I really thought when he said "Let's look at things around house", that he would reveal that the things around him like his mic, or wall hangings, were CG.
I feel so bad for anyone working in vfx. Imagine putting hours and hours into making a shot just perfect, only for the director and actors to pretend your work doesn't exist and it was all someone else's work that made it look great. Such an underappreciated job..
This is what happens when you are the only part of the filmmaking process that doesn't have a union and is not allowed to partake in any profits from the film. Imagine the studios claiming a major actor, clearly visible in the movie, is not actually in the film and doesn't include their name in the credits list at the end. Happens more than you'd think in vfx.
oh yeah I've been a lead artist on several "No CGI" shows. (Barbie, vikings, a bunch more) It's funny. I just laugh when I hear this stuff. It's not much skin off my back. But I'm very happy with this youtube series. Don't feel too bad for us, we have a lot of fun doing what we do.
Denis Villeneuve flew in an actual sandworm from his hometown Montreal to star in Dune 2. the worm asked to be uncredited, that's why you don't see his name in the closing credits. what a bunch of legends.
I was a set dresser on The Last of Us Season 1. I personally dressed the exterior sets that Pedro Pascal is talking about when referring to a “dressed downtown Calgary”. His comments are correct but leave out how much work came after because like you said, he couldn’t see any of that work during filming. We dressed every street from the ground to about 30ft up. Everything after that achieved with visual effects and “cgi”. I am incredibly proud of the physical work we did on that show, I’m also proud of the artists that took our work over the top.
By "took our work over the top" you probably mean "put their work atop of ours" :D It's often funny how much effort gets wasted by practical set dressing just to immediately get covered by something CG by the very first Nuke artist that touches the shot :D
@@LudvikKoutnyArt The effort isn't necessarily wasted if it's used as reference or shown in one shot but then replaced in another. The key is practical working together with digital.
@@LudvikKoutnyArt I can assure you that the work that our team did shows through in the final shots. I know there are plenty of shots where the backgrounds were digital manipulated or replaced but there are also shots with absolutely no digital set extensions. I’m over the moon proud of seeing my work show through.
You are insanely appreciated my guy, believe me when I tell you (a software engineer here).I understand tech and yet what vfx artists have been achieving these last 15 years starting with Pirates is truly mind-blowing: from the insane algorithms that go into render engines and 3d sculpting software to the distribution of all of this so it can be finished quicker to compositing as a whole to eeveryfuuking piece of the puzzle
I did a little bit of it with NUKE in college, from the bottom of my heart I say YOU POOR POOR MAN!! 😅 Seriously it's no cakewalk, keep doing that amazing job.
VFX artist here with 9 years in the business. I have been credited directly only 4 times out of more than 100 projects. So when you see the credited VFX folks, that is probably just 10% of the total number of people that have worked on the project. Also the amount of things that get tweaked, removed, replaced or enhanced in a shot is mind boggling, normal movie watchers have no clue that what they are seeing is CGI. The problem is directors not planning for VFX and/or crappy VFX supervisors on set, changing entire storylines, removing entire characters from the movie(A list actor in one instance), and the whole we'll fix it in post mentality. But the biggest problem of all, the deadlines. As a good friend of mine and a beast of a compositor once said: "There is nothing we cant do if they give us enough time".
I was losing my mind seeing that Andor editor talking about removing blinks! And that's barely scratching the surface. VFX is completely bonkers now, I can't imagine where we'll be after studios get over this dumb phase. (They'll get over this dumb phase... right?)
@@PrograError I had a whole long answer but I realized nobody cares about my AI opinions: everyone has one! TLDR: it's already being used in both good ways and bad ways, and people seem to like the good ways and not the bad ways. *So far*, things are looking alright.
There's no going back for you dude, you are currently the best VFX related CZcamsr and you gotta keep making the best videos on the internet about VFX.
@@kunthukotharibut Corridor have never worked on a high budget big feature film! It is noticeable when they speak about shots from real movies. That’s why they can’t represent all VFX. Only that part which work on CZcams videos and maybe motion design stuff.
@@JoeBlac which makes it funnier when they absolutely CGI'd GT7 half of the reference gameplay shoots for the movie. and it's extremely blatant the *moment* you see a robust car customization (not to be confused with livery editor) or the vast majority of menu navigation, *which does not exist in Gran Turismo 7* as of this writing.
I paid little attention to GT when it came out. Had no idea Niel Blomkamp, known CG FX wizard, directed the movie and tried to lie about it having no CG. What a fucking sellout.
25 years in VFX on my side. People have NO IDEA how much CGI are in movies and TV series. I do. This series was amazing! Thank you so much! I hope studios will not boycott you because of it. :-)
Right? When i would tell people I worked on the VFX for "The Resident", a Fox medical drama, they were confused that there were an average of 80-100 vfx shots in every episode.
"I hope studios will not boycott you because of it" Studios get boycotted. Artists that are good are in demand, especially these days when Hollywood seems intent on burning out every VFX artist by doing no planning before post production and reversing decisions half way through work on shots even though the contract price is fixed and the scheduled release date is relatively near. If Hollywood don't watch out they may eventually be left with no one to do the grunt work that makes their overpaid actors look good.
I believe one of the underlying goals of this "NO CGI" propaganda from the studios is to demoralize the CG Artists as a way to help crush any talk of unionizing. CGI VFX Artists have worked w/o union protections for years, making them the most easily exploited workforce in the entertainment industry. This exploitation has a negative effect on wages and benefits, but also manifests itself in Credits and Awards; the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has greatly truncated it list of awards for VFX, and often for smaller VFX houses the credit for a film or episode will be little more than a nod to the company in total. By constantly bad-mouthing the work of CGI Artists, it appears to rob the discipline of its value (despite the fact that there is almost no production that completes without using their talents), making the Artist less likely to make a stink when they are forced to work long hours for diminished wages under impossible deadlines for demanding and unreasonable clients.
My favorite part is not knowing I was watching CGI. Like the examples here of adding snow to a scene, or other examples like making a city skyline, or the grass greener of the shot was filed in Autumn. Hats off to all the wizards that make the magic happen. CGI artist should be both represented more and paid more.
I think that's also what people really mean: don't want to notice CGI. It's the most fun watching the VFX reels and realising how much CGI there was in a given movie and not having noticed most of it.
@@marcellkovacs5452absolutely, which is why studios should be celebrating their successful vfx instead of hiding it. When they go down the current path or promotion, people only recognize "CGI" as what they can obviously spot. We also need to stop listening to actors claim they didn't use any digital effects, because they've got no idea what comes next after the shots are filmed.
I want CGI to expand what can be put on screen, an entire fleet of battle ships instead of one shot from different angles, the air armadas of WW2 looking authentic, not one lone spitfire allegedly symbolising something, Paul riding the sandworm, the battle of Waterloo not looking like enthusiastic reenactors on their weekend off. Those will all look CGI because there is no way to create those visuals in reality or with miniatures. I want to know there is CGI and be happy that it is. Gollum looks CGI because what else could he be , that’s not bad it’s the only way possible to do Gollum in a live action movie that doesn’t suck.
@@marcellkovacs5452 Indeed. I like to refer back to the train derailing scene in Lawrence of Arabia. Which was shot for real. In the desert, with a real train. It looks awesome and it is awesome that they went all the way to do this for real. If they can do something like this with CGI and make it look exactly the same way, so that you won't be able to tell the difference, then I'm totally on board with using that technique. But whenever this doesn't work out, I'd rather they demolish a real train, before trying to trick me.
It's like going to see a stage magician and they pitch the show as, "No tricks, illusions, slight of hand, or prestidigitation! We use 100% *real* Wizardry to perform the feats you will witness on stage!"
You touch on a great point here that I think is often missed in these conversations. As a director, a bad VFX shot being in a final cut of a film is as much your responsibility as a bad costume, bad performance or poor lighting. People rag on VFX artists who are often overworked and underpaid without ever stopping to think why the person in charge of the production would make choices that lead to bad outcomes. Whether it's a lack of understanding of how VFX work is done, or just poor general direction, more blame has to be on directors (or producers in cases where a studio has more control than a director which frequently happens) for these decisions. Plenty of movies have thousands of VFX shots that look fantastic, and plenty have very few that look bad. If I were directing a movie in the 60's and decide to cut to a bad looking matte painting, that decision is on me. I think so much of the negative backlash against CG comes from directors who are overly reliant on it and think of it as a short cut to get wherever they want with no restraints.
That's part of it, certainly. Everyone goes on about how incredible the VFX is in the latest Avatar, but that's not because the people at (e.g. - they weren't the only house) Weta who created them are somehow that much more talented than those who work on other films. Because they do work on other, "lesser" films. And it's not purely because Cameron can direct VFX better. What makes the difference between an amazing Avatar 2 shot and the mediocre ones people complain about in recent Marvel films (for instance) is that they've been given the time and money to work on it until it's right.
Either you speak up to those tyrants or you don't complain at all. Hollywood have been rotten to the core since it's inception. If everyone speak up they can't silence it all. That's how the internet works
yeah, its almost always been the case that 90% of the shots with "bad cgi" didn't have "bad cgi" they had bad compositing, which is done in the edit. and honestly, alot of bad vfx in general, even pre-dvfx, are owed to that.
I was a CG artist and that's honestly my only complaint with VFX. I think the art style nowadays is to put so much stuff on the screen that it gets overwhelming but that's not the artist's decision. Like in Ready Player One when they threw in every WB franchise to remind the viewer that they owned a lot of IP. It's a dumb decision. Artistically it is interesting but as a film decision the constant reminders that the films are being crafted by giant corporations take me out way more than the VFX.
"Whether it's a lack of understanding of how VFX work is done, or just poor general direction, more blame has to be on directors (or producers in cases where a studio has more control than a director which frequently happens) for these decisions" It's studios and their predatory fixed price VFX contracts too. They set a fixed price and the VFX studio has to stick to it, even when the director changes their mind halfway through work on a shot and asks them to do it all again. Because of that VFX studios literally keep going bankrupt because they have to pay their artists more than the contract was worth. At this point I can only assume that the more successful, long running studios purposefully overcharge up front to avoid these problems.
This biggest thing I take from this is that the studio and fan efforts to claim that any given movie doesn't, and shouldn't, have CGI are deeply disrespectful to the CG artists.
the problem is CGI is expensive, and studios want you to see the money they spent, like when 3d movies were a thing so EVERY effect was literally in your face constantly. the amazing people who did district 9 forced themselves to not follow that by adding random set dressing digitally, like a cup in the blurry background for example. i wish more studios would stop going "HEY LOOK AT THIS VFX SHOT!!!!"
@@vanillaicecream2385 That's not even remotely true, CGI is often the cheapest option these days and that's why it gets used, I mean in general VFX have always been used because they're cheaper than doing the real thing.
@@hedgehog3180 because its easier, its very hard to setup a real car crash for a movie, just do it in post digitally its so cheap nowdays compared to what it used to be is because companies squeeze their artists for all they're worth, you work overtime after overtime for weeks with little pay
This video essay series is like hitting the jackpot in a desert of shallow movie talks. You know what's the best part? When I stumble upon those comment sections full of clueless folks blabbering about "practical filmmaking" (like, seriously, I genuinely have not gotten a single person to give me a cohesive definition of that the hell they even mean when the say that), I just drop them the link to this series. Saves me from banging my head against the wall trying to explain stuff to people who've never even set foot behind the scenes. So yeah, goodbye to those exhausting arguments with the clueless. This series should be mandatory viewing for anyone who utters the term "CGI" I cannot express how thankful I am for this series. You have saved me thousands of headaches. Your work is seriously a lifesaver.
@@TheMovieRabbitHole Great video, but sorry I have to disagree with the last point. I can always tell when it's CGi, even when it's "invisible" CGi like in Scorsese movies. Those cows looked fake, not to mention eye-soring CGI in Wolf Of Wall street, especially in prison scene and on the boat.
The amount of CGI coming in Beetlejuice 2 will never be entirely disclosed, with artists working once again in the shadows. Thanks a lot for this amazing series of videos, I look forward to see what you have in stock for the future of this great channel!
As a 20+ year experience vfx artist, thank you for helping people understand our work, and how important it is to the modern movies and tv series. Its still a bit it sad that all this extremely hard work is not acknowledged by anyone, and despite the quality that is constantly improving, still gets negative comments from just about anyone involved with movies. But like many superheroes that we helped make come to life, we don’t mind keeping our identity kept “secret”. We can still get some satisfaction from people thinking its not CGI. This means its job well done. So you could also have named your series “NO CGI”. Is really just very good CGI.
@@glennac truly. If anything, the entire LOTR trilogy was a demo for Weta Digital and Massive, the software that they developed to create the CGI armies in the films.
@@SpydeyDanright? I mean am I going crazy or did we all not flock to the cinemas to see all the awesome incredible stuff they did with LOTR and The Matrix? I still remember my jaw dropping when I saw that army.
As a VFX artist since the 1990s, THANK YOU. I live and work in Finland, where due to small country's budget constrains, the use of CGI (or VFX in general) in movies is generally much less prevalent than in the blockbuster world. That does not mean no CGI though. Vast majority of VFX here are of the invisible variety - set extensions, clean-ups, fixes, etc. In these cases, there usually is just no discussion about CGI at all. Which is fine in a way, it means the work was done well enough. What that means though, is that we VFX artists are also sort of invisible, and there's little public knowledge about what if anything was done digitally in films and TV shows. In the Finnish equivalent of Oscars, "Jussi awards", there still is no category for best effects - be that stunt work, SFX or VFX. Nada. It's a travesty really. There's now a petition to get us finally recognized, and as there is not much info in the public apart from the line in end credits, the petitioners had to call effects houses and freelancers to poll the extent of CGI work in Finnish films, and to ask us which films we had worked on, and what we did on them. There are cases where the CGI is used in more flashy ways, yet it still gets little or no mention - just like Hollywood. I personally have made CGI trains, planes and tanks (no automobiles though, somewhat surprisingly), created buildings that explode or are in fire, digital doubles of boats, birds and crowds of people... and i do not think many people outside the production know. In a few of these cases, there *have* been examples of the no CGI phenomenon even in my little corner of the world. As the first example i remember, in 2006 I worked on a war movie where the press mantra was that they used real tanks and airplanes. Which was true - there were two real tanks on the set, and one airplane which was only used on the ground... but all the rest of the tanks were either comped duplicates or full CGI. And every flying airplane was 100% computer generated. There were about 150 VFX shots I did for the film, plus perhaps roughly the same amount by another vendor. No, we did not make it into the press or BTS materials. Now i need to get back to work, making CGI butterflies for a music video today.
But at least in the case of Black Panther they were very clear about it afterwards that the shots look so bad because the Effects Studios were completely overworked and had not enough time to finish the shots. CGI is the one branch where nothing hurts the result more than time and money constraints.
The tiger in Life of Pi is so well made, that people cannot see the difference between the scenes where a real tiger were used, and when they used a digital tiger.
@@Durwood71 yeah, and during the Oscar acceptance speech, Ang Lee basically thanked everybody that helped making the film, and then some. All except the people that made the visual effects. This is what caused that major outcry from visual artists in 2013. And still today we have this BS in the industry. I'm so fed up with it.
Man, so many of these "no CGI" claims in promotional materials are so blatant I'm amazed it's not false advertising! How does that get past consumer protection laws? That said, I think when most people say they "hate CGI" what they actually mean is they hate when an effect is so noticeable that it takes them out if the experience. They aren't thinking of the invisible set extensions in Wolf of Wall Street, they're thinking of the scorpion king from The Mummy Returns (although I remember getting distracted quite often in all The Mummy movies honestly as they used the CG in ways that it wasn't really ready for at the time).
FUN FACT: "The Phantom Menace" had more practical models built for it than the entire OT. "The Force Awakens" on the other hand actually had more VFX shots than "The Phantom Menace".
That Star Wars 365 days by John Knoll (yes that John Knoll) is a fantastic book not many seem to know about and extensively documents the miniature builds!
TBH I think the Prequels are the last few films when the old age is merged with the new age CGI… IIRC some of the ILM staff calls the converts “going to the dark side”
@@halfvader8015 Everybody thinks Lucas demanded CGI, but the truth is, he told his effects team the end result he wanted, and they decided on the best way to achieve it, which most of the time included a mixture of models, sets, matte paintings, and CGI.
@@Durwood71 Preaching to the converted dude. Hence my mentioning the SW 365 book. Although he did ask for some super weirdo stuff the supes scratched their heads about!!
You should definitely check this out. They also have a print issue. And it's not just CG, it's all the wonderful tricks of movie magic. beforesandafters.com/
I came to the comments section just now to make a comment about the late, great Cinefex magazine. To me, it feels like this current 'no CGI' obsession began around the time that Cinefex stopped publishing. Also, around the same time that physical media started dying out...and for the few who are still buying blu-rays, their 'special features' went from huge behind-the-scenes documentaries to two minute press kits and a blooper reel.
I've always thought this was the end goal: Where "No CGI" meant "you can't see we used CGI." So this explains my confusion at people saying they loved such and such because it didn't have CGI, while that thing is horrible because it obviously does. This is something I learned back with The Polar Express. We got a copy on DVD while we were still using a CRT purchased when Star Wars 2 came to VHS. So we genuinely had arguments with people over whether or not it was live action. Imagine our collective embarassment when we watch it on a plasma screen and the MoCap CGI was all the more obvious. Even more hilarious when some of the siblings never got around to watching the behind the scenes to break down how the MoCap worked.
The biggest embarrassment about directors lying about the use of CGI is the erasure of just how good the VFX teams have gotten. Plan your filming around VFX, pay the VFX teams a fair wage, give them recognition for their successes, and you get a good result that most audience don't even notice aren't practical. Skimp out on any of those, and you get The Flash. I think you might still have some legs for future videos diving into subtle CGI work. I mean, I watch Corridor every weekend for a neat VFX breakdown, and CD when he remembers to exist, but I'm pretty sure there's room for more if you wanted to keep the channel going and build an audience even more.
You mentioned it in a previous video, but the biggest problem with the "no CGI" lie is that it's erasing the hard work of thousands of artists that deserve to be recognized for their work. And, more importantly, they deserve to get PAID for their work. But if the general population doesn't know how much VFX work goes into these films then it's a lot easier to underpay the people that make them so great.
I'm guessing that those people typically don't sit through the credits for very long, or they'd see the endless quadruple columns of digital artists from vendor after vendor on these movies with allegedly no CGI. Do they think all those people are there because they did the credits and titles?
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks Not just that but in the credits the companies and people who do the CGI are usually credited as Visual Effects which most people probably think is the one set effects and such and not CGI effects. Since Effects and VFX are the same thing but one is done on set and the other is done in post.
@@ErikWerlin Special effects or special mechanical fx means on set. Vfx has never meant onset. With the possible exception of glass and hanging mattes. And while special fx used to also be used as the catch-all, it hasn't been that way in the industry for decades. Same with the appellation SFX, which used to be used mainly by people not in the industry to mean special effects. But within it's a shortening of sound fx, vor many decades now. These things change and slide around a bit. And Jonas already went into how bad cgi as a catchall term is. because 3d animation, digital compositing colour grading and so on are not the same or all just "CGI". And he talked about how "CGI/Computer Generated Imagery" is a misnomer. On that note John Lasseter of Pixar said the computers no more create the imagery than a pencil creates pencil/2d animation.
@@halfvader8015 I'm well aware of all of that. I was a VFX comp artist for 10 years. If you read what I wrote again you'll see I was talking about the general public and how the average person don't know the difference. The AVERAGE person probable thinks VFX and on set FX are the same thing.
If the general audience realised how little work actors and even the general film crew put in vs VFX teams they wouldn't get paid nearly as well as they are. Could you imagine if instead of plastering WILL SMITH or CHRIS PRATT on the posters they had FRAMESTORE instead? This is why though actors/directors will occasionally praise the work of the VFX artists, they won't ever go overboard - and indeed it seems like these days they have moved to either gaslighting us about the VFX existing at all, or worse actually badmouthing them as with Taika Waititi and Tessa Thompson during the Thor 4 PR.
As a military aviation nerd it was so funny to keep seeing people talking about the no CGI thing in Top Gun: Maverick. Yeah I‘m pretty sure the filmmakers didn’t go to Iran to get some of the last flightworthy F-14 Tomcats for some movie. And I‘m also pretty sure the Russians didn’t give them their most advanced fighter jet just so someone could brag about not using CGI lol.
Also my Dad is a pilot so even before that whole sequence he spotted that no plane could go that close to the ground without crashing. I wonder if the cinematographer was lying when he said “We never filmed an empty sky”
Also there are a lot of really recognizable 3D assets, like the SAMs not only don't look particularly good they make absolutely no sense since it's just random BUK launchers without any of the support infrastructure needed placed in nonsensical locations. Then there's also a lot of the maneuvers that often wouldn't be possible at the speeds they're supposedly happening at, and also usually make no sense. Like the fights do not feel slightly grounded whatsoever, they feel incredibly silly and it makes it kinda boring when they literally stole the entire mission from an Ace Combat game but then for some reason didn't steal that series dedication to over the top arcade nonsense.
You are a gem for making this, and I salute you -- one filmmaker to another. James Cameron said something I adored in Side by Side (which was about a different issue: Film vs. Digital; but still applies) "When was it EVER real?"
Sir, my most sincere congratulations. I've learned more about cinematography throughout these series than reading/watching anything else in my entire life. They should be compulsory for anyone interested in the art of crafting cinema
I haven't even worked on any of those movies (I wish I did) and I'm always very pissed with all the lies all those actors, producers and even directors say. Throwing under the bus a huge amount of amazing artists that worked their asses off for their vision. I can't imagine how much more pissed the artists that worked on those movies feel.
@@PrograError that could be coming in the distant future. More realistic in the near future could be they change the "no CG" to "no AI" (a lot of both were used)
Just wanted to say you do a great job of using example shots of whatever you're talking about. Too many 'essay' type channels don't show an example of what they're talking about or just use generalized stock footage. It's been real nice to see.
I figured out much of what you were saying just by being on the ASD spectrum and by thinking about what my eyeballs are seeing throughout my teenage years, and even I have learned a lot from this series. Thank you so so much. It's really eye opening how producers can just lie to large amounts of people in an active effort to discredit the hard work of the very talented VFX artists who made most of what we see in most of the movies we watch. Imagine working for years to make a beautiful movie and your boss pretends that if you even 'existed, it would be a bad thing. VFX artists need to be brought to the forefront and get the credit they deserve. I've shown this series to quite a few people. It's very clear to me that most people dislike CGI because it's so good that they think most of the movie they are watching is what the camera saw (never mind the fact that that's not been the case for decades due to color grading, but whatever).
Now that this saga is complete I would love to see a video of you talking about some of the vfx achievements we got to see over the last couple of decades and talk some more about the directors that are actively proud of the vfx used in their movie.
David Fincher is an obvious candidate for that. He's always been open about the amount of effects he uses, probably because he started as an effects guy. He knows how important they are.
Thanks for setting the record straight! The hundreds of digital artists in the end credits of, well, most productions, should be recognized for their work. Not quite on this topic, but last week I saw a US TV network news story on the discovery of the original 3-foot 1960s USS Enterprise model. It got SO many facts wrong, it was cringey for a Trek nerd like me. I'm reminded again how inaccurate entertainment / feature news coverage can be. So thanks for tweaking the noses of bad and/or lazy entertainment 'journalism.'
As a vfx artist, I hope that this four part series is just the beginning for the channel. Absolutely impeccable work and easily some of the best coverage of VFX I have seen. Also anyone interested in checking out more like this series with deep dives into vfx I highly recommend the vfx notes podcast that Hugo Guerra does.
Part 4 was as good as part 1. So thank youfor this quality ! :D It was a really good serie, can't wait to see other essay from you ! No yelling, no surface level of knowledge, just a good, insightfull video that is well made. The CGI vs Practical useless converssation in theaters/online is so stupid. You showed really well how every good movies now HAS to have CGI & good compositing.
The real reason people are so vocal for their disdain of overdone CGI, is that when it's OVER-RELIANT. This doesn't mean if the entire shot is CGI, but if the CGI is used because the director has no clear vision and only got the final shot through trial & error and blind iteration. That means, you get CGI that looks bad not because it's bad, but that it's badly designed. It's like a painting with a wonky pose going against anatomy, or perspective that changes.
This and KaptainKristian’s video on David Fincher completely reformed my views on CGI. Thank you for this amazing series. You know far more and far better about this under appreciated craft than I or anyone else can. I would like to say that I would be extremely open about VFX, should I have a movie career, but reality will always have a different way of working.
It's a strange bit of human factors. The best I can think of is, they struggle with computers themselves, not realising that among the vast panoply of commands, is one that solves their current problem. Then when the nearest nerd tells them, they imagine this expands to *all* problems, even ones that can't be done automatically.
I can't think of a series of youtube videos that has had more impact on how I actually move through the world. I've sent these videos to so many of my friends and will continue to send them on for some time to come. Thanks so much for putting this all out these and I'm really looking forward to what you do next
I have a vague memory of a documentary or maybe a feature during a British film review program that went into a fair bit of detail. There were obvious shots like the fall from the building and then a million others that I never would have guessed. I wonder how they hold up now..!
I was 12 when the Phantom Menace came out. I didn't notice the "bad CGI" at the time. After I learned what "bad CGI" looks like, I felt like it was distracting. It never occurred to me that "practical" was better - just "I wish I hadn't noticed". Also, I have a huge respect for digital artists, who represent multitudes of highly creative and talented people who's work we might never have enjoyed were it not for modern digital tools. My hat is off to those people, and to you for shining light on their incredible contributions to cinema!
Hilariously, the clicker still in those The Last of Us articles was also full CG. Love this series, you've delivered all these info so cleanly with great examples. As a VFX artist it's such a handy rundown to flick to people. Great job - looking forward to whatever you tackle next!
The fill-in VFX on Ghostbusters : Frozen Empire was astounding. They filmed most of the exterior shots 10 minutes down the road from me on interior soundstages at Shinfield and Winnersh studios, UK - but made it look like it was New York in the middle of the day. And you'd never have a clue unless you knew exactly what to look for.
I feel like the use of CGI for my short Acéré was pretty invisible, but I was so proud just to get the chance to use it! It elevated what I was able to do practically, since I could paint out wound FX until the blood gag had to activate, and it absolutely improved the film. In my making of released same day as the short I went to great lengths to show how it was done. This series has been eye opening to just how much that is not the regular case, but I genuinely believe many industry figures will see this, as they apparently did with my work on how to shoot action, and it should lead to some embarrassment and therefore, change.
As the average viewer who would never know, your first video on this is when I suddenly realized why so often I had looked at "practical no CGI shots" and kept wondering "but how did they do it?" Because so many shots advertised this way aren't physically possible. They have things like holes in people, hundreds of tendrils moving in a way that can't be done with hydraulics or wires or whatever.. and I just kept wondering "but how?" And it never occurred to me they were just lying. Every piece of evidence that it was a lie I filed away as "well they weren't talking about THAT shot". I kinda forgot about that first video and CZcams didn't recommend the others to me until just now, so I missed seeing them as they were published, but I'm glad to get to the end of it now and finally finish making that connection.
You knocked it out of the park 4 out of 4 times Jonas! I really like your circular feedback loop explanation. Great way to visually represent the issue in a way anyone can understand, whether they work in the film industry or not.
Great video! It's fascinating seeing the 180 in CGI praise during the 2000s to the absolute disdain for it nowadays. Everything that looks great is always deemed "practical" while visual faults of the film are always blamed on "bad" VFX/CGI. It reminds me of how certain scenes of Godzilla: Minus One was claimed to be practical by fans online while eventually revealed to be entirely digital. Most people can't recognize good/invisible CGI and Hollywood marketing is taking advantage of that fact with films like Barbie and Gran Turismo, which is sad to see.
I think a lot of it has to do with planning your shots and moments to have the most impact. A lot of “bad CGI” doesn’t have that. Godzilla Minus One’s director was a VFX artist so he probably knew which shots they really needed to focus on to get the maximum impact possible on all aspects of the shot or scene.
Thank you. This series is so well done. I wrote my bachelor thesis on this topic and my test group couldn't tell the difference between CGI, miniature and practical shots. I would have loved to incorporate your work into my studies, but it came 3 months too late. Thank you for these fantastic 4 parts of entertaining education and information.
It's been said a million times, but this series really is the absolute best take on this issue ever put to screen. Looking forward to more amazing videos from you in the future!
I always hate that particular phrasing...it's as if they think someone picks up a microphone and says "Hello, computer. Could you give me a big fight scene with spaceships and such? I'm going to go take a walk." If it's a miniature, someone had to make it, and if it's a CG model, someone had to make that, too.
I absolutely adore this four-part series you've put together, and I cannot thank you enough for the hard work, research, and commitment you've clearly poured into doing this topic real justice.
I was eagerly waiting for part 4. Now I want a big budget movie with actually no VFX just so the "aaaa CGI bad practical good" people can realize how much work, art and talent is required by the VFX teams. It really hurts to see when big productions just blatantly lie to the audience.
I hate this no CGI BS because I've always loved it. But what really bothers me is that there are some amazingly talented people, entire studios and they're being hidden. They don't even get featured anymore in the making of's and its harder than ever to appreciate work done. And I want to appreciate it. I love it, its a massive part of TV and movie watching for me. In games I understand the graphics engine used, I know the studio's and developers. I know some of the individuals too. They're celebrated enough there are programmers who are famous and designers who are famous. No one in gaming ever believes its anything but CG and they love it. Why can't we appreciate movies and TV in the same way?
Not to mention the fact that recently games have gotten so good that they can actually fool people, I mean if graphics rendered in real time can look so real as to fool people then of course graphics rendered for a movie where they had almost unlimited time to render it will also look just as good as the real thing.
@@hedgehog3180 I really think something incredible is happening around unreal engine. You see things like the Mandalorian TV show where the backgrounds are unreal engine real-time landscapes projected onto giant video walls. So the film making tools are just wildly good already and I'm seeing a lot of really long shorts on youtube, like 10 minutes and up made by single people and they look real to me. Only the face animation still signals this is animation but its wild to me that a small team with no financial backing could make an entire movie now. I haven't seen it happen yet but I wonder if there is gate keeping going on in the industry to stop this flood of talent watering down the 100 million dollar productions but that's a bit tin foil hat.
Great series! Really enjoyed watching these. As someone who finds visual effects fascinating and wants to learn more, it truly is a blessing to get home and watch this. I can't wait to see what you release next!
Same thing happens with video-game graphics nowadays, everything is presented and marketed with a bunch of keywords and phrases like "8K textures!", "Made in unreal engine!", "He has millions of polygons!" but like, that literally does not matter at all if the art direction and consistency is not there. The same reason as why some old CGI holds up apply to games, and let me tell you... its not about any amout of resolution nor 'realism'...there are SO MANY posts and videos of 3D artists presenting their projects with HUGE watermarks of graphical engines and 3D softwares all over the place for no reason but the name, cause people who dont know better will see that and "Wow! That's why it looks so good!"
Celebrate artists regardless of the medium. The idea that directors or producers think some artists are more valuable than others is no great surprise. Screw those people. Call them out whenever possible. This is the most wonderful series and I would really love to see more.
Your channel is a godsend! Again - I work in different field - As a concept artist in gaming idustry I face different issues but still - It's so good to finally have someone explaining clearly the issues with VFX in movie industry nowadays and it's hypocrisy. Thank you so much!
I am so happy to hear that you will continue doing videos! You can't keep those editing skills, knowledge and humor away from us. You are now my nr 1 youtube channel. What amazing work. I love your humor and your editing! The wait for your next video is going to be tough. Hälsningar från Sverige!
I think the whole cgi is bad thing is because the obvious shots were more criticised than the invisible ones, and people being told no cgi makes the obvious ones more invisible so no one actively looks for it. It’s a good thing you made this series so that soon no one has to tell you “no cgi” for that immersion that you don’t get for looking for cgi
@@Durwood71 I recommend looking up some of Federico Fellinis 70s movies, which have surreal sets explicitly made to not look realistic and for having several scenes where the actual filming is shown in the middle of the action. Nothing in his Casanova or The Ship Sails On registers as real, but you buy into it in the moment, and the situations seem real even when the surrounding environment doesn't. It's not quite on the minimalist level of Von Trier's Dogville, but not far from it.
I have a small suspicion a bit of it is snobbery: "real" movies don't need any of this "effects" stuff because they focus completely on contemporary humans being angsty, emotional, and character developey, in contemporary human environments. Which of course is not a genre that's heavy on the VFX.
So excited to see the last part in this series! CZcams did it's job recommending your first video to me not long after it was posted. I've immensely enjoyed this series.
This series (and channel) is a blessing. Thank you for the amazing videos!
Quite a few CGI CZcams stars in the comments here.
Same goes for you guys
Love your channel too. Especially love your videos when you talk with industry veterans
We all love you guys too now get this man on the couch please!! 🙏🙏🙏
Now kiss ❤
I was waiting for you to say "I've been CGI this whole time"
That would have been a real Game Changer
I really thought when he said "Let's look at things around house", that he would reveal that the things around him like his mic, or wall hangings, were CG.
That would be a Captain Disillusion stunt
Hahahahhahajajahahaha
@@whaleguy OH. I hadn't thought of that. :D
I feel so bad for anyone working in vfx. Imagine putting hours and hours into making a shot just perfect, only for the director and actors to pretend your work doesn't exist and it was all someone else's work that made it look great. Such an underappreciated job..
This is what happens when you are the only part of the filmmaking process that doesn't have a union and is not allowed to partake in any profits from the film. Imagine the studios claiming a major actor, clearly visible in the movie, is not actually in the film and doesn't include their name in the credits list at the end. Happens more than you'd think in vfx.
oh yeah I've been a lead artist on several "No CGI" shows. (Barbie, vikings, a bunch more)
It's funny. I just laugh when I hear this stuff. It's not much skin off my back. But I'm very happy with this youtube series. Don't feel too bad for us, we have a lot of fun doing what we do.
@@funnyberries4017 no you haven't
Well at least they get paid well /s
I dont't feel bad actually, if no one spot that your shot is a CGI shot it means that you mande an amazing job
Denis Villeneuve flew in an actual sandworm from his hometown Montreal to star in Dune 2. the worm asked to be uncredited, that's why you don't see his name in the closing credits. what a bunch of legends.
Liar! We all know he's secretly discovered the real Dune and FTL travel and that parts of Dune were filmed on location.
I cant believe these Videos took NO CGI
Technically… The text he uses is computer generated.
@@TacoBel 😱
@@TacoBel How can you tell?
I thought the big reveal was going to be his hair and glasses were all CGI the whole time. 😊
Plot twist: the host is CGI!
I was a set dresser on The Last of Us Season 1. I personally dressed the exterior sets that Pedro Pascal is talking about when referring to a “dressed downtown Calgary”.
His comments are correct but leave out how much work came after because like you said, he couldn’t see any of that work during filming.
We dressed every street from the ground to about 30ft up. Everything after that achieved with visual effects and “cgi”.
I am incredibly proud of the physical work we did on that show, I’m also proud of the artists that took our work over the top.
By "took our work over the top" you probably mean "put their work atop of ours" :D It's often funny how much effort gets wasted by practical set dressing just to immediately get covered by something CG by the very first Nuke artist that touches the shot :D
Whats a guy gotta do to get on the next project with you?
@@LudvikKoutnyArt The effort isn't necessarily wasted if it's used as reference or shown in one shot but then replaced in another. The key is practical working together with digital.
@@LudvikKoutnyArt I can assure you that the work that our team did shows through in the final shots.
I know there are plenty of shots where the backgrounds were digital manipulated or replaced but there are also shots with absolutely no digital set extensions. I’m over the moon proud of seeing my work show through.
@@troublewithweebles apply to work as a permitee with the local film union in the Set Dec department.
VFX compositor here... THANK YOU.
Thank you for your job!
You are insanely appreciated my guy, believe me when I tell you (a software engineer here).I understand tech and yet what vfx artists have been achieving these last 15 years starting with Pirates is truly mind-blowing: from the insane algorithms that go into render engines and 3d sculpting software to the distribution of all of this so it can be finished quicker to compositing as a whole to eeveryfuuking piece of the puzzle
What compositors have achieved in the last twenty years has completely transformed film and TV. Just unbelievable (and believable). Huge respect.
I did a little bit of it with NUKE in college, from the bottom of my heart I say YOU POOR POOR MAN!! 😅
Seriously it's no cakewalk, keep doing that amazing job.
VFX artist here with 9 years in the business. I have been credited directly only 4 times out of more than 100 projects.
So when you see the credited VFX folks, that is probably just 10% of the total number of people that have worked on the project. Also the amount of things that get tweaked, removed, replaced or enhanced in a shot is mind boggling, normal movie watchers have no clue that what they are seeing is CGI.
The problem is directors not planning for VFX and/or crappy VFX supervisors on set, changing entire storylines, removing entire characters from the movie(A list actor in one instance), and the whole we'll fix it in post mentality.
But the biggest problem of all, the deadlines. As a good friend of mine and a beast of a compositor once said: "There is nothing we cant do if they give us enough time".
As someone once said, unlimited time plus unlimited resources equals a perfect result.
I was losing my mind seeing that Andor editor talking about removing blinks! And that's barely scratching the surface. VFX is completely bonkers now, I can't imagine where we'll be after studios get over this dumb phase. (They'll get over this dumb phase... right?)
@@SimonBuchanNz just wait till the studio go all in on AI…
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🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
*death Straight face *
@@PrograError I had a whole long answer but I realized nobody cares about my AI opinions: everyone has one!
TLDR: it's already being used in both good ways and bad ways, and people seem to like the good ways and not the bad ways. *So far*, things are looking alright.
Generating a few shitty pictures is not using it good.
There's no going back for you dude, you are currently the best VFX related CZcamsr and you gotta keep making the best videos on the internet about VFX.
I wish he hadn't limited this series to 4. I hope he creates a new series with a new name that's almost exactly like this one, just with less detail.
his videos are really good but i think corridor crew has the best VFX related youtube content
You're God damn right!@@kunthukothari
Corridor brought me here, what an amazing channel this is
@@kunthukotharibut Corridor have never worked on a high budget big feature film! It is noticeable when they speak about shots from real movies. That’s why they can’t represent all VFX. Only that part which work on CZcams videos and maybe motion design stuff.
I laughed having seen Gran Turismo and their "no CGI" having seen it and then going back and reading their claims afterwards
The best part of playing the Gran Turismo video games is that they're all real, absolutely no CGI!
@@JoeBlac which makes it funnier when they absolutely CGI'd GT7 half of the reference gameplay shoots for the movie. and it's extremely blatant the *moment* you see a robust car customization (not to be confused with livery editor) or the vast majority of menu navigation, *which does not exist in Gran Turismo 7* as of this writing.
Funny yeah but it's pretty shameful how they tried to mislead people.
I paid little attention to GT when it came out. Had no idea Niel Blomkamp, known CG FX wizard, directed the movie and tried to lie about it having no CG. What a fucking sellout.
I'm glad I saw the movie without being subjected to such a lie. The CGI was reasonably convincing when it needed to be, at least.
25 years in VFX on my side. People have NO IDEA how much CGI are in movies and TV series. I do. This series was amazing! Thank you so much! I hope studios will not boycott you because of it. :-)
That kind of talk is what giving them power, you're not supposed to just take it and shut up. You're creating tyrants
Right? When i would tell people I worked on the VFX for "The Resident", a Fox medical drama, they were confused that there were an average of 80-100 vfx shots in every episode.
"I hope studios will not boycott you because of it"
Studios get boycotted.
Artists that are good are in demand, especially these days when Hollywood seems intent on burning out every VFX artist by doing no planning before post production and reversing decisions half way through work on shots even though the contract price is fixed and the scheduled release date is relatively near.
If Hollywood don't watch out they may eventually be left with no one to do the grunt work that makes their overpaid actors look good.
I believe one of the underlying goals of this "NO CGI" propaganda from the studios is to demoralize the CG Artists as a way to help crush any talk of unionizing. CGI VFX Artists have worked w/o union protections for years, making them the most easily exploited workforce in the entertainment industry. This exploitation has a negative effect on wages and benefits, but also manifests itself in Credits and Awards; the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has greatly truncated it list of awards for VFX, and often for smaller VFX houses the credit for a film or episode will be little more than a nod to the company in total. By constantly bad-mouthing the work of CGI Artists, it appears to rob the discipline of its value (despite the fact that there is almost no production that completes without using their talents), making the Artist less likely to make a stink when they are forced to work long hours for diminished wages under impossible deadlines for demanding and unreasonable clients.
My favorite part is not knowing I was watching CGI. Like the examples here of adding snow to a scene, or other examples like making a city skyline, or the grass greener of the shot was filed in Autumn.
Hats off to all the wizards that make the magic happen. CGI artist should be both represented more and paid more.
I think that's also what people really mean: don't want to notice CGI. It's the most fun watching the VFX reels and realising how much CGI there was in a given movie and not having noticed most of it.
If the magician was successful, you never even know a trick happened.
@@marcellkovacs5452absolutely, which is why studios should be celebrating their successful vfx instead of hiding it. When they go down the current path or promotion, people only recognize "CGI" as what they can obviously spot. We also need to stop listening to actors claim they didn't use any digital effects, because they've got no idea what comes next after the shots are filmed.
I want CGI to expand what can be put on screen, an entire fleet of battle ships instead of one shot from different angles, the air armadas of WW2 looking authentic, not one lone spitfire allegedly symbolising something, Paul riding the sandworm, the battle of Waterloo not looking like enthusiastic reenactors on their weekend off. Those will all look CGI because there is no way to create those visuals in reality or with miniatures. I want to know there is CGI and be happy that it is. Gollum looks CGI because what else could he be , that’s not bad it’s the only way possible to do Gollum in a live action movie that doesn’t suck.
@@marcellkovacs5452 Indeed. I like to refer back to the train derailing scene in Lawrence of Arabia. Which was shot for real. In the desert, with a real train.
It looks awesome and it is awesome that they went all the way to do this for real.
If they can do something like this with CGI and make it look exactly the same way, so that you won't be able to tell the difference, then I'm totally on board with using that technique.
But whenever this doesn't work out, I'd rather they demolish a real train, before trying to trick me.
hearing all practical effects in movie promos gives me same vibes as when companies talk about how they are carbon neutral lol.
oh... 😅
Akin to greenwashing, practicalwashing is a thing nowadays.
Same with actors "doing their own stunts" and "improvising lines"
Nailed it.
It's like going to see a stage magician and they pitch the show as, "No tricks, illusions, slight of hand, or prestidigitation! We use 100% *real* Wizardry to perform the feats you will witness on stage!"
You touch on a great point here that I think is often missed in these conversations. As a director, a bad VFX shot being in a final cut of a film is as much your responsibility as a bad costume, bad performance or poor lighting. People rag on VFX artists who are often overworked and underpaid without ever stopping to think why the person in charge of the production would make choices that lead to bad outcomes. Whether it's a lack of understanding of how VFX work is done, or just poor general direction, more blame has to be on directors (or producers in cases where a studio has more control than a director which frequently happens) for these decisions. Plenty of movies have thousands of VFX shots that look fantastic, and plenty have very few that look bad. If I were directing a movie in the 60's and decide to cut to a bad looking matte painting, that decision is on me. I think so much of the negative backlash against CG comes from directors who are overly reliant on it and think of it as a short cut to get wherever they want with no restraints.
That's part of it, certainly. Everyone goes on about how incredible the VFX is in the latest Avatar, but that's not because the people at (e.g. - they weren't the only house) Weta who created them are somehow that much more talented than those who work on other films. Because they do work on other, "lesser" films. And it's not purely because Cameron can direct VFX better. What makes the difference between an amazing Avatar 2 shot and the mediocre ones people complain about in recent Marvel films (for instance) is that they've been given the time and money to work on it until it's right.
Either you speak up to those tyrants or you don't complain at all. Hollywood have been rotten to the core since it's inception. If everyone speak up they can't silence it all. That's how the internet works
yeah, its almost always been the case that 90% of the shots with "bad cgi" didn't have "bad cgi" they had bad compositing, which is done in the edit. and honestly, alot of bad vfx in general, even pre-dvfx, are owed to that.
I was a CG artist and that's honestly my only complaint with VFX. I think the art style nowadays is to put so much stuff on the screen that it gets overwhelming but that's not the artist's decision. Like in Ready Player One when they threw in every WB franchise to remind the viewer that they owned a lot of IP. It's a dumb decision. Artistically it is interesting but as a film decision the constant reminders that the films are being crafted by giant corporations take me out way more than the VFX.
"Whether it's a lack of understanding of how VFX work is done, or just poor general direction, more blame has to be on directors (or producers in cases where a studio has more control than a director which frequently happens) for these decisions"
It's studios and their predatory fixed price VFX contracts too.
They set a fixed price and the VFX studio has to stick to it, even when the director changes their mind halfway through work on a shot and asks them to do it all again.
Because of that VFX studios literally keep going bankrupt because they have to pay their artists more than the contract was worth.
At this point I can only assume that the more successful, long running studios purposefully overcharge up front to avoid these problems.
That shot from Jurassic Park was the perfect way to end this series! Thank you for the great work, Jonas!
Was it a CGI pile of sh!t or a real one, though?
This biggest thing I take from this is that the studio and fan efforts to claim that any given movie doesn't, and shouldn't, have CGI are deeply disrespectful to the CG artists.
This!
the problem is CGI is expensive, and studios want you to see the money they spent, like when 3d movies were a thing so EVERY effect was literally in your face constantly.
the amazing people who did district 9 forced themselves to not follow that by adding random set dressing digitally, like a cup in the blurry background for example.
i wish more studios would stop going "HEY LOOK AT THIS VFX SHOT!!!!"
If someone said that it shouldn't have CGI, their beef isn't with the CG artists, it's with the director.
@@vanillaicecream2385 That's not even remotely true, CGI is often the cheapest option these days and that's why it gets used, I mean in general VFX have always been used because they're cheaper than doing the real thing.
@@hedgehog3180 because its easier, its very hard to setup a real car crash for a movie, just do it in post digitally
its so cheap nowdays compared to what it used to be is because companies squeeze their artists for all they're worth, you work overtime after overtime for weeks with little pay
This video essay series is like hitting the jackpot in a desert of shallow movie talks. You know what's the best part? When I stumble upon those comment sections full of clueless folks blabbering about "practical filmmaking" (like, seriously, I genuinely have not gotten a single person to give me a cohesive definition of that the hell they even mean when the say that), I just drop them the link to this series. Saves me from banging my head against the wall trying to explain stuff to people who've never even set foot behind the scenes. So yeah, goodbye to those exhausting arguments with the clueless.
This series should be mandatory viewing for anyone who utters the term "CGI"
I cannot express how thankful I am for this series. You have saved me thousands of headaches. Your work is seriously a lifesaver.
Thank you! That use is, literally, the main hope for this series. Please keep it up.
Completely agree with everything you said.
@@TheMovieRabbitHole Great video, but sorry I have to disagree with the last point. I can always tell when it's CGi, even when it's "invisible" CGi like in Scorsese movies. Those cows looked fake, not to mention eye-soring CGI in Wolf Of Wall street, especially in prison scene and on the boat.
@@arsenymun2028what about the cowboy hat and the barbie dress???
@@DeletedDevilDeletedAngel Watched in theatre. It looked CGI, also blood looked fake on the dude's face.
The amount of CGI coming in Beetlejuice 2 will never be entirely disclosed, with artists working once again in the shadows.
Thanks a lot for this amazing series of videos, I look forward to see what you have in stock for the future of this great channel!
As a 20+ year experience vfx artist, thank you for helping people understand our work, and how important it is to the modern movies and tv series.
Its still a bit it sad that all this extremely hard work is not acknowledged by anyone, and despite the quality that is constantly improving, still gets negative comments from just about anyone involved with movies. But like many superheroes that we helped make come to life, we don’t mind keeping our identity kept “secret”. We can still get some satisfaction from people thinking its not CGI. This means its job well done. So you could also have named your series “NO CGI”. Is really just very good CGI.
The Return of the King
Same level of hype actually.
What about it? The BluRay Extras are up front about all the CGI in the movie. No one has claimed otherwise. 🤔
@@glennac truly. If anything, the entire LOTR trilogy was a demo for Weta Digital and Massive, the software that they developed to create the CGI armies in the films.
@@SpydeyDanright? I mean am I going crazy or did we all not flock to the cinemas to see all the awesome incredible stuff they did with LOTR and The Matrix? I still remember my jaw dropping when I saw that army.
What the fuck are you talking about Jesse @@glennac
Thank you for this wonderful series, Jonas!
We all thank you for bringing this to the public's attention. 🙏🏻🙇🏻♀️
Hi Ami. I didn't expect to see you here. But thinking about it now... of course you would be! haha!
@@mochigirl8055 With no CGI, she wouldnt exist!
Waiting for the big reveal on Ami's channel "Jonas was all CGI and was secretly Ami!"
We're all CGI now 🤗
Wow, you're still around. I had forgotten you existed.
As a VFX artist since the 1990s, THANK YOU.
I live and work in Finland, where due to small country's budget constrains, the use of CGI (or VFX in general) in movies is generally much less prevalent than in the blockbuster world. That does not mean no CGI though.
Vast majority of VFX here are of the invisible variety - set extensions, clean-ups, fixes, etc. In these cases, there usually is just no discussion about CGI at all. Which is fine in a way, it means the work was done well enough. What that means though, is that we VFX artists are also sort of invisible, and there's little public knowledge about what if anything was done digitally in films and TV shows.
In the Finnish equivalent of Oscars, "Jussi awards", there still is no category for best effects - be that stunt work, SFX or VFX. Nada. It's a travesty really. There's now a petition to get us finally recognized, and as there is not much info in the public apart from the line in end credits, the petitioners had to call effects houses and freelancers to poll the extent of CGI work in Finnish films, and to ask us which films we had worked on, and what we did on them.
There are cases where the CGI is used in more flashy ways, yet it still gets little or no mention - just like Hollywood. I personally have made CGI trains, planes and tanks (no automobiles though, somewhat surprisingly), created buildings that explode or are in fire, digital doubles of boats, birds and crowds of people... and i do not think many people outside the production know.
In a few of these cases, there *have* been examples of the no CGI phenomenon even in my little corner of the world. As the first example i remember, in 2006 I worked on a war movie where the press mantra was that they used real tanks and airplanes. Which was true - there were two real tanks on the set, and one airplane which was only used on the ground... but all the rest of the tanks were either comped duplicates or full CGI. And every flying airplane was 100% computer generated. There were about 150 VFX shots I did for the film, plus perhaps roughly the same amount by another vendor. No, we did not make it into the press or BTS materials.
Now i need to get back to work, making CGI butterflies for a music video today.
"Top gun maverick having more vfx shots than Black panther" was epic 😆
But at least in the case of Black Panther they were very clear about it afterwards that the shots look so bad because the Effects Studios were completely overworked and had not enough time to finish the shots.
CGI is the one branch where nothing hurts the result more than time and money constraints.
I'm a VFX lead animator and I thank you for these videos. Great job.
The tiger in Life of Pi is so well made, that people cannot see the difference between the scenes where a real tiger were used, and when they used a digital tiger.
i didn't even know there WAS a real tiger! I just assumed it was all cgi, it all looked the same, that's some damn good cgi
Too bad the company that did all the visual effects in that movie went bankrupt shortly afterwards.
@@nugget3687 It's one of the all time greatest achievements in visual effects. It's mind blowing how well made that tiger is.
@@Durwood71 yeah, and during the Oscar acceptance speech, Ang Lee basically thanked everybody that helped making the film, and then some. All except the people that made the visual effects. This is what caused that major outcry from visual artists in 2013. And still today we have this BS in the industry. I'm so fed up with it.
@@FabledGentleman Not just the tiger. Everything in _The Life of Pi_ was a visual triumph for the effects artists.
Man, so many of these "no CGI" claims in promotional materials are so blatant I'm amazed it's not false advertising! How does that get past consumer protection laws?
That said, I think when most people say they "hate CGI" what they actually mean is they hate when an effect is so noticeable that it takes them out if the experience. They aren't thinking of the invisible set extensions in Wolf of Wall Street, they're thinking of the scorpion king from The Mummy Returns (although I remember getting distracted quite often in all The Mummy movies honestly as they used the CG in ways that it wasn't really ready for at the time).
FUN FACT: "The Phantom Menace" had more practical models built for it than the entire OT.
"The Force Awakens" on the other hand actually had more VFX shots than "The Phantom Menace".
The prequel films are some of the biggest model shows in Hollywood history.
That Star Wars 365 days by John Knoll (yes that John Knoll) is a fantastic book not many seem to know about and extensively documents the miniature builds!
TBH I think the Prequels are the last few films when the old age is merged with the new age CGI… IIRC some of the ILM staff calls the converts “going to the dark side”
@@halfvader8015 Everybody thinks Lucas demanded CGI, but the truth is, he told his effects team the end result he wanted, and they decided on the best way to achieve it, which most of the time included a mixture of models, sets, matte paintings, and CGI.
@@Durwood71 Preaching to the converted dude. Hence my mentioning the SW 365 book. Although he did ask for some super weirdo stuff the supes scratched their heads about!!
This channel feels like Cinefx magazine but on the web. I needs more. The world is missing such seriously great content.
You should definitely check this out. They also have a print issue. And it's not just CG, it's all the wonderful tricks of movie magic. beforesandafters.com/
I really miss Cinefex...
I came to the comments section just now to make a comment about the late, great Cinefex magazine. To me, it feels like this current 'no CGI' obsession began around the time that Cinefex stopped publishing. Also, around the same time that physical media started dying out...and for the few who are still buying blu-rays, their 'special features' went from huge behind-the-scenes documentaries to two minute press kits and a blooper reel.
@@seanmontgomery9066It's not current, they have been putting CGI in everything since long ago try documentaries try the news
I've always thought this was the end goal: Where "No CGI" meant "you can't see we used CGI." So this explains my confusion at people saying they loved such and such because it didn't have CGI, while that thing is horrible because it obviously does.
This is something I learned back with The Polar Express. We got a copy on DVD while we were still using a CRT purchased when Star Wars 2 came to VHS. So we genuinely had arguments with people over whether or not it was live action.
Imagine our collective embarassment when we watch it on a plasma screen and the MoCap CGI was all the more obvious. Even more hilarious when some of the siblings never got around to watching the behind the scenes to break down how the MoCap worked.
The biggest embarrassment about directors lying about the use of CGI is the erasure of just how good the VFX teams have gotten. Plan your filming around VFX, pay the VFX teams a fair wage, give them recognition for their successes, and you get a good result that most audience don't even notice aren't practical. Skimp out on any of those, and you get The Flash.
I think you might still have some legs for future videos diving into subtle CGI work. I mean, I watch Corridor every weekend for a neat VFX breakdown, and CD when he remembers to exist, but I'm pretty sure there's room for more if you wanted to keep the channel going and build an audience even more.
You mentioned it in a previous video, but the biggest problem with the "no CGI" lie is that it's erasing the hard work of thousands of artists that deserve to be recognized for their work. And, more importantly, they deserve to get PAID for their work. But if the general population doesn't know how much VFX work goes into these films then it's a lot easier to underpay the people that make them so great.
I'm guessing that those people typically don't sit through the credits for very long, or they'd see the endless quadruple columns of digital artists from vendor after vendor on these movies with allegedly no CGI. Do they think all those people are there because they did the credits and titles?
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks Not just that but in the credits the companies and people who do the CGI are usually credited as Visual Effects which most people probably think is the one set effects and such and not CGI effects. Since Effects and VFX are the same thing but one is done on set and the other is done in post.
@@ErikWerlin Special effects or special mechanical fx means on set. Vfx has never meant onset. With the possible exception of glass and hanging mattes. And while special fx used to also be used as the catch-all, it hasn't been that way in the industry for decades. Same with the appellation SFX, which used to be used mainly by people not in the industry to mean special effects. But within it's a shortening of sound fx, vor many decades now. These things change and slide around a bit. And Jonas already went into how bad cgi as a catchall term is. because 3d animation, digital compositing colour grading and so on are not the same or all just "CGI". And he talked about how "CGI/Computer Generated Imagery" is a misnomer. On that note John Lasseter of Pixar said the computers no more create the imagery than a pencil creates pencil/2d animation.
@@halfvader8015 I'm well aware of all of that. I was a VFX comp artist for 10 years. If you read what I wrote again you'll see I was talking about the general public and how the average person don't know the difference. The AVERAGE person probable thinks VFX and on set FX are the same thing.
If the general audience realised how little work actors and even the general film crew put in vs VFX teams they wouldn't get paid nearly as well as they are.
Could you imagine if instead of plastering WILL SMITH or CHRIS PRATT on the posters they had FRAMESTORE instead?
This is why though actors/directors will occasionally praise the work of the VFX artists, they won't ever go overboard - and indeed it seems like these days they have moved to either gaslighting us about the VFX existing at all, or worse actually badmouthing them as with Taika Waititi and Tessa Thompson during the Thor 4 PR.
Gonna need a 5/4 or another vfx series! These videos are fantastic!
As a military aviation nerd it was so funny to keep seeing people talking about the no CGI thing in Top Gun: Maverick.
Yeah I‘m pretty sure the filmmakers didn’t go to Iran to get some of the last flightworthy F-14 Tomcats for some movie. And I‘m also pretty sure the Russians didn’t give them their most advanced fighter jet just so someone could brag about not using CGI lol.
Also my Dad is a pilot so even before that whole sequence he spotted that no plane could go that close to the ground without crashing. I wonder if the cinematographer was lying when he said “We never filmed an empty sky”
@@tylerjames805 which specific scene are you talking about?
Also there are a lot of really recognizable 3D assets, like the SAMs not only don't look particularly good they make absolutely no sense since it's just random BUK launchers without any of the support infrastructure needed placed in nonsensical locations.
Then there's also a lot of the maneuvers that often wouldn't be possible at the speeds they're supposedly happening at, and also usually make no sense. Like the fights do not feel slightly grounded whatsoever, they feel incredibly silly and it makes it kinda boring when they literally stole the entire mission from an Ace Combat game but then for some reason didn't steal that series dedication to over the top arcade nonsense.
You are a gem for making this, and I salute you -- one filmmaker to another.
James Cameron said something I adored in Side by Side (which was about a different issue: Film vs. Digital; but still applies)
"When was it EVER real?"
You gotto get on the VFX artist reacts-coach! Would love to see you and the corridor guys discuss this topic!
I think Wren has referenced this series before so they know who he is
@@jasonthesnow I think it was Jordan that referenced his video in the barbie behind the scenes video
@@jasonthesnow yeah, they mentioned it once in their react video
@@jasonthesnow It's a match made in VFX heaven
And it should be a CGI coach
By now I'm just here to see the bits where you go "This is CGI, and this is CGI, and this is CGI and this..."
VFX Lighting Artist here! 10+ years in the industry, THANK YOU for these videos!
Sir, my most sincere congratulations. I've learned more about cinematography throughout these series than reading/watching anything else in my entire life. They should be compulsory for anyone interested in the art of crafting cinema
I haven't even worked on any of those movies (I wish I did) and I'm always very pissed with all the lies all those actors, producers and even directors say. Throwing under the bus a huge amount of amazing artists that worked their asses off for their vision. I can't imagine how much more pissed the artists that worked on those movies feel.
Imagine the studio going full AI on it... and say "no CGI"
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🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@PrograError that could be coming in the distant future. More realistic in the near future could be they change the "no CG" to "no AI" (a lot of both were used)
Season Finale of the most exciting TV show of 2024. LET'S GO!!!!
Just wanted to say you do a great job of using example shots of whatever you're talking about. Too many 'essay' type channels don't show an example of what they're talking about or just use generalized stock footage. It's been real nice to see.
Gotta respect Neill Blomkamp's dedication to practical. Couldn't believe he made an actual sentient robot for Chappie
I figured out much of what you were saying just by being on the ASD spectrum and by thinking about what my eyeballs are seeing throughout my teenage years, and even I have learned a lot from this series. Thank you so so much. It's really eye opening how producers can just lie to large amounts of people in an active effort to discredit the hard work of the very talented VFX artists who made most of what we see in most of the movies we watch. Imagine working for years to make a beautiful movie and your boss pretends that if you even 'existed, it would be a bad thing. VFX artists need to be brought to the forefront and get the credit they deserve. I've shown this series to quite a few people. It's very clear to me that most people dislike CGI because it's so good that they think most of the movie they are watching is what the camera saw (never mind the fact that that's not been the case for decades due to color grading, but whatever).
Now that this saga is complete I would love to see a video of you talking about some of the vfx achievements we got to see over the last couple of decades and talk some more about the directors that are actively proud of the vfx used in their movie.
David Fincher is an obvious candidate for that. He's always been open about the amount of effects he uses, probably because he started as an effects guy. He knows how important they are.
Thanks for setting the record straight! The hundreds of digital artists in the end credits of, well, most productions, should be recognized for their work. Not quite on this topic, but last week I saw a US TV network news story on the discovery of the original 3-foot 1960s USS Enterprise model. It got SO many facts wrong, it was cringey for a Trek nerd like me. I'm reminded again how inaccurate entertainment / feature news coverage can be. So thanks for tweaking the noses of bad and/or lazy entertainment 'journalism.'
As a vfx artist, I hope that this four part series is just the beginning for the channel. Absolutely impeccable work and easily some of the best coverage of VFX I have seen. Also anyone interested in checking out more like this series with deep dives into vfx I highly recommend the vfx notes podcast that Hugo Guerra does.
I hope you'll continue making videos even though this series is over. Great stuff!
he gave us all hope at the end of the video
Part 4 was as good as part 1. So thank youfor this quality ! :D
It was a really good serie, can't wait to see other essay from you ! No yelling, no surface level of knowledge, just a good, insightfull video that is well made.
The CGI vs Practical useless converssation in theaters/online is so stupid. You showed really well how every good movies now HAS to have CGI & good compositing.
The real reason people are so vocal for their disdain of overdone CGI, is that when it's OVER-RELIANT.
This doesn't mean if the entire shot is CGI, but if the CGI is used because the director has no clear vision and only got the final shot through trial & error and blind iteration. That means, you get CGI that looks bad not because it's bad, but that it's badly designed. It's like a painting with a wonky pose going against anatomy, or perspective that changes.
This and KaptainKristian’s video on David Fincher completely reformed my views on CGI. Thank you for this amazing series. You know far more and far better about this under appreciated craft than I or anyone else can.
I would like to say that I would be extremely open about VFX, should I have a movie career, but reality will always have a different way of working.
I tried the “take a shot every time he says CGI” drinking game. I died. This is my CGI double typing the comment
TELL ME ABOUT IT
czcams.com/video/uGPHy3yWE08/video.html
Thanks, Mister Rabbit Hole.
And thanks to Blender Guru and CG Garage for promoting this channel 😊
"You're just pressing a button and the computer does the rest" Is the worst one IMHO.
As a fellow 3d modeling and rendering artist, I feel for you.
It's a strange bit of human factors. The best I can think of is, they struggle with computers themselves, not realising that among the vast panoply of commands, is one that solves their current problem. Then when the nearest nerd tells them, they imagine this expands to *all* problems, even ones that can't be done automatically.
I can't even describe just how impeccable this series was. Great work!
16:44
16:36 even the cows and THE HAT is CGI😂😂
I lost it when i saw that the HAT was CGI 🤣🤣
Scheduled premiere? He's all grown up four videos in...
Happens when you get one million views with your first video 😂
I can't think of a series of youtube videos that has had more impact on how I actually move through the world. I've sent these videos to so many of my friends and will continue to send them on for some time to come. Thanks so much for putting this all out these and I'm really looking forward to what you do next
This might have been my favorite series on youtube! Thank you for making these. You have really opened up my eyes on some of this stuff!
Bravo! This 4-part series is just awesome!
Looking forward to what you will bring next to this channel.
I think it was The Hudsucker Proxy that first convinced me that I had no clue when I was being fooled by CGI.
Interesting! I should have looked into that. I must admit I know little of what went into that film
I have a vague memory of a documentary or maybe a feature during a British film review program that went into a fair bit of detail.
There were obvious shots like the fall from the building and then a million others that I never would have guessed.
I wonder how they hold up now..!
Good one 🤗
Another brilliant one! Sad that this series is already over, but looking forward to what you create next! 😊
One of the best video essays i've seen. Entertaining, informative, well-researched, and providing tons of footage to back up what you say.
I was 12 when the Phantom Menace came out. I didn't notice the "bad CGI" at the time. After I learned what "bad CGI" looks like, I felt like it was distracting. It never occurred to me that "practical" was better - just "I wish I hadn't noticed". Also, I have a huge respect for digital artists, who represent multitudes of highly creative and talented people who's work we might never have enjoyed were it not for modern digital tools. My hat is off to those people, and to you for shining light on their incredible contributions to cinema!
This channel started out on a banger.
Hilariously, the clicker still in those The Last of Us articles was also full CG.
Love this series, you've delivered all these info so cleanly with great examples. As a VFX artist it's such a handy rundown to flick to people. Great job - looking forward to whatever you tackle next!
The fill-in VFX on Ghostbusters : Frozen Empire was astounding. They filmed most of the exterior shots 10 minutes down the road from me on interior soundstages at Shinfield and Winnersh studios, UK - but made it look like it was New York in the middle of the day. And you'd never have a clue unless you knew exactly what to look for.
I feel like the use of CGI for my short Acéré was pretty invisible, but I was so proud just to get the chance to use it! It elevated what I was able to do practically, since I could paint out wound FX until the blood gag had to activate, and it absolutely improved the film. In my making of released same day as the short I went to great lengths to show how it was done. This series has been eye opening to just how much that is not the regular case, but I genuinely believe many industry figures will see this, as they apparently did with my work on how to shoot action, and it should lead to some embarrassment and therefore, change.
THE KING IS BACK!
Great! I was wondering when the fourth part would drop. Brilliant!
This series was a refreshingly honest take on VFX in general, and Hollywood's attitude in particular. Great work, thanks for enlightening us all!
As the average viewer who would never know, your first video on this is when I suddenly realized why so often I had looked at "practical no CGI shots" and kept wondering "but how did they do it?"
Because so many shots advertised this way aren't physically possible. They have things like holes in people, hundreds of tendrils moving in a way that can't be done with hydraulics or wires or whatever.. and I just kept wondering "but how?" And it never occurred to me they were just lying. Every piece of evidence that it was a lie I filed away as "well they weren't talking about THAT shot".
I kinda forgot about that first video and CZcams didn't recommend the others to me until just now, so I missed seeing them as they were published, but I'm glad to get to the end of it now and finally finish making that connection.
Big shout to you for this incredible series.
We’re all fighting the same battle and we need to support each other and the industry!!!
I'm a french editor and I thank you for your job and explanations on this subject !
You knocked it out of the park 4 out of 4 times Jonas!
I really like your circular feedback loop explanation. Great way to visually represent the issue in a way anyone can understand, whether they work in the film industry or not.
Thank you!
Great video! It's fascinating seeing the 180 in CGI praise during the 2000s to the absolute disdain for it nowadays. Everything that looks great is always deemed "practical" while visual faults of the film are always blamed on "bad" VFX/CGI. It reminds me of how certain scenes of Godzilla: Minus One was claimed to be practical by fans online while eventually revealed to be entirely digital. Most people can't recognize good/invisible CGI and Hollywood marketing is taking advantage of that fact with films like Barbie and Gran Turismo, which is sad to see.
I think a lot of it has to do with planning your shots and moments to have the most impact. A lot of “bad CGI” doesn’t have that. Godzilla Minus One’s director was a VFX artist so he probably knew which shots they really needed to focus on to get the maximum impact possible on all aspects of the shot or scene.
Thank you for this beautiful series, I’m excited to see what’s coming next!
I've been waiting for this video for weeks
Try months!
Thank you. This series is so well done. I wrote my bachelor thesis on this topic and my test group couldn't tell the difference between CGI, miniature and practical shots. I would have loved to incorporate your work into my studies, but it came 3 months too late. Thank you for these fantastic 4 parts of entertaining education and information.
It's been said a million times, but this series really is the absolute best take on this issue ever put to screen. Looking forward to more amazing videos from you in the future!
I can't wait to show that old coworker of mine who said "it spoils the movie when it's all made by computers"
I always hate that particular phrasing...it's as if they think someone picks up a microphone and says "Hello, computer. Could you give me a big fight scene with spaceships and such? I'm going to go take a walk." If it's a miniature, someone had to make it, and if it's a CG model, someone had to make that, too.
I gotta say thank you to Corridor Crew for pointing us toward your channel. Great work and I can't wait for more from you.
Us? I found it randomly by searching for no cgi shots to show people that they were cgi
I absolutely adore this four-part series you've put together, and I cannot thank you enough for the hard work, research, and commitment you've clearly poured into doing this topic real justice.
I was eagerly waiting for part 4.
Now I want a big budget movie with actually no VFX just so the "aaaa CGI bad practical good" people can realize how much work, art and talent is required by the VFX teams. It really hurts to see when big productions just blatantly lie to the audience.
M. Night Shyamalan twist: This whole series was CGI!
Including _YOU_ the viewer!
:O I knew it.
turns out we're still living in 1924 and the whole world is a matte painting in a Fritz Lang movie
I hate this no CGI BS because I've always loved it. But what really bothers me is that there are some amazingly talented people, entire studios and they're being hidden. They don't even get featured anymore in the making of's and its harder than ever to appreciate work done. And I want to appreciate it. I love it, its a massive part of TV and movie watching for me. In games I understand the graphics engine used, I know the studio's and developers. I know some of the individuals too. They're celebrated enough there are programmers who are famous and designers who are famous. No one in gaming ever believes its anything but CG and they love it. Why can't we appreciate movies and TV in the same way?
Not to mention the fact that recently games have gotten so good that they can actually fool people, I mean if graphics rendered in real time can look so real as to fool people then of course graphics rendered for a movie where they had almost unlimited time to render it will also look just as good as the real thing.
@@hedgehog3180 I really think something incredible is happening around unreal engine. You see things like the Mandalorian TV show where the backgrounds are unreal engine real-time landscapes projected onto giant video walls. So the film making tools are just wildly good already and I'm seeing a lot of really long shorts on youtube, like 10 minutes and up made by single people and they look real to me. Only the face animation still signals this is animation but its wild to me that a small team with no financial backing could make an entire movie now. I haven't seen it happen yet but I wonder if there is gate keeping going on in the industry to stop this flood of talent watering down the 100 million dollar productions but that's a bit tin foil hat.
@@ClayMann I mean you can find plenty of indie people making animation but that's been a thing since the Newground days of flash animation.
Great series! Really enjoyed watching these. As someone who finds visual effects fascinating and wants to learn more, it truly is a blessing to get home and watch this. I can't wait to see what you release next!
Same thing happens with video-game graphics nowadays, everything is presented and marketed with a bunch of keywords and phrases like "8K textures!", "Made in unreal engine!", "He has millions of polygons!" but like, that literally does not matter at all if the art direction and consistency is not there. The same reason as why some old CGI holds up apply to games, and let me tell you... its not about any amout of resolution nor 'realism'...there are SO MANY posts and videos of 3D artists presenting their projects with HUGE watermarks of graphical engines and 3D softwares all over the place for no reason but the name, cause people who dont know better will see that and "Wow! That's why it looks so good!"
My mom created me with no cgi
Incredible research and breakdown
Thanks, Conor!
One of the best filmmaking channels on CZcams! Thank you, Jonas. You are doing Lord’s work!
I've been waiting for this moment for so long. Thanks for bringing us this videos. I really apreciatte your work. Thanks a lot!
Celebrate artists regardless of the medium.
The idea that directors or producers think some artists are more valuable than others is no great surprise. Screw those people. Call them out whenever possible.
This is the most wonderful series and I would really love to see more.
I'm more excited for this video that I was for The Rise of Skywalker
Your channel is a godsend! Again - I work in different field - As a concept artist in gaming idustry I face different issues
but still - It's so good to finally have someone explaining clearly the issues with VFX in movie industry nowadays and it's hypocrisy.
Thank you so much!
I am so happy to hear that you will continue doing videos! You can't keep those editing skills, knowledge and humor away from us. You are now my nr 1 youtube channel. What amazing work. I love your humor and your editing! The wait for your next video is going to be tough. Hälsningar från Sverige!
I think the whole cgi is bad thing is because the obvious shots were more criticised than the invisible ones, and people being told no cgi makes the obvious ones more invisible so no one actively looks for it.
It’s a good thing you made this series so that soon no one has to tell you “no cgi” for that immersion that you don’t get for looking for cgi
Some camera shots suck too. Let’s do away with cameras too while we’re at it. 😂
For some reason, people will tolerate and even embrace a bad practical effect while excoriating a bad CGI effect. It doesn't make any sense to me.
@@Durwood71 ikr
@@Durwood71 I recommend looking up some of Federico Fellinis 70s movies, which have surreal sets explicitly made to not look realistic and for having several scenes where the actual filming is shown in the middle of the action. Nothing in his Casanova or The Ship Sails On registers as real, but you buy into it in the moment, and the situations seem real even when the surrounding environment doesn't. It's not quite on the minimalist level of Von Trier's Dogville, but not far from it.
I have a small suspicion a bit of it is snobbery: "real" movies don't need any of this "effects" stuff because they focus completely on contemporary humans being angsty, emotional, and character developey, in contemporary human environments. Which of course is not a genre that's heavy on the VFX.
The final edition
So excited to see the last part in this series! CZcams did it's job recommending your first video to me not long after it was posted. I've immensely enjoyed this series.
Gotta admit, "this hat is CGI" got me. No one expects them to CGI a hat lol.