This is the first of two blog posts I'm going to make about Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (ROTPOTA from herein). I recently saw the film and was utterly blown away by it. In fact for a short time I was border-line obsessed. I was already a fan of the original film, but had not seen any of the sequels. I have since watched them all, as well as watching ROTPOTA about 8 times in the last month or two, and subjecting anyone who'll listen to my rants not only about how good the film is, but about it's "photoreal" computer graphics and about Andy Serkis' computer-enhanced performance. I don't intend to review the movie here, that's not my place; but this first post will discuss the "photorealism" in the film, and how it can be improved; the second will discuss Andy Serkis and performance capture generally.
Photorealism, then.
Firstly, there are so many scenes in this film which, for me, are photoreal. Caesar is, in a lot of these shots, actually there in the frame with the actors, as far as I can see. This is a spectacular accomplishment and one I do not wish to play down. Weta Digital have really accomplished something here. So why then, do some shots in the film not hold up to this photoreal ideal (because clearly, many of them don't).
I don't really want to go into too much detail about "The Uncanny Valley", we've all heard it far too much. If you've not heard this term, it basically infers that the closer computer graphics get to photorealism, until it is actually achieved, the more repulsive to the human eye do human characters get. Read more here.
It's interesting to note that it's not-quite-photoreal humans that repulses us so. We have no problem with monsters, aliens, animals, etc. But let's also appreciate this - at no point do we watch a movie with a monster in it and go "Wow! That's an ugly actor, I wonder where they found him," instead we subconsciously acknowledge that we are seeing special effects at work and that said monster/alien/animal does not exist. But since these creatures do not repulse us, in the way that the Uncanny Valley repulses us, and we have a limited frame of reference as to what these animals would look like if they were real, we just accept it and move on.
But when dealing with photorealism, the effect needs to be so good that not only does it stand up to scrutiny, no one will even scrutinise it, as we do not scrutinise whether or not Al Pacino was really on set in The Godfather. He just was.
Which brings me back to ROTPOTA. This is a scene that works, the dinnertable scene, starting at 0:46 and lasting for about a minute.
This is one of my favourite scenes, and the effects work really well. I totally believe that Caesar is there, interacting with the actors. Wonderful.
But what scenes let it down? Here's a brief one, but there are plenty of similar scenes in the whole film. The tree-climbing scene at 0:07-0:10.
So where does the first clip succeed where the other one did not?
The answer is: camerawork.
At any point during Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, as soon as a non-real camera comes in, the photorealism falls down.
The non-technical reading this might be asking, what's a non-real camera? In short, it's a CG camera, and it's a shot where a CG camera is used simply because what the director wants the camera to do cannot be achieved using a real camera. It's a special effect, and the thought process amongst directors is the same: Can we film it for real? No. Well, let's do it in CG then.
The problem is - the camera has an Uncanny Valley all of its own. The human eye is conditioned, after almost a hundred years of cinema, to know what it's like to look through a camera.
So, to not break photorealism, either do not use entirely-CG shots or if you must, ensure the camera behaves realistically.
As soon as an audience sees a camera move that can not be filmed by a camera man, or looks too perfect to be real, they see The Uncanny Valley. Example:
See, as soon as a non-real camera comes into play (at any time Spider-man swings through the streets), the director might as well be popping up in the corner and shouting at the audience, "This isn't real! We faked it! Aren't we clever?!"
No, you're not clever. If I wanted to watch a cartoon I'd watch Batman: The Animated Series (which, funnily enough, is more realistic than the Spiderman movies, but I digress).
Getting back to ROTPOTA, the camera in that clip slips up between the branches perfectly, neatly, smoothly. And wrongly. Is "wrongly" a word? Anyway.
This shot should have either been re-thought, or given that they actually had the tree on-set, filmed with a real camera, tracked, and the CG apes added in afterwards.
So, that's one rule: no camera moves that could not be accomplished in real life with a camera rig and a camera man.
But what about simpler moves?
Well there's another shot in ROTPOTA, on the Golden Gate Bridge towards the end (for those with the DVD, it occurs at 01:27:03 on my Digital Copy). This shot:
In this shot, the camera slowly and steadily pans up from looking straight down at the bridge, and settles on the angle in the image above. So, what's wrong with this?
It's at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge! How would you film that? With a helicopter? Probably. But let's assume you could set up a rig at the top of that bridge, to film a non-existent ape climbing up it. The rig would be remote-controlled and on rails, perhaps? Okay, so that camera would be juddering slightly, it would begin in a jerky stop-start motion and the wind would be blowing it rather a lot. In short, the motion would be far less than perfect. If it were a helicopter it'd be all over the place, too.
But why would be strive to be less than perfect, when perfection is so easily achieved with CG cameras? Because it's not realistic.
So, there's another rule: all CG cameras to behave as real cameras, with all their inherent motion flaws.
And I have one more camera rule. Much like as an animator, you cannot have a CG character "lock off" at any point, as it breaks the illusion of life; you cannot have a CG camera "lock off". Photorealistic cameras need ambient holds, or "moving holds".
A friend of mine, Justin Summers, is a pre-viz artist at Framestore. He told me that when doing pre-viz on films, they need to keyframe the ambient holds on cameras, as all cameras, even when static on tripods, are prone to ambient motion. You can see this in any film, but I noticed it in Jurassic Park when I saw it on the massive IMAX screen. In the scene at the start where Hammond is talking to Grant and Sattler, watch the edges of the camera as Hammond talks. It's moving. It's a moving hold.
So, rule number three: No camera should ever be completely static.
Please, don't take my word for it. Go and watch ROTPOTA, and as soon as you think the effects aren't photorealistic, ask yourself why. It's not the quality of the rendering, or the animation, or the comping; 9 times out of 10, it's the fault of CG camera work.
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