One good reason to root for Blade Runner 2049: green screens.

Specifically, their general nonappearance in Blade Runner 2049. From Variety in February (h/t: GeekTyrant)

[Director Denis Villeneuve ] takes a moment to praise cinematographer Roger Deakins’ work on the film, which, judging by the trailer alone, promises some of the most striking images of the 13-time Oscar nominee’s illustrious career.

“Roger was insanely impressive in how he was able to create landscape with tricks,” Villeneuve says. “For me it was beautiful. I think I can count on one hand how many times I saw a green screen in all of those months of shooting. There will be CG enhancements, of course, but as much as possible it was in-camera. Having witnessed what he’s done for months, I think it will be Roger Deakins’ best work. He was deeply inspired by the project.”

I don’t hate green screen.  If you want to do movies showing stuff that’s just flatly impossible to build or grow in real life, you have to go with CGI. But it’s gotten to be hideously overused. How overused?  Let me put it this way: it’s a news story when somebody doesn’t use CGI for a special effect.

I think that, in the future, the big-budget productions should consider spending some of that budget on more physical effects, and leave CGI to the independent small-budget movie productions. Which is not a knock on indy filmmakers: CGI can be a big budget-saver, and a tool used intelligently and thoughtfully usually gets better results than a tool used lazily and casually. But I don’t have to tell independent filmmakers to be craftsmen.  Sometimes, it seems like Hollywood has forgotten that message*.

Moe Lane

*Yes, sometimes.  We still get good-to-excellent movies every year.  Somebody over there still remembers how to make them.

5 thoughts on “One good reason to root for Blade Runner 2049: green screens.”

  1. The movie looks good. The teaser put chills running down my spine.
    .
    The trailer was a dumpster fire of awful. If I had just saw the trailer, I would skip the movie altogether.

  2. Agreed. That’s one reason Ronin is a particular favorite of mine, all that action and car chases and it’s all practical effects! see also: Backdraft.

  3. Nolan seem to go out of his way to make practical effects for his movie. The flipping of the truck in The Dark Knight and the train crash in the midst of a busy street in dreamscape in Inception are both in camera effects.

  4. Perhaps the actual primary purpose of the Star Wars prequels is to serve as a warning in regard to just how awful green screen can be.

    .

    Every single director that wants to make a SF picture should go watch 2001, and make notes on how much Kubrik did with just set design and lighting. It’s really astonishing.

Comments are closed.