The world of cinema is continuously growing and fans are constantly dazzled by the lengths producers will go to create a truly impressive movie.
Special effects, computer animation and clever cinematographic techniques are all the rage these days, so to celebrate this timeless art form, let’s take a look at 5 of the most innovative movies of modern times.
The brain child of Nick Park, Wallace & Gromit are a loveable duo created using clever stop-motion animation. The first feature-length movie,Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit [2005] brought the duo to the big screen for the first time, and quickly became one of the most popular “clay-mation” movies of all time.
Using a laborious but rewarding procedure, the film was created by moving each plasticine character a bit at a time and filming each frame. Every frame was then played back in quick succession to create the illusion of movement. Each character also had to be duplicated in different poses and in a multitude of costumes depending on each scene. The final product beams with the ingenuity of its creators.
Avatar is one of the most visually captivating movies to have ever been made, and it was on just about everyone's tongue -- and everyone's movie review site -- upon its release in December 2009. An epic science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron, work began on the movie in 1994 and broke unimaginable new technical ground. Production design took many years and everyone from fantasy illustrators to concept artists got in on the game. A new language was carefully devised for the film’s Na’vi aliens and 3D techniques were put to the test.
An incredibly popular computer-animated fantasy film, Shrek was brought to the big screen by DreamWorks in 2001 and this visually stunning family comedy went on to gross nearly half a billion dollars worldwide. Surprisingly, the film was originally going to be created using the same stop-motion technique as Wallace and Gromit, however, the production team were apparently not satisfied with the facial expressiveness of the main character. Art directors reportedly visited Hearst Castle and Dordogne for inspiration into the look of Duloc and the results really are captivating.
Titanic first hit the big screen in 1997 and blew people away with the quality of its special effects. Many lengths were taken to create an epic production including scale models, computer-generated imagery and footage of the actual Titanic wreck. At the time it was the most expensive movie ever made, coming in at around $200 million, and had people running to the cinema to see what all the fuss was about. The film news sections were packed full of stories about this tragic tale and the movie is still incredibly popular today. Titanic's enduring popularity is exemplified with the news that the film will be re-released and given the 3-D treatment in mid-2012.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is perhaps best-known for its spectacular scenery, with most parts of the epic drama being filmed in New Zealand. Fight and sword choreography took hours to design and illustrations were carefully drawn up to create the backdrop of the set. Unbelievably, the New Zealand Army even helped build Hobbiton months before filming and the flowers even had a chance to grow. Apparently 1,800 pairs of Hobbit feet were created by special effects outfit Weta Workshop and around 19,000 costumes were woven. A truly impressive achievement that garnered Weta monumental acclaim and led to innumerable job opportunities for its engineers. The workshop has since provided its services to The Chronicles of Narnia series, Avatar, District 9, and most recently, The Adventures of TinTin: Secret of the Unicorn.
Blockbusters today seems to have an endless bag of tricks with which to wow filmgoers. It is worth remembering the paths of those that paved the way.
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The five most innovative films of all time were all made within the past 15 years? What were people doing in the previous 100 years of cinema?
ReplyDeleteGood point -- this article clearly has a particular focus on modern innovation. Perhaps the moniker 'of all time' should be changed. I'll correct it.
ReplyDeleteFixed!
ReplyDelete