Marvel movies have completely eliminated the concept of practical effects from the movie-watching public’s consciousness
Not just practical effects just like. Basic set design lol
How… How do they think sci-fi was done before CGI?
Really badly? Do you remember sci-fi before CGI? It was shit. And don’t say Star Wars because they went back and fixed that with CGI later.
*big sigh* *puts head in hands* heathens who’ve never watched pre-MCU sci-fi movies OR the unedited Star Wars movies, my beloathed
So first of all, most people agree that the majority of the “CGI fixes” in the Star Wars original trilogy (excluding minor visual/sound effects like lightsaber colors and blaster sounds) are unececssary, extremely conspicuous, and/or bad. This is not news to literally anyone older than about 20 who has consumed Star Wars content on any level. There are quite literally two very famous ‘despecialized’ fan projects explicitly dedicated to un-doing all of the shitty “fixed” CGI effects while simultaneously restoring the OT in HD.
And yes, I do, in fact, remember sci-fi special effects before CGI was the foundational cornerstone of moviemaking. It was not, in fact, shit:
Also, ironically I can show you by….*gasp* using fucking Star Wars, of all things. Welcome to the Tatooine pod race set of The Phantom Menace, which was not, as popularly believed, CGI’d but was instead a fully-built miniature set:
Yes, they built the entire set as a minature, built life-sized pod racers for the actors, then spliced the two together using digital effects. Yes, they did such a fantastic job that people think the entire set and scene sequence was basically completely CGI’d to this day. You’re fucking welcome for undervaluing the time, effort, and talents of set designers by implying that set design and practical effects inherently mean things will look like shit.
CGI also ages really poorly. What you think looks incredibly realistic now is going to look terrible in a few years. Just look at the original vs remastered Star Trek. They “restored” Star Trek around 2006 and replaced a lot of the practical effects with CGI, and maybe it looked ok in 2006, but it looks so bad and fake now.
In the 60s they built a whole model of the Enterprise, complete with blinking lights and beautifully sculpted/painted details. It looks stunning! Then they replaced it with that horribly smooth and fake looking cgi ship.
Just look at this beauty
You can see the model at the Air and Space Museum in DC
Unfortunately the remastered version is the only version available to stream, but you can still find DVDs with the original effect.
made in 1968 and still stunning 2001 A Space Odyssey
the designers worked with engineers at NASA to make realistic futuristic special effects using models and matte paintings no computer effects at all! - and incidentally inspired David Bowie to write Space Oddity, later performed in space by astronaut Chris Hadfield
The CGI of the original Jurassic Park may not be aging well (though arguably still better than some), but the practical effects will always look stunning.
I want to talk fantasy.
This shot was achieved with splicing and green screen.
This wild-looking shot (and similar manipulations) was famously achieved by having a professional juggler in a duplicate of Bowie’s jacket and gloves sitting behind him, basically with Bowie in his lap, doing the handwork while Bowie kept his arms behind the juggler. You may have seen a game based on this on Whose Line Is It Anyway.
This? Wires! Splicing! THE CGI TO DO THIS DIDN’T EXIST YET! (The juggler is hidden under the cape. If there’s a scene where he’s wearing a cape, that’s actually probably why.)
And this? This heartstopping shot?
This does appear to be from the version with CGI—
—CGI THAT WAS USED TO ERASE THE SHADOW FROM THE PRACTICAL EFFECT.
The shot itself hasn’t changed. The lift itself was done with wires and Bowie was given some propulsion with an air cannon so he could make that turn at speed. A minor amount of CGI was used in the 30th anniversary to “touch up” the work done in 1986, and one of the things they did was to remove a shadow on the wall from one of the wires.
How about this?
You don’t know it, but you’re looking at a practical effect. In real life, the Ruby Slippers are almost orange. That luxe, rich ruby color showed up on the film as black when the shoes were the correct color, so the costumers adjusted the actual costume to give the color they wanted.
A MODEL OF A HOUSE SHOT INSIDE A NYLON STOCKING ATTACHED TO A FAN.
MAN IN A COSTUME.
HORSES DUSTED WITH COLORED GELATIN.
And this? This is where it would’ve been useful to have CGI. Margaret Hamilton got really badly burned on the steam doing one of her entrance/exits, and ended up in the hospital. THIS is what you use CGI for.
You come into my house and insult practical effects?
I’ll just finish off by reminding you THIS IS ONE, TOO.
That last one, iirc, was there was a double in a sepia-toned costume, and the interior door and wall there was painted brown, so when it was lit and shot it all appeared to still be in the sepia tone of the Kansas scenes, and part of why Dorothy stepped back out of the frame was so the double and Judy Garland (in the proper blue-and-white costume) could swap.
You are correct. The double’s name, by the way, was Bobbi Koshay.
There are so many practical effects in Mary Poppins that it’s unbelievable. Ranging from the big ones (popping through pictures, tea parties on the ceiling, flying with an umbrella, etc.) to the incredibly little details, there’s a big reason why Mary Poppins won the Oscar for “Best Visual Effects” in 1965
I can’t find a list of all effects used, so this is just going off my memory of a documentary I watched once, so bear with me here; some of these things might be misremembered. But, some of the practical effects used in this film:
- Actors suspended on wires
- Scenes filmed front of a white screen lit with sodium vaporlights (early cinema’s “greenscreen” before greenscreen was invented)
- Matte paintings on glass for the cityscape scenes (rooftops of London, St. Paul Cathedral, etc.)
- Animatronics (the robin that whistles with Mary Poppins is an animatronic controlled by a wire, and the movement and sound you see on-screen was what it was actually doing on-set. The talking parrot umbrella head was also an animatronic.)
- Moving set pieces (every time they slide up or down the banister, they’re riding on a mechanized chair-lift hidden from the camera)
- Padded stairs (when they climb up the staircase made of smoke, the actors actually were climbing up a staircase padded with thick styrofoam, so that their feet would actually sink in some. The children found it particularly challenging, prompting Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews to offer extra help in keeping them balanced, thus really selling the idea that they are two kids walking on smoke with assistance from their guardians)
- Scene splicing (When she pulls impossibly large items from her carpet bag, she’s pulling them through a hole from under the table. The scene was spliced with footage depicting the table with nothing underneath it - except for Michael, who crawled underneath to ‘examine’ for a hole)
- Hidden compartments in bottles containing liquid of different colors (this one is my favorite lol; the children were not told that the medicine would come out of the bottle in different colors; they were just supposed to complain about taking it. Their reactions of shock and amazement are 100% genuine)
Even tiny details that you wouldn’t normally even think of as “special effects” were paid careful attention to, in order to help sell the story. Such as, during the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious scene, while Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke are dancing and acting their hearts out, the children are supposed to sit on a fence and eat candy-apples. However, after filming for a long time, the kids were sick of the candy apples they’d been eating. So, Disney called for candy-apples made in tons of unique and delicious flavors, just colored to all look the same. It became the children’s favorite thing about the scene: they just got to sit and listen to fun music and watch the adults sing and dance while they tried a hundred different candy-apples, which is why they’re devouring them like little lions every time you see them on-screen.
(Also not so much a practical effect but just cute to note while I’m talking about Mary Poppins: the kids kept actually falling asleep during filming for the scenes in which Julie Andrews sings them lullabies lol)
CGI has its uses, to be sure. But it ought to be used to ENHANCE practical effects, not REPLACE them.
tbh that’s what Coraline is. And pretty much every movie by LAIKA Studios. It’s all filmed with practical effects and then enhanced with CGI.
Practical effects are actually amazing, and the overreliance on CGI makes films look far more ‘fake’ and causes them to grow outdated far more quickly than modern producers want people to admit.
Mainly because set designers and practical effects specialists are UNIONIZED but computer animators are not, making their labor easy to exploit and often leaving them massively overworked and underpaid.
I know I was already here, but since @plushchrome1212 made this incredible addition, I just want to point out this is a gold standard of practical effects work. Like. What I wrote above probably clued you in that I love looking for the man behind the curtain and going “oh, THAT’S how they did that!”
Mary Poppins is my favorite Disney movie. In 33 years, it has never once occurred to me to question how any of it was done. The illusion is so complete, I’m a grownass adult who just. Accepted that they disappeared into the sidewalk.
Can Someone please add the plant puppet from “My little shop of horrors”!?
That special effect was fenomenal and it took 6-8 people to move that puppet!
To say i’ve been inactive is a total understatement, so sorry! There are many many reasons, one being my graphics tablet finally died and I don’t have the funds to replace it and another being that i’ve been super busy.
I created my first public puppet show! And amazingly performed it in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. ‘Plague’ was an exploration of the great Plague of London, the whole show appearing from inside an old wooden box. My art has really switched the last year towards puppetry and if you want to follow any performances that I make I now have a facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/Messageinabottletheatre I also have a (still slightly inactive) tumblr that stores photos and info about my puppet making for my uni assessments, @progressingpuppets
I’ll try and stay more active, thanks for your continuing support guys! x
“Marquis” (1989), a film about the Marquis de Sade where everyone in his world was represented as an animal. The tagline was “the Marquis de Sade at his most bestial.” The scenes either involved puppets or actors in anamatronic masks.
Anastasia Von Teaserhausen cooks up some Hot Buns in Peepshow Menagerie’s “THE BURLESQUE MUPPETTE TEASE” livestreaming on Zoom for one night only burlesque parody featuring a gaggle of gams and flirty felt in a night of fuzzy burlesque! T I X available now at: www.peepshowmenagerie.com (live meet and greet after the show!)
Anastasia Von Teaserhausen cooks up some Hot Buns in Peepshow Menagerie’s “THE BURLESQUE MUPPETTE TEASE” livestreaming on Zoom for one night only burlesque parody featuring a gaggle of gams and flirty felt in a night of fuzzy burlesque! T I X available now at: www.peepshowmenagerie.com (live meet and greet after the show!)
VIKTOR DEVONNE scoots IMO burlesque action in Peepshow Menagerie’s “THE BURLESQUE MUPPETTE TEASE” livestreaming on Zoom for one night only burlesque parody featuring a gaggle of gams and flirty felt in a night of fuzzy burlesque! T I X available now at: www.peepshowmenagerie.com (live meet and greet after the show!)
MAE LUST is out of this world in Peepshow Menagerie’s “THE BURLESQUE MUPPETTE TEASE” livestreaming on Zoom for one night only burlesque parody featuring a gaggle of gams and flirty felt in a night of fuzzy burlesque! T I X available now at: www.peepshowmenagerie.com (live meet and greet after the show!)
See Red Snapper with Mr Snapper rock out with their crocs out in Peepshow Menagerie’s “THE BURLESQUE MUPPETTE TEASE” livestreaming on Zoom for one night only burlesque parody featuring a gaggle of gams and flirty felt in a night of fuzzy burlesque! T I X available now at: www.peepshowmenagerie.com (live meet and greet after the show!)
Just a bit more weathering but he’s just about finished, and then FaceBones gets added to the Metalocalypse shadow puppet pile. Can you guess whose next on the gottafinishthisfuckingthing block? He’s pretty fucking giant. He hates dentists. He’s drank bleach. He makes really bad girlfriend choices. Oh and he held a political office once.
ICYMI, our new partnership with Manual Cinema in honor of 100 years since the end of World War I is here! Three World War I Poems brings a selection of poems to life with innovative paper puppetry and animation work, each vignette sharing a different experience of “the war to end all wars” from a soldier’s point of view.
[video: Three interwoven vignettes of interpretations of “The Owl” by Edward Thomas, “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, and “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae.]
LOVED THIS PANEL! This is the “Fires of Resistance” panel from the 2020 Great Con-Junction at Elstree Studios, put together by Thames Con in February. I’m so grateful they recorded everything to share!
Left to right: Beccy Henderson, Neil Sterenberg, Louise Gold, Nick Kellington, Hup, Victor Yerrid
Whoops! There’s more!!
The Creation of Thra Panel - A fascinating insight into the creation of the characters from the Dark Crystal. From concept to construction. Featuring (from right to left) Tim Clarke, Wendy Froud, Brian Froud, Valerie Charlton and John Coppinger. Moderated by Tobias Rowe.
The Children of Thra Panel - A fun and energetic discussion from some of the children of Thra (Gelfling, Landstrider, Aughra). Featuring (from right to left) Robbie Barnett, Lisa Maxwell, Stephen Garlick, Kiran Shah & Mike Edmonds . Moderated by Tobias Rowe.
The Skeksis Lords Panel - A fun and interesting insight into what it was like to perform, puppeteer and voice a Skeksis. Featuring (from right to left) Tim Rose (The Treasurer Skeksis Performer), Michael Kilgarriff (The General Skeksis - Voice), Mike Quinn (The Slave Master Skeksis Performer), Steve Whitmire (The Scientist Skeksis Performer & Voice) and Melissa Whitmire (Assisted with The Scientist Skeksis). Moderated by Tobias Rowe.
The Gentle Mystics Panel - An interesting insight into what it was like to perform and puppeteer the Mystics and many other creatures on Thra. Featuring Toby Philpott, Simon J Williamson, Richard Slaughter, Dave Barclay and Hugh Spight. Moderated by Tobias Rowe.
You know we just can’t resist an elaborate, themed window display… so this time we’ve decked out our entire shop to properly showcase our love affair with books.
The puppets were passionately made by Commediapuppets, and the crafts were affectionately put together by our volunteers. Happy Valentine’s day lovebugs!
