From my recent trips to the cinema I have built up an aversion to the ever frequent use of CGI, over the past decade the use of CGI has escalated from a tool to drive story forward into a full on assault of pixels to the eyes and cranium. It wasn’t until a few seconds in of The Hobbit’s Goblin chase sequence that I realised these characters are fighting thin air! slashing away all sense of dread and fear I ever felt towards the Goblin’s and Ork’s of Mordor.
I also believe that CGI has become distinctively rubbish recently and I think I know why. When used in small amounts CGI can have a positive effect in films, Saving Private Ryan (1998) springs to mind, subtly used to heighten the chaos of the battlefield. The difference now is that viewers are forced to stare endlessly at whole scenes created from pixels, Jurassic World (2015) is very much guilty of this. The camera in these modern movies also helps break the suspension of disbelief, it moves fluidly from every angle possible passing through physical objects and spinning around ignoring the laws of gravity, we’re no longer watching a movie its a cartoon! Of which we’re forced to gorge ourselves on.
My movie highlight of the year so far is the reboot of Mad Max (2015) and yes it does contain a lot of CGI, the major difference for me is that practical effects came above digital, if they could do it in real life it was worth doing. Thats why I’m looking forward to the Star Wars VII, I think J.J Abrams understands the importance of practical effects and how CGI should be used sparingly and cleverly to drive narrative and not to create a blob of digital nonsense with no other purpose than to make the audience dribble at the mouth.
I’ve always enjoyed practical effects over digital and here at Idenna Ltd we always try and put content before flashiness! If you’ve got a good story then ultimately you’ll make the viewer want to see more. From PR to Photography its important to us that we get your story out there, and if it needs an element of digital wizardry fair enough, but we wont be vanquishing any invisible goblins anytime soon.