The Movie Buffer

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Top 10 Digital Effects from Popular Mechanics

Popular mechanics has released an interesting list of the top 10 revolutionary digital f/x projects in film history. The top five are undeniably influential on film and still play a large role in how films are made today. The other entries in this list have that “Oh, yeah! ” feeling to them.

The list is as follows:

  1. Star Wars – Motion Control Photography via computer
  2. Tron – CGI light bikes
  3. Terminator 2 – T1000 liquid metal effects
  4. Cliffhanger – Deleted safety wires
  5. Jurassic Park – Realistic dinosaurs with movement
  6. Forest Gump – Inserting Gump into archival film
  7. The Perfect Storm – Realistic Water
  8. Lord of the Rings – Artificially intelligent Uruk-hai sprites
  9. Polar Express – Large scale motion capture + photo realistic acting
  10. The Day After Tomorrow – Photo realistic New York City

Four of the titles they mention deal with photo realism, so I think they missed the ball in that respect. They should have put in Toy Story and The Matrix, which have had a far larger impact than the visuals in The Day After Tomorrow and The Polar Express. Especially Toy Story because without it a movie like The Polar Express would have been done as well or at all for that matter.

For the entire article click here.

2 Comments:

  • No "Waking Life"? Bummer.

    By Blogger JTL, at 8:47 PM  

  • yeah, interpolated rotoscoping is pretty cool, but you don't really see it very often.

    By Blogger Danny Smooth, at 11:36 PM  

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