New Observations about Digital...

[Alex]

Ok, the verdict is in for me, and now I understand why George Lucas is full of it.

The Digital Quality George created to make his "Attack of the Clones" Film was probably equivalent to 35mm, or very close.

But George Lucas's film has helped me realize how irrelevant the Digital versus Film Debate really is.

I believe there is some other compelling reason that has caused George Lucas to salivate for Digital Production, and Superior Quality is not it.

I saw the "Arena Fighting" sequence from "Attack of the Clones" and I was stunned by the cartoonishness of it. I don't fault the animators. You can tell they each did a fantastic job of doing their specific role, but when all of the animators efforts were compiled together, it was, to quote Elaine from Seinfeld, FAKE, FAKE, FAKE!!!

It was Playstation time, pure and simple.

So now I wonder why didn't Lucas, and for that matter Rodriguez, just make a regular movie, and shoot it digitally? Why did both filmmakers make films that require blue screen and matt effects to tell their rather simplistic stories? Why hype Digital as the Luke Skywalker of filmmaking and 35mm motion picture as Darth Vader?

Why did George Lucas do that?

Does George Lucas love Digital Production so much because it is the most logical way to funnel additional money to the computer side of filmmaking?

If one can make a decent feature film for 20 million dollars, but by adding hundreds of special effects shots, they can raise the budget to 50 million. Why would they do that? Could it be that the underlying reason Mr. Lucas leads the Digital EFFECTS Bandwagon is so that he could shoot bigger budget films that also pad the bank accounts of computer based companies that he is somehow connected to?

If it turns out that the cost savings between Digital Film Production and 35mm Film Production is very minimal on non-effects laden films, does that not derail the rush towards digital production?

Maybe the very thing that Kodak fears is the very thing they should embrace. If I can make the same movie digitally for the same amount that I can make it in film, why should film fear digital?

What Lucas and Rodriguez have done is add all kinds of whiz bang matting effects to obfuscate the underlying issue that their films lack groundbreaking storytelling.

Speaking of groundbreaking storytelling...

If George Lucas believes that an actor can rise up from a prone position and walk across a blue screen concrete floor and that by digitally matting in sand we the audience are supposed to believe it really is sand the actor walked across is a premise so ridiculous that I don't think I would follow that person anywhere, especially down a digital path created by George Lucas.

[Greg Crawford]

Alex,

Kudo's to you doe's! Very well thought out post. You should send this article in to Movie Maker Magazine.