I used an HD source of "The Empire Strikes Back" and did a frame-by-frame restoration of Doomblake's edit. Later, I realized I messed up one of the edits (a second cut to Piett), but I liked my cutaway to Veers more, so I kept it. Making arbitrary changes to source material is a Star Wars Special Edition trademark, so why not continue that tradition. I also added titles, and an actual introduction and conclusion. The audio of the new sequences is mine, but the audio from Doomblake's amazing editing is pure Doomblake.
This is one of director J.J. Abrams' favorite visual effects shots from his film, "Mission: Impossible III". Rather than have actor Eddie Marsan forcibly shove the prop into Tom Cruise's nose, J.J. came up with a different idea on how to accomplish the shot.
Hal Hickel, promoting "Rogue One" on home video, with Alan Tudyk (voice of K-2SO)
If you want to hear a fun interview with ILM animation supervisor Hal Hickel, check out his appearance on the podcast Talking Bay 94, episode 15. Hal talks about his career, how we made Tarkin and Leia for "Rogue One", and about those amazing Yoda “Empire” tests that I’ve seen with my own eyes.
In an attempt to answer the question "What is great cinematography?", a solid answer is "if you can jump to any random frame of the movie and it looks *good*, THAT'S great cinematography."
So I tried that with "Jaws" (1975):
"Jaws" cinematographer Bill Butler was nominated for an Oscar for his work on "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" that same year (1975). He shared the Oscar nomination with Haskell Wexler.
Whenever there’s a chance to do an apples-to-apples comparison of something related to the art and science of filmmaking, I’ll jump on it.
“Halloween” (1978) has seen approximately 70,000 different home video releases, including multiple iterations on DVD and Blu-ray. I personally own two versions of the movie on Blu-ray: a 2007 release, and a 2013 release, which touts a new HD transfer supervised and approved by the film’s original cinematographer, Dean Cundey.
Rarely do studios use the name of a crewmember to help sell a new pressing of a library film. Intrigued, I wondered exactly how different could the color grading would look, with an apples-to-apples comparison to the 2007 Blu-ray release of the film. I randomly chose frames from the film to compare; I didn’t specifically seek out dramatically different color grades.
Usually when a film-to-digital transfer is completed without the involvement of the original filmmakers, educated guesses (based on the cinematic memory of whoever is behind the controls, the best film prints available, old transfers, etc.) must dictate the exposure and color choices that are required to be made. Color grading (and film-to-digital transfers) are completely subjective; in the end, “what should the film look like?” dictates how saturated, bright or contrasty the movie appears. These are creative decisions.
Even though the discrepancies between the transfers are, at times, inconsistent, the general look and feel of of the 2007 release is much brighter, warmer and saturated. If this 2013 release is truly Cundey’s original vision for the film, he always intended the print to be much darker, cooler and more muted than the 2007 release.
There is no single “correct” way to process and grade a film. Just as a filmmaker chooses the colors and textures of the film’s costumes, the filmmaker chooses the look and feel of the color grade. There are an infinite number of possibilities, and, in a perfect world, new film-to-digital transfers should be supervised by the original filmmakers. As you can see in this comparison, the 2007 “unsupervised” transfer is bright and colorful, which was not the intent of the cinematographer. For some context, take a look at this blog post from Stu Maschwitz, which shows some feature film comparisons of "before creative color grading" and "after creative color grading".
I tried to do more research and hear directly from Cundey himself, but I couldn’t find any interviews with Cundey about his involvement with the 2013 Blu-ray release. At one point, HalloweenMovies.com apparently hosted this photo of Cundey working on the transfer (the link is now dead, and I was unable to find an Internet Archive version).
Back in July of 1986, Starlog Magazine printed an article by Bruce Gordon about "Back to the Future", in which Gordon ponders the idea of the alternate universe created in the Robert Zemeckis time-travel film. Gordon talks about the opening of the film, as we see Marty and Doc get ambushed by terrorists. Gordon speaks of a mysterious figure in the background of this opening scene, which takes place at Twin Pines Mall.
At the very instant that Doc tosses his pistol to the ground (and all eyes in the audience are following its path across the pavement), a silhouetted figure steps into that light. Less than a second later, the figure is gone, Doc has been shot and the chase is on.
I thought it would be fun to look at the artifact that Gordon supposes is "Marty II" in HD.
Clearly, it's "Marty II" back there. Or Bigfoot. Gordon wrote follow-up articles after "Back to the Future Part II" and "III" were released. They're available online via the Internet Archive.
I was profiled by my favorite visual effects magazine Cinefex for their Spotlight series. I'm really proud of the things that I said. Here are a couple of pull quotes:
CINEFEX: What’s the most challenging task you’ve ever faced?
TODD VAZIRI: I’m a bit of a heat ripple snob. Most digital effects trying to replicate heat shimmer from jet engines don’t appeal to me. They frequently end up, from a design perspective, too sci-fi and fantastic, calling attention to the effect rather than allowing it to exist as a part of a realistic scene. For Avatar, we tackled several shots with intense jet engine heat ripple, and I privately tasked myself with creating the best-looking heat ripple system we’d ever produced. The effects team and I worked together on a system that included the right kind of particles, the right animation, the right kind of displacement and blur, and other design elements that are usually ignored – like refraction, shadowing, and tiny bits of soot. I was really proud of how it all turned out. Later, hearing that Jim Cameron loved the look of our heat ripple made me very happy.
And...
CINEFEX: And what changes would you like to see [in the visual effects industry]?
TODD VAZIRI: Where to begin? I’d like to see a more level playing field on many dimensions. Right now, movie studios are understandably taking advantage of massive global incentives to make films in certain localities, but this severely tilts the scales and has serious repercussions on all sides.
In addition, just like the rest of Hollywood, we need to make visual effects production a more diverse, inclusive environment. There are too many people making movies who look like me, and who have similar histories, tastes and skill sets. We will be able to tell more dynamic, interesting stories by including more women and people of color in our industry.
We have a work-life balance problem in our industry, too. The hours and stress take their toll on visual effects workers around the world. Finally and more broadly, it is inexplicable how little power the visual effects industry has in Hollywood, while our work remains critical to the success of modern films.
I joined my friends Merlin Mann and John Siracusa for a special episode of their podcast, Reconcilable Differences. It's a very special "Members Only" episode, available to Relay FM subscribers.
Here's Merlin and John hyping the episode. We talked for over two hours about Full Media Blackout™, recommending movies, showing movies to your kids, "Star Wars", the spaghetti man from "Seven" and much much more. Reconcilable Differences is one of my favorite podcasts, and it was an honor to be on the show.
Plus, if you become a RecDiffs member, you'll have access to the Relay Crossover podcast feed—where you can hear a special 2018 RecDiffs episode featuring me!https://t.co/dkk3OgoliZ
Every single shot of the original "Star Wars" trilogy is shown in real time without any temporal maniuplation, with only two exceptions. The first is a single shot of Darth Vader striking down Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original “Star Wars”.
The shot is step printed, meaning the action was filmed in the standard frame rate of 24 frames per second, but in this case each frame of the shot was printed twice (hence, double-printed). The ultimate effect is slow motion, stretching a real life moment into twice its original, real-world length.
The only other use of time-distortion in the trilogy occurs in the cave sequence in “The Empire Strikes Back”, which features a dream-like encounter between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader deep underneath the Dagobah swamp planet. The entire thirteen shot sequence (not including one jump cut) was triple printed; the sequence was filmed at 24 frames per second but each frame of the sequence was printed three times, slowing down the motion to ⅓ its original speed. The slow motion effect is used as a narrative device, to disorient the audience with the surprising appearance of Vader, ultimately revealed as a nightmarish vision.
Ever since I was a kid, I wondered what the scene might have looked like in real time, and how the scene, without slow-motion, would play differently to the audience. So I created it.
I removed the step printing by lifting two out of every three frames of the sequence, which was fairly trivial. The audio editing took much longer and required much more precision, since I wanted to keep as many sync sounds in the cut as possible. The edit would look pretty bizarre without the appropriate lightsaber whooshes and explosions, so it was tricky to get all of those sound cues to feel honest to the original sequence.
If the real-time sequence feels fast to you, it should! Two reasons: if you've seen the film before, the original pacing and rhythm of the sequence is burned into your brain. The slow motion is driven by the narrative, which is why it works so well. Taking away that significant visual element robs the scene of an emotional truth, which make it feel odd and rushed. Secondly, and it goes without saying, but I feel like I need to say it anyway: had the filmmakers chose to run the sequence in real time, it's a safe bet to say the length of the shots would undoubtedly had been adjusted from what you see in the final film.
To remove the step printing, I used After Effects (to give me fine control over the retiming), and used Final Cut Pro X for all the picture and sound editing.
It's time for the Awesomest Oscar Pool Ballot In The History Of Oscar Pool Ballots. Every year I create a special ballot based on a typical Academy Awards printable ballot -- but on my ballot, each category has a different point value. The highest valued category is "Best Picture," while the mainstream films' categories are valued at two points. The non-mainstream categories (like the documentary and short film categories) are valued at one point.
This way, in a tight race for the winner of the pool, the winner most likely would not be determined by the non-mainstream films (in other words, blind guesses). This year, I started with a ballot from InStyle, since Oscar.com didn't make a pretty, printable ballot this year. Again.
“War for the Planet of the Apes” was the big winner at the 16th VES Awards.
Winner of four awards, including Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature, "Apes" was the top earner of live-action feature film awards, with "Blade Runner 2049" taking home two awards, and "Dunkirk" and "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" getting one award.
Listed below are all the live-action feature film winners. For the full list of winners, read Deadline's coverage. The full list of nominees is here. Congratulations to all the winners!
Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature War for the Planet of the Apes, Joe Letteri, Ryan Stafford, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon, Joel Whist
Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature Dunkirk, Andrew Jackson, Mike Chambers,Andrew Lockley, Alison Wortman, Scott Fisher
Outstanding Animated Character in a Photoreal Feature War for the Planet of the Apes; Caesar, Dennis Yoo, Ludovic Chailloleau, Douglas McHale, Tim Forbes
Outstanding Created Environment in a Photoreal Feature Blade Runner 2049; Los Angeles, Chris McLaughlin, Rhys Salcombe, Seungjin Woo, Francesco Dell’Anna
Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a Photoreal Project Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2; Groot Dance/Opening Fight, James Baker, Steven Lo, Alvise Avati, Robert Stipp
Outstanding Model in a Photoreal or Animated Project Blade Runner 2049; LAPD Headquarters, Alex Funke, Steven Saunders, Joaquin Loyzaga, Chris Menges
Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Photoreal Feature War for the Planet of the Apes, David Caeiro Cebrián, Johnathan Nixon, Chet Leavai, Gary Boyle
Outstanding Compositing in a Photoreal Feature War for the Planet of the Apes, Christoph Salzmann, Robin Hollander, Ben Morgan, Ben Warner
The average global box office of Best Visual Effects Oscar nominees was $700.8B (up from $575M last year).
The five nominees for this year's visual effects earned a total global box office gross of about $3.5B (up from $2.8B last year). The monster earner was "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" at $1.3B, with "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" next up at $864M. The other behemoth Oscar nominee at the box office was "Beauty and the Beast" at $1.2B, which boosted the Art Direction and Costume Design categories.
The last five years at a glance:
Average global box office of Best Visual Effects films: 2017 (90th Academy Awards) - $701M Top Grosser: Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 1.3B 2016 (89th Academy Awards) - $575M Top Grosser: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, 1.0B 2015 (88th Academy Awards) - $657M Top Grosser: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, $2B 2014 (87th Academy Awards) - $723M Top Grosser: Guardians of the Galaxy, $774M 2013 (86th Academy Awards) - $698M Top Grosser: Iron Man 3, $1.2B 2012 (85th Academy Awards) - $763M Top Grosser: The Avengers, $1.5B 2011 (84th Academy Awards) - $662M Top Grosser: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, 1.35B I wrote this concerning the 2011 box office when I charted the box office averages for the 84th Academy Awards, and unfortunately, this still is true.
It also illustrates the sad state of the visual effects community. The average Oscar nominee for visual effects made over $662 million globally, and yet our industry has relatively little power in Hollywood.
Even though The Predictinator failed at predicting "Ex Machina" two years ago (probably because we're now in a post-digital era and our assumptions are no longer rock solid), the formula bounced back last year, correctly predicting "The Jungle Book" to win the visual effects Oscar.
We ran the numbers for The VFX Predictinator with the nominees for Best Visual Effects for the 90th Academy Awards, based on data for January 13, 2018. Here are the results, as promised, but without our typical annual, long-winded accompanying article.
APES ON TOP
The Predictinator chose "War for the Planet of the Apes" to win the visual effects Oscar, based on the classic criteria of having strong critical acclaim and the film's prominent organic character animation. It's a solid choice, and a gut-check confirms this.
THE SPOILER?
Following close behind is "Blade Runner 2049", which could upset "Apes", since it is, arguably the most 'artsy' and 'classy' choice for Academy voters. In fact, in a post-digital world, the most classy choice has been winning the visual effects Oscar more frequently ("Ex Machina", "Life of Pi" and "Gravity", for example).
AND THE REST
In third is "The Last Jedi", which earned points for its huge box office, but suffers from being a sequel. Rounding out the list are "Kong: Skull Island" and "Guardians 2", which are strong hits but will probably not resonate with Academy voters.
Basically, my fundamental position hasn't changed: we are now in a post-digital era. Exceptional visual effects are expected by audiences (and the Academy) in all films.
We’ll see what happens when the 90th Academy Awards take place on March 4, 2018.
update, 3/4/2018: Nope!
update, 1/1/2019: This effort represents the last time we will run The VFX Predictinator. There are two main reasons why we are retiring the formula and this effort. One, that we are clearly living in a post-digital era; the world has changed, and the newness of digital characters is no longer shiny and exciting, which means the assumptions are no longer accurate. I wrote extensively about the post-digital era here. And two.
