Slashdot Log In
ILM Showcases "Dead Man's Chest" Effects Work
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Dec 16, 2006 02:53 PM
from the playing-with-the-fishies dept.
from the playing-with-the-fishies dept.
bonniegrrl writes "The work of ILM folks (including VFX supervisor John Knoll) is being showcased in a site just launched to explore the mind-blowing visual effects of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (heavy Flash). Interactive clips at the site allow you to peel back layers of animation to see what ILM had to start with before transforming actors wearing tracking markers into astonishingly real characters. Test your effects awareness by making the call: what's real and what's ILM, rotate turntable models of the animated characters, and download some goodies." The submitter also claims that there are a few Easter Eggs of footage in there somewhere.
Related Stories
[+]
GDC: LucasArts and The Force Unleashed 54 comments
With the title of 'Next Generation GamePlay in Service of Story and Characters', LucasArts had a lot of ground to cover Thursday morning. Their new technologies have been well received, and the developers and journalists in the room were anticipating details on the over-the-top effects we've seen from The Force Unleashed. From a technical standpoint, Haden Blackman's talk fully delivered. Read on for my notes from this fascinating look at the point where storytelling and physics meet.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
bad title (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Re:bad title (Score:5, Interesting)
I work part time in a sex toy store. We can barely keep the Pirates movie in stock. It is a three-disc set with an HDDVD disc and then the DVD movie disc and I assume a behind the scenes DVD disc. We have been selling it for over six months.
Supposedly the movie was good enough (better than most b-movies) that they removed the explicit stuff and made an unrated version that can be viewed by those under 18 depending on where you live. We, do not allow those under 18 to enter our store, but the local Family Video has the X rated version in the back room, while in the main area with all the other movies you can get the unrated version. It probably sits on the shelf right next to Pirates of the Caribbean.
It is always funny to have someone tell me the movie sucks and they ask why we would sell a non porn film in our store. It is then that I inform them that they only watched the non-X version and that they should watch it again with all of the action.
I still say the greatest scene is about midway through the movie (which is 2 hours long) where they are showing a lesbian scene. The two girls are doing their thing on the floor while about 6-9 pirates stand around occasionally yelling in unison "Arggh" or "God save the wenches". One of the funniest moments I have seen in porn in years.
Now all of you can go back to discussing the tech aspects of the site in the blurb. Although the site is interesting I think it is a little short on details, but I guess that is what a 'behind the scenes' disc is for when you purchase or rent the movie.
Parent
Mind-Blowing (Score:3, Funny)
I don't know about mind-blowing, but I do distinctly remember quite a bit of "Snot"-blowing special FX at the end of PotC:DMC.
I didn't notice a lot of special effects... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
visible effects are like when you see king kong in new york, or the whole planet explode, everyone knows that this is NOT happening.
invisible effects are the ones you're refering to, like 'god how does he run around the walls of the room without falling' that kind of thing.
If you start to notice 'invisible effects', then I guess they're lousy
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Way to destroy the movie magic.... (Score:3, Interesting)
10:15 Moviewreck
'...fun free footage of some whiny voiced special effects blubberbag in a Perfect Storm baseball cap taking us through a wireframe build of the spectacular finale again and again and again and again until the entire sequence is inorexably rendered so mundane and familiar the experience of finally seeing it... .. feels more like a lunchtime repeat of Knot's Landing than the white knuckle climax it would have been before the slickarsed marketing fucks responsble for tossing together this say-nothing advertorial assault on your dignity spoiled it all as part of their ongoing quest to bully the world into galloping down to the nerest multiplex to gawp at tits and explosions like the oblivious victims of a dystopian stupidity virus.'
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Swordfish!
Re: (Score:2)
All that Glimmers (Score:2)
If you download Keef, realize that the music biz learned a long time ago that he's impossible to delete.
It's "Captain" Jack Sparrow to you! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Shark-jumping (Score:5, Funny)
The whole movie was just way over the top.
fake (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I checked it on IMDB too to be safe but it was around 8.5 at the time! (8.5!)
I learnt a harsh lesson that day and that was to trust the critics scores and NOT the fanboys.
I've never looked at imdb the same since, ever since then I've used rotten tomatoes critics scores rather than imdb or rotten tomatoes user scores.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pirates_of_the_car ibbean_dead_mans_chest/ [rottentomatoes.com]
53% for dead mans chest (an absoloutely spot on rating as fa
no luck here with flash on Linux (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
bonniegrrl writes... (Score:2)
bonniegrrl's profile (Score:2)
sites should stick with Flash 7 content (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, you are wrong. I even got a debian package with flash 9:
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I could tell it was all CG effects (Score:5, Insightful)
The first PotC movie was great fun, but the second one fell way short of the mark. And one of the main reasons was because they spent so much time showcasing effects and so little on story. I mean, the end... WTF?? Does that make any kind of sense to anybody? Are you really waiting on the edge of your seat to find out how that was possible or did you just roll your eyes?
All the scenes on Davy Jones' ship looked fake. Completely fake. It was as if the characters walked off the real world and into this alternate world where every single person or object is made out of CG. It felt claustrophobic. Maybe that was part of the point
Similarly, the scenes with the voodoo witch lady. Wow, way to come up with a cheap way to move the plot forward in between action scenes. All the characters miraculously appear in some green-tinged CG swamp where the voodoo lady is always up and waiting for guests. Almost as if she was, say... an Oracle?? Then we leave again and it's back to the rest of the movie.
It's the same thing people are always saying about videogames these days. Too much money spent on the look, not enough on "game play" -- or, in this case, giving you an entertaining movie to watch.
And what is the deal with making every movie three hours long these days? I'm sorry, but there was not enough movie in King Kong to last three hours. There wasn't enough in PotC: Dead Man's Chest, there wasn't enough in Casino Royale
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The first PotC was such an awesome movie because Disney thought it would suck. They half-made it, and tossed it aside. Because they thought it would fail, they let the director and Johnny Depp do their thing - no market droids wanted to touch it.
Then, when it was all wrapped up and finished, they watched it and said "Damn, this is pretty good." But, before they could market the hell out of it and reinsert more special effects, the thing came out.
You could tell Disney's i
Re:I could tell it was all CG effects (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
That's funny since I also remember the effects AND Johny Depp's performance AND the humor.
You guys are oversimplifying everything. "It's not about the effects!", breaking news: it's ALSO about the effects, it's about everything in a careful balance, that, if done properly is called "a good movie".
It's not as if they had effects, they had to have crappy script, it just happens so tha
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Did anyone else think of the voodoo lady in Monkey Island II when they watched these Dead Man's Chest scenes?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
No, she was a clear ripoff off the Voodoo Lady [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
missing the point, conflating, and No You Couldn't (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember the FIRST Commandment of movies. (Score:2)
SHOW me, don't TELL me.
The problem is that the "logical cues" make you look for the "visual" cues ... but the visual cues aren't there because the logical cues aren't "logical" so their absence is a "mistake".
Movie MUST follow its own "logic". Even when that logic is not the same as the Real World's logic.
And the way you communicate that logic to the viewer is with pictures and sounds. And they failed t
Re: (Score:2)
88 Min Toy Story 2.5 Hr DMC (Score:2)
The former I watched bits and pieces of but failed to get into. Swordplay on top of accidentally released water wheels? Please.
The latter I watched all the way through. Again. The dialog, the story, the characters, everything works.
"YOU - ARE - A - TOYYYY!!!!"
Re:I could tell it was all CG effects (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What part of "one of the many..." did oyu have trouble understanding. Let me explain this in plain english. Lucas relied far too much on CG effects instead of models and costume effects like in his original trilogy. The many part refers to the fact that this is one of, well, many problems with the films. This could certainly include the writing, which was by the way horrible at best.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
>always up and waiting for guests. Almost as if she was, say... an Oracle??
It worked in The Secret of Monkey Island.
Re: (Score:2)
(which Disney apparently feels so compelled to justify that it set up a Web site to promote them).
Actually, the site appears to have been set up by ILM & Lucas digital to help bolster their rep and visibility leading into awards time.
Say what you want about some of the effects, but the Davey Jones stuff, water effects and some of the matchmoving (the beached Pearl) were among the most impressive effects shots ever put on screen, and ILM deserves the right to brag a little. Their thunder has been stolen the past 10 years or so while having their A-teams working on the Star Wars prequels. Weta and Im
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's the weekend, calm down. (Score:2)