Light ROM 4/Light ROM 4 - Disc 1.iso/text/maillist/1995/0695.doc/text0492.txt

Text File | 1995-07-04 | 3.0 KB | 59 lines

I went to film school, and after I got out, I realized I was in for some
hard luck trying to "play the game" in Hollywood so I decided to shift
gears into CGI and hopefully apply some of the things I learned in film
school to the "virtual studio" as it were.  I'd therefore like to open up
a discussion on cinematography and how it applies to the animator.

I've noticed a tendency in animators to busy-up a scene by both
cluttering up the frame, and by having more camera and object movement
than is necessary.  This doesn't happen all the time, but it happens a lot.

The psychology behind this is simple. If you know that it's going to take
a halfhour per frame to render, you kinda feel better about rendering 100
frames of action than 100 frames of a still camera and a very slow-moving
object (or an object in extreme distance).  You feel like you want to get
your time's worth on the render and you want to show off your objects to
their best advantage.

However, cinematically, this may not be the best idea.  If every effects
shot you produce is so busy and kinetic, it will seem conspicuously so,
and thus less realistic.  The viewer may think "okay, they are cutting the
the FX shot with all the action and then when it's done, they cut away and
nothing's really going on anymore".  A continuity in the pacing is
important if you are doing effects for a narrative.  For the effect
sequence, you are essentially directing the story and you need to be in
tune with the big picture.

For instance.  Take a famous motion-control shot like the great opening
shot in Star Trek:TMP.  Three Klingon cruisers ever-so-slowly approach
the camera.  As they pass, the camera focuses on the bridge and then
twists around and settles as the cruisers continue on into the distance.

Or take the opening of Star Wars.  It's really nothing but a long shot of
the blockade runner and Star Destroyer tracking a totally linear path over
the camera and into the horizon (with some lasers added of course).  To
the CGI person, these shots may be painfully boring.  But cinematically
speaking, they are graceful and just fine as they are.

So essentially what I'm talking about is reserve.  For a commercial spot,
this reserve doesn't apply, but for an effects shot in a narrative
production it does.  What to the CGI person may seem like a boring, static
effects shot is often the best suited shot for the story.

What have you all to add to this topic?

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|Glenn Saunders - avatar of [e-mail] - man of many hobbies  |
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