Richard's Animorphs Forum

Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Yorick Brown on August 04, 2008, 12:51:31 AM

Title: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: Yorick Brown on August 04, 2008, 12:51:31 AM
For a live action TV show or film adaptation.

The Hork-Bajir are puppets/CGI, the animals are trained/CGI, the Taxxons are CGI, the Leerans are CGI, the Andalites are puppets/people in make-up and costume, the Chee are CGI/puppets, the Helmacrons are people in make-up and costume, the Nartecs are people in make-up and costume, the dinosaurs are puppets/CGI, the Veleek is CGI, the Venber are puppets/CGI, the Iskoort are puppets, the Yeerks are leeches and slugs.

Well?
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: AniDragon on August 04, 2008, 03:56:48 AM
If by puppets you mean animatronics(wtf sp?), then all is good. ^_^.
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: Hunter on August 04, 2008, 05:00:08 AM
For a live action TV show or film adaptation.

The Hork-Bajir are puppets/CGI, the animals are trained/CGI, the Taxxons are CGI, the Andalites are puppets.people in make-up and costume, the Chee are CGI/puppets, the Helmacrons are people in make-up and costume, the Nartecs are people in make-up and costume, the dinosaurs are puppets/CGI, the Veleek is CGI, the Venber are puppets/CGI, the Iskoort are puppets, the Yeerks are leeches and slugs.

Well?

CGI i don't really worry about, but puppets?

If by puppets you mean animatronics(wtf sp?), then all is good. ^_^.

ok, animatronics may work, if the makers HAVE A BIG ENOUGH BUDGET!

thats the only thing stopping a better animorphs show... in my opinion.
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: SuperBlue on August 04, 2008, 06:57:43 AM
For a live action TV show or film adaptation.

The Hork-Bajir are puppets/CGI, the animals are trained/CGI, the Taxxons are CGI, the Andalites are puppets.people in make-up and costume, the Chee are CGI/puppets, the Helmacrons are people in make-up and costume, the Nartecs are people in make-up and costume, the dinosaurs are puppets/CGI, the Veleek is CGI, the Venber are puppets/CGI, the Iskoort are puppets, the Yeerks are leeches and slugs.

Well?

All good except the Andalites, they should not be ppl in costumes they should either be comepletely CG! or anamatronic
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: Gaz on August 04, 2008, 08:30:23 AM
If it had to be puppet/animatronic the two things that spring to mind who could do it best would be: The Jim Henson Company and Guillermo del Toro. That's just my opinion.

I shudder whenever I hear "andalite" and "people in costume" put together. Angora sweaters! GAH!

Today's CGI would make things look absolutely kick butt. Though they would need a decent sized budget behind them cuz that sort of CGI ain't cheap.

Taxxons...totally CGI, there's no other way in my mind.
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: Yorick Brown on August 04, 2008, 12:04:33 PM
Quote
If it had to be puppet/animatronic the two things that spring to mind who could do it best would be: The Jim Henson Company and Guillermo del Toro. That's just my opinion.

It's my opinion too.

I mentioned puppets because of the great work that the Jim Henson Company did on Farscape and Labyrinth.

(I also liked the puppetry used by the late Stan Winston and ILM on Jurassic Park and many other creature features.)
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: wolfev on August 04, 2008, 04:05:33 PM
Andalites would have to be CGI and make up. Like the body would be done with make up and the rest would be added in later. You can't use a horse body either, that was always a a mistake I think. They should be more deer to get away from the centaur thing.
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: Yorick Brown on August 04, 2008, 04:11:51 PM
Actually, I was surprised that Applegate via her human characters always described Andalites as blue furred half-men, half-deer rather than blue furred centaurs which is so much clearer.

Only once in The Other did I hear an Andalite described as a centaur.
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: wolfev on August 04, 2008, 04:13:34 PM
It would be interesting to see how thought speak works, or who would do the voices.
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: Chad32 on August 04, 2008, 04:25:56 PM
I always wondered why they didn't just say centaur instead of half dear half Human. I assume most people know that a centaur looks like.
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: Nomad Frog on August 04, 2008, 04:34:38 PM
I'd prefer a motion-capture CGI - I just think that's the best with moements and such.  It'd probably work on all of them, but you still have that human interaction there behind it. 

Like Any Serkis playing Golum, only they'd be much better effects by now.  But at least then the movements would seem natural, as opposed to artificial, like a muppet.
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: Yorick Brown on August 04, 2008, 04:35:56 PM
Thought-speak is easy.

The actors who play Andalites in human morph do the voices for thought-speak which is just a regular voice that the audience can hear but the characters 'hear' as telepathy.
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: Estelore on August 04, 2008, 04:48:17 PM
Hmmn. Interesting concepts. I'd suggest, perhaps, that some of the close-up Hork-Bajir be tall actors in suits that are green/blue and fitted out with reflective sensors in the way that you'd make Gollum and Yoda (new Yoda, not puppet Yoda). Have martial artists and coreographers play them, to get the fighting scenes truly perfect.
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: Essam 293 on August 04, 2008, 05:05:09 PM
The Golden Compass got things right with the way they handled animals on there (It seemed to be a mix of real trained animals and cgi ones). If they get some of the special f/x people from there on Animorphs, then I'll be happy. Either that, or Peter Jackson.

The aliens shouldn't be anything other than CGI. Animatronics and puppets for close up shots, maybe, but they'd have to use that sparingly if they're doing large battle scenes.
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: Yorick Brown on August 04, 2008, 06:02:34 PM
WETA did the f/x for The Golden Compass and Peter Jackson' s The LOrd of the Rings Trilogy.
Title: Re: What do you think of these creature effects?
Post by: AniDragon on August 04, 2008, 06:25:01 PM
I actually find that animatronics usually look better on-screen than CGI. And this is coming from a 3D artist looking for work.

I find it's always easy to tell that something is CGI, while animatronics seem to "fit in" better. There's no worry about having to match the lighting or camera or anything. It interacts directly with the actors. And with technology these days, they're getting more advanced.

Just look at the creatures in Lady in the Water. Even in the "making of" feature, when we saw one sitting in the studio, not on set, it looked real and scared me when it moved because it was so natural.


So, yeah. If ever any of my stories make in on-screen in live action, and I need weird looking creatures, I'd spend the extra dough to get animatronics instead of cgi.