"NO CGI" is really just INVISIBLE CGI (3/4) 

Ha, accurate

He also completely missed the point that paintings unlike CG are tangible, real objects. He was creating a complete strawman.

@@EbonyPope And uh, what exactly is YOUR point?

Every Frame Is A Painting is a RU-vid channel

@@thewrongvine Exactly the one I pointed out. He is missing the point. When people say they prefer real things they don't mean they don't want to see special effects. That is a strawman he is implying here. Nobody cares if you use effects. And in the example he chose there is also another aspect that isn't comparable to CG used in movies. Yes matte paintings were used. But unlike CG matte paintings is real art. You know it was painted by someone with very special fine motor skills very few people possess. You don't need special skills apart from a little bit of creativity and dedication to make a 3D model. I hope you get it now.

No matter what Video it is on RU-vid, if it mentions CGI or Blender, you comment

@@florianwiedner Well, he's the guy who got a LOT of people into 3D with his free online tutorials. So, that's a kind of his job, to be active part of this community. And also, he seems to be quite nice. So, you shouldn't be annoyed by him.

@@fortissimoX okay, my comment was a little misleading. He's the one who got me into 3d and I'm not annoyed he comments. It was just a funny thing I noticed and I wanted to point it out.

you taught me how to make a 3D donut long ago! nice seeing your comment here.

god, i feel really bad for the CGI studio

"And then we're gonna use your own work to erase any evidence of your existence from promos and BTS footage"

Being a VFX artist has to be so demoralizing. I don't know how people do it.

@@zeronightex Probably for money.

@@henriklarsson5221 Oh do I have news for you... 😃 there is no money in VFX sadly. That's why you hear so much about overworked and underpaid employees around the world.

That's one of the reasons why I moved to game development.

It's a whole new level of VFX hatred performed by the studios themselves to placate ignorant nerds worshipping practical effects.

im shocked! I was a lead artist on Barbie, and im blown away by that.

That is so fucking awful from Warner Bros, holy shit.

People don't care if it was filmed in a studio or not. AVATAR IS ALMOST 100% CGI and are the two biggest box office hits of literally all time. Stop worring about showing blue screens and just make good movies.

To me, that is the most horrid thing in all of this. spending the time and money to digitally alter your behind the scenes footage just to lie to people about not using digital footage. and in the process attacking the work of thousands of real artists.

When I watched those old movies when I was a kid, I used to think "wow, they had to build all those sets." But no, turns out they didn't.

They certainly were! I think the older films were framed better for those long shots with matte paintings so they were literally background and tended to blend in. A lot of films today are CUT, CUT, CUT, and you don't even have time to notice so they can get away with anything. It also helps that a lot of matte paintings were designed to be shown on the lower resolutions at the time too - it's harder to get away with now when using a lingering shot.

I kind of wish movies today would actually go back to that type of effect more.

@osmanyousif7849 Matte paintings don't work nearly as well in crystal clear high definition. They worked so well back then because it was filmed on celluloid which has its own grain. Even then, it wasn't invisible. Today's compositing is miles ahead of what they had back then.

@@wiredforstereo, what about miniatures? As I feel like those type of effects don’t get talked about as much today (even though the video here does mention Oppenheimer using miniatures). Especially since I always think about what some action scenes could look like, if CGI wasn’t used, but neither was practical, and the studio used miniatures.

That's like showing a slaughterhouse and replacing cows with cow-shaped sausages.

They used VFX... to hide the VFX from the b roll... demonstrating how they didn’t use VFX. 🤯

It’s insulting honestly. Studios are crazy

@@ArifRWinandar Except there are reasonable explanations for why someone would want to conceal elements of a slaughterhouse lol

Criminal, even

I've watched your VFX reacts so much that this series gives me chills when he mentions any technique or concept also brought up in VFX react. It kind of feels like I didn't fail Corridor Crew in learning all these knowledge. While this series is fantastically insightful, I still want to express my appreciation for everything Corridor Crew has taught me.

Thank you! Bummed you beat me to Barbenheimer by 5 days, loved that video 😬

You should invite him to your sofa, get even more exposure onto this "no cgi"-BS.

@@IonSnake ikr!

@@TheMovieRabbitHole I wanted to say - I found your channel when you had barely 4k subscribers and the first video of this series was just posted - you are doing amazing work, have an extremely nice and likeable on screen persona, and your visual work to underscore what you are talking about - plus your research - are top quality. I wish you a lot of success!

wow, I commend your guys work man. Many older movies are masterpieces because you guys exist.

As for Tom Cruise you dont exist, no cgi! no cgi!

Maybe a few more decades of stuff like this and screaming morons like @EbonyPope will start to diminish. In their myopic, ignorant, hilariously and publicly embarrassing view you're not an artist. Because, y'know, digital.

It should automatically be the first thing people see when they turn on their computers.

We have a duty brothers and sisters

It should be the first 30 minute segment of every movie. Automatically makes movies better when you think "those ain't real, ain't it?" on every scene.

Lol thanks, people

INB4 automated Community Notes with this

It should be eye-opening for some people. And it's long overdue, the "practical is better" narrative went too far.

Completely agree.

@@jackiemortesYup, a copied opinion they uphold like they came up with it completely on their own

With the millions of dollars spend for movie productions, perhaps some of this money could be spend to replace advertisments before movies with this series. Wouldn't even be tpo dissimilar: it IS a fantastic advertisment for the genius of filmmaking.

And "CGI" haters.

To be honest, I think "no color grading" *would* sell tickets as a marketing line, regardless of whether it was true or not. People generally like seeing their favorite actors in a movie so bragging about not having actors sounds horrible, but if you tell them that all the beautiful shots really looked like that when they were shot? Sounds good. Of course, that would require a general audience to know what color grading even is.

It is understandable though. Would you admire someone who said he made a magic trick and then goes to show you footage where he digitally removed the coin? Or would you rather be impressed by someone who made the coin disappear in your own hand while you stand there and watched? I think the answer is obvious. CG evolved from a tool to an outright cancer. People are just thirsty for authenticity. I get that.

“Actor makes a statement about post production that they weren’t involved in” HA sooo many times.

People get outraged by this but close to twenty straight years of "CGI IS BAD/OVERDONE" or "PRACTICAL EFFECTS ARE ALWAYS BETTER" becoming the defacto opinions of film fans online, well... Of course studios are going to play to an audience making it's druthers loudly known.

@@DanLynch2814 Oh really!! I didn't notice that scaning a actors body or face or lead actors mocap performance is a principle photography!!🤦‍♂

Good ear buddy! So funny! It's like a sound board!

Accurate

Wow I didn't catch that at first, but now I can't unhear it lol

CGS?

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Ofv63miNU1g.htmlsi=OYNQdpQJ24PayPrn

In fairness, people from production like the costume designers, set builders, and even actors (who are not also producers) don't usually get told when their work is replaced in post. They saw the costumes and sets being used during filming. Also, a lot of those BTS interviews are shot while they are filming the movie, when they might still think no VFX will be needed in post

It sounds like an Onion headline

How much is the interviewee not knowing things and how much is the Studio binging them contractually to PRETEND they don't know things? Instead of them investing the money into positive press for "invisible" CGI and slowly killing the ridiculous stigma of even good effects being used, they play around the stereotypes and try to hide how much effects contribute to their approved movies. THAT is insanity... Let's be honest. WHO cares if it's CGI or SFX or "done in camera"?? A director and editor has many tools and they should as many of those as necessary to deliver great and enjoyable entertainment. If they save money by using artificial fibers for the stand in or stunt double uniforms instead of silk and wool but it looks convincingly enough on the Silver Screen... good. Movies are expensive and everything that makes that more manageable is a good idea. As long as the product does not suffer under shoddy work. I'd rather have them use 200 more digital effects shots and the actors and crew get paid decently than the other way round, starving your employees to pay for "real effects"...

There are blue screens around the set and they still say "we're not using CGI." Like do they expect to see a big blue screen in the finished movie?

@@Ugly_German_Truths Years of bad CGI have ruined the reputation of CGI so much that no one wants to say they use it even if they do it well. They could try and rehabilitate that reputation by saying "yeah our CGI is awesome, bet you can't tell it's there," but it would probably lower their box office even if it was the best effects ever. I think most audiences want a movie to look good and don't care how that happens. Easier to lie to them so they don't avoid a movie because they think all CGI will look bad.

It's kind of both, actually.

@@KTSpeedrunsIt is

That is more or less what it means in film-making, - some effect that happens and is captured in camera. The "practical" denotes that it is done in physical reality and "on stage", only the distinction of who does it went away (as it is irrelevant). Practical effects stand in contrast to optical and digital effects, everything that happens "on stage" and before the light gets captured in the camera is practical.

Thanks! Where did you get this info?

i know the shaking wall projector was shown in a behind the scenes footage@@TheMovieRabbitHole

@@TheMovieRabbitHole From crew members at a guild screening. :)

@@KoolAidManOG Ohhhh nice.

@@TheMovieRabbitHole Terrific series btw, thank you for your work!

They must have CGI'd those sound effects in.

@@JaximusDecimus1 They CGI'd Stephen Colbert in.

It fits that small and awful looking "nuclear explosion" very well

What I love about it is that we can so clearly picture the visuals, even down to the guy on the bicycle getting caught by the blast in its own micro scene.

Although his sound effects were based on the sound effects from those movies. The actual sound of nuclear detonation is much closer to that of a gun firing, but that's not very climactic. Movies do the same thing with bald eagles, replacing their calls with that of red tailed hawks.

And sometimes the very same people who shit on CGI are the same people who feel pity and bad for CGI artists, thinking they are abused and suffering within the filmmaking industry and therefore need justice done for them. Weren't those people just mocking those CGI artists for having no skills and doing a terrible job and therefore deserving of the insults? And now they're putting on a mask to look innocent. What hypocrites!

watching behind the scenes footage (if not altered like for Barbie) and vfx breakdowns can be really insightful in modern filmmaking. They are especially mind-blowing on movies we think are mostly shot "practically" like the recently uploaded vfx breakdowns by ILM for MI7 and Napoleon or the vfx breakdowns and behind the scenes for the John Wick movies. Yes these movies do impressive things in camera, but the other stuff is just as incredible. You can find a lot here on RU-vid. And it's never the big shots that are the most impressive, it's the ones you'd never think were done this way. There is also Final Destination 5. You can find here on RU-vid a video that puts the "What was shot" and the final output of the bridge collapse scene side by side, truly eye opening. Even smaller movies use CGI these days. For exmaple: this video mentions the company DNEG. They have a vfx breakdown for Nyad, not the movie I expected to be there

Maybe that's true for some people. There are others who are consistently skeptical of digital effects and feel they diminish filmmaking, both by looking quite poor in many instances and also by changing the types of stories told. (For example, there could be an interesting movie about Napoleon, but the temptation for Scott to show big battles was so great we didn't get that movie that takes place in government buildings, bedrooms, carriage interiors, and streets). I genuinely don't like modern blockbusters as a rule, and I don't think I'm alone in this. And it has to do with how studios use CGI, and how they specifically hire filmmakers who will be push overs in relinquishing the visual identify of the film to VFX artists and studio suits. Marvel is the worst example of this. You can even like a lot of modern films that have a definitive VFX pass over almost every image, but still be skeptical of the way the industry is headed in terms of which scripts are sold, how shooting budgets and schedules presuppose that nothing will be done in camera, and how the wonderful skills of miniatures artists, matte painters, and stunt supervisors are being lost in favor of computer graphics. There is absolutely no hypocrisy to any of this.

@@2006man Both can be true. CGI has varience in quality and a fair amount of that can be attributed to time crunches and endless forced overtime. That or poor communication or poor leadership from production management so that things aren't cohesive enough.

@@2006man *And sometimes the very same people who shit on CGI are the same people who feel pity and bad for CGI artists* I mean, that's not a contradiction **IN OF ITSELF** , you can dislike something (even if based off of (in part or whole) any kind of misunderstanding, and not like feelike like the people doing something get mistreated. You can dislike a genre of music without having to think it needs to be eradicated, you can think an ideology is misguided, but should be allowed to exist so long as it doesn't harm people, why should a POV on the use of CGI preclude any sort of empathy? IMO the implied requirement doesn't seem like something that is actually mutually inclusive at all.

Awesome! I love matte paintings (if it wasn't clear already). Did you do anything we might have seen?

@@TheMovieRabbitHole You made up a strawman with that argument though. Matte paintings are a real thing after all. It's authenticity and dedication what people crave not that you don't use any visual effects whatsoever. That is a complete strawman. Nobody says this. Unlike CG though matte paintings are real art made by a real artist.

@@EbonyPope Are computer generated sets not "real art"? What about art being made in computer suddenly makes it *less* than so-called "real" art?

@@EbonyPopeit's true that a computer can help you a lot to create an image, but at the end of the day it is another tool, the same art basics and foundations apply in both media. I don't think it's fair saying one is real art by a real artist and the other is not.

​​@@EbonyPopelmao are you really saying that matte painting in physical form is real art but in cg it's not art? Are you being serious? Why dont you go back and use rocks and colors from trees and plants to draw on the walls of cave, I only consider that's true art. Anything that's made with human manufactured tools are fake art. Photography, digital 2D art, painting brushes and colors made by combining chemicals, not real enough for me.

I tend to find heavy use of vfx in movies really distracting and I barely noticed with this movie. Congratulations on being part of such a fantastic project!!!!

Old school matte paintings and force perspective shots are tricky ones to spot for a modern audience, because our first assumption is that the filmmakers back then simply didn't have the technology or know how to do it any other way than fully in camera, on location, with full scale props and sets. But, of course, that has never been true.

Yeah that explosion was one of the most anticlimactic things I've ever experienced when watching a movie, it was SO lame. He should have used CGI.

I adored the sound design, so I'll give it a pass. But good heavens, Nolan is so pedantic.@@gurratell7326

Yep, probably the only big thing I can point out as bad in Oppenheimer... it truly felt like I saw bigger explosions in Mythbusters, or like a MrBeast video. The final wide shot was just like... a truckload of gasoline exploded.

The explosion was a letdown but what does not sit right with me that he downplays the achievements with the other effects imo. They looked incredibly and the fact that they were done using stuff like a simple balloon blows your mind. It's this what people crave. The dedication and ingenuity you don't get with CG. There is an element that you cannot achieve any other way.

Seriously. Why not use some archival footage as elements in Nuke (the software) to stay true to his goal and maintaining the raw, realistic aesthetic he was aiming for? It would’ve looked incredible. And that scene was so expertly edited and directed. Also, the wispy little puff of dust for the shockwave was the cherry on top for how anticlimactic that explosion effect was. “I am become slight warmth, igniter of some drums of gasoline”

I have thought a lot about that lately

almost have to wonder if it was intentionally done sloppily as a F U to the higher-ups who requested it

The nail on the head, yes. Everything is fake in movies, that's why we seem them.

From 25% of the comments on this channel, CGI is used as a proxy for bad movie making. Instead of blaming the director or script or studio for the bad movie, people go with what they directly experience the visuals in front of them. “ if I notice the giant robot is fake that’s why the movie is bad”. Rather then “ this bad movie has destroyed my willing suspension of disbelief and all I can do is sit here and nit pick the visuals “.

I mean, a documentary is still a form of art. But yeah, I get what you mean.

@@francesconicoletti2547Oh wow that’s a great way to explain it

It's all about immersion. If you see something that is BLATANTLY fake it breaks your immersion of that fantasy world.

Hahaha I forgot about that. I was also in software engineering before.

It wasn’t meant to be spectacular that’s the whole point. The point wasn’t to glamorize the bomb and the story was more meant to show how the bomb affected the people who made it + the world at large. It wasn’t meant to be glamorous.

@@tylerjames805Well it certainly wasn't realistic either, using a gas explosion to represent a nuke 😂

​@@tylerjames805True but also it literally didn't look like a nuclear explosion

Lol, the lengths they'll go through to sell a lie.

Then you have become my favorite subscriber!

Most people who complain about CGI not being real never realize how that argument could be applied to any analog aspect of filming. You can have the most immaculately made set or scale model, but turn the camera far enough and you'll see the plywood and undried paint. This argument would be equally dumb when applied to practical effects.

Come on buddy.

That's just not Nolan's style.

My thoughts exactly so glad he mentioned it!This is not discussed enough. Now all we hear about this movie is no CGI.... that explosion really could have used some more cowbell 🎉😢

That gasoline nuke was a lesson on what audience gets if movie makers refuse to embrace CGI effects.

The explosion was an example of _what a nuke really sounds like,_ instead of what the average movie makers imagine it to sound like. For a comparison to the real thing, go listen the nuke test recording "Atom Blast, Yucca Flat, Nevada, 03/17/1953".

Thank you! Loved the Todd episode.

100%

I don't know, the bad physics often get me, especially CGI car chases and accidents.

Lot risk involved in those types of movies, better to use CGI but bad physics makes it worse

@@wiredforstereobecause the crop duster chase in North by Northwest had such great physics . Or the bat plane machine gunning the bad guys in the second bat man movie had such great physics. Or the spinners in blade runner don’t look like they are on cables.

@@francesconicoletti2547 I am not hearing what your point is. Me: "This thing takes me out of the experience." You: "This other thing is also bad!"

​@@wiredforstereoTheir point is that just like CGI can have bad physics practical effects can too, and that it ultimately just comes down to effort, budget, creativity, and artistic merit. Use or no use of CGI doesn't by itself degrade or improve a movie.

Maybe it's just me, but i love to learn this stuff and it actually improves movies to me.

100%. I was hoping to see the most magnificent mushroom cloud we’ve ever seen. We have actual footage of real nuclear explosions, and it’s usually grainy and in bad color, etc. But we know what they’re supposed to look look like. The movie didn’t show the most recognizable feature of a nuclear explosion, presumably, because that would be impossible to get without filming a real nuclear explosion, or creating one with CGI. He made the wrong choice there by filming and editing and underwhelming series of practical explosions instead of creating a stunning nuclear explosion with CGI

@@JoeLion55 I wouldn't expect the first test explosion to have had any spectacular size or bombastic majesty of the cloud (most of the tests we KNOW footage off were many times larger and that should scale up almost exponentially with such things). But as you absolutely can cause mushrooms to form with conventional explosions, that alone wouldn't have been a hurdle and could have been done properly if Nolan really wanted. It's just expensive to find a remote place where you can blow up enough stuff to make a mushroom that is convincingly sized.

@@Ugly_German_Truths Absolutely true, you can make "simple" explosions form a mushroom cloud. My father was an army man and he described the process to me. Unfortunatly, as I'm not native english speaker I can't translate the terms he used. But you can do it, and that's what matters!

@@Ugly_German_Truths Here's colorised footage of the actual 1945 Trinity test to see how it compares ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-18ZFUCOT8Xc.htmlsi=slBiQT0U8WV3jdd7 The fire tendrils in the Oppenheimer version are pretty decent recreation of so called "Rope Trick" effects caused by the surface of guy wires vaporising in the intense heat from the fireball. I don't think there's any footage of this happening from the Trinity test and the archive film used by the filmmakers was from a 1955 test ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hEMVJn00LnI.htmlsi=Z2B8a8tP0a4zLOep Probably the most amazing footage I've ever seen is from these 1953 tests which show how the shockwave bounces off the ground in a way that I'd imagine would be very hard to replicate with practical effects. Test 1 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fPshfLoxWjM.htmlsi=lQqKdi7CljgbmB70 Test 2 showing the sheer scale of the blast ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dflLFFZcZ0w.htmlsi=QGFCEKYsZtgEbwb8

But who is to blame for that? There's very loud and very UNHINGED elements of film fandom that has made its position on things well known and because film studios are reactive above all else we get time and resources spent trying to placate a demographic who, frankly, have silly and obtuse opinions.

It can be achieved with cgi as well, that's why

@@OhioNPC911 well…yeah…lmao. Basically every shot in every movie can be achieved with CGI lol

Accurate! This was my point in the beginning of the first part ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7ttG90raCNo.html

These guys and yes, this is great! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-o2FqU2f6DRc.html

@@TheMovieRabbitHole yeah! Was trying to find it to paste the link too, by all means keep doing what you're doing right now. Doing the lord's work.

What really puzzles me is why didn't he just use original footage for the wide shot of the nuke and just ran it through modern upres and denoising software? It's a cheap method, absolutely real - therefore powerful, authentic and frightening. Nobody would have blamed him for using original footage. For the closeups, rather than using a big fuel explosion, they should have looked at high speed footage of a real (miniature) explosions (using real explosives not just fuel) like The Slow Mo Guys are doing regularly. These look awesome and very detailed even in smaller scales and zoomed in. Not only was the nuke underwhelming, the shock-wave afterwards was also kinda lame.

The TV show Manhanttan did a much better job on it too.

@@RyoMassaki Because by that point is that even the original footage? Any upres software is artificially improving something, it just uses math to do so.

@@RyoMassaki Upscales don't tend to look that good (yes, I think all those Peter Jackson upscales look rubbish) . I think they should have just used the real footage and framed it as seeing what the camera in the scene was recording (because that's how that footage actually was captured). Because that's what the footage needed the most: the actual 'money shot' fireball.

@@GrandHighGamer It's 2024 and we don't even have a proper machine learning/AI driven upscale algorithm that can take old footage and make it look like brandnew? It's a shame actually, but with or without, original footage would have been much better.