Beowulf Trailer

[Chowda]

I think the great thing here is the trickle down effect. Our technological culture has reaped the benefits from the loftiest of endeavours, the space program, and ultimately the moon landing. Why spend all that money to hit a golf ball on the moon? Because the golf ball got hit, we have microwaves, computers, crazy fabrics, and "astronaut ice cream" that tastes like flavored styrofoam.

See the analogy yet?

Because of the research and efforts involved with outrageous CG projects like Final Fantasy and LOTR all of our software, hardware, techniques and workflows are improved. I'm sure we're going to see some new tricks for rendering, mocap, animation, texturing, lighting....So what about the end product? The golf ball on the moon? The actual movie Final Fantasy? The end product of Beowulf? Maybe it sucks. But the peripheral effects are well worth a lame 30 second trailer.

Personally I like CG for things like Children of Men, and the seamless long shot at the beginning where the cafe explodes.

[timothyc]

Great post! The only difference between the other artists and filmmakers you cited and what we have here, is that with the others, their technical advances actually worked in favor of the product. Or if not, it made it easier for the artists to achieve the same quality of artwork. What Zemeckis seems to be doing here is sacrificing quality to make it easier for him.

Yes, I agree. I was merely pointing out what was motivating Zemeckis, not what its effect would be.

Mind you, other film innovations in the past have led to a short term decline in the art. When film first went from b+w to colour audiences were innundated with garish-looking pictures as DOP's learned to light with colour in mind. When synchronised sound showed up it took a while for filmmakers to adapt. Many movie critics of the day even said that the "talkies" were going to kill the art of filmmaking.
But that's a side issue. I was trying to describe the way in which today's high-budget science-fiction and fantasy films are becoming so high risk that it brings a level of discomfort to the financing studios and the filmmakers themselves. Once a huge $200M production is underway it's like a mile-long freight train descending a steep hill. Pretty soon it picks up momentum and the producer and director are no driving the thing. It's all they can do to stop the wagons from derailing at every bend, and everyone on board knows that one way or another the train is going to get to the bottom - either in one piece (hopefully), or as a flaming wreck.

Performance Capture is one way of reclaiming control because you're no longer burning bridges behind you (creatively speaking). All the director's decisions made on the stage floor can be revisited. No longer does the $100,000 allocated for the day's shooting hinge on a single decision made over a bad donut at breakfast. It's not unusual for a director to tell you that the most enjoyable part of the process is editing. Edit suites are warm and comfortable, you can experiment and tweak things, decision don't have the same life-or-death consequences that they do in the midst of shooting. Little wonder that people like Zemeckis want to bring that same level of comfort and control to the shoot.

TC

[kmest]

where it will lead us in 10 years.....

Uwe boll:ok mr. hanks,i want you to play the role of the vampire king in my new movie...what do you say???

Tom hanks:no i will not play for you and if so,i will take 20 million $....

Uwe Boll:no its too much..i will pay you 1000 $ or else....

Tom Hanks:or what else???go to hell.......

Uwe Boll:i will download your animateable Model from Emule and make You in Cg with Arnold Schwarzenegger voice on you....

[windarr]

Ahh, so that's why it looked a little "off", I had forgotten that it was entirely CG. It may not be a perfect recreation but it's very good, I think a lot of regular audiences may not even realize the whole film is CG. True, it may have made more sense to go with live action characters since they just recreated the actors digitally, but it would be pretty silly to let that ruin the film for anyone, if it's good otherwise.

[MikeNash]

Its looks pretty good.
Its extremely hard to make whole cgi realistic film and alot of people will bitch about it like if they were in their shoes they could do better.

Its very positive that another cg film is released like this, it creates more jobs for us, so why do people knock it ???

[Mike Pauza]

IMHO the Beowulf stills look great, but animated it's absolutely horrible.
Maybe the younger video game crowd will like it, but I'm also betting this will bomb big time.

Hopefully Avatar will be much better.

[fbonniwell]

Not impressed.

Out of curiosity....why don't they just use real actors?

Because it keeps CG artist such as your self employed. Helps advance technology..
I can keep going....


F

[Clanger]

Ahh, so that's why it looked a little "off", I had forgotten that it was entirely CG. It may not be a perfect recreation but it's very good, I think a lot of regular audiences may not even realize the whole film is CG. True, it may have made more sense to go with live action characters since they just recreated the actors digitally, but it would be pretty silly to let that ruin the film for anyone, if it's good otherwise.


So far I've shown this trailer to 5 non CG friends and ask "so anything odd about that trailer?"
None of them had any clue it was all CG and after I told them still didn't totally believe it.
Unless I've found 5 untypical people the general public will probably go for it.

[AJE]

[hit]


Did I miss something? Was there a contest started for someone to try and actually make money on a Beowulf movie?

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=beowulfandgrendel.htm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455348/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120604/

[/run]




j/k

[dickma]

Will people spend time to discuss this?


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Mori_Uncanny_Valley.svg/461px-Mori_Uncanny_Valley.svg.png

I think Beowulf is a real example to explain the uncanny valley theory.... I think the human likeness level is only at about 80%....with animation that is the worse situation about Beowulf, that reach a high human likeness level, but have the worse familiarity level.

Well think about if you are the director of beowulf, do you do modeling and animation base of the 'uncanny valley theory'? that needn't to push human likeness level to that high (around 60%-65%) and for the animation something simliar to regular "keyframing" method? Because the total cost should be smaller, however they obtain a much more "familiarity" level? (Of course you can challenge yourself to raise the human likeness level to 100%, just the cost will be very high.)

[SpaceTik]

Just saw the movie with 3d glasses... well it's another milestone in the cg business! :)

great story telling! a fantastic achievement! 5 stars, go watch it.

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