Old effects work that still holds up

[Trekkie313]

[quote author=Menard link=topic=132104.msg370699#msg370699

And if you wanted to do a live effect without CGI, I doubt there are even any special effects guys left in the business that have any experience with real live effects like the ones in that movie.

You don't know much about Hollywood do ya kid? 

[Menard]

[quote author=Menard link=topic=132104.msg370699#msg370699

And if you wanted to do a live effect without CGI, I doubt there are even any special effects guys left in the business that have any experience with real live effects like the ones in that movie.

You don't know much about Hollywood do ya kid? 

What ChocolateChipCharlie wrote was essentially taking something to its extreme to make a point; the point was made. I guess the rest of us didn't feel the need for footnotes.

[Jim H]

And if you wanted to do a live effect without CGI, I doubt there are even any special effects guys left in the business that have any experience with real live effects like the ones in that movie.

I get what you're saying.  Watch Hellboy 2, it'll make you happy.  The one market scene in that is entirely practical, if memory serves, and it's fantastically well-done. 

Also, on the Thing...  I guess not many know this, but a prequel is being made now.

http://io9.com/5654684/first-inside-look-at-the-thing-prequel-shows-why-it-may-be-awesome-after-all

The interesting thing about this movie is that not only is there going to be real practical stuff that is completely animatronic and needs no digital embellishment, but there is also going to be a combination of the techniques. And the most interesting aspects of that, I think, are when you in a single frame and the two techniques working side-by-side....So it should be fun and chaotic, but still somehow rooted in reality

I might mention I specifically was trying to think of significantly older films (pre-Star Wars) because, to me, it's obvious that stuff like The Thing (or Aliens, or Little Shop of Horrors, or Who Framed Roger Rabbit to name some more not mentioned) still looks great.  There's just so many films from that era with great effects, and I think few would argue with most of them or even think of them as really antiquated.   

But stuff like the Golem from the Golem films, or the amazing suit and set work on Metropolis (good ones Jase)?  That's something that might surprise a modern audience at its quality. 

[AndyC]

I'm still impressed by the mushroom clouds from The Day After. They used a lot of stock footage from nuclear tests and other movies for the destruction, but The Day After is unique among older movies about nuclear attack in that stock footage was not used for the explosions themselves. The mushroom clouds were created by injecting oil-based paint downward into a tank of water and shooting it with an inverted camera. Then they flipped the image right-side-up, inverted the colour to negative and slowed it down. Beautiful, and so simple.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2H1E02iMHg&feature=youtube_gdata
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[Raffine]

I'm still impressed by the mushroom clouds from The Day After. They used a lot of stock footage from nuclear tests and other movies for the destruction, but The Day After is unique among older movies about nuclear attack in that stock footage was not used for the explosions themselves. The mushroom clouds were created by injecting oil-based paint downward into a tank of water and shooting it with an inverted camera. Then they flipped the image right-side-up, inverted the colour to negative and slowed it down. Beautiful, and so simple.

Yep, that a neat old-school effects trick. I remember being really surprised 'back in the day' when I read in Cinefantastique the impressive rolling clouds surrounding the mothership in CEO3K were created in the same way.

[Trekkie313]

I'm still impressed by the mushroom clouds from The Day After. They used a lot of stock footage from nuclear tests and other movies for the destruction, but The Day After is unique among older movies about nuclear attack in that stock footage was not used for the explosions themselves. The mushroom clouds were created by injecting oil-based paint downward into a tank of water and shooting it with an inverted camera. Then they flipped the image right-side-up, inverted the colour to negative and slowed it down. Beautiful, and so simple.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2H1E02iMHg&feature=youtube_gdata

Somehow a made-for-TV movie had better effects than Dreamscape.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anWe8qkBPAs
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[Umaril The Unfeathered]

I'm still impressed by the mushroom clouds from The Day After. They used a lot of stock footage from nuclear tests and other movies for the destruction, but The Day After is unique among older movies about nuclear attack in that stock footage was not used for the explosions themselves. The mushroom clouds were created by injecting oil-based paint downward into a tank of water and shooting it with an inverted camera. Then they flipped the image right-side-up, inverted the colour to negative and slowed it down. Beautiful, and so simple.

You bring up a good technique, AndyC.  It's not original, as Toho Studios did the same thing for their mushroom clouds and explosions. One such shot can be seen at the beginning of Frankenstein Conquers The World with the A-Bomb blast on Hiroshima.

On my War Of The Gargantuas DVD they have a featurette called "Bringing Godzilla Down To Size" where the surviving FX men of Toho's golden day showed how they did it-same way too-the oil and water technique.  Very effective despite it's low cost.

[AndyC]

I'll have to check that out. It's been a long time since I saw Frankenstein Conquers the World, and the featurette on War of the Gargantuas might make it worth replacing my old VHS copy. That and the possibility of "The Words Get Stuck in My Throat" in the Dolby 5.1 it deserves.

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

I'll have to check that out. It's been a long time since I saw Frankenstein Conquers the World, and the featurette on War of the Gargantuas might make it worth replacing my old VHS copy. That and the possibility of "The Words Get Stuck in My Throat" in the Dolby 5.1 it deserves.

First I should tell ya'- for the featurette, you have to get the Rodan\War Of The Gargantuas double disc set, and to my error, I believe the featurette is on the Rodan disc. 

You might even be able to get the featurette on Youtube if someone put it up.  But in any case, the surviving Toho FX men and actors getting together for this is worth more than gold on the open market. These men were true pioneers of the FX field.

[Allhallowsday]

Maybe it's the BERNARD HERRMANN score, but I love MYSTERIOUS ISLAND:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC-VgDPME9E
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[BTM]

Alot of people talk about the forced perspective effects in Lord of the Rings, the way they made the actors playing the hobbits (and the dwarves) look small compared to the other characters, but if you go back you find a lot of the same tricks used in the film Darby O'Gill and the Little People.  A lot of the scenes where you see Darby interacting with the leprechauns still hold up pretty well today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a_yhkH5jjw&NR=1
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[Raffine]

A very subtle and effective use of forced perspectives was used in the airport scene in CASABLANCA:



The workers and passengers in the background?

Midgets!

True story!

[Raffine]

Maybe it's the BERNARD HERRMANN score, but I love MYSTERIOUS ISLAND:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC-VgDPME9E

Off topic but I think you'll enjoy this: William Stromberg and the Moscow Symphony in the first run-through of a cue in the recording of Herrmann music that's going on right now in Moscow!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7dLPfwyzeA
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[Umaril The Unfeathered]

Kinda obvious, but Dawn Of The Dead ('78) is still tops.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGbPwV-lqXg

Tom Savini at one of his best optical illusions. If I remember right, Savini had made some sort of gadget that came off the top of the actor's head to make it look like his head was cut off by the blades, and two guys behind the crates pumped blood out of a pair of hoses that were connected to back of the actor's neck.

Another one of his most horrid illusions was in Maniac when he blew the head off of his own look-alike dummy with a 12 gauge shotgun.  There's more to his credit, but these are just two of the great things he accomplished in his heyday.  To say he's a legend is an understatement.

He's also a really great guy. I've met Tom several times at the cons' and he loves to talk about is trade.  Meeting him was a real honor.

[Jim H]

Alot of people talk about the forced perspective effects in Lord of the Rings, the way they made the actors playing the hobbits (and the dwarves) look small compared to the other characters, but if you go back you find a lot of the same tricks used in the film Darby O'Gill and the Little People.  A lot of the scenes where you see Darby interacting with the leprechauns still hold up pretty well today.

That's a good one.  If you look at the documentary stuff on LOTR, they reference the techniques in that film a lot.  Apparently, to this day there's a few shots that modern effects guys aren't really sure how they did.  It's truly a great technical accomplishment for that time or any time.

Another one is Bedknobs and Broomsticks.  Minus the ultra-60s/70s "flying" sequences, all the tricks with animated clothes, shoes, suits of armor, etc are done very well.  To my knowledge, it also has the most convincing cartoon/live action interactions until Who Framed Roger Rabbit.