The main prank that we play with props is for people's birthdays. The special effects people will put a little explosive in the cake so it blows up in their face - that's always fun to play on a guest star, or one of the trainees or someone who's new.
Any horror element is as much psychological as special effects.
Special effects movies have taken over the universe. That and scary movies.
It's more fun if you can control things like lighting and make special effects in the darkroom.
In movies, you can basically buy the audience into the theater. If you spend enough money on visual effects, even if you are lacking in story and character, you might still pull it off.
It's difficult to choose between these art forms. Iconography is entirely different from the style of the 15th century masters, who were experts in foreshortening and perspective. The technical skill and visual effects of painters like Uccello have to be admired. They achieved a level of artistry that has never been surpassed, in my opinion.
The g-forces increased and I wasn't able to continue to hold the camera against the window, so I had to lay it back against my chest, but still continued to photograph the re-entry until there was no more unusual visual effects of the energy in the atmosphere. And it was very comforting to understand that the people in Houston, the controllers, had very high confidence that we were on the right path.
The best visual effects are when you shoot as much of what you can in camera. And it's really good for the actor's performance to have something real.
Certain Academy Awards like Sound and Visual Effects and Editing are sometimes referred to as technical awards. They're not technical awards. They're given for artistic decisions. And sometimes we make them better than others, and I guess we made a couple of good ones on this one.
The creation of the island, or the impression of the island, as it changes in the mind of the character also came in to play... there was another very important collaborator, Rob Legato, on special visual effects. And then ultimately there's Thelma Schoonmaker, who keeps me focused during the editing of the picture.
And this movie [Real Steel] definitely looks like nothing else I've made, which was the point. I think also, Evangeline and Hugh are such a fantastic... Their chemistry is so genuine. And also it's a good balance to all those visual effects. It'll give you more of the tone.
The whole visual language of the movie is developed way before we get to set. Especially when you're doing visual effects and you don't have a lot of money to mess around, which we didn't, you have to really preplan everything. Pretty much every shot in the film was figured out months before we got to set.
There is a reality to the way the actors play the scenes, given that there is a real, animatronic, moving robot in the room. So the level of nuance and realism in performance was higher because we built the real ones, and it keeps the visual effects guys honest.
The most important thing is that you have to have the visual effects working for you, instead of you working for the visual effects.
So many film makers are scared of visual effects - which is no crime.
We've been working on the visual effects for a year, so we're trying to raise the bar. Stuff will absolutely come out at the screen, but it will absolutely not look as bad as that tire in Final Destination.
I think naturally I'm a very visual kind of person. If I wasn't in filmmaking, I'd be in something related to visuals. And I used to actually work as a visual-effects artist.
The thrill of doing visual effects doesn't exist.
I think that if you're creating an environment completely or...in my research, what I've learned is that if it's a CG world or a lot of visual effects, you're almost better doing that in post.
There are so many films now where you know the story is a supporting role to the visual effects.
or simply:
