Well, it is a pretty clear question, but I'm going to set further peremeters by addressing city/land scape and not action scenes/explosions.

I am a bit old fashioned and think that Hand Build Sets forced directors and viewers to become more intimate with their space. Watching all those Spaghetti Westerns...you know each corner of the town, and the town layout. You knew were someone with a gun would jump out from because you already had a sense of the space. With the introduction and eventual take-over of animated background sets, I think this sense was lost. Think about it...did you ever Really get a sense of space in The Matrix? No..all you got was MTV mix party to go in Reloaded. The mazes and doors and, well, everything, just seems to disjointed. IMO, Computer animation doesn't force direction and production to deal with the "holes."

I also just find sets and studio stages to be so thick with history one cann "sense" it in a film. I tried to find an article I once read about Scorsese filming Gangs of New York at Cinecitta, and feeling the weight of all the past productions that had passed on the ground before him. I couldn't find the exact article, but I found another one that throw some light on how I feel as well. Here are some exerts:



Well, which do you prefer, and what are the pros and cons of each. You must realize my background is in history of objects...tangible things such as manuscripts and sculptures...so I'm clearly biased towards hand build sets in a way most people aren't.

To be totally honest,

I don't think either is better. They both have their goods and bads, their ups and downs.

I think that some movies have to rely on real sets to give them the propper feel, and others CGI based sets. I don't think their is a concrete answer one way or the other.

Rather it varies on a movie to movie basis.

I think anyone in anyway associated with broadway though would lean heavily on real sets.

KJ

I definately prefer hand-built sets to CGI backrounds. Too many movies go way overboard with the CGI and in the end what you get is a cartoon (see: Star Wars prequels)

Hand-built sets just seem more real. You dont get distracted by the obvious CGI. I agree, they are more intimate and there's a lot more detail in those hand-built sets. Just feels more like a real world.

When I watch CGI based film, I feel like im watching senseless junk most of the time. It lacks that TLC feel that real sets normally gets. Nothing beats the real thing in my book.

Both can be good or bad, don't prefer one over the other.

I used to think CGI was great, till I saw the Prequels, give me the hand built sets anyday and the personal touches of the craftspeople.

Agreed. Is there anyone that wasn't more upset when Lucas started digitizing the old Star Wars films? Everyone must have notficed how shoddy and less hollistic the newer landscapes, buildings, battle scenes were in the Prequels.

Remember, people like Cameron BUILT the entire Titanic and the Sea it sailed in for the movie. I doubt such a space would have been properly acheived through CGI. Look at the land/city scape of Sky Captain? For all its sources and the length of production time, it really was missing any sense of location. Hell, even Les Triplettes felt like it had a more complete environment.

That's fine, but most sets are made up of fake manuscripts, fake furniture, fake walls, etc. Defining "real" and "historic" is not always easy.

Personally, I think the only people that should really care about this issue are the set designers, directors, actors.

As long as there is no barrier to thinking that the location is real or not, I'm happy as a clam. If the CG is good enough, why should anybody care?

Do you think, as of yet, its demonstrated itself as having the ability to be "good enough?" I haven't. I really loved LOTR, which was half/half. Jackson filmed on site and then manipulated it...and the scenes he did 100% cgi you could tell in an instant. I think its mostly in the approach. The attention to detail, what detail, and the moviement of the viewers eye and focus that somehow gets lost in CGI thus far. Its just never really done it for me.

CGI came into existance for a reason. To keep the cost of creating those sets to a minimum. That and improving special effects.

Ofcourse, while real sets are tooo cool, I understand why theyre also a problem. Just looking at Gangs Of Newyork, I can understand how much money must have been spent on just that.

At the same time, CGI is just abused by people now. Every single thing must be freaking CGI.

Both are good in my opinion but there is a time for everything. If only people can be made to understand that.

What i love more than anything though, is a movie that bases itself on real stunts ... not cgi crap : )

But it hasn't kept down costs has it? The money that goes into computer technology is equally as expensive, and GONY was filmed for 85 million I think. Not THAT much compared to the spider-man and harry potter and other CGI films. They're hitting triple digits. I mean, Passion of Christ was shot for pennies and it was gone over at Cinecitta also, not using CGI. I didn't think it was dramatically cheaper at all in reality?

In Phantom Menace, the whole lightsaber fight at the end between Darth Maul and Obi Wan and Qui-Gon was CG and I thought it was completely believable. I think a lot of the CG set work in the prequels has been great.


I'm straining to think of a set in LOTR that was entirely CG. Most of LOTR was minatures and models, and that's a completely different issue as those have been used since the dawn of time.


So did Cameron though.


I think Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a bad example of what you are trying to say because I don't think it was trying to strike for a real place... probably because the CG isn't there yet, they were going for something that morphed CG landscapes and real humans into a middle
ground fantasy. Other than that, it's really overestimated how many films out there have tried to do completely CG environments. I bet the serious attempts at false environments could be counted on one hand.

There are many examples of scenes taking place in impossible environments, but those are done because the environment is impossible or too costly to build, so it's not really something that conflicts with the set designers, because without CG that scene would never have happened either way.

What I'm basically saying that if the technology is good enough and the actors and directors have evolved enough to deal with environments which don't always fully exist then it won't matter any more.

I mean, story, direction and acting were hallmarks of Dogville, which essentially had no set at all.

-andaroo / add-rock (r.i.p.)

CGI's only merit is that it allows you to do things that just are not possible today, like the battles of the Matrix in Zion, etc. But it gets annoying when you take entire franchises and base them on CGI. It sucks the humanity out of the films. The last Matrix films were so stale its unbelievable. I blaim it on a heavy OD of cgi.

Hand Built. I can't imagine watching an epic such as LOTR (the backgrounds, minus some of it) or a film such as The Godfather if the majority of the film was CGI. And, camera's can do nifty things too. Just look at "Hero". Even if you didn't like the plot, most admit that the cinematography was fantastic. So, give me real over the fake any day. dolcevita's right. CGI gives films a sense, where, everything seems crammed in. Almost like a full-screen film .

Well one needs to draw a fair comparison.
CGI has kept the cost down in relation to what it might have cost the movie to look like if CGI wasnt used. I think thats the difference that needs to be pointed out everytime.
Its true that Spidey cost tonnes in comparison to Passions. But could Spidey without CGI but looking the same cost the same amount?? Less?? More??

Though dont get me wrong. Sometimes you also end up with movies like Van Helsing where you wonder where the money went.

i think a mix of both is best. i prefer mostly hand-built but sometimes CGI is needed in certain areas. i just don't like when it is really overdone.

I also think that both have their merits! For instance in LOTR, a lot of the images that ppl think were all CGI weren't really! They may have changed the settings, but much was real! For instance, Mt. Doom is real! It's real name is Mt. Cook here in NZ and all that was added was the lava spitting and spewing under dark skies! PJ scouted out sites like a bandit and them included them in the film very cleverly!

I am also quite happy that CGI was used for many battle scenes i.e. with horses and whatnot because in real life there would have been many injuries and maybe some fatalities! For a lot of the Rohirric scenes for instance, the horses about 250-270 were real and we brought in our won horses (there was a call out for experienced horse-lords). We had to train the horses to be comfortable in each others space and riding in close proximity! We would train with faux waepons and armour, but when it was time for the filming, those pieces were replaced with the real mckoy and a lot of it weighed a tonne! I never regretted any of it though! Even with the countless repeats scenes we sometimes had to do!

Also, in FOTR in the stand-off of Arwen with Frodo against the Ringwraiths, when she says her Elvish spell and the water come rushing from the canyon, that was real! The wipe-out was done by two ShotOver Jetboats spinning furiously to create the crashing wave! They just added the water horses image into it! It was filmed in Skippers Canyon just near Arrowtown! If you ever go there, the rocks on the banks are rainbow coloured and it's quite magickal! There is also gold that can be found in the river too!

As another poster stated, some of it was minitures and scale models! I can tell you Edoras we very real and Minis Tirith and Helms Deep were some on the biggest sets ever built, though they did use scale models for some shots of the latter two too!

All in all, when used craftily I believe both compliment each other well!

They're both great. We've seen what CGI can do with Sky Captain, and look at the great sets that are still being built in Sin City. CGI will become more efficient as it will become cheaper and faster, but having variety in movies it what makes them well, special.

I think that the LOTR approach is what works best with today's technology. Use real sets and enhance with CG here and there to get the desired look.

agreed

I agree.

I also love how spielberg made A.I and minority report.He did it the same way.Like in the famous spider scene in Minority Report,The only thing CG were the spiders,everything else was real.

Hmmmm. I love this thread and find it very interesting, so I'm bumping it back up in light of the summer blockbusters.

There's been some discussions about which use more cgi, and which less, and I have made comments about the virtual landscape of Sith being so seamless as to not really resonate with me.

After my recent viewings, I'm becoming an even bigger fan of fully or partially built sets. I don't know if its the actual tangability of them, or the fact that handbuilt restricts the scape to a more comprehendable level, but I really miss it.

I'm thinking of such movies as Master and Commander, which built its ship and stuck everyone in it. Definate claustrophobia, and very convincing.

I got excited today reading an article about camera shots and good old-fashioned rigs. Working very hard during production to get a shot right rather than tweaking it or planting it in during post-filming the way Sky Captain did. I think having something actually *there* forces the director/cinematographer/actors to respond to it. Seeing if they like its placement in the frame, adding and removing elements directly in the set before re-shooting. Also, does blank screnes make most actors more wooden?

great success!! another thread resurrected in account of the BAT!!

Yeah. bABA, did you read the article. That image you had in your avatar of him coming down the stairs. The caption for it spoke about all the tracking cameras, the wires, the devices...everything they did *on-site* to be happy with it.

I wanted to resureect this after Sith actually, since LUcas really took digital to a new level. I know different strokes for different folkes, so I'm not going to bash Sith's digital success. I just don't respond to it that well. But like I just mentioned to you, I also am not that big a far of 3d cgi animation like Dreamowrks and Pixar. Prefer sketchy 2d, or claymation.

So I'm just wondering for who it does work for, for who it doesn't, preferrences, and why.

i started reading and then stopped cause i realized ive read up all about it before from other articles .. but its a good article cause it puts everything together ... man i'm so physched!!

i still stand behind what my opinion was in regards to this topic .. which is posted above ..