Computer imagery is an important part of the movie making process these days. There was a time when the advancements made in the field were impressive. Remember how amazing Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 were? But...the spectacle has worn off, my friends. And not because computer animation is some cold, faceless, point and click process. There's actually a lot of work that goes into it. People work long hours building models, adding skeletons, calculating physics... It can take a week to make three seconds of film. Well...it used to. I'm not sure how much faster we've gotten since I was studying it in college. But it takes a lot of work. The problem is that people have simply gotten used to it. Hollywood produces so many movies a year, that you can't help but think its getting easier an easier to build a monster and have it wreck a completely digital New York. People tune out when they see CGI, claiming that it's like watching someone else play a video game. That...sounds....familiar.
Let's look at other art forms for a bit. Painting. You know all those classical paintings you've seen? Perfectly rendered human bodies and backgrounds, amazing poses, the light and shadow... See, most people probably don't even care about all that. There are so many of those pictures that a lot of us think that THAT is what any artist worth their paints can do. Anything less than that is atrocious, but anything on that level is simply...on par. Photorealism? Even if it's created ith paint, people look for a second and then look away. It's just too realistic to think much of it. But have you noticed that anyone who has actually studied art seems far more impressed?
Ever tried to write a song? Play a musical instrument? There are so many songs out these days that it's hard for anyone to know what talent is until a new style of music comes out. Then someone masters it. THEN we're impressed. But at that point, no one can get any better. And all the new students of that style study the masters and...bam. It becomes commonplace. (of course, the oldest styles will ALWAYS seem to require the most talent for some reason) And the only people who really know how hard these musicians are trying are those that have truly tried themselves.
So let's look at CGI. We've got studios churning out movies with top notch effects. But no one really knows how it's done. What's worse is that older people seem to think any youngster with a computer can do it. I recently read a movie critic's review that said, "Any smart teenager with a computer can create excellent looking monsters. So why should we be impressed by this movie's effects?". And...he's got a point. When decent software is becoming as accessible as a pencil and paper (to people of a certain tax bracket), the wonder of CGI gets reduced to the level of wonder you get when you see a kid drawing a decent looking comic book. Oh, it's cool for a moment...but only a moment. And then, the magic is gone. The money will disappear, too. So how can movie-makers capture the magic again?
Stop motion seems to be the only thing that gets any respect these days, probably because people don't see it as something that takes talent so much as something that takes tremendous amount of patience. And, we only get one stop motion movie every two or three years. And there are only a few studios doing it. People may forever be impressed by stop motion. They look back at classic films, and still seem amazed by the skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts.
The sad thing is that audiences are moved only by two things when it comes to entertainment. A tremendous amount of effort, or a technique they can't yet comprehend. And only one of those lasts forever.
I wonder what's next?
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