Christian Filmmakers

Interesting article worth discussing about how Science Fiction doesn’t do well on Oscar Night and how nobody likes being replaced by a machine:

http://oscars.movies.yahoo.com/blog/68-avatar-king-of-the-box-office-world-not-king-of-the-awards-world?nc

Avatar, King of The Box-Office World Not King of The Awards World
posted by Mike Ryan - Mon Mar 8 2010, 2:40 AM PST 154 comments

James Cameron Michael Caulfield/Wireimage.com Really, looking back, did “Avatar” even stand a chance?

“Avatar” is still raking in the profits, but failed to produce the critical success that Cameron’s previous film, “Titanic,” generated 12 years ago. In fact, “Avatar”—the most financially successful film of all time—was easily the most mocked film of the evening.

Sure, it was an easy target. No other nominated film featured blue aliens. Oscar co-host Steve Martin participated in a bit where he used bug spray to defend himself against “Avatar’s” jellyfish-like creatures. Ben Stiller attempted his best Na’vi impression as a presenter—oh, that could have been much, much worse.

However much audiences may enjoy the visually stunning imagery in “Avatar,” it seems, when it comes to the Oscars, nothing beats real, live human beings.

Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein sums up this sentiment by writing, “My suspicion is that academy members still find it difficult to believe that films largely created and sculpted in the computer—whether it’s “Avatar” or the long string of brilliant Pixar films—can be just as worthy and artistic as the old-fashioned live-action ones.”

But if anyone was going to defy the big-budget-visual-effects-films-don’t-win-Oscars rule, everyone seemed to think it could be James Cameron.

In 1997, James Cameron’s other box-office behemoth, “Titanic,” accomplished the rare feat of box-office and Oscar dominance. “Titanic” was nominated for a record 14 Academy Awards and won a record 9 awards. “Avatar” only won three of its nine nominations: Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Visual Effects. Cameron’s “Titanic” also won those same three awards, plus 6 others, including the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director; “Avatar” lost Best Picture and Best Director to “The Hurt Locker.”

“Avatar” had the unfortunate luck—if you can call a movie that’s made over $2.5 billion worldwide “unfortunate”—of being right smack in the middle of the science fiction genre. A genre that, historically, doesn’t win Oscar gold no matter how successful financially. In 1977, “Star Wars” became the most financially successful film of all time but lost the Best Picture Oscar to “Annie Hall.” Similarly, in 1982 “E.T.” set box-office records but lost the Academy Award to “Ghandi.” The closet thing to science fiction to ever win Best Picture would be 2003’s “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”—and even that film series needed three attempts before it finally won.

This year, Cameron was frustrated that his film wasn’t taken seriously as an “actor’s film.” He worked hard in his Oscar campaign to spread the notion that actors acting in front of green screens and using computer generated technology are just as worthy as actors not engulfed by special effects. (Actors make up the largest segment of the voting Academy.) Clearly, the campaign did not go over so well at the Oscars. However unfair it may be, it seems no one likes the idea of being replaced by a machine.

Don’t have time to read the article, but I don’t think Avatar lost because it’s Sci-Fi.  I think it lost because people know the difference between a popcorn movie and an intellectually and emotionally stirring work of art.

(Actors make up the largest segment of the voting Academy.)

Ooooh, now THIS is very interesting.  So maybe they don’t want to see their profession sucked up inside of CG??

Ponderingly,
Paul

Consider that almost every top actor has played a role in an animated film…

That’s voice acting. There may be a lot of animated films, but animated films that use performance capture? Not so many.

Perhaps the reason actors don’t like the performance capture type of movie is because their acting can be changed in post. What was captured by computers on the set was “improved” before it actually went into the film. Just a longshot, but I’m thinking that actors may feel threatened that they may soon be competing against “perfect” actors, who have had every single motion they make carefully scrutinized by a team of professionals.

-Sam

I was saying (as a sci fi film fan myself) that this was a big year for Sci-fi movies. Not one, but two sci fi films (Avatar and District 9) were nominated for the award for BEST PICTURE. That’s like an extreme rarity.

We know that a few of the classics of the action/adventure/sci-fi/fantasy film area from the last 35 years have been nominated for best picture before (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, ET)  But these films have ALMOST never won. (“LOTR- Return of the King” was a major exception). The academy (by and large)doesn’t give Oscars for best picture to Sci-Fi/action films.

I think that the Oscars is, somewhat, Hollywood’s event where it continues to assert that Hollywood continues to see film as an art form, not a business. If they gave Avatar oscars for best picture, best director, etc, it might seem like they are just handing out awards to thank James Cameron for bringing in a lot of dollars. (True, if that was the case, why did they give them to Titanic and Return of the King?, however…)

Unlike the Grammies, who now seem to just shamelessly give Best Album, Best Artist, etc to whoever sold the most copies…(like handing out gold watches as “top seller” awards at a sales office banquet, etc)- I think that Hollywood still does hold a lot of respect for it’s own history and continues to try and hold out that “even though film is a multi billion dollar worldwide industry, on Oscar night we are going to focus on art”

I cant think of any film this past year that was more creative visually than Avatar. However, I think that ultimately, people will eventually tire of digital actors. It’s one thing when it is a cartoon and is SUPPOSED to be a cartoon (like “Up”)...but when digital characters are held up to be live actors, it’s tougher to feel the emotion.  I saw Avatar as soon as it came out and, while I did feel that I was following the story of the main characters, and did feel a connection in a way (maybe just to Zoe Saldana :D ) I also did somewhat wish that there was more live action.

That very well may be true….that actors dont want to be replaced.
I for one don’t see that happening.

OK- BEING THAT THIS HAS TO DO WITH CGI AND SPECIAL EFFECTS… going to have a rant about CGI for a few minutes…please forgive me 8) 

I am still looking forward to the OTHER SIDE of CGI to be more fully used….Digital removal.
a special effect happening that is REAL and live on set with the actors and with the same lighting hitting them that is hitting the actors, but just remove the wires, technicians, etc…maybe similar to what was seen in 80’s sci fi films, but that much more real and less created by edits…

that’s what they did with the Teddy Bear character in “A.I.”. I also remember Terminator 2 when they had a crane drop the motorcycyle (with arnie) off that major embankment, and just digitally removed the wires to create that huge motorcycle jump that was a REAL actor on a REAL motorcycle… 

It seemed like in the first half of the 1990’s, when CGI first came to prominence, that there was more large of a focus on using that type of CGI,

then it just sort of dropped off…and the focus seemed to go 100% on having CGI effects on top of CGI backgrounds, or all CGI characters….(it’s all Jar Jar’s fault     )

then, we started to get more and more use of CGI to do things that, in my opinion, should NOT be CGI….

like ALL DIGITAL cars doing stunts in a live action film because it’s easier/cheaper. EXAMPLE- 2Fast 2 Furious   :x   ...where, if it’s “too hard” to achieve something (like a certain car stunt) just have the CGI crew make a CGI CAR and have the CGI car do the stunt exactly how you want it, and edit in that stunt into the middle of a car chase that had real cars up until that moment…

and little focus was put onto how FAKE that was going to look to the audience
(like, what is this, a car chase in a real movie or an X Box game??)

...when that kind of stuff started, I started to get annoyed with CGI…

Same thing with the Will Smith version of I Am Legend. I love that film…it’s a great film….but I heard that the director started off with live action “dark seeker” characters, and then changed over to the digital ones that most remember,  because “It was too hard to get the actors to do the things I wanted them to do”. These are the things I DONT like about CGI. Love that movie, but it’s another example of CGI used to “replace” an actor.

I guess I’m just saying….Avatar was a major breakthrough…but every once in a while, I miss seeing those guys in rubber masks (Star Wars Cantina, anybody?)

To me, when we start having REAL special effects happening live ON CAMERA with the actors, with CGI just to help out to do the things that are NOT POSSIBLE , or maybe to erase the wires, etc that were used…THAT is when (in my opinion) special effects using CGI will really really take off….Go back to what was being done in the 80’s, then use CGI to make those effects more real…..It HAS been done, but much less in the last decade

for some reason, they did MORE of this in the early 90’s…I think it was because at that time GCI was still new and they (Spielberg, Cameron, etc) didn’t trust CGI 100% the way these newer directors do now…so there was more COMBINING of live action and CGI, just because they were not ready to have ALL of the film’s effects go to CGI- Hence the half animatronic/half CGI T-Rex in Jurassic Park—

It turns out that, while some see that as a “transition” style that is no longer needed, I see it as a PLUS that filmmakers need to go back to…

But, now that Avatar has created an entire CGI world with all CGI characters…I’m not sure how much of the BLENDING of special effects is going to happen, unless people who think differently get a chance to break into Hollywood

If most directors keep going the other direction, and keep trying to get the digital actors to look more and more real, I think that’s OK, it’s an evolving technology, I am not a luddite.

But, I for one am going to try to learn more about the other side of this (digital removal) and hopefully utilize it more if I get my chance to be involved at that scale (God willing) . Being that I am new to special effects, I can’t talk as much, I so far have only done green screen stuff…but I want to learn more about having live action effects…..  I just think it looks cooler and engages the actors and hence the audience, more.  You can’t replace human beings for emotion and acting.  Even an actor in a suit (i.e. Chewbacca) is able to bring a character to life in some ways, just because they are a human being.  I thought Avatar was great, but I dont want every sci fi film from now on to do exactly what Avatar did.

Rant ended   8)

Sam Klejwa wrote:

That’s voice acting. There may be a lot of animated films, but animated films that use performance capture? Not so many.

Absolutely irrelevant to my point.

I can almost guarantee that if Neytiri wasn’t CG, Zoe Saldana would have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress.  There’s something about not being able to relate to a CG character as opposed to seeing that emotion cross the face of a real person.