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Review: Avatar – 15 minute 3D exclusive preview

Matt — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:29:27 +0000

Obviously what I am about to write has spoilers of some sort, but if you have seen the trailer then you know what you are getting into!

On Friday I was lucky enough to scope tickets for one of the invite-only Avatar 15 minute screenings in full 3D. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see it at the IMAX theatre, but hey! Beggers can’t be choosers.

Oooh, blue aliens!

Let me preface this by saying I knew pretty much nothing about the movie before going in . . . on purpose. I just wanted to watch it and see what happens. Hence me not knowing who the characters are, what they are supposed to be doing etc.

Firstly, the 15 minute preview only covered sequences from the first half of the movie. I will try and remember as much as I can as I was obviously concentrating on the visuals. Also, the majority of the footage shown was CGI.

The first scene was in real life with the Marines as their CO tells them about the planet. Very nice real-life 3D . . . very natural. We are introduced to Sam worthington’s character as he wheels in.

Alien paradise in gunmetal grey

Next scene is real life with Sigourney Weaver putting Sam into some kind of MRI chamber thingy where they scan him and do various Minority Report visual interface things with his brain scans, which are hologramatic 3D projected from 2D heads up display style clipboards. This worked very well with the 3D glasses as you really got a feeling that the 3D interfaces were just that. Excellent tracking work.

Beep boop beep! Make spinny pictures go now!

Sam sees the light and goes through the tunnel, cue waking up as 10ft tall blue dude in a medical bay.

This, for me was where the rubber was really going to hit the road. The 3D space really felt like it had depth, and most importantly, the lip-synch was solid. I don’t care how good the CG or motion capture or lighting is . . . as soon as the lip-synch is out I am pulled out of the illusion. Interaction with props and live-action was very solid.

The next scene is Sam, Sigourney and others as Avatars confronting a large alien triceratops type creature in a territorial dispute. The dino backs down as some crazed monster lizard attacks. Think King Kong. A lot. The 3D did the job in these scenes, however the frenetic movement was a bit hard to follow as I felt my eyes were trying to focus on too many things at once. The shots also seemed to be a bit unrealisitically sharp, which again made the fast camera moves a little weird. The depth of the forest was palpable, you really felt like you were standing in it.

Next scene is Avatar Sam fighting off alien dog packs as the Avatar woman leaps in to save the day. Spectacular fight ensues, not as many issues with the fast moving cameras in this one. Hints of lurve action to come. Animation and lip-synch again are faultless. Sets and lighting are amazing.

Can Cameron make us care for CG characters?

Avatar Sam and tribe climb along a cliff edge to fight and tame lizard like flying beasts. After a prolonged struggle resulting in Avatar Sam clinging to vines over the edge (whoah! Vertigo), he climbs on the beast as it falls from the ledge and finally starts flying. Spectacular 3D vision.

I can see my house from here!

Various action shots as per the trailer

So, overall the experience was excellent. The 3D really felt like it added something to the shots, not just there for it’s own sake.

Review: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (possible spoilers, but not really)

Matt — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:30:48 +0000

This was a bit of an interesting one for me as it is the first Harry Potter movie I have seen since actually reading the book. As it turns out, I finished The Half Blood Prince only a week or so (if that) before I saw the movie so the story was fresh in my mind.

To tell the truth, I have kind of dipped in and out of the Harry Potter movies. I recall seeing the first one at the cinema, but to the best of my recollections, I have watched bits and pieces of the others on DVD and on TV when they were on, but haven’t really sat down and watched them from start to finish.

Emo? Check! (c) WB Pictures 2009

On a story/character note, I was a little disappointed, as I know many fans have been in the past. I fully realise that film and books are separate mediums with strengths and weaknesses and so much of the written exposition simply can’t be translated to the screen. However, and this is a big however, a lot of what made it to the screen (or was left out) was a little baffling. Without giving anything away I felt there were some strange decisions about including scenes that weren’t in the book that could have just as easily been shown by . . . bup budda bahhhhhHHH . . . using the scenes in the book.

Also, while I loved Jim Broadbent in Hot Fuzz, he just was not Professor Horace Slughorn. He physically wasn’t “right” (ie, not rotund enough and his character’s personality was *competely* different to the book, again with no discernible benefit from the change. The unfortunate thing was the when I first read Slughorn’s dialogue, I pictured him exactly like actor Timothy Spall, a bit of a problem as he is already playing Wormtail! C’est la vie, as the Frenchies say.

Okay, onto the visual FX! Unfortunately overriding thing I was left with after watching this Harry Potter is that they graded the hell out of it . . . I mean they really, really pushed the grade and in my opinion, it really hurt the look of the film. Too many shots looked monochromatic, but not in a way that enhanced the tonality, like a nice black and white photo. It was more like someone got a hold of some After Effects grade presets and then thought it would like totally hella cool if you pushed all the dials up to ‘11′. I can only imagine a lot of the VFX artists were a bit startled at how their work eventually looked.

Whatever it is, it's black and white. (c) Warner Bros. Pictures 2009

Harry, you're all crushed sepia! (c) Warner Bros. Pictures 2009

Now, you might be thinking that I am totally down on the movie, but not so. Just getting the bad out of the way before the good. Fluid effects throughout were excellent and seemed to be the VFX theme of the movie, so to speak. Having said that, word on the street is that the Death-Eater FX were actually cloth sims with a bit of fluids thrown in, much like the Oracle FX in the movie 300 (the Oracle was filmed underwater and a lot of the ’smoke’ was actually semi-transparent cloth sims with a lot of 2D warping in comp). Take a close look at the trailer or the film in cinemas and you will see what I mean.

Death Eaters = cloth sims? - (c) Warner Bros. Pictures 2009

Speaking of fluid FX, possibly the coolest effect was actually done by a guy that sits behind me, our FX TD Pav! If you don’t know, there is a magical implement in the series called a pensive that can show you people’s memories as real 3D worlds that you enter, but can’t interact with. The fluid effect can be seen on the trailer as being like ink dropped into water that then morphs into all the elements in the memory (people, buildings etc). Needless to say that this is a pretty cool effect!

Memories come alive! (c) Warner Bros. Pictures 2009

The ocean scenes at the end as Dumbledore and Harry apparate off the coast are also worth a mention. I find that ocean sims often seem to suffer from scale issues and have difficulty showing convincing spray. There is still a way to go, after all oceans are the biggest fluid sims you can do, but The Half Blood Prince did a pretty darn good job of it. I am not sure if this was Maya or Scanline VFX . . . can anyone shed some light on this?

Errr, why didn't we apparate on the shore? (c) Warner Bros. Pictures 2009

The two standout scenes for me were the quidditch match and Dumbledore’s fire summoning. I was watching the original Harry Potter earlier this year (before starting the series) and obviously a few of the visual effects were a bit sketchy and the quidditch match stood out like the proverbial dog’s bits. Fast forward to 2009 and the quidditch match was miles ahead. I think that the biggest contributing factor is that they seem to have given the broom flight more weight, both in the full CG body double shots and especially the live action shots. It didn’t feel like the actors were simply swinging around on wire rigs. It looked like they were actually riding the broomsticks and hovering.

Just another day at the office. (c) Warner Bros. Pictures 2009

And for the big FX finale, BOOOOOM, Dumbledore lays down some hardcore swirly fire spells in an effort to save the day? Did it work? Who knows? Well, if have ready the book or seen the movie you do, but that’s not the point!

Needs more fireball (c) Warner Bros. Pictures 2009

Review: Star Trek – Sci-Fi done right!!

Matt — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:03:18 +0000

I was going to post a video tutorial tonight but a lack of time and watching the latest Star Trek movie led to a review post so I will put the video up on Sunday.

Green alien babes *do* figure in this movie (c) Paramount Pictures

Firstly, let me say my knowledge of Star Trek is pretty much limited to whatever comedy shows have mentioned in their piss-takes. I know the main characters catchphrases as I am a child of pop-culture but other than that I don’t really know anything about the story or characters. Frankly, I kind of wanted to keep it that way as I feel that once you start actively watching Star Trek, you are branded for life. I may have lost a few readers there, but come back! I love the latest movie! I know some Trek fans might hate it, but something like this is what a franchise needs to keep things fresh and moving in new directions.

This is Sci-Fi done right. Actually, this is blockbuster movie done right. Given the recent drought of decent entertainment, I give Star Trek the double thumbs up. I was interested in the characters, the dialogue was good, there were a few in-jokes, the catchphrases were there and the plot skipped along. All around, good stuff.

It's no Falcon, but it'll do! (c) Paramount Pictures

From a Visual FX perspective I found the movie pretty much faultless. If you are a matte painter or set designer, Star Trek delivers in spades. I haven’t seen a decent Sci-Fi movie for quite a long time and Trek delivered some great environments. Earth was suitably futuristic without being ridiculous and had some great city scenes.

The star ships were excellent and thankfully had more of that “used Universe” feel with banged up edges and grime. The lack of grime in Star Trek always bothered me.

Lucky I packed those brown snow pants - (c) Paramount Pictures

Personal highlights included the nice matte paintings/set extension in all the Iowa scenes and the snowbeast vs Kirk fight on whatever the glacier planet was (I am sure I will be corrected on this by someone

Compositing was uniformly excellent. I admit I was trying to find faults but really, nothing stood out at all. The integration of set extensions was seamless and the comping in front of full 3D environments looked very natural.

An overlooked area in a lot of Sci-Fi movies is all the interfaces for the computer gear and the guys who did the work on the movie did a fantastic job. Not too over the top, but suitably cool looking.

Finally, a nice fan image by Tobias Richter. A shout out to Tobias as he was a major influence in me getting into computer graphics. I recall as a young teenager looking through the gallery pages in Amiga Format magazine and seeing Tobias’s amazing 3D images and wanting to do the same thing myself:

Tobias Richter - ex-Amiga legend

@@UPDATE: Daniel Broadway notes that the ice planet was called Delta Vega . . . that was quicker than I expected. Also, check out Dan’s awesome spec trailer for Star Trek on his blog over at http://danielbroadway.blogspot.com/

Michael Bay doesn't own the rights to anamorphic lens flares (c) Daniel Broadway

Review: X-Men Origins – Wolverine (possible spoilers)

Matt — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:38:05 +0000

SLASH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! FIGHTO!!

He should imagine some kittens in a bucket

Okay, there’s my summary I kid, I kid! I will say that this is great action flick. Grab your candy and coke (obviously not bought at the outrageous candy bar prices) and slide into a chair for a big-screen movie.

As you probably know, and as was discussed on this site here, there was an awful lot of hype surrounding the film, possibly due to a leak of a full workprint of the film. Insanely bone-headed career ending move or marketing genius? I will let you decide. Either way it certainly didn’t hurt the box office with Wolverine hosing it in.

One thing I will say about the film that a lot of people have mentioned is that the VFX are quite patchy. Some quite excellent stuff next to some quite dodgy stuff. The entire scene in the countryside and the helicopter/motorcycle fight had an awful lot of dodgy greenscreen shots and soft looking CG and there was some insanely average stuff at the end when the children were walking towards the helicopter to escape. We were also confused when Wolverine was checking out his new claws at the old couples homestead as they looked very flat and unconvincing.
The only other thing that left me a bit unfulfilled was the lack of Gambit action. I will admit right now that I haven’t read the comics and don’t really know all the characters that well, but even I know that Gambit is hella cool and the trailer led me to believe that we would see more of him in the movie. Oh well, I am sure he will get his own deal, seeing that Deadpool has just been given his own movie!

There is a very nice, if brief, production focus with Luma pictures over at CGTalk at the moment that is well worth a read. It is interesting to note that Luma, and others, have noted that the time for completing their shots was quite limited, which possibly resulted in the dodgy FX.

I can only assume that lack of time was the reason as the budget was somewhere around $130million which is not exactly chump change. This is another in a long line of similar complaints about movie productions with studios wanting AAA VFX in ridiculous timeframes. I recall reading an interview with the guys at ILM who did the car escape destruction sequence for the War of the Worlds trailer. They pulled out all stops for Spielberg and after they actually managed to pull it off, it somehow become expected that VFX studios could do that kind of work in those kind of time frames as a matter of course.

Overall, I give it 7/10. It is what it is, an enjoyable big blockbuster action movie.

Review: Watchmen

Matt — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:16:31 +0000

So this is how comic book movies are meant to be made! I will admit straight out that I have not read the graphic novel though I have been meaning too for years. Of course now I will look like a bandwagon-hopping hipster doofus as I buy it now, but to hell with the purists!

Not having read the graphic novel, I didn’t have any vested interest in seeing how the movie would turn out. I can only imagine from what I’ve read that transferring Watchmen to the silver screen was going to be pretty bloody hard, but it seems like Zack Snyder has done an admirable job. Fans seem to have recognised that film and graphic novels are separate beasts and need to be viewed differently.

I am not going to give any spoilers, but I will say the movie hit all the right notes. The intro was stunning and really set the mood. Possibly the best opening I have seen in quite a few years. The story is well paced and kept me interested for the most part. There were a few soft spots but they never bog the story down.

I admit I was a bit worried with all the characters being introduced that I wouldn’t know what was going on, but all was revealed with some great flashbacks. Compare this with The Spirit where I didn’t really know what was going on and the backstories were hopeless.

The visual effects were solid the whole way through. There wasn’t too much that made me go “WOW! MEGA-SUPA-FREAKING-AWESOME” but there also wasn’t anything that was noticeably sub-par. The only thing I couldn’t quite understand was the decision to make Dr Manhattan completely CG when he could have been Billy Crudup in the flesh for 80% of his shots.

Overall, the best thing I can say about this movie is that when I came out, I really wanted to get my hands on a copy of the graphic novel to get the full story. The complete opposite of The Spirit . . .

_________

I would also highly recommending the full manga series for Akira. I love Akira the movie, but frankly it makes no sense. After reading the graphic novels the whole thing became a *lot* clearer. It looks like you can read them online here.

Review: The Spirit

Matt — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 11:31:46 +0000

A short post this Sunday with some thoughts about “The Spirit”. I realise that The Spirit has been out for a while in the USA but it is a relative new release in Australia (yay for delayed release schedules).

Credit: Lions Gate LLC. Image The Orphanage.

There are two reasons I went to see The Spirit. Firstly, it obviously shares a lot in common with Sin City and frankly, Sin City kicks so many types of buttocks that there may actually be a law about it. The second reason is that a couple of mates worked on the film with Rising Sun Pictures (RSP) in Adelaide and I am happy to pay bucks for films that mates work on.

I will also say that I knew before going on that this wasn’t a serious movie and I fully prepared by having a nice big Coke and some cheesy snacks at the ready.

Lights down, movie starts . . . ooookay. Maybe it gets better. Maybe I am missing something. Give it time. Why are there only 8 people in the cinema? I know it has been getting bad reviews, but let’s all give it a go, eh? Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. Just what the hell is going in? Who is he? Why are they fighting? That bit isn’t funny. Who is she? Do I care? Why is she dressed like a Japanese Maiko? Why are they dressed like Nazi’s. Why is that hot latino chick acting so badly? Surely it has been 2 hours? It’s over, thank God. What? Only 90 minutes . . . you have to be kidding me.

I will go on record as saying that I liked the film visually. Not quite as unique and intense as Sin City, but definitely it’s own style. No, it was just a bad movie. How do I define bad? Well, when I think 90 minutes is over 2hrs and I am waiting for the movie to finish, it’s bad. When I literally don’t care about any of the characters, it’s a bad movie. When I don’t know who is doing what or why they are doing it, it’s a bad movie.

Well, I am sure you have your own opinions, but for me The Spirit was almost the definition of style over substance. It looked amazing but had nothing to say, and that’s a shame . . .