“what is drama but life with the dull bits cut out ... · “what is drama but life with the dull...

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personal A holographic Stars Wars could happen Help us George Lucas, you’re our only hope — it’s not just Leia who can play the holo- graphic game. According to special effects maestro Dennis Muren, “If there is a way in the future to do a hologram version [of Star Wars] and the fans want it, then it should be done. You don’t just want to stop making movies and keep releasing old ones, though. These releases should be seen as a supplementary thing.” Pacific Rim based on a 200-year-old painting Although it’s a film about massive robots fighting giant monsters, Pacific Rim’s director, Guillermo del Toro had very specific reference material for the animation team: Goya’s 19th century painting, The Colossus. The fight scenes in the film were completely computer generated but animation director Hal Hickel says, “That was first image he showed us, The Colossus by Goya and the first words del Toro spoke to us about Pacific Rim were ‘operatic’ and ‘poetic’.” . “What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.” — ALFRED HITCHCOCK Surprising ways famous film special effects were made Here’s debunking the movie magic behind the visual effects of monsters on a rampage, communications in space or blowing up cars in.techradar.com R ecent technologies have changed filmmaking forever. But special effects are now so seamlessly done that sometimes you can’t even tell that the crew didn’t just pitch up with their cameras and record real life for two hours. Here are five surprising ways that tech has been used to create recent films: Gravity’s sound effects were recorded underwater How do you make space sound like space? Go underwater. The Oscar-winning sound effects team on Gravity created every sound you hear in the film from scratch, often recording underwater to get that fuzzy, echoey clonks of space engineering just right. They also recorded real live NASA staff saying real life NASA things for that added element of authenticity. Godzilla is half man, half CGI monster Okay, so maybe not quite half and half, but while the team behind Godzilla reboot created most of the monster using computer animation, they also took inspiration from the original by putting Andy Serkis in a motion-capture suit to add some man-in-a-monster- suit authenticity to certain scenes. “2D to 3D is a labour of love” So says 3D’s biggest advocate, James Cameron, of the process of turning Titanic from 2D to 3D. It’s not a case of find and replace, it’s a manual labour of love. “It is a mind-numbing process of creating depth subjectively,” he says. “I sit there with the jog wheel and look through the movie frame-by- frame and make notes on depth. That should be closer, that should be further back, there’s not enough full depth here. It’s like mowing the lawn with a toenail clipper.” MUMBAI, WEDNESDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER 2015 03

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Page 1: “What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out ... · “What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.” — ALFRED HITCHCOCK Surprising ways famous film special effects

personal

A holographic Stars Wars could happenHelp us George Lucas, you’re our only hope — it’s not just Leia who can play the holo-graphic game. According to special effects maestro Dennis Muren, “If there is a way in

the future to do a hologram version [of Star Wars] and the fans want it,

then it should be done. You don’t just want to stop making movies and keep releasing old

ones, though. These releases should be seen as a supplementary thing.”

Pacific Rim based on a 200-year-old paintingAlthough it’s a film about massive robots fighting giant monsters, Pacific Rim’s director, Guillermo del Toro had very specific reference material for the animation team: Goya’s 19th century

painting, The Colossus.The fight scenes in the film were completely computer generated but animation director Hal Hickel says, “That was first image he showed us, The Colossus by Goya and the first words del Toro spoke to us about Pacific Rimwere ‘operatic’ and ‘poetic’.”.

“What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.” — ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Surprising ways famous film special effects were madeHere’s debunking the movie magic behind the visual effects of monsters on a rampage, communications in space or blowing up carsin.techradar.com

Recent technologies have changed filmmaking forever. But special effects are now so seamlessly done that sometimes you can’t even tell that the crew didn’t just pitch up with their cameras and

record real life for two hours. Here are five surprising ways that tech has been used to create recent films:

Gravity’s sound effects were recorded underwaterHow do you make space sound like space? Go underwater. The Oscar-winning sound effects team on Gravity created every sound you hear in the film from scratch, often recording underwater to get that fuzzy, echoey clonks of space engineering just right. They also recorded real live NASA staff saying real life NASA things for that added element of authenticity.

Godzilla is half man, half CGI monsterOkay, so maybe not quite half and half, but while the team behind Godzilla reboot created most of the monster using computer animation, they also took inspiration from the original by putting Andy Serkis in a motion-capture suit to add some man-in-a-monster-suit authenticity to certain scenes.

“2D to 3D is a labour of love”So says 3D’s biggest advocate, James Cameron, of the process of turning Titanic from 2D to 3D. It’s not a case of find and replace, it’s a manual labour of love. “It is a mind-numbing process of creating depth subjectively,” he says. “I sit there with the jog wheel and look through the movie frame-by-frame and make notes on depth. That should be closer, that should be further back, there’s not enough full depth here. It’s like mowing the lawn with a toenail clipper.”

MUMBAI, WEDNESDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER 2015 03

Product: ETNEWMumbaiBS PubDate: 02-09-2015 Zone: PanacheMumbai Edition: 1 Page: ETPANMP3 User: shashib0612 Time: 09-01-2015 16:24 Color: CMYK