Miniature effects Damburst movie

[SB111058]

Ahh, the Dreaded Mctodd... Nice to hear from you mate and lets have a beer in Old London Town, soon...?

[McToddRidesAgain]

Marvellous effects! Nothing beats miniatures!

[SB111058]

Thanks Fuchury..

They aint real but they are entertaining, I hope.

[Fuchury]

Great effects :)

[century21slough]

Fantastic work!! When will the public ever get tired of the CGI look, and go back to more tried and tested methods. I thought the Bonds always looked better when done with a model Unit.

[SB111058]

A cheapo TV movie called 'Landslide'..



[thebladezmanII]

What movie is this from?

[eimb1999]

It's funny... I hear young people today who, after watching some really nice model work on a film, will still say "Hey! Their CGI looks really great!" not knowing that it was done without a computer! Just like one time when I saw TRON in the theatre when it first came out, someone remarked at how "fake the models look". My, how things have changed.... 

[NVanWendy]

What scale is this done in? I ask because some of the water does go "jelly". Otherwise, good stuff.

[SB111058]

@NVanWendy

Its meant to be a mud slide otherwise there wasn't a lot we could do about the scale problems with the mud-water in those days... Sadly...

[eimb1999]

@NVanWendy : True that water and fire are almost impossible to "scale down", but the one nice thing about miniature work is that it still has an "uncontrolled" look that looks natural. That kind of thing is completely lacking in CGI effects today. Part of what makes real things look real is because they are naturally imperfect. The computer gives ultimate control of the image, which is actually undesirable. The "happy accidents" inherent with miniatures make them look more real than most CGI.

[NVanWendy]

@eimb1999 I find that CGI artists often try to cram too much into a scene - perhaps just because they can. The later Star Wars had a visual overload in some scenes that made me lose interest, and I've seen clumsy attempts at air combat that had no sense of the distances involved in the real thing.

I asked about the scale because at a certain size you stop noticing the "jelly water," but if that's 1:6, as a guy I know said the other day, that calls for BIG models!

BTW, it helps if you fan fire!

[eimb1999]

@NVanWendy: The best way to see the difference between the crap that CGI usually is and truly brilliant model work in direct comparison is to watch the Asteroid sequence in TESB and compare it to the terribly inferior but similar redux in ... what was it... the third one... attack of the CGI clones or something? The ESB one just pops from the screen, looking 3-D in many places. The "new" one just looks like a shitty videogame. Not interesting at all. Falls flat.

[NVanWendy]

@eimb1999 I'm not completely against CG; "Flyboys" is an example of excellent work where even close-ups of pilots and planes were completely electronic (and yes, I know they built three planes for ground scenes as well). But they were selective about what they did in CG. I get the feeling that a lot of movies use it out of an unwillingness to do the work properly - read cheapness and/or laziness.

[eimb1999]

@NVanWendy : Actually Flyboys' CGI was bloody awful and extremely unrealistic. There were some miniature shots where some planes were blown up on the ground in front of a hangar etc. that were absolutely convincing (I thought they did it full scale with mockups til I read about it) but the CGI dogfights were awful. WW1 biplanes do not fly like X-wing fighters. Same can be said for the dreadful CGI aircraft effects in "Pearl Harbour". Way too stylized.

[eimb1999]

@NVanWendy : Also, the thing they tend to do too much with CGI is to make unrealistic camera POV shots that would be physically impossible in real life, like showing a hair on the pilot's nose and travelling back through the spinning prop to reveal a battle scene in one shot (or similar in reverse). It's those kind of shots that completely blow the realism of the effect. They need to stick to things that can look like they really were filmed in real life rather than those impossible shots.

[NVanWendy]

@eimb1999 I was thinking of saying much the same thing, but chose to go to bed last night instead! Well put, though; it seems to be a major temptation for CG artists. I'll take that point on Flyboys. Other than that, I couldn't tell model from real from CG, even in closeups, and most of the work was amazing. I saw it as a vid, and had to replay the director's comment on doing ALL the aerials in CG because I couldn't believe it! Now as for making all the German planes red...

[SB111058]

@NVanWendy

Also it was forced scale with the smaller models at the back of shot, the biggest being

5th or sixth scale...

[NVanWendy]

@SB111058 That's true. 

[SB111058]

@NVanWendy

The 'jelly' look is slightly intentional as its meant to show the earth dam turning into a 'mud' slide, but there's still scale problems..

[eimb1999]

Have you got any "behind the scenes" footage? I'd love to see it! Mostly nowadays, a "behind the scenes" video just shows a bunch of guys sitting at computer terminals. Hell, I can see that if I put a mirror at my desk! I love watching how people working with their hands actually CREATE visual effects with tools, wood, plastic paint, glue and all that. That's REAL art. Too bad it's mostly gone in the junk that passes for film today.

[SB111058]

@eimb1999

Couldnt agree more...

[raymondleeleggs]

CGI cant touch miniatures!

[SB111058]

@raymondleeleggs

Cheers mate...

[eimb1999]

@raymondleeleggs:  Are you ever right there!!!!

[gizmo4eva]

LANDSLIDE! I haven't seen the film, but there is more of Magic Camera's model work in the trailer.

[t526tgc]

Bloody hell this is really cool stuff!!!!

[mysteron007]

Wow This is great real Thunderbirds stuff love it , who did it tell us more Mr B

[SB111058]

Well, Im way too modest to say...... ; ' )

[jmessy007]

Fantastic!

[j3pfilms]

Brilliant!