I’d disagree with your assessment that wanting more practical effects (if that is your thesis) is “anti-tech”. Generally, from what I see, it’s pro-quality and pro-craftsmanship. In very few cases is cinematic CGI used because it looks as good or better than practical effects. It is used primarily to avoid paying the skilled artisans that learned the craft of stage and prop design or because a practical effect version of the desired thing is not, well, practical (think scenes in outerspace or hordes of orcs). With more digital VFX teams finally unioning-up, hopefully the cost difference (from materials, iterative flexibility, lack of soundstage rental, and vastly underpaying and overworking VFX crews) diminishes some.
In my opinion, productions that make good use of practical and CGI effects have the best chance of making a good piece of film.
Look at, say, modern(ish) superhero movies like the heavily-astroturfed Batman vs Superman. There are some good stills from that, if one likes Batman or Superman posing heroically. However, when things are in motion, especially fast motion, like fight scenes, there’s so much digital motion blur and other intentional or unintentional digital VFX artifacts that it breaks immersion and makes the live-action film very cartoony and hard to visually follow. CGI is incapable, currently, of approaching the realism of a real prop or effect. It’s getting closer every year but it’s not there.
Then, look at The Whale, Brendan Frasier’s critically-acclaimed comeback (CW: broken family and mental health issue). The Whale was done entirely with practical effects. It is a good film with compelling storytelling both through the characters and the visuals. But, a one-set film based in modern times doesn’t really have to worry so much about things like heat-vision or unassisted flight.
Finally, look at the sci-fi series The Expanse. One might be surprised by the sheer amount of practical effects there are in that series (I certainly was). The ship interiors are mostly sets instead of green screen and especially impressive is that the zero-G scenes were nearly all done with practical effects (actors in wire harnesses, at weird angles, holding their bodies straight against gravity, while acting like it is completely effortless - impressive core strength on the lot of them!). Then, you have PDCs, railguns, and starscapes, not to mention augmenting the practical effects, making excellent use of digital VFX. The series wouldn’t have been as good or had the same feeling had it all been done with digital VFX and green screen. The best actors in the world are going to give a different performance on a set that they build familiarity with vs a green screen - just for our brains work.
It’s hard to say what the balance point is but I suspect it has a lot to do with the things that actors will interact with or be around. The more physical stuff there is for them on the set, the better the chance there is that they will be able to give a compelling performance. That’s just that much less mental load while acting, allowing them to dedicate more to portraying their characters’ emotions and personalities within the scene.
@nickwitha_k balancing things for sure, that’s just craft. But where you lose me is that talking about how CGI is done, how good examples of it are done, and why … is just not mainstream.
Crashing a plane into a building? … everyone wants to talk about it. But no one ATM seems to want to know about all the awesome shit CGI is doing. Bad examples sure, they exist for all aspects of film. Instead people are lying about how much CGI they’re using, when getting it right could be celebrated.
And yet when chatGPT and Dall-e come out everyone drops their shit ready to presume the great all-knowing AI godhead has arrived. Why? Well it suits them as consumers, and that was my point.
I don’t know modern music well enough but it’d be interesting to compare to the weird state music technology has gotten to with synthesisers and digital tooling having completely matured now to the point where a laptop can replace a studio. Anyone advertise “no digital” like Jack White did?
It also really depends on the film’s Director’s creative control and budget.
My favorite film of all time is Everything Everywhere All At Once and it was almost exclusively practical effects. This was both a stylistic choice and a budget-conscious one. CGI is not always the cheaper route:
Most low budget movies use practical effects over CGI, because at lower budgets it is way more accessible. But all you need to do is watch any low budget horror movie to see how bad practical effects can rip you out of the story just as much as bad CGI in higher budget films.
So I would say that good CGI costs a lot of money but both looks better, and can do more, than practical effects. But films that craft around practical effects are absolutely valuable and bad CGI pulls people out of the storytelling just like bad practical effects would.
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