Quote from: Darkness on May 07, 2021, 11:26:19 AM
Here's the transcription from the interview: https://www.avpgalaxy.net/website/interviews/alec-gillis-tom-woodruff-2/
Yeah, good work. The Giger stuff was interesting. I just feel sorry for him that it ended up like that. But it's understandable, the studio just wanted to crack on with the movie and Giger didn't want to sort of be on set to work on it. I can't seem to find the Cinemafantastique article they mentioned.
Thanks!
Quote from: AVPGALAXYAdam: Tom, what you mentioned with the combination of practical and other types of effects, kind of leads into another question I had. I would say there was a time in the early 2000s where you had very strong harmony of practical and digital seen quite prominently in films like AvP as well as others like Jurassic Park 3 where you had digital and practical effects interacting with each other in the same shots.
There was a shift more towards digital for a while but it seems like that earlier harmony may be returning. In particular we've seen really strong practical effects and even older techniques like Phil Tippet's go motion return in The Mandalorian along with very new special effect techniques such as the impressive digital sets that they use. Do you see a renaissance of practical effects in today's quickly changing entertainment landscape?
Alec: Yeah, I think there's a lot of talk about it which has become... maybe a decade ago it feels like they were talking a lot about it and we kind of got the feeling on a couple of productions that we were building things just so that they could say "We've got practical!". Like it's whatever a studio feels will help sell the movie.
That is a very interesting question. Also I agree with what they answered. And in the case of
The Mandalorian's crew, they really are killing two birds with one shot. Making a
Star Wars live-action series out of pure CGI would be very expensive, plus they know that a considerable number of fans love the OT-style practical effects. The virtual sets are a cinema breakthrough indeed.
Edit
~ I know RidgeTop is not a big fan of
Prometheus, but I think that was a quite recent & good example of a balance between practical effects and CGI.
Quote from: ADIAlec: Oh, the giant thing that you see in that scene. The giant one was just brought to us by I think by I think Prop Store brought it over... oh actually we were using it as reference. It was a fiberglass casting of the original. We used it as sculptural reference just to get... because Neill's deal was, he wanted to get back to the feeling of the '79 Alien and we were asking "You're a master of photoreal CGI. Why aren't you doing the CGI?" He said "Because having something real forces you into shooting it in a way that will look like what Ridley Scott did in 1979". That's what he wanted. So, there's a guy that is a master of CGI who understands that it is a tool to be used to get certain results that are right for certain stories. But that's why that was there.
Wow, that makes me happy and sad at the same time.
Quote from: AVP GALAXYAaron: We do have just a handful of community questions from community members so ImmortalJonesy in particular would like to know if you'd have any interest in taking a crack at a Space Jockey animatronic?
Tom: Yeah, it'd be great. Any anything iconic in this whole world of Aliens and Predators is a really... it's just such a cool thing to be able to look at something that inspired you 40 years ago and actually be able to put your thumb print on it, particularly with movement and motion and character performance.
Glad to hear they would like to make it if they could.
I asked that question because Alec Gillis and his studio have done a wonderful job when it comes to animatronic characters. And I'm not just talking about science fiction, as is the case with the gorilla suit they made for
Old Dogs. It's a top tier piece of practical effect.
I also liked their criminally unused pilot in the 2011 prequel to
The Thing. Whether that creature got infected by the
Thing and crashes it's spaceship million of years ago becoming a
Jockey to so speak is subject of speculation.
Still the closedt thing of a
SJ performed by ADI studios in my opinion.
I know we have Engineers, who are superior to the jockeys in the comics ~ but you know ~ nerd dreams.