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SPECIAL EFFECTS
Apr. 20th, 2008 11:38 pmI had a very lazy weekend. I need to to that more often.
Friday night, I hung with peeps at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mattycub & zombietruckstop's place for their monthly Twin Peaks night (we're watching the entire series in order on DVD, a few episodes at a time, once a month -- we just started Season 2). Saturday morning, I went with same peeps to catch Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which is hilarious and sweet and filthy and has puppets. Read moroccomole's review if you don't believe me.
But by mid-afternoon Saturday, I was in the mood to stay home the rest of the weekend and be a couch sloth. So,garycotti dropped by that evening and we got KFC and watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which he'd never seen (!). It looks and sounds amazing in HD, and I fell in love with it all over again.
Sunday I slept in, then hit the couch again. As I was watching all of the supplemental stuff from the Close Encounters disc, I suddenly felt terribly nostalgic for my movie-crazy teen years. Back then, I worked at a video store and watched movies constantly. I hung out at Movie World in Burbank and Hollywood Book & Poster at Hollywood & Vine (both now long closed), and scoured the shelves for presskits, scripts, and every magazine I could find about special effects.
I miss that era when movies were still about magic -- that post-2001, pre-Jurassic Park era in the 1970s and 1980s when visual effects artists were the new wizards of the world, CGI was a pipe dream, and I was obsessed with modelmaking, miniatures, cloud tanks, optical compositing, and Cinefex magazine. I actually ended up flirting with working in the FX industry briefly in the early 90s, meeting such luminaries and heroes as Doug Trumbull, John Dykstra, and Richard Edlund when I was working on the Back to the Future ride. But the world of optical analog effects was coming to a swift end around that time, transitioning to digital and, in my opinion, losing some of its pioneer spirit and artistry.
After Close Encounters, I put in 2001 and watched a bit of it, flipping back and forth to the supplemental stuff and present-day interviews with filmmakers and effects artists who were inspired by it. In a way, I'm torn by this new paradigm of "behind-the-scenes" entertainment -- it's something I never had as a kid, and probably would have devoured if it were as easy to obtain then as it is now. But at the same time, I think there's a jaded view of special effects and a lack of true "movie magic" anymore because of it. I mean, I have seen some beautiful digital effects -- the Lord of the Rings series, obviously The Matrix, clever uses like Cloverfield. And well into the 90s, awesome companies like DreamQuest (bought by Disney in 1996 and turned into The Secret Lab and then unceremoniously closed) produced some really amazing digital effects.
But mostly, much of what I used to love about special effects has gone sour. A new generation of directors use effects so terribly that we're all exhausted by the downright perfection of it all. Special effects have departed that nebulous and fascinating world of alchemy, populated by crazy artists, scultptors, cinematographers and savant-like nerds, and instead has become something clinical and soulless.
In a way, it all hinges on Indy 4 for me. I'm avoiding reading any spoilers or behind-the-scenes articles about it, because I'm hoping it can bring back some real magic, even if it is filled with digital wizardry. Help me, Marion Ravenwood, you're my only hope!
Once Jason came home, we watched Enchanted, which was just as charming as I'd been told, and made me lose my "why-are-movies-so-crappy" fog that I'd fallen into. Talking chipmunks can do that, I guess (plus, Amy Adams is amazing).
Friday night, I hung with peeps at
mattycub & zombietruckstop's place for their monthly Twin Peaks night (we're watching the entire series in order on DVD, a few episodes at a time, once a month -- we just started Season 2). Saturday morning, I went with same peeps to catch Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which is hilarious and sweet and filthy and has puppets. Read moroccomole's review if you don't believe me.But by mid-afternoon Saturday, I was in the mood to stay home the rest of the weekend and be a couch sloth. So,
garycotti dropped by that evening and we got KFC and watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which he'd never seen (!). It looks and sounds amazing in HD, and I fell in love with it all over again.Sunday I slept in, then hit the couch again. As I was watching all of the supplemental stuff from the Close Encounters disc, I suddenly felt terribly nostalgic for my movie-crazy teen years. Back then, I worked at a video store and watched movies constantly. I hung out at Movie World in Burbank and Hollywood Book & Poster at Hollywood & Vine (both now long closed), and scoured the shelves for presskits, scripts, and every magazine I could find about special effects.
I miss that era when movies were still about magic -- that post-2001, pre-Jurassic Park era in the 1970s and 1980s when visual effects artists were the new wizards of the world, CGI was a pipe dream, and I was obsessed with modelmaking, miniatures, cloud tanks, optical compositing, and Cinefex magazine. I actually ended up flirting with working in the FX industry briefly in the early 90s, meeting such luminaries and heroes as Doug Trumbull, John Dykstra, and Richard Edlund when I was working on the Back to the Future ride. But the world of optical analog effects was coming to a swift end around that time, transitioning to digital and, in my opinion, losing some of its pioneer spirit and artistry.
After Close Encounters, I put in 2001 and watched a bit of it, flipping back and forth to the supplemental stuff and present-day interviews with filmmakers and effects artists who were inspired by it. In a way, I'm torn by this new paradigm of "behind-the-scenes" entertainment -- it's something I never had as a kid, and probably would have devoured if it were as easy to obtain then as it is now. But at the same time, I think there's a jaded view of special effects and a lack of true "movie magic" anymore because of it. I mean, I have seen some beautiful digital effects -- the Lord of the Rings series, obviously The Matrix, clever uses like Cloverfield. And well into the 90s, awesome companies like DreamQuest (bought by Disney in 1996 and turned into The Secret Lab and then unceremoniously closed) produced some really amazing digital effects.
But mostly, much of what I used to love about special effects has gone sour. A new generation of directors use effects so terribly that we're all exhausted by the downright perfection of it all. Special effects have departed that nebulous and fascinating world of alchemy, populated by crazy artists, scultptors, cinematographers and savant-like nerds, and instead has become something clinical and soulless.
In a way, it all hinges on Indy 4 for me. I'm avoiding reading any spoilers or behind-the-scenes articles about it, because I'm hoping it can bring back some real magic, even if it is filled with digital wizardry. Help me, Marion Ravenwood, you're my only hope!
Once Jason came home, we watched Enchanted, which was just as charming as I'd been told, and made me lose my "why-are-movies-so-crappy" fog that I'd fallen into. Talking chipmunks can do that, I guess (plus, Amy Adams is amazing).
