Also see Tron. Many of scenes that look like CGI are not. Pretty much any CG looking scene with a person visible has no CGI and several of the scenes that look 100% cgi are not as well
Totally right. Here's an example of a live-action frame from Tron. The scene was shot in black and white with insanely high contrast, then color was added by hand.
I think the documentary The Making Of TRON is more interesting today than the actual movie. Definitely worth seeking out if you're a fan of the original.
Somewhat related is S. G. Collins' interesting video explaining why they couldn't have faked going to the moon; it was easier and cheaper to actually go:
People seem to forget that "electrical" effects predate digital computers. Cathode rays (before and after television) create "high-tech" animated vector-drawn images using analog systems to move the tube. Laser light shows are another example.
The original digital raster graphics were worse in some sense than the analog vector graphics that predated them.
Just to throw this in, but the original Max Headroom movie "20 Minutes into the Future" is not as bad as the Channel 4 / Cinemax music video show or (oh god) the American ABC series.
It's an interesting bit of proto-cyberpunk that even addressed things like digital avatars and real-time viewer feedback nearly 30 years ago.
Am I the only one to feel like an idiot for not knowing Max Headroom was not an animation. I haven't seen the show since I was young, but now I just want to go find an episode to watch and look at the animation to see how they fooled my younger me.
I remember thinking I wasn't sue but how else. That's also why tv shows you watched when young where better than you remember, you could be fooled more easily and use your imagination whereas today were so use to the special effects that we almost need them, we can't easily imagine it unless its there and looking real'ish.
I'm shocked it's a fake-nimation... As a kid I loved Max and was amazed what the highest end computers can do. I was patiently waiting for that tech to trickle down to us mortal consumers. Of course I only got that when I became 'grown up' and now I learned it was all fake to begin with... Glad I found out now though, and not back then.
I even remember, as an Amiga owner at the time, of a word circulating in Amiga circles (way way pre-internet) that Max is created using Amigas.... Silly me.
I'm just pleased I'm not the only one here who remembers when this stuff came out. I also had no idea it wasn't computer animated, but (given the feebleness of the hardware available at the time) it comes as no great surprise.
I remember the exact same confusion. But the backgrounds are computer animated, with Max himself (Matt Fewer) was a real person with plastic appendages to his head.
For example no part of this clip is CGI. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiw2FbHBd14
No CGI in any of this either. Zero Zilch Nada. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PFd9SPuuDM#t=1m10s
no idea how long this will stay up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrCdMHUNznc