featured image video

In today’s fast-moving world of entertainment television and movies, many productions have been made possible with the advent of computer-generated images (CGI). A lot of movies and TV shows wouldn’t be conceivable without a little help from the green screen. That’s why it’s so rare today to see some production crews go back and do it “old-school”.

A small production in Taiwan has shared the secrets behind their “movie magic” in a short video, and it’s something that you really have to see, if only because it’s sure to put a big smile on your face.

Let’s back up just a second though. When you can do so much on a computer, why bother to do it in real life? 2013’s Pacific Rim is a movie about giant robots saving Earth from giant monsters. Sounds like your standard CGI-heavy movie, right? Well, director Guillermo del Toro wanted to do everything as “real” as possible, which meant as little CGI as possible. He built the four-story tall command modules of each of the robots and attached the actors to full armor controlled by puppeteers. Then he threw gallons of water on them to film the action sequences. He even filmed a battle scene set in Hong Kong all in miniatures. All of it was created down to scale and filmed, instead of handled by computers. Guillermo del Toro was applauded for taking a more realistic approach to his very fantastical movie.

Is it such a shame to do it in other productions?

▼Kaiju (Japanese) Giant Beast, Jaeger (German) Hunter

pacific rim movie

On the other hand, Avatar would have been a mighty different movie if the CGI had been skimped on.

▼Halloween anyone…?

avatar face mask

Given the option, do you film the scene with CGI or do you just as easily film it for real. This production has chosen the latter and their method isn’t one you would expect!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZczXwOV1APU

Actually, we don’t even know the true purpose of this video. Are they filming for a drama? A movie? Is this a commercial of some sort? The details are lacking but one thing is for sure, Japanese people find this ridiculous.

“What is this?!”
“Totally laughed! What low-budget!”
“Hahaha. I laughed so hard I died.”
“This is a crime against the professionals!”
“ Who taught them this?”

carrying shrubs

CGI is definitely the popular way to film things nowadays but it certainly doesn’t hurt to return to ones roots. After all, things can look too CGI and thus look pretty jarring (The Mummy Returns anyone?). Technology and computer graphics have come a long way in the past 30 years. But what do you think? Would it have been better to green screen this? Or to leave it as-is (it must have saved on production costs).

carriage shot

Images: YouTube, Warner Brothers, Ali Express
[ Read in Japanese ]