Spierig Brothers Talk Daybreakers
With today’s release of the vampire filled world of Daybreakers, there probably won’t be too many more of these type of articles. I found this one little piece to be pretty interesting. Half way down, the brothers discuss their approach to special effects, and they are the old school horror types. They prefer to put a guy in a suit opposed to creating an effect in a computer.
This is such a refreshing concept. While good CGI is seamless and doesn’t call attention to itself, bad CGI can ruin the entirety of a scene. Yet even with good CGI, some scenes play exactly as they are … individual pieces of different shots composted together. Take a sports movie. After watching the “big game”, you’ll get the sense that all the different pieces such as the crowd cheering, the individual players on the field, and even the stadium itself are unaware of anything else around it. The actors may look convincing but I guarantee their performance could not equal the same performance on a real field with other actors around them. Years ago, when The Phantom Menace was released, I remember people calling this “the Lucas stare”. That is, actors staring off into a space where another actor would later occupy in post production.
In any case, I hope this looks as impressive as it sounds and if so, I hope the lesson that Hollywood learns from it is not to make more vampire films, but to engage in smart filmmaking. Because as we all know, vampires suck ;)
Twin directors make switch from zombies to vampires (thestar.com <- new window)
