True Lies VFX review

Movie -  True Lies
released - 1994
Director - James Cameron
Cinematography - Russel Carpenter
VFX - Digital Domain 
Miniature explosions : Joe Viskocil

True lies is a james cameron directed 1994 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Art Malik, Tia Carrere, Bill Paxton, Eliza Dushku, Grant Heslov and Charlton Heston. Harry is a special task force operative under cover who leads a double life as a computer salesman at home.

This Movies Main action sequences use explosions, Harrier jet stunts & mid air fights which were very realistically done! lets have a look at how these effects were pulled off.

Climax of the movie had helicopter chase scenes, & harrier jet mid air hovering sequences while actors fought on the wings & cockpit. to achieve these John Bruno & his team from Digital domain were summoned. To achieve what james cameron wanted as the final result, it had to be a mix of practical effects & CGI.

A 47 foot replica of a harrier jet was made with fibre glass material & fixed to a metal frame. then the  setup was mounted on a motion control platform. the platform simulated the moves of the jet it could turn a 60 degree angle in any direction.

The harrier jets motion control system was controlled by computers. Computers controlled the hydraulic base which weighed 20,000 pounds which had the 7000 pound jet replica mounted on it. To add realism james cameron opted to move out of the safety of the sound stage & moved the whole setup on top of a 30 story building!

Because the jet was controlled by a computer, a sequence of moves can be programmed & repeated the same way over n over again, which gave the director freedom to focus on the actors & there emotions. all the parallel  up looking shots of the jet sequence were shot on this motion controlled stage.

GreenScreen effects came in to play when the more reisky actions involved, this shot shows the terrorist Aziz jumping on to the harrier jet, which was added later & then cuts to a parallel shot of him sliding on the plane.

Though the parallel & up looking shots were possible on top of the set, other shots required the use of the green screen which helped more control for the VFX artists. so the motion controlled setup was moved to a airforce hanger which served as the green screen setup.

The plus side of having a computer driven motion control system is that you get the same movements where ever you set it up. 

once the onset work was over, the VFX artists started adding the backplates, hovering jet engine fume effects to the shots. the hovering jet engines hot air effects were simulated & added to the moving & rotating jet which is seen very realistic in the movie.

John bruno who worked with james cameron in movies such as Abyss, had to pull wizardry on air this time around compared to the underwater shots of Abyss.

The Terminator 1 - VFX review

Movie - The Terminator
released - 1984
Director - james cameron
Cinematography - Adam greenberg
VFX - Fantasy II
Animatronics - Stan Winston

No this isn't the well known Terminator II judgement day! this is the original not so tech involved original movie which started a franchise! Terminator 1 is not the all shining technologically advanced movie you will want to see, but it uses animatronic puppets cleverly mixed with CGI to some extent.

This shot is the deal breaker that shows the then (1983) state of the art animatronics used in the industry. James cameron pulled this feat with the assistance of Stan Winston & the team. the shot which shows the Damaged terminator fixing himself is pretty nicely pulled when it comes to mixing of shots. Actual hand is shown until Arnold cuts it open, but ones that initial cut is shown the shot moves to the facial expressions & the tools, this is an interesting way of making the viewer wanting to see what's actually going on and that they forget the puppet (fake) aspect due to the built up curiosity. But when the mechanism of the hand is shown with shining metal covered with flesh & blood, it pays off for the built up hype.

Even the face is clearly noticeable between the puppet n actual actor. but still after he punctures the eye with the blade, it shows a side of the face with Arnold faking a surgery on the eye which is covered to the camera.

this clip found on youtube gives a shortened version of the entire movies VFX scenes. The very basic scanning & machine view of the terminator, to the guns laser pointer that was not something simple like todays handy coin sized gadgets. At 1983 Diode lasers were not available and even the working helium neon laser had a high power requirement. for this a separate power pack was made that would connect to the gun &  when needed Arnold needed to activate it.

All in all the movie, for its time was something the audience have not experienced & went on to earn a box office.

The Abyss - VFX review

Movie - The Abyss
Year - 1989
Director - James cameron
Cinematography - Mikael Salomon
VFX - ILM

A US submarine detects an unknown object in the deeps of the ocean and is sunk by the fast moving un identified underwater object. US navy does not have the time to move in with their equipment to the area as they fear russian submarines will dig for the nuclear weapons it went down with. so the navy teams up with an underwater oil rig platform operators to get what they want. 

the movie starts with what seems like practical effects for the underwater submarine shots and keeps the viewer to it by the story and the great acting involved. the interior of the submarine command center too is very well made and the computer screens have very well planned out animations playing on them, given the year this was made, even the screens in the background display animations that make you think they have some details that's worth looking at.

the underwater oil rig platform and the small drones with thier deep water effect complete with high powered light beams make a fantastic show of its own. My guess is that james cameron did this with a underwater setup.

This shot of the team of divers getting the warhead out of the submarine has a lot of details, the water bubbles, the reflections on the glass helmets lighting and that bluish underwater atmostphere adds up to the realism of it.

This part of the Alien in closeups show a mix of CGI and animatronics, the head & the arm of this creature show it's mechanical movements but still is quit cool with all the translucent effect with lighting. 

the most breathtaking moment for CGI comes in the second half of the movie with the light emitting alien entity trying to sneak into the underwater compartment by forming water into a tentacle like structure. as the heroin of the movie touch the tentacle it forms her face on the end of its tentacle. this effect is one of the very few visual effects shots for the time which involved a transparent subject like water. the water has both the transparency & transcluency that is hard to get right even by todays CG artists.

this shot was originally planned as a stop- motion animation by james cameron but was taken to ILM to be created with CGI. the ILM team photographed the entire set in every angle so that they can recreate the set in the computer, and the interesting fact is that this 75 second scene took 6 months to create! Wow, now that's just unbelievable! 

And then Tsunami shots which i don't have any explanation on how they did it. the thing is, the water stays like a wall as the aliens control it. If it was a wave rushing in a quick, I would have had an explanation, but this still effect must be a drawing or something.

The alien ship at the end got to be a miniature shot and then the human actors imposed on it. but still there are some shots where the actors walk on it, so some parts must have been made.

If you need a slight hint on what the video cameras looked at the time, the movie shows a news reporter carrying the camera to cover the tsunami, so you got the size of it.

Here goes a Bonus, If you watch closely you will see the Extras playing fool on set. watch the guy on the left gets his pants pulled, not a very good thing to do when you run away from a tsunami! If james cameron sees this, it would be a fun thing to get his idea on how this passed on to the final movie.