’s faces. It’s something that CGI just can’t quite get right. It’s also why films like The Polar Express had the animation called creepy.
Yes, the uncanny valley is an observable phenomenon, and nobody has yet been able to create a fully CGI human being that can trick the brain into not seeing the fakeness. But the bottom line is that CGI is a tool to use like any other. It isn’t a end all solution to all problems like some would think. Actors placed in heavily digital environments may not give us as convincing performances. CGI can’t create a face that can fool us, and maybe it never will. But CGI has its place, and while we grow tired of overly digitized films, we have to remember that if the digital effects artists do their job correctly, you won’t be sure they’ve done anything at all.
Sources
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[1] Marine, Joe. (2014, Jan 01). Here's How the Controversial 'Photoshop' Music Video Was Created [Online]. Available: http://nofilmschool.com/2014/01/photoshop-boggie-nouveau-parfum-music-video
[2] Wong, Freddie. (2015, Aug 04). Why CG Sucks (Except it Doesn't) [Online]. Available: https://school.rocketjump.com/learn/vfx-container/why-cg-sucks
[3] Fournier, Alain et al. (1992). Common Illumination between Real and Computer Generated Scenes, [Online]. Available FTP: ftp://ftp-admin.cs.ubc.ca/ Directory: .snapshot/hourly.7/local/techreports/1992/ File: TR-92-38.pdf
[4] Abbot, Stacey, “Final Frontiers: Computer-Generated Imagery and the Science Fiction Film,” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 89-108, Mar 2006.
[5] Kungar, Lauber. (2015 Aug 5). I want to take a moment to express my general appreciation that they BUILT that rolling robot, it's inspiring. CGI is CGI. Real is Magic. ™. [Online]. Available: https://twitter.com/lauberkunga/status/640385480526196736
[6] Ihnatko, Andy. (2015 Jul 4). The core truth was, is, and always will be: “Bad effects are bad. Good effects are good.” [Online]. Available: https://twitter.com/Ihnatko/status/617526945182560256
[7] Rose, Emily. (2013, March 7). Breaking Dawn Part Two - Bella Meets Renesmee. [Online Video]. Available: https://youtu.be/bgI_oMMIU0E
[8] York, Jamie, (2010, March 5) Hollywood Eyes Uncanny Valley In Animation [Online Transcript]. Available: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=124371580
[9] Shiftyzem, (2012) Does anybody else think live puppets, robots, and small scaled buildings should come back to get rid of this god awful CGI creatures, scenery, violence people half ass for movies? [Online] Available: https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/rciyr/does_anybody_else_think_live_puppets_robots_and/
[10] Watchmojo.com, (2013, Aug 15) Top 10 Worst CGI Movie Effects [Online Video] Available: https://youtu.be/5ZlOn9V_MmE
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