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Too much CGI in Skyfall ? Or just Obvious CGI that wasn't needed ?

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  • Suivez_ce_parachuteSuivez_ce_parachute
    Posts: 2,015
    CraigMooreOHMSS wrote:
    And the trailer one was so much better. There must be a reason why they dropped it.

    I think the trailer one is slow-mo, which would have been out of place in the movie ?

  • UmustbjockingUmustbjocking
    Posts: 83
    dkwookie wrote:
    The worst CGI was the with the bikes on the roof of the bazaar in the PTS. They may have filmed it for real with stuntmen but they CGIed Daniels face on a long shot and then the close ups were green screen. I would prefer to see the stunt men from a distance, I know its not Dan and Ola but it amazes me that those stunt men drove on the roof top so I accept it
    Edit: I dont mind the green screen close ups, I expect that but its that one shot they CGIed Dans face over a stunt man on the bike. Reminded me of the guy in T2 with the Arnie face mask on for the dump to the drainage ditch
    Damned if they do, damned if they don't. The bike sequence was a lot harder than the crane jumps on CR, but i guess nothing satisfies us anymore. If we keep up this view, than the next films will be fake just to please some.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,217
    Suivez_ce_parachute wrote:
    CraigMooreOHMSS wrote:
    And the trailer one was so much better. There must be a reason why they dropped it.

    I think the trailer one is slow-mo, which would have been out of place in the movie ?

    I'm fairly sure it was just slowed down for the trailer, seeing as nearly all slow motion is done in post production.
  • fire_and_icefire_and_ice
    Posts: 6,432
    the cgi face during the motorcycle chase stuck out, though watching it on one of the biggest screens in the county did not help, may not stand out as much on a small screen. cgi appeared negligible, did not concern me watching it.
  • LicenceRevokedLicenceRevoked
    Posts: 204
    Suivez_ce_parachute wrote:
    CraigMooreOHMSS wrote:
    And the trailer one was so much better. There must be a reason why they dropped it.

    I think the trailer one is slow-mo, which would have been out of place in the movie ?

    Yes the trailer one is slow mo, but it's actually also a different shot. The trailer one is alot more atmospheric and a deeper blue, almost like he's falling between completely different buildings. The theatrical version Patrice falls closer to the top of the screen and he's not a silhouette.

    Also if you see the brief shot of the silhouette fight in the trailer, it's completely different again. In the trailer, you can see a jellyfish moving in the background. But in the theatrical version, I guess they toned it down so they could illuminate the faces with the gunshots.
  • LicenceRevokedLicenceRevoked
    Posts: 204
    fire_and_ice wrote:
    the cgi face during the motorcycle chase stuck out.

    Yeah that one piece of CGI was pretty much in-your-face... pardon the pun
    :))
  • JamesCraigJamesCraig Ancient Rome
    Posts: 3,497
    Sévérine's body surely wasn't CGI. :-t
  • LicenceRevokedLicenceRevoked
    Posts: 204
    JamesCraig wrote:
    Sévérine's body surely wasn't CGI. :-t

    TRUE!

    :-))
  • tqbtqb
    edited November 2012 Posts: 1,022
    Just saw it, Silva's face is really my biggest complaint. (when he takes out his dentures)
  • bondboy007bondboy007
    Posts: 267
    Honestly never noticed any CGI that I thought looked too absurd or even distracted me from the film. Only thing I thought looked off was the green screen behind Craig in the bike chase.
  • bondfan86bondfan86
    Posts: 1
    I didn't think the cgi was bad. See people nowadays go into a movie and look for the cgi. You're supposed to be immersing yourself in the story not reviewing it on the spot. Yes they should have used more practical effects. The movie wasn't ruined in any shape though.

    Also...wtf the dragon is inside the casino why would it be too cold for it? There's a modern invention called central heating/ac. Seriously look at the fx from 20 years ago....suspend your freaking disbelief people it's a movie. You don't go to the opera and say man those costumes were so unreal. Come on....look at the last Pierce Brosnan bond film ...there were giant satellite lasers and invisible cars...come on this cgi was so tame and unintrusive and people are going way overboard on the criticism.
  • SJK91SJK91
    edited November 2012 Posts: 1,310
    Honestly the only computer effects that were substandard were some shots of the Komodo Dragons. Everything else blended together quite well.

    And I really liked the part when Silva takes out his teeth!!!!
  • mrnate8mrnate8
    edited November 2012 Posts: 65
    I read a comment recently (http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/150865) that Mendes wanted to use less CGI and more live stunt work. I can appreciate this because I prefer reality.
  • mtmahallmtmahall
    Posts: 1
    JamesCraig wrote:
    LicenceRevoked wrote:
    The scorpion was pretty well done. Also a large majority of Silva's island was CGI. They used the same technique as they used in Inception when they showed Cobb's crumbled dream world. The bit with the elevator was in fact CGI also. If you look closely the lighting doesn't quite match. It's a minor thing really, didn't spoil the enjoyment at all, just trivia :D

    I hate to be mr negative here, but... the long shots of the island are real, it's Hashima island in Japan.

    They filmed the "inside" of the island at Pinewood and the only added CGI are the helicopters.

    On a side note: the CGI in Inception looks more than realistic, and was done by the same company that worked on Skyfall (& CR & QOS).

    I'm supposing the crumpled statue on Hashima was a CGI add?
  • Suivez_ce_parachuteSuivez_ce_parachute
    Posts: 2,015
    mtmahall wrote:
    I'm supposing the crumpled statue on Hashima was a CGI add?
    That part was done on studio. In my opinion, the CGI on the Silva "island" was rather, in the few shots "on the island", to remove all the green plants that are all over the real place (or rather, to reconstruct it without,for blue screen work and/or compositing with the actors), and on the long shot, to "invent" it, loosely based on the real Hashima I think (as a matter of fact, the island of the movie looked to me like a mix between the real place and the limbo of Inception).

    There's nothing between these longs shots and these close ones, you see the boat and the brown/grey island in the back of the shot, and bam, they're walking on it, I actually never had a sense of "being there" in the movie, alas.

    (ie : Bond and the boat crew first steps seen on the island is definetely blue screen CGI, this I'm sure given the image I saw on the big screen, and it's front of this :
    abandoned-city-5.jpg
    with all the wild life removed/not reconstructed)


  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,976
    My biggest gripe with the CGI is when Patrice is falling out of the window in Shanghai. The trailer shot was leagues better.
  • googlemonkeygooglemonkey
    Posts: 32
    I thought the CGI in Skyfall was pretty decent. Cool article from CGTalk http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/skyfall
  • TokolosheTokoloshe Under your bed
    Posts: 2,667
    For the record I didn't notice any CGI and wouldn't ever have known shots like Silva's island used it at all if I hadn't read this thread. I guess it's obvious that Javier Bardem's mouth doesn't really look that bad with his teeth taken out, but it certainly didn't bother me when watching the film.
  • TopGearJB007TopGearJB007
    Posts: 624
    Aside from Silva's denture-less face, I thought the most obvious bit of CGI was the overhead wide shots of Silva's island (like when they first got off the Chimera.) The island just looked so fake. (So did the helicopters when they captured Silva.)
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,124
    I thought there was far less CGIs than I feared. I certainly didn't notice them as much as DAD (well, they couldn't be any worse or any more numerous) and actually less than in QOS.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,217
    I suppose this would be the right time to post that Skyfall has been shortlisted for the VFX Oscar.
  • SpectreNumberOneSpectreNumberOne
    edited November 2012 Posts: 129
    CGI is the bain of modern cinema, it's used far too often in my opinion, I don't know if anyone else has the same view as me, because we live in the digital age, CGI unless really, really subtle is so bloody obvious to the modern digitally trained brain that quod erat demonstrandum, it's sh*t by definition.
  • JBFan626JBFan626
    Posts: 1,497
    SpectreNumberOne wrote:
    CGI is the bain of modern cinema, it's used far too often in my opinion, I don't know if anyone else has the same view as me, because we live in the digital age, CGI unless really, really subtle is so bloody obvious to the modern digitally trained brain that quod erat demonstrandum, it's sh*t by definition.

    I kind of disagree. CGI, like any other effect is a tool, and can be use badly, or excessively like any other effect. In 2012, CGI has come a long way, to the point where I think anyways, that a subtle use of it works convincly well. Silva's deformed face looked pretty real to me. The dragon was such a quick sequence and was darkly lit, that it never really occured to me to think, "My gosh, look at that dodgy CGI!". Compare these scenes to Pierce Brosnan surfing a CGI glacier wave in DAD 10 years ago and I see a massive difference.

    I'll take models and real time stunts anyday over CGI, but the technology has evolved so much that I think it works where it is minimally used and not very detectable.

    I had no problem with it in SF.

  • Baltimore_007Baltimore_007
    Posts: 5,634
    I didn't notice too much CGI in Skyfall but it's not something I was even looking for, it didn't seem as prevalent as some recent Bond releases from the one viewing. Maybe CGI has no place in James Bond some would argue. We're merely at an age now where it will become more prominent or used in general movie making now, which some will take issue with, but times will change
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,976
    Baltimore_007 wrote:
    I didn't notice too much CGI in Skyfall but it's not something I was even looking for, it didn't seem as prevalent as some recent Bond releases from the one viewing. Maybe CGI has no place in James Bond some would argue. We're merely at an age now where it will become more prominent or used in general movie making now, which some will take issue with, but times will change

    The one thing that bothered me with CGI in the film was how noticeable it was in Patrice's death, yet the shot we saw in all of the pre-release trailers and spots was him falling in slow motion, and it was a realistic shot. I wonder why they changed it.
  • VirageVirage
    Posts: 1,856
    NO MORE COMPLAINTS

    Skyfall is on the Oscar visual effect short list.

    And @Suives_Ce_Parachute the island wasn't cg, it was shot on the pinewood backlot.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    I must commend the team for doing as many real stunts as possible, and only using the CGI when necessary.
  • GerardGerard
    Posts: 5,994
    I haven't noticed any CGI. I was too busy enjoying the movie to be bothered by that.
  • Suivez_ce_parachuteSuivez_ce_parachute
    edited November 2012 Posts: 2,015
    Virage wrote:
    And @Suives_Ce_Parachute the island wasn't cg, it was shot on the pinewood backlot.
    The particular shot I'm giving the background of is definitely cgi, it lasts only a few seconds, in the theater I even noticed blue screen slight problem around the silhouettes... What was "outdoor" but filmed in Pinewood is mostly once Silva and Bond go out to meet Severine again, the camera actually never show something very high except for the cgi helicopters at the very end + some short very static shot in which there are some cgi to make the upper storeys I'm quite sure. I actually was bothered to "see" so blatanly they never put a foot on the real island, I think one Bond element I "need" are the huge real sets, although it's so expensive compared to cgi that it may well never be done again like in YOLT or TSWLM...


  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    Gerard wrote:
    I haven't noticed any CGI. I was too busy enjoying the movie to be bothered by that.

    I'm always baffled by comments like this. People don't go into films looking for CGI, it's just quite obvious when it is present in a shot.
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