Yes, I'm pretty sure you can. The trick is to make one without just a good enough story, but incredible cinematography and effects (be it practical or digital) and overall look and acting and sound, etc that competes or surpasses the big guys. That's where it gets hard... but still probably doable with a lot of time and elbow grease.
Harrison Ford doesn't like modern SF movies.
- Thread starter Aspiring Mogul
- Start date
Yes, I'm pretty sure you can. The trick is to make one without just a good enough story, but incredible cinematography and effects (be it practical or digital) and overall look and acting and sound, etc that competes or surpasses the big guys. That's where it gets hard... but still probably doable with a lot of time and elbow grease.
That's the challenge I'm interested in.
I believe quality low-cost heavy scifi production is a severe challenge for indie productions and a possible explanation as to why so many scifi-lite films such as The Adjustment Bureau, Limitless, Source Code, Never Let Me Go, and Monsters have become a mini-trend.
Iron Man, Thor, The Green Lantern, Transformers cannot be achieved on lo/no budgets.
http://www.the-numbers.com/market/CreativeTypes/ScienceFiction.php
When faced with a product with the greatest potential to go straight to self-distributed VOD where hammering down the budget is crucial, generating believable costumes, props and sets alone become cost prohibitive. Factor in the additional time and expense for the number of camera setups and takes action scifi demands plus additional SFX & audio FX processing plus editing for scifi and the task becomes quite daunting.
Theoretically doable, yet unequivocally daunting, IMHO.
You can have [it] fast, good, or cheap. Pick two.
Time works against you when cheap and good are your critical limitations.
Iron Man, Thor, The Green Lantern, Transformers cannot be achieved on lo/no budgets.
http://www.the-numbers.com/market/CreativeTypes/ScienceFiction.php
When faced with a product with the greatest potential to go straight to self-distributed VOD where hammering down the budget is crucial, generating believable costumes, props and sets alone become cost prohibitive. Factor in the additional time and expense for the number of camera setups and takes action scifi demands plus additional SFX & audio FX processing plus editing for scifi and the task becomes quite daunting.
Theoretically doable, yet unequivocally daunting, IMHO.
You can have [it] fast, good, or cheap. Pick two.
Time works against you when cheap and good are your critical limitations.
Like button.
I think they did a good job with Troy the movie. It used a lot of CGI but it was pretty cool. I guess it all depends on how it is done.
I've been in this conversation more times than I can count with people that do special fx and/or visual fx. CG always gets beat up in this conversation it seems. The thing about CG is that when it's good you dont know its there. You see so many CG shots that you accept as real that it almost makes it a moot point.
Theres a much larger collection of horrible makeup/effects/miniatures out there than CGI shots. It seems that no one bothers to count those.
Theres a much larger collection of horrible makeup/effects/miniatures out there than CGI shots. It seems that no one bothers to count those.
Agreed.I've been in this conversation more times than I can count with people that do special fx and/or visual fx. CG always gets beat up in this conversation it seems. The thing about CG is that when it's good you dont know its there. You see so many CG shots that you accept as real that it almost makes it a moot point.
Theres a much larger collection of horrible makeup/effects/miniatures out there than CGI shots. It seems that no one bothers to count those.
In typography there's a monumental difference between text type or body copy fonts and display fonts.
Likewise, in the CG world there are probably five times as many "background" or "supplemental" CGI FX as there are "display" or "showcase" CGI FX.
Recently I watched the BTS of YOU KILL ME.
During the film I had zero idea how much had been altered in the background.
Sure, sometimes you can tell shots from inside cars are greenscreened, but sometimes I can't tell.
But then I turn around and watch TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON and all I can do is focus on the display CGI.
The difference should be distinguished.