ILM
Stéphane Beaudin
respond to my post on the running comparison with Digital Domain. I do not
impune the technical quality of ILM's work, the only thing they have had
difficulty doing flawlessly is compositing, and they have obviously solved
that in recent months, on this point I must further add that compositing
flaws did not usually show on screen, but where obvious on video only. My
point all along has benn that ILM's recent work has been well above their
past standard, not only technically (that's always getting better for
everyone) but artistically. Their shots have been truly overwhelming, in a
way that had seemed to be Digital Domain's exclusive ground for a while. Any
jugement on artistic impact will necessarily be subjective, what presses my
buttons is different from what presses yours, many people where blown away
by Draco, I thought he behaved like an actor in a Griffith movie, and saw it
as a clear indictment of the appoach to use traditionally trained animators
for animating 3D characters. What matters is the effect it had on you, and
of course how much money the studio made off it (sure it's important, it's
what we're here for!). I just want to reiterate my happiness at seeing that
ILM has re-joined the ranks of companys that make effects that blow ME away.
Manuel Alducin
know, in video they tend to show up, unless somebody does a special transfer
like in the Special Edition tapes. But their work on film always looks
sharp, as good as any other company doing quality work. Of course you are
entitled to your opinion but I don't it's fair to judge any company on the
quality of a video transfer.
Stephane Beaudin <sbea...@simbolique.ca> wrote:
: I wish to reassure the fans (and employees) of ILM who have been numerous to
: respond to my post on the running comparison with Digital Domain. I do not
: impune the technical quality of ILM's work, the only thing they have had
: difficulty doing flawlessly is compositing, and they have obviously solved
: that in recent months, on this point I must further add that compositing
: flaws did not usually show on screen, but where obvious on video only. My
: point all along has benn that ILM's recent work has been well above their
: past standard, not only technically (that's always getting better for
: everyone) but artistically. Their shots have been truly overwhelming, in a
: way that had seemed to be Digital Domain's exclusive ground for a while. Any
<SNIP>
Well some people (but in this case I speak of myself), never felt ILM left
anytime. They were always "there".
: for animating 3D characters. What matters is the effect it had on you, and
: of course how much money the studio made off it (sure it's important, it's
: what we're here for!). I just want to reiterate my happiness at seeing that
: ILM has re-joined the ranks of companys that make effects that blow ME away.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Manuel Alducin
mald...@acm.org
Computer Graphics and Multimedia
The George Washington University
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Ksander
visual effects, I must take issue with a statement you made in your post
concerning the difficulty with which ILM composites its effects. Before I, or
anyone else, starts a thread arguing with you, could you please be more
specific? That is to say, which shots from which films did you think were
unsuccessful, and why?
-JRK
Stéphane Beaudin wrote:
> I wish to reassure the fans (and employees) of ILM who have been numerous to
> respond to my post on the running comparison with Digital Domain. I do not
> impune the technical quality of ILM's work, the only thing they have had
> difficulty doing flawlessly is compositing...
Joseph Ksander
Brian Davis
process exposes a lot of compositing problems? Any Telecine operators out there? I
have heard that the Telecine process is now digital, rather than optical, and thus
uses algorithms to assign certain ranges of film colors to video colors. When this
crushing of values happens, some black levels go to video 100% black, but other CG
elements, who's black levels might be at 90% black on film, get squished into the
next video black level, say 80% black, thus causing a greater visual difference
between the element, and the background plate. So that the CG dino/tornado/etc looks
like it's shadows are gray, whereas the shadows on the background plate look like
true black. Was that rambling and confusing enough? Is that true? Because it would
make a lot of sense. As far as ILM's compositing goes, I'd say Twister was the most
obvious case of some strange black levels in the video transfer of the FX footage. I
won't comment on old films, because 80's and early 90's films are *full* of bad
composites. Jurassic Park was the first film where I didn't notice any glaring
compositing errors. Lost World was even better, to pull off daytime scenes. Most of
their new work has been top rate with regards to compositing. DD as well in their
recent projects (5thE, Titanic). They've had some strange looking comps in the past
though...
It looks like all the houses are starting to understand what they need to do to get
things looking flawlessly good.
Darth Sidious
>> difficulty doing flawlessly is compositing...
Huh? Didn't they originate the use of digital compositing?
---------------------------------------------------
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Fred Tepper
>
> Although I appreciate your statement regarding your respect for ILM's efforts in
> visual effects, I must take issue with a statement you made in your post
> concerning the difficulty with which ILM composites its effects. Before I, or
> anyone else, starts a thread arguing with you, could you please be more
> specific? That is to say, which shots from which films did you think were
> unsuccessful, and why?
>
> -JRK
>
From what I've seen, it's a black level problem. A great example is
Jumanji. Of course, things are better now (Lost World, for example was
amazing).
--
-=Fred=-
http://www.stationxstudios.com
-.-. --.- -.. -- --. -.--
Remove the x in the address to respond.
MCC Evil1
I wanna know if there is sometimes a problem with film recorders
really being faithfull in outputting to film with all the color
saturation and contrast of the original plate. I see this on TV, but a
lot of times in the theatre too. Last year, saw Batman and Robin, yes a
terrible mistake, but watching that movie, every time there was a stunt
with wire removal, the picture got kinda squashed contrast wise and the
color saturation went down a bit. One scene with a freeze ray freezing
a city looked like it was filmed off a television set. And earlier this
year, I saw a movie Lost in Space, and a lot of shots, especialy with
this little yellow CGI character, the picture got all degraded each
time. I seen this kind of degradation lately in the Mask of Zorro movie
too.
Erik W.
Manuel Alducin
out at:
http://www.ldlhr.com
http://www.ilmfan.com
Erik W. <erw...@lsol.net> wrote:
: Does ILM have a web site? If so, What is it?
Erik W.
Simon Burley
>
> >> impune the technical quality of ILM's work, the only thing they have had
> >> difficulty doing flawlessly is compositing...
>
> Huh? Didn't they originate the use of digital compositing?
> ---------------------------------------------------
Hmmmm. I think the first company to composite a film sequence was
Computer Film Co.
--
Simon
cw
This is correct. It was 1987, as I recall. Their first system was
insanely archaic: no hard disk! There were two scanners, which would
each scan a frame into RAM. The comp would be set up and executed, and
the frame, rather than being written to disk, would be sent right to the
film recorder! Wow!
But ILM followed CFC's achievement by only a week. Seeing as they both
developed their systems from scratch (Well, ok ILM had some help from
Kodak, I think) it could fairly be called a tie. However, CFC made
digital compositing commercially viable long before ILM was able to.
They were in full swing as a digital film business by 1989.
ILM was a much more accomplished company, however, with a far greater
number of people adept in the myriad other aspects of filmmaking; as
such they are the ones remembered for pioneering digital effects and
film effects in general. CFC being in London probably didn't help
either...
That first CFC comp was a morph of a man to a dolphin, in a movie called
Fruit Machine.
--
Chris Watts
Visual Effects Supervisor, Pleasantville
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