CGI vs Puppetry

[Skekayuk]

Today's edition of the Independent newspaper has an interesting interview with Peter Fluck on the subject of CGI versus good old fashioned puppetry, see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/m...etter-says-spitting-image-creator-805232.html

 

[Buck-Beaver]

I was just reading about Headcases. Thanks for the link Skekayuk!

 

[muppetfan89]

I would always go with puppetry, anytime. I feel that puppets bring more reality than CGI. The only reason movies today use CGI is because it costs less money than hiring a bunch of puppeteers, which is stupid, because if money is important and making effective looking special effects, than that's just plain stupid. I also feel that CGI is over-satrated in movies today. It was awesome when it first came out, but now it's just too much and over used. Puppetry brings more reality to a scene. If you watch films like, The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth. The use of pupptry is brilliant. If CGI was around back then and used for those films, it would look, "pretty dead", just like Peter Fluck said in that article.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

I don't think you could call any of Pixar's work "pretty dead" and Gollum was a very convincing, beautiful effect that would not have worked nearly as well with animatronics I think. Puppetry and computer graphics both have strengths and weaknesses.

The problem with bad CG or CGI is the same as bad puppetry - a lack of skill and knowledge. They are both just tools and only as good as the artists who make use them.

 

[Greedo]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy mixed CGI and puppetry. In an interview with the actors who worked alongside the enormous "Vogon" puppets, they expressed their fascination with the process. They said, in contrast to the CGI, they could actually SEE what it was that was interacting with them, and preferred it to the difficult "imagining your acting partner" ritual needed for CGI.
CGI done well and taken seriously is what makes Pixar and LOTR's Gollum so successful and believable. CGI only gets a bad rap from those with no real love for it and interest only in the payout. The same can be said for puppetry, I thinky.
I can appreciate both when they are done with a true love for the forms(but I am biased, and cheer whenever puppetry is used in movies. The magic is so much more real, I think).

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Interestingly, ITV apparently wanted to use puppets on the new Spitting Image series, but couldn't because of a copyright dispute.

 

[Punch'n'Judy]

I believe there were issues over a recent Best of type documentary. Spitting Image (or who ever holds rights etc) were approached by the programme makers about having a pair of Ant and Dec (Brit tv hosts) puppets made to present the programme. Law said no, and that they couldn't do it. But the programme makers went ahead and had them made privately.

I don't think this went down well.

EDIT

Whoops, I've just found the update on puppet vision. Great minds hey? And if the source is the same person who told me, and was involved in the programme then I can understand why.
Kind regards,
James

 

[CBPuppets]

Puppetry is always a winner in my book.

 

[scarylarrywolf]

I think CGI has it's place, but I think it should stay there. When they're incorporated into live-action cinematography, CGI characters (and sometimes scenery) still look a bit hokey to me. I think it's because the animators have so much control over all the little points that the characters actually move TOO perfectly. When that's juxtaposed with live actors, it looks awkward. Puppetry, being a form of live acting, looks more natural in a live-action film.

CGI looks great when everything on the screen is created on a computer. Shrek and Pixar's films look terrific because everything is in its element.

I'm still bitter about George Lucas' choice to make Yoda CG in his last 2 Star Wars films. His fight scene in Episode II made the character unbelievable.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

I'm still bitter about George Lucas' choice to make Yoda CG in his last 2 Star Wars films. His fight scene in Episode II made the character unbelievable.

...yet still better than that awful animatronic puppet in Episode I.