Comment by dbspin
19 hours ago
The irony being that a lot of older practical VFX artists aren't able to tell when CGI is terrible. They're often so enamored with what the tech enables, that they're the last to see how quickly it becomes shoddy. Not sure what the equivalent of the hedonic treadmill is for CG, but it ages very rapidly, versus the best practical effects which maintain a charming physicality - even when they're no longer convincing.
> a lot of older practical VFX artists aren’t able to tell when CGI is terrible.
Source? As a CGI VFX artist in a previous life, I disagree vehemently, and I think you’re spinning an untrue narrative. I’ve never met any VFX artists, whether practical or CG (and I’ve met many), who weren’t keenly aware of how bad effects were and how poorly they age. The few practical folks left are way less enamored of CGI than the CGI people, and they were always that way (by definition?), so it seems like you’re mixing them up.
The fact that shoddy effects get used speaks to directors and budgets and production studios and what audiences pay for, it has almost nothing to do with the artists. That said, you’re also comparing bad CGI with good practical effects, which undermines your point. There were plenty of practical effects that lost their charm as fast as any CG ever did, and today there is plenty of CGI that remains convincing; it depends entirely on which effect and which shot in which movie you’re talking about.
Ask George Lucas.
Sorry, ask Lucas what exactly? How would that support parent’s claim that practical VFX artists can’t tell when CG is bad? Lucas hasn’t directed anything for over 20 years, and he was a writer, producer, director, and studio exec. He had already been answering questions about practical vs CGI for decades before he retired. Yes he’s overseen some CGI effects that people complained about a long time ago, and plenty more that nobody complained about, and he was perfectly aware of what people think didn’t age well. More relevantly, I know the artists he employed were aware of what would age well before the films were released.