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Film Terminator 2 Terminator immediately became the classics of fantastic films. According to Andy Cox (1998) Terminator II has a very important story to tell about our technological attitudes and anxieties in the late 20 th century. Technology as both savior and destroyer, as male and capitalistic, are all important themes in the movie. The protagonist promised Ill be back and he kept his promise.
The years passed by and both producer and the main character has changed a lot. Arnold became one of the well-known action heroes of 1980 s, Cameron changed from the unknown producer with mad ideas into one of the most known producers of the films belonging to A class. Moreover, Cameron's films managed to combine the impossible: a strong film script, perfect actors play, qualitative production and the most advanced special effects available at the moment of film creation. The ambitions and creative plans of Cameron were more large scaled than those compared with Terminator. However, even the unbelievably generous budget of the Terminator 2 wasnt able to satisfy Cameron's appetite. In the second part of Terminator Cameron took a decisive high-risk step he interchanged antagonist and protagonist.
Schwarzenegger couldnt play a negative character because his image of ultimate action hero didnt allow him playing a scoundrel. The formation of the image of kind kindergarten cop also contributed to this change. Cameron had to find an actor who was able to play a negative character. This actor had to be able to embody cyber hero effectively, NLE than Arnold did in Terminator. Firstly, Cameron wanted to take Michael Been but refused from this idea. He found the solution in person of Robert Patrick, who played his best part.
Prudent, almost invulnerable, slippery, liquid T- 1000 with squarrose ears and chilling glare couldnt make the viewer not to care a rush. The alterations were also made in theatrical character of Sarah Conner. In 1984 she appeared before the viewers almost as Madonna, the innocent mother of future Messiah. In Terminator 2 she transformed into ideal fighting machine, a perfect woman able to withstand inevitable dangers from the future.
The changes in Terminator 2 over time are also amazing. In the beginning of 1990 s the film was able to drive the viewers mad by its perfect plot, special effects and great sound themes. The forming of T- 1000 made viewers falling into stupor, people refused to believe their own eyes. The special effects seemed to be impossible and unreal. In the course of years, special effects are not so bewildering; however, action-part of the film still leaves some modern action films in the dust. However, the most important is that Terminator 2 proposes the viewer something more than just a range of professionally created special effects and action-scenes of top quality.
James Cameron, the person who had rich experience of continuations of the films, made the same thing he got used to. Cameron didnt shot sequel that repeats each scene of the previous part, making the films Siamese twins. On the contrary, Cameron decided to develop and even intensify the ideas brought by Terminator. If Terminator frightened viewers with his uncertain and vague fears about the future and post-apocalyptical present, the second part got rid of dark and gloomy notes of the modern reality. At the same time, Terminator 2 got a practically perceptible fear. Terminator 2 develops the situation where an artificial intellect gets out of strict human control.
Cameron intensifies the probability that something of the kind can probably become the reality. And this theoretical probability becomes dreadfully real. Cameron also accentuates on the fact that modern mankind became too much dependent on modern technologies. What concerns the creation of the film, Cameron started to make Terminator II on October 9, 1990.
The total shooting demanded 103 days and 200 people. Just to compare, Terminator I was made for 48 days only. Four huge studios and several smaller studios were hired for special effects works. The Ultimate DVD of "Terminator 2 " provides with the following commentary: Concurrent with the main shoot, four major visual effects houses and several smaller ones worked in conjunction with every department on the production to create over 300 optical and mechanical effects shots for the film, using everything from state-of-the-art computer-generated imagery to the time-proven traditions of minature's, optical's and process photography (Terminator 2, Judgment Day n. p. ) Video materials that required the most quantity of special effects were shot in the first place. Such decision was undertaken by James Cameron to provide the studios with maximum possible time to complete the work.
James didnt wasnt to repeat the sad experience of Abyss. Cameron used Studio Fantasy II Film Effects to create the introductory scene the war in the future between people and robots. Studio Fantasy II Film Effects used subminiature models of technique and optical special effects to create laser beams. Apart from the introductory scene, Studio Fantasy II was responsible for the episode of explosion of the truck with liquid nitrogen. They used 4 -meter model of the car to create the fantastic effects of explosion (Dark Futures n. p. ).
Studio 4 -Ward Production was hired to create the special effect of nuclear explosion in the center of Los Angeles City. After continuous examination of video records with real nuclear explosions, brothers Robert and Dennis Skotak constructed a great number of subminiature copies of buildings and smashed them to pieces by aero-thrower. In order to create the beginning of the scene where nuclear fungus appears, brothers Skotak created multilevel image of the city and added a dilative explosion. They used program Electric Image to show the details of buildings smashing to pieces. Besides, the studio worked at the scenes depicting molten state steel, the scene of disassembling and assembling of T- 1000 parts with the help of mercury and blowers (Jancovich 16). However, Terminator II wont be so successful without amazing scenes of T- 1000 transformation created by ILM and Stan Winston Studios.
The artists and animators of George Lucas team required the most perfect equipment and software. Cameron had to spend more than 3. 5 million dollars to satisfy the teams requirements. He purchased 35 graphic stations Silicon Graphics Personal Iris 4 D and software developed by Alias Research Alias 2. 4. 2. Alias 2. 4. 2 was also used during the shooting of Abyss. The third generation of 3 D modeling program, Alias Power Animator, was also purchased upon request. The programmers had to create 100, 000 lines of the text of additional plug-ins for Alias software and programs created specially for Terminator II.
Final rendering was executed by the package RenderMan of Pixar Studio. RenderMan package was able to process more than 80 million polygons in the scene (Spielmann 58). ILM had to create 7965 shots of 3 D animation. With all this going on, Terminator II was the first film where composition of all special effects was made by computer. To achieve this aim, old ILM film-scanner and Kodak that was able to scan and save one minute of video-record within a 16 -hour period were replaced by special triple-port color digital scanner with high resolution.
Such novelties influenced not only computer software but its cadre as well. The department of computer graphics, consisted of eight employees only, was extended up to 40 animators and programmers. The main team of artists and animators headed by Dennis More started its work from creation of physical copy of Terminator T- 1000. After the sample was created, it was scanned with the help of Cyberware software. Animation of transformation of T- 1000 was divided into five stages: amorphous drop of liquid metal through the stage of chromium-plated humanoid to realistically depicted human. Work over the film scenes from the categories difficult, very difficult, and extremely difficult was spread over six teams of animators and artists under the management of Janet Healy.
One of the teams, The Human Motion Group was responsible for creation of chromium-plated body of T- 1000 the next to last stage of Terminators transformation. Lincoln Hu, the head of the team, considered that in order to create the chromium-plated body the team should obey the rules of physics. A chromium-plated creature that moves step by step, despite of his whole impossibility to exist should move correctly and should show reverberation. In other case, there is a possibility to loose the interest from the side of average viewers.
In order to make a model of chromium-plated creature, starting with the net skeleton and finishing with adequate body, the team had to digitize Robert Patrick, who played a part of T- 1000. The animators draw a special net on the body of Patrick using black color. This net allowed collecting information about physical size of scanned display by a special system. Further Patrick was recorded by two cameras, half face and full face in order to create a 3 D dimension of his body. The team used Cyberware scanning equipment to digitize the head. Frame by frame data received in the result of scanning was used to build the digital skeleton.
Further animators put control dots on the body to be able to make moves. The same technology was used while working with other actors. In order to create realistic skin without any seams between the polygons, the team used a special program Body Sock. Due to this program, the body parts could be ideally adjusted to each other without any defects such as seams, pleats, wrinkles, etc. According to Seen Fangmeier, a technical manager of The Human Motion Group, the adjustment of separate body parts to each other was the scourge of computer graphics. Body Sock program solves this problem by method of intellectual seamless adjustment of various geometrical figures.
It divides objects into geometric figures and unites them into a seamless surface. This program became the most important achievement of ILM programmers during Terminator II. The film was met with a tremendous success and confirmed the opinion that he is a superb stylist who really knows how to put images together for maximum effect, is also smart enough to realize that action movies don't have to be stupid just because they " re action movies (Terminator 2: Judgement Day n. p. ) The Aliens (1986) Description: Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley, who awakens on Earth only to discover that she has been hibernating in space so long that everyone she knows is dead. Then she is talked into traveling (along with a squad of Marines) to a planet under assault by the same aliens that nearly killed her. Once she gets there, she finds a lost little girl who triggers her maternal instincts -- and she discovers that the company has once again double-crossed her, in hopes of capturing one of the aliens to study as a military weapon. (Aliens Special Edition n.
p. ) Films that didnt require necessity to use computer graphics take their origin from the beginning of 1980 s. If we take into account such films like The Lost World (1925), Metropolis (1926), or King Kong (1933), the threshold can be moved aside. Nevertheless, the filmmakers started to use computer graphics quite actively. Famous series of Alien, the first part of which was created in 1979, was always known for its visual and special effects.
No wonder that Alien and Aliens received the Academy Award for best special effects. However, all three films, except of the first one, where the landscape of planet LV- 426 was generated by analog computer with the help of algorithms of fractal geometry, used traditional methods of special effects creation. The Aliens (1986) is also rich in specific effects. The Aliens is a Cameron's film with all Cameron's talent incorporated in it. The first Alien was not so interesting despite its nomination of cult film and all laurels of a pathfinder in the history of cinematograph. The boring monsters, primitive and dull special effects didnt add the charm to Alien.
However, when Cameron replaced Riddley Scott, the situation changed drastically. The film became more interesting and attractive to the viewers. It was boring and unpleasant to breathe the atmosphere of despair created by Riddley Scott, but Cameron's films are always light, stylish and easy to understand. Cameron added the element of thriller, and soon The Aliens became a kind of a fantastic thriller, where Ellen Ripley, a man-terminator made of virtue methodically destroys monsters. James Cameron is an extremely talented producer whose talent is specially seen in the happy-go-lucky style of the battles and actions.
Really, The Aliens is full of actions, explosions and shooting. The film shows us not only body parts of aliens, smashing to pieces but human relations among the main characters, love, emotional experience, suspense, behavioral patterns in critical situations, to mention a few. James Cameron uses detectors of motion to show the suspense and atmosphere of fear. He uses technical effects that show dynamic video and sound picture. Special effects created by Stan Winston Studios are realistic. Cameron never was lost in thoughts concerning the atmosphere and meaning of the film.
He made a show, a typical Cameron-like battlefield with a huge she-alien. He dressed Helen into metallic costume. Cameron didnt spend much money on atmosphere of the film but showed us front plan of aliens face. The majority of cinema critics agree that The Aliens has some of the best creature effects, awesome model work, and great special effects of any 1980 s science fiction movies (DVD review, n. p. ). The equipment and clothes looks militaristic and futuristic, instead of fantasy like.
Cameron is especially concerned in the editing, the sets, the look, and visual effects of the film. He uses various technologies, such as technology of motion capture for animation of skeletons and silhouettes of people, etc. Special attention was paid to lights and ENR processes. The team responsible for special effects also used special software for composing based on the system of color differentiation. References Aliens Special Edition; , [Online] Available at: web Cox, A.
May 24, 1998, Special Effects: On Terminator 2, New York Times Dark Futures, 2002. Book One of Terminator 2: The New John Connor Chronicles, New York DVD Review Website. Aliens (1986) Collectors Edition, [Online] Available at: web Jancovich, Mark 1992, Modernity and Subjectivity in The Terminator: The Machine as Monster in Contemporary American Culture, The Velvet Light Trap, vol. 30 Spielmann, Y. August 2003, Elastic cinema: technological imagery in contemporary science fiction films Convergence: The Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies, vol. 9, no. 3 Terminator 2, Judgment Day, [Online] Available at: web Terminator 2: Judgement Day, [Online] Available at: web
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Research essay sample on Special Effects Computer Graphics
