Your Favorite Movie Effects
movie effects have developed and changed quite a bit over time. from stop-motion and various on-set techniques to digital, computer animation, & CGI. Additions can be made digitally in post-production, or practical/mechanical on-set effects can be filmed in shot.
This thread will be dedicated to ones we find memorable. a good effect doesn't need to be complex, it can be simple. comes down to execution, sound effects, fitting the story & serving the narrative. or hell, other times, they're just damn cool these won't be presented in any particular order. for some, it all may be silly. but for me, it's when i get to see people's imagination come to life. and while it's easy for some to laugh or criticize a special effect, people can put lots of time, effort and love into them. simply with the intent to create something special that people will enjoy. and i think that's a really cool thing feel free to add your own |
http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...ps25900513.jpg favorite part with the t1000 is when it starts malfunctioning in the steel mill after it is frozen by liquid nitrogen & shattered by Arnoldthe T-1000, liquid metal in T2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1991) http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...jpg%7Eoriginal Stan Winston Studio, the special effects team for T2, broke unprecedented new ground with the T-1000 liquid metal effects “The endoskeletons, which had been the big deal on Terminator, were the least of our problems on Terminator 2,” said 25-year SWS supervisor and Co-Founder of Legacy Effects, John Rosengrant. “By far, the most challenging things we did for Terminator 2 were these physical effects involving the T-1000 character. We did a lot of in-camera magic tricks for that — splitting open bodies, finger blades, heads blowing open, bullet-hit wounds. Every day, there was something new and challenging to do.” http://media.giphy.com/media/jKnKpoFV1KEYo/giphy.gif it becomes damaged, loses control of its morphing ability, & starts glitching http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...ps01e64909.jpg basically, the liquid metal concept is f#ing awesomehttp://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...ps01966a90.jpg http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...ps60cbfd22.jpg ↓ dude working on the Pretzel Man effect at the end of the film ↓ |
Re: Nostromo's Favorite Movie Effects
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Re: Nostromo's Favorite Movie Effects
Cool idea for a list. I'm expecting some Harryhausen!
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you read my mind swan, had this set up and ready to publish a few hours ago http://onaquasirelatednote.files.wor...2/07/talos.jpg Talos, the guard of Crete http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19iTLbUC-ZQ & the Skeleton Army http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view1/467...rgonauts-o.gif http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...ps36dc62a4.jpg http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/1063...keletons-o.gif in Jason & the Argonauts (Don Chaffey, 1963) the special effects magician is Ray Harryhausen. he created a form of stop-motion model animation called 'Dynamation.' He died in May of last year (2013), but his work still lives. and is still awesome. There's something about that huge giant statue coming to life, that just works. I need to revisit a few of the Ray Harryhausen movies. i think i saw a lot of them when i was really young, but they're hazy in my memory. i watched Jason & the Argonauts just a couple years ago tho |
Re: Nostromo's Favorite Movie Effects
The seven-headed Hydra is his masterwork. :up:
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Originally Posted by nostromo87 (Post 1057586)
Just how I feel when I have a splitting headache. |
Re: Nostromo's Favorite Movie Effects
God rest Harryhausen.
Also a personal favorite... THE QUICKENING! http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q2tQIS8mCl...er%2BMovie.jpg http://www.weapons-universe.com/Swor...er-Victory.jpg |
Re: Nostromo's Favorite Movie Effects
Jason and the Argonauts is a perfect pick to represent Harryhausen. Talos, the giant Titan statue, is one of my all-time favorite effects, although like Swan said, the hydra is awesome also. And the harpies and the skeleton army and the...am I leaving anything out? My favorite Harryhausen film, but I love them all. Thanks for going through the whole spectrum of effects, old school and new. :up:
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Originally Posted by The Gunslinger45 (Post 1057621)
Nice to see you again, MacLeod! There can be only one. |
Re: Nostromo's Favorite Movie Effects
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Re: Nostromo's Favorite Movie Effects
Will there be any practical blood effects on this list? One of my biggest pet peeves in horror flicks these days is CGI blood!
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Originally Posted by The Gunslinger45 (Post 1057652)
Will there be any practical blood effects on this list? One of my biggest pet peeves in horror flicks these days is CGI blood!
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Re: Nostromo's Favorite Movie Effects
In my eyes Blade Runner is the most visually stunning film ever made, and the special effects are marvelous. I might be a bit biased however considering its my favorite film of all-time. :)
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ll...o1_r15_500.gif http://www.slate.com/content/dam/sla...l-original.gif http://www.waddilover.com/wp-content...2/04/6vqoE.gif |
Originally Posted by Daniel M (Post 1057660)
If so, whether you like it or not, Kill Bill needs a mention! http://kotaku.com/5936137/kill-bills...lose-haircuts/
But still I prefer Tom Savini! :D |
Re: Nostromo's Favorite Movie Effects
Mezmerized, what movie is the gif that you posted from?
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Originally Posted by dadgumblah (Post 1057675)
Mezmerized, what movie is the gif that you posted from?
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Originally Posted by The Gunslinger45 (Post 1057652)
Will there be any practical blood effects on this list? One of my biggest pet peeves in horror flicks these days is CGI blood!
Blood is either CGI or chocolate syrup. I rarely see real blood used in movies. |
Originally Posted by dadgumblah (Post 1057675)
Mezmerized, what movie is the gif that you posted from?
Yes. Artificial Intelligence. Directed by Steven Spielberg. One of the few movies where I appreciate CGI. |
Originally Posted by Daniel M (Post 1057660)
If so, whether you like it or not, Kill Bill needs a mention!
I was very disappointed with Kill Bill. It supposedly starred David Carradine, and yet I never saw him in the movie. Master Po would be very upset about this. Ah, fear not, Grasshopper. http://www.soulsword.com/wp-content/...po-300x267.jpg |
Thanks, Swan and Mesmerized. I've even seen A.I. but totally forgot this scene. Need to revisit that movie.
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Re: Nostromo's Favorite Movie Effects
It's in the beginning of the movie where Professor Hobby is describing his vision about a child who loves.
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Originally Posted by The Gunslinger45 (Post 1057652)
Will there be any practical blood effects on this list? One of my biggest pet peeves in horror flicks these days is CGI blood!
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Originally Posted by nostromo87 (Post 1057758)
we'll see, as Mesmerized alluded to- chocolate syrup tends to translate to film well. think i heard that Hitchcock started that trend with the shower scene in Psycho
I think Hitchcock also perfected movie editing. Not a single nipple... or anything else appears in that shower scene. I went through that scene once frame by frame and nothing shows. |
Re: Your Favorite Movie Effects
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Re: Your Favorite Movie Effects
Swan, thanks for posting that. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't seen any of Keaton's early classics. But merely from this clip, I'll have to buy this movie. Thanks!
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Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds Are Go had incredible miniatures.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMEuEF9-UbU |
Dream Attack --- a Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984) Twenty-six years before Chris Nolan was spinning hallways in Inception, Wes Craven's crew built a rotating room for his movie about dreams http://media.portable.tv/wp-content/...t-portable.gif i watched a behind-the-scenes featurette and the actors, Amanda Wyss & Jsu Garcia, who play Tina & Rod, talked about how bizarre and nauseous this scene was to film. an upside-down room completely threw off their state of equilibrium, bed & furniture tied down to the 'ceiling,' while the ceiling is really the floor. imagine yourself in a room like that, if you could flip your room upside down and walk on the ceiling. this is a movie that's filled with cool practical gags, sometimes simple, yet effective http://media.giphy.com/media/12Jzm9B7IXicgg/giphy.gif speaking of the T-1000, covered in the first post of this thread, here's a shot from T2 that's pretty much identical in concept with one in a Nightmare on Elm Street - which was released 7 years before: http://www.jamescamerononline.com/15.jpg http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...psdc7a9670.jpg Fun with Movie History: this film goes to show that cool practical effects can be pulled off even on a low budget. it cost $1.8 million to make the original Nightmare on Elm Street. and it cleaned up at the box office, making $26,319,961, 14.6x's its budget http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_la...op9yo1_500.gif http://31.media.tumblr.com/499e68d2d...xy6bo1_500.gif |
Re: Your Favorite Movie Effects
Speaking of rotating rooms...
Weird Science (1985) http://i776.photobucket.com/albums/y...ps88f5748c.gif 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) http://i776.photobucket.com/albums/y...ps3a39b4af.gif |
Re: Your Favorite Movie Effects
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not all movie effects have to be mechanical, sometimes they are artistic and help to create a cool visual atmosphere
hence, Fun with matte paintings: this is sort of a lost art form in current moviemaking: the hand-drawn matte painting. i love these sort of things bc i love to draw. when these are done well, we don't even think of them as matte paintings, we think of them as part of the movie and part of the setting. that's the magic matte painters can help to create http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-POQQriBHS-...lack+narc1.jpg ↑ matte painting in Black Narcissus (1947) ↑ http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8f1a9c32.jpg http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2f67a238.jpg in the Ray Harryhausen universe, here's a matte painting for the Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), painted by Emilio Ruiz del Rio http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...psf7d2bc4b.jpg http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...pseba8c9dd.jpg http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...pscc7e2756.jpg http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9257316a.jpg no post about matte paintings would be complete without Ralph McQuarrie working on mattes for the Original Trilogy http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...ps59df2b13.jpg ↑ Planet of the Apes (1968) matte ↑ http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...psd2d8319c.jpg http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...ps78c71dbe.jpg Ebert said Citizen Kane (1941), had more special effects shots than Star Wars http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...ps22ad4f4b.jpg |
Speaking of Indiana Jones...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk2E1CoGe98 http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u...jos/kalima.gif |
I did a Top 20 a couple years back with my fave CGI. Here 'tis...
20: Troll Hunter Ok, overall it's a bad film but the CGI is absolutely top notch when it's actually used. Especially for a movie that was shot on such a low budget too. 19: Cowboys And Aliens A Marmite film for movie goers but the CGI involved, not just with the aliens, but all of the CGI throughout, is almost faultless. 18: Independence Day Giving worldwide audiences 'On Screen CGI Destruction' that had never been seen before, and, exhilarating and faultless CGI dogfights too. 17: Terminator Salvation Not the best of the Terminator Franchise but the CGI Machines seen throughout are undeniably realistic. Then there's that cameo from Arnie too. 16: I, Robot Highly stylised looking CGI but certainly some of the best rendered in the movie business. 15: Sam Raimi's Spider Man (Original Movie) Raimi's original outing for Spidey gave audiences a view of the comic book hero that they had only dreamt about. Then he gave them more when his cameras decided to follow Spidey while swinging through the streets. 14: 2012 Awful, awful movie and the second one of Emmerich's to appear in this list, but the CGI used in 2012 is absolutely breath taking. 13: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith From the aliens, to the space ships to the Clone Soldiers themselves. Lucas' movie may not be the best of the Saga, but is still a gem in the CGI world. 12: The Abyss Never-before-seen images bring the movie almost into its own genre. Whenever there's CGI on screen, even after over 20 years, it never fails to impress with it's realism and imagination. 11: Evolution One of Reitman's in this list (), this time round there's the originality of the creatures involved throughout, and the fact that the CGI is incredibly realistic, make this a must see. 10: Terminator 2: Judgment Day Cameron blew us away with The Abyss but T2 gave audiences a taste of things to come in the future of movies, and broke the mould of CGI forever. 9: Paul Another Marmite movie, but this is about the CGI. Paul absolutely blew me away with the sheer realism of the titular character. Simplistic in the look and rendered absolutely flawlessly. 8: The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy It was hard to pick just one out of these three movies, so I had to put all three into 8th place. The CG effects were awesomely awesome in the first film, and actually got better as the movies progressed. 7: Cloverfield Similar to Troll Hunter in that the CGI is used incredibly sparingly, but when it is, wow! Stunningly realistic and highly imaginative. 6: Avatar Yet another James Cameron flick in the list. This time round no expense has been spared on the highly stylised CGI aliens, CGI forest and the realistic human machines involved too, are top drawer. 5: The Matrix (Original Film) Forgetting the awful cartoony sequels, the original Matrix gave audiences top notch CGI effects mixed with computerised cameramen. In the process, the filmmakers also gave us Bullet Time. 4: Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes More highly stylised CGI, almost to the point of 'cartoonyness' but what makes it stand out is that the filmmakers have made it a style choice. Apes has by far the best CGI when it comes to real life creatures. 3: Pirates Of The Caribbean Original Trilogy Again, it was tough to choose just one of the movies. The CGI throughout is like with LOTR: It starts out faultless and gets better as the movies progress. What makes Pirates stand out though, is the traditional and legendary look of the CGI, in regard to the world that the movies are set in. 2: Jurassic Park The CGI in Jurassic Park didn't just blow away audiences, but it blew away the competition. Over 20 years on and the CGI is still talked about as if it came out last year. Even today, there are scenes in the movie that still throw me into disbelief. 1: Starship Troopers A massive surprise for me when I first saw it. I expected the usual standard 'Verhoeven sci-fi', like Total Recall or Robocop. What I saw though has lived with me for a long, long time. Starship Troopers' CGI is flawless, faultless and extremely exciting in the action stakes. It's one of only two movies, Jurassic Park being the other, that still fool my eye. |
Great post Nostromo!
I think purely because of its age, Metropolis's welter of techniques have always stood out for me. The black box risk of of the multiple exposures (eyes etc), the striking mix of mattes, models & lighting, the pre-bluescreen 'schufftan process' trickery etc etc. [05:38 if timecode doesn't work] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4rI__TRvcY&start=336 And of course the pure pre-cliche-chic of the transformation: [1hr 24mins-ish if timecode doesn't work] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4rI__TRvcY&start=5040 |
Originally Posted by Golgot (Post 1058074)
Great post Nostromo!
I think purely because it's age, Metropolis's welter of techniques have always stood out for me. The black box risk of of the multiple exposures (eyes etc), the striking mix of mattes, models & lighting, the pre-bluescreen 'schufftan process' trickery etc etc. |
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Re: Your Favorite Movie Effects
in my opinion The Thing and 2001 a space odyssey got the best special effects
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Re: Your Favorite Movie Effects
Baron_Gorc, thanks for including Royal Wedding (1951) in the special effects group. One of my favorite Fred Astaire movies, and of course, favorite scenes. Also thanks to Golgot and nostromo for the Metropolis scenes. I love it when the older movies get love, because, well, I'm a bit old. :p
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Just as an update on Metropolis, ended up reading this decent interview with Fritz Lang (scroll down). Some great innovation chatter in there :)...
...he synchronized the camera with a projector that was to project the picture of a man on the videophone. That was done with linked rods connected by mobile joints going from the camera to the projector, which were, because of the shooting stage, rather far from each other.
Another camera effect concentrated on creating the robot Maria. The concentric rings of light that surround her and move from top to bottom were in fact a little ball of silver rapidly turning in a circle and filmed on a background of black velvet. We superimposed those shots, in the lab, over the shot of the robot in a sitting position that we had filmed previously.
The way we filmed the explosion of the heart machine was one of the first uses of the subjective camera, giving the audience the same impression that the actors feel of the shock. The camera was attached to a swinging pulley on a vertical board that advanced toward the machine on the platform then moved back to give the effect of the explosion.
--- And on oldies dgb, I reckon expert use of the montage should count, and that this scene from The Roaring Twenties should be right up there :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znTW_WF7_dU |
Have to give a big second to the liquid metal in TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY. Since it was not mentioned, I also have to acknowledge the Oscar winning special effects in the 1992 comedy DEATH BECOMES HER...just amazing...especially the climactic fight between Streep and Hawn on the courtyard steps where they bodies literally fall apart.
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Not allowed to post the link to the poster yet as this is my 1st post!
Dark City brilliant bit of sci-fi with great effects. Also one of my favourites is Dune, think the effects in the film are under-rated given the year it was released (1984 i think) |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSrcMaid0mg
I've missed the activity on this thread! Here's one that mixes effects styles. all in one scene. There is a huge Alien Queen puppet, supposedly operated by between 14 to 16 operators inside and out of the Queen. There is an operator of the Power Loader hidden behind Sigourney Weaver. Long shots of Ripley fighting the Queen are done with miniatures. Great stuff. |
Originally Posted by nostromo87 (Post 1057585)
feel free to add your own
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Re: Your Favorite Movie Effects
http://www.explore-science-fiction-m...ator-t1000.jpg
This was the first thing that I thought of when I saw the title of this thread. |
Re: Nostromo's Favorite Movie Effects
Originally Posted by The Gunslinger45 (Post 1057596)
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Re: Your Favorite Movie Effects
:goof:
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Re: Your Favorite Movie Effects
Lightsabers.
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Surprised to see no one mention Ava from Ex Machina (received a much deserved oscar for the vfx).
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/...2wgkpmpb4d.jpg Absolutely blew my mind how realistic she looked. I also really like Bucky Barnes's metal arm in the second and third captain america films which is a mix of practical effects and vfx. http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/...20150226160805 |
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