CGI is Ruining Acting 

Seriously, I came to hate CGI so much, mostly because it's way overused. Every movie frame looks digitally altered nowadays. I can't stand it. It's a visual pleasure to watch older movies with practical SFX, like Terminator, even though the puppets they used don't look believable 50% of the time, at least our brain knows they actually exist.

Balanced analysis. "It's a tool." Totally agree! Though i do feel sorry for the actors trying to react to a tennis ball😅

We're going to give an oscar to the fucking tennis ball aren't we

you all do realize that theater actors have been pretending about their surroundings for centuries? they don't put a fricking desert out on a stage for a live play

On the point! Music videos, commercials and short films that I have directed or been involved with, have mostly been on an actual location. But with digital enhancement in post. For the actors it works better if they have a physical object that have something more to work with than "hit this mark" or so. Generally actors work better when they have someone there than just reading lines and with the direction such as "Look shocked. No right beside the camera lense. Up, up, up.. NO! Lower." My reel looks grounded, and the actors have something to interact with, so they seem real. On one occasion, though, people asked me how I got this very amazing shot for a short film of mine done. Opening shot panning down from a bright blue sky to this girl sitting by the water. Many people assumed that it was done in front of a green screen or so, but in reality...well we were awfully lucky with the location and the weather. My brilliant DOP more or less just needed to frame it and sit back and relax. A total fluke when it came to timing. This was a 3 day shoot (day and night) and the days before, the weather was quite the opposite of what we wished for, And then suddenly bright sunlight for a few days, The very second we left the location, it started raining cats and dogs. However, I would have to say that even that perfect frame was digitally altered. No sky replacement, nothing at all except for some color grading. Still a visual effect. Ergo: the perfect mesh is if you have the right team both in front and behind the camera, who understands your vision. And with a little bit of luck and with good coordination, you can make great things together.

Ideally the plan should be to never need CGI and either use it sparingly or not at all. Ideally everything should be tried to be done in-camera first and whatever is truly impossible to pull off in real life that is the only time CGI should be needed but if you use too much CGI even the audience will find it hard to suspend their disbelief especially if it ends up looking like a PS2 game. Bad CGI has been done so much that the audience is clamouring for more Practical Effects again & will seek them out like I do now and in the modern age it be interesting to see what more Practical Effects filmmaking would look like on a modern mainstream budget compared to the 70’s, 80’s & 90’s and to see how far that can be pushed before needing CGI

What an amazing video! I really appreciate the angle you took amongst all the CGI discourse these days. As a filmmaker with no budget but some CGI skills, I am always looking for the best ways to come in Clutch with CGI in order to elevate my production value, without needing to prop my story up with the Crutch of CGI. I'm really glad to have that vernacular now. Subscribed!😎 Keep making great videos, mate!

this video had some great points, but i really hate when people disrespect the artists and the creativity involved in cgi the way you did at 11:16 the whole video feels so condescending to artists when the focus should be on the awful studios who force time constraints and last minute/poorly planned cgi. none of this is new though, as the movie rabbit hole (a channel you pointed to) explained in a video this lazy film making you talk about didnt come about with the advent of cgi, nor is it recent at all. matte paintings and unbuilt sets have been surprisingly and incredibly prevalent in film making for about a century. when a movie is made for profit, people get greedy. when profit is involved people become tantalized. its everywhere in our world ._. soooooooo yeah anyways just think about the message you are sending young audiences about laborers. movie companies are to blame!!!! loved the video though sorry for this tangent

Since 1993, CGI revolutionized everything! BUT I forgive uses of CGI if it involves dinosaurs, TALKiNG DRaGONS, Na’Vi and dangerous stunts! NOT possible recreations like Beasts, werewolves, dwarves(you can still hire real actors for them) and humans! And maybe forgive uses of CGI if an actor is so ornitophobic that live birds shouldn’t be used at all!

You don't like CGI, watch the 1976 version of King Kong😅