"I think what some people are doing with digital effects is starting to get silly. It's overused, but we always do that. I remember when the zoom lens came in, and every director couldn't zoom enough – zoom in, zoom out, zoom up, zoom down...But I think what CGI will boil down to is that it will be just validating something and not getting carried away with "what can I do that nobody's done before."
- Superman director Richard Donner discusses CGI effects at IGN. From 2001.
Donner...great director. His second and third feature films were "The Omen" (75)& "Superman" (78), those are careers for many directors.
ReplyDeleteHi Trent: I agree. I'm a huge Donner fan. He also directed some great episodes of the original Twilight Zone.
ReplyDeletebest,
John
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with what he says. The CGI effects have the nasty habit of becoming the story, instead of just telling the story. Heavy sigh.
Take Superman, for example. The way the special effects were done in the original Superman was memorable. And the way they were re-enacted in the Superman Returns (the exploding train set scene) was amazing.
But then they went and CGIed poor Brandon, which made the movie look like a farce (to me, at least). That's only one of the bad things about that movie, that's true, but it played a major role, I think.
Then again, when the actors and the story connect with the special effects (CGI or otherwise), the result is simply incredible.