Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I was certain when I was about 10 years old that I was going to be a special effects artist or a make-up man. I loved that stuff and pursued it for quite some time, actually.
That was fun to play. There were some nice special effects coupled with some really nice moments with child and wife. I also was able to age to about 100 years in 'Brief Candle.'
I saw a segment of Douglas Trumbull's special effects for 'Blade Runner' on the KNBC-TV news. I recognized it immediately. It was my own interior world. They caught it perfectly.
CGI is done after the film is done. It's through the computer. Most of the film is not computer-generated special effects. Most of it is that creature that is in the room with you.
The Apple has the fewest bells and whistles. It has simple sound and few graphics special effects. In a way, that is a weakness because markets for the other machines are getting bigger.
The fact that I wound up doing television and film was just a thing that happened, but I was trained for the theater, and what goes on in the theater has nothing to do with special effects.
With 'Tron,' we had so many crew members around and a stage full of special effects people that know exactly what has to be done in the situations. You're on a stage in sets the whole time.
What was frustrating about Armageddon was the time I spent not doing anything. It was a big special effects film, and I wasn't crazy about pretending I was in outer space. It feels ridiculous.
I think 'MythBusters' is a step up from special effects because we not only have to make things look like they work, they actually do have to work. It's more challenging and even transcendental.
There are a lot of times where, filming 'It Follows,' I'm fighting against a guy dressed in a green suit for special effects, and I'm just like, 'No. There's no way this is going to be pulled off.'
To try and raise a budget for a film that is strictly for adults and both strong and graphic in content is not easy, especially when there is pressure to spend serious money on good special effects.
If you look at Buster Keaton or Douglas Fairbanks movies, what still amazes you today is their physical ability. The only special effects that never grow old are what you can do with the human body.
In this era of digital special effects, I think it's good to work with our hands and our hearts, to use water and clay, to dry it in the air from the sun. This brings you back to the element of life.
With a book I am the writer and I am also the director and I'm all of the actors and I'm the special effects guy and the lighting technician: I'm all of that. So if it's good or bad, it's all up to me.
I had a great time working on 'The Gates,' and that was my first real experience doing supernatural television, working with the special effects and everything that goes into making a supernatural show.
I always wanted to tell stories. Well, at least, I always came back to the notion of storytelling when the glitz and glamour of being a special effects designer or a fighter pilot or a DEA agent wore off.
I don't get it when you get so much openness about the way movies are made, and the special effects and the behind-the-scenes stuff and all of that. I can't help but feel like this reduces it a little bit.
I think when you take away all, like, the premieres and press stuff and all the special effects, then you just come down to the fact that it's all about acting, and I think that has been the best bit for me.
I knew that, when writing a book, you're not constrained by a budget. You're not constrained by what you can do, in terms of the special effects technology. You're not limited to any particular running time.
When you do action stuff and sci-fi stuff, you have a lot to hide behind - the hair and the makeup and the special effects. But when you play a normal girl, it's challenging because you have to trust yourself.
Something like 'The Matrix' would be ideal, something where it's super agents and wire work and special effects - not necessarily running from bombs and shooting people. Something more sleek, like an assassin.
When I used to work in special effects at the model shop, I couldn't imagine having a better job. We made spaceships and miniature cities and I was working on robots. Then the 'MythBusters' opportunity came along.
The first light-field camera array I saw at Stanford had a bunch of applications, like to do special effects like you see in 'The Matrix,' where you spin the camera around in frozen motion. It took up an entire room.
The first film I made was when I was 13 and it was called 'The Dogs That Ate Detroit.' It starred my Saint Bernard Barney, and it was a killer thriller with oodles of special effects that were cutting edge for the time.
Every other movie is one of those action things. I mean, 'Lost in Space'? A bunch of good actors running around shooting at special effects on a soundstage? I took my kids to see that and felt like I was on an acid trip.
I grew up loving films and making stupid movies with a good friend of mine, who now actually has a career in a really prominent special effects house, so he's still doing it. We just started messing around with a camera.
I have a DVD of 'Lois & Clark,' and I don't know how the special effects hold up, because all the technology's gotten so much better. But the writer - the woman that wrote 'Lois & Clark' - I think those stories were good.
That's the thing with sci-fi and action roles. You have to play the danger as real. If you don't, you end up with egg on your face. You have to commit. You can't think about how stupid it might look without the special effects.
Asylum was good exposure for me and it is still shown quite often on television. I remember the special effects people had fun making a little doll that looked like me - which is not so easy - and it had to move along the floor.
Actors have seven tracks going in their minds: They've got all the research they've done for the part, then they have whatever the director asked them to do, then they've got what the departments like special effects need them to do.
You have these big $200 and $300 million movies with special effects, and I've always thought, 'Gee, why don't we make 30 movies instead of one $300 million movie?' Let's shake it up a bit; wouldn't that be a better bet? Evidently not.
I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery. The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that's why they're so relatable.
I think a lot of the time these days people are so concerned about having the right camera and the right film and the right lenses and all the special effects that go along with it, even the computer, that they're missing the key element.
I've actually usually been wary of taking on science fiction as an actor because it's really tough to do. It's really difficult to execute. There's often lots of prosthetics, green screen and special effects, and it can get very technical.
I went to the library - and this was before the Internet - and I searched for a career that was creative, would not fall into a routine, involved problem solving and making things. It also had to be dynamic. I came up with special effects.
Whether it's the experiments on 'MythBusters' or my earlier work in special effects for movies, I've regularly had to do things that were never done before, from designing complex motion-control rigs to figuring out how to animate chocolate.
The action movies changed radically when it became possible to Velcro your muscles on. It was the beginning of a new era. The visual took over. The special effects became more important than the single person. That was the beginning of the end.
There is a lot of use of ProTools in professional studios, but this is mostly for the special effects it allows, not for sound quality. These special effects soon fall out of fashion, and I don't think this trend will define studios permanently.
The main prank that we play with props is for people's birthdays. The special effects people will put a little explosive in the cake so it blows up in their face - that's always fun to play on a guest star, or one of the trainees or someone who's new.
I spent four months in Prague in these blue rooms reacting to nothing and you basically place your faith in the hands of the director and the special effects co-coordinator and you keep your fingers crossed and hope that the creatures look really scary.
I think sometimes people can get lost in the bigger special effects, science fiction, robot stuff, and those are cool and fun to watch, too, but I think it's so important to sometimes step back and watch something that's about life and human interaction.
I think when you make a genre or horror movie, you need a budget. When you skimp on blood and special effects and all that, it automatically looks cheesy. But a movie like 'The Room' is psychologically bad, which goes a lot deeper than just technically bad.
What I would like to do is a thriller. I've been wanting to do that for a long time, but one that was not at all dependent on special effects. Just purely psychological, but will scare the hell out of you. That's what I would like to do. I have not found it yet.
My kids love old Hollywood movies and look forward to watching the Charlton Heston classic, 'The Ten Commandments,' every year. The retro special effects and over-acting are fun to watch and the story is a great reminder of our Jewish roots in the Passover meal.
Besides the mistakes that are pointed out, I love the way readers become involved with the characters. When readers start asking about character motivations instead of concentrating on the special effects, it means you're connecting with them on a personal level.
It's funny, because even though on a drama like 'Picket Fences' those long monologues would stress me out, doing special effects where there's a green screen and there's nobody there to to react to and you have to recite all this dialogue, it's so much more difficult.
Substance over style is the rule for all resumes. Any special effects will dilute the gravitas and stature of the impression. You want people to concentrate on your accomplishments and your successes, not the curlicues of a font or unusual shades or contrast of colors.
Madonna can still produce a catchy pop song, but she hasn't expanded her artistic vocabulary since the 1990s. Her concerts are glitzy extravaganzas of special effects overkill. She leaves little space in them for emotional depth or unscripted rapport with the audience.
I really love the independent movies and I just think that sometimes when they throw a lot of money into it and a lot of special effects and a lot of stunts that you lose the connection, the human connection and I personally love movies that are about the human connection.
I loved literary science fiction. In fact, as a kid, when I was reading science fiction, I thought 'I can't wait for the future when the special effects are good' to represent what was in these books by Arthur C. Clarke, Alfred Bester, Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, Jack Vance.