Funny, just last week I had an urge to re-visit The Black Hole movie as well.
The use of wire colored the same as the background sets to hide them in different shots...mercy they went to alot of trouble.
Disney's BLACK HOLE -- FX information?
- Thread starter Christopher
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Funny, just last week I had an urge to re-visit The Black Hole movie as well.
The use of wire colored the same as the background sets to hide them in different shots...mercy they went to alot of trouble.
TCM just showed The Black Hole again, so I was finally able to catch the first third of the film that I missed before (including the overture, making this one of the last films to use one). I was really impressed by the opening sequence. The level of realism in it was striking. There were some scientific flaws in it, such as the crew being weightless inside the ship even when the thrusters were firing and the way the black hole's gravitational effects on the Palomino were described and depicted, but aside from that it was one of the better simulations of microgravity I've seen in a motion picture. Heck, hardly anybody even tries; usually they just go for the artificial-gravity dodge. And of course they did that here on the Cygnus, but that just makes it cooler that they went to the trouble to keep the Palomino in freefall. (And it explains why Yvette Mimieux sported such short hair in the film.) And I love the realistic design and operation of the Palomino, the way it maneuvered using thrusters and didn't have a single unvarying orientation (such as the way it flew "feet-forward" as it probed the belly of the Cygnus with its floodlight).
The visuals of the Cygnus flyovers were terrific too. Why has no subsequent film emulated these striking designs for spacecraft, these great open scaffolds and Crystal Palace architecture? They're missing out. And I have to confess, I had a "Whoa!" reaction when the darkened Cygnus suddenly lit up, even though I was expecting it at any moment, and even though it was pretty clearly done with a simple photographic dissolve from a shot of the unlit model to a shot of the lit one. It would've been even cooler if they could've shown the lights going up sequentially rather than all at once, but it was still impressive. The matte shot of the Cygnus control room was pretty awesome too.
The scene where the crew was studying the hologram projection of the black hole and the Cygnus was interesting. I assume the initial hologram shots were your basic double exposure, but when we got mid-closeups of the individual characters seen through the hologram, it looked to me like the "hologram" footage was simply projected onto glass between the actor and the camera. Very clever and effective. And as far as I could tell, they did a pretty good job keeping track of how the angle of the "hologram" image should change when they cut among the three people watching it from different positions.
When V.I.N.CENT went outside to secure the loose hatch, at first I went, "Oops, I can see the wire he's hanging from!" But then a minute later I realized he was attached by a tether and it was supposed to be visible!
And I don't care what anyone says, I've always liked V.I.N.CENT. Roddy MacDowall's delivery elevates the character above Disney cutesiness and lends him some real class and dignity.
The visuals of the Cygnus flyovers were terrific too. Why has no subsequent film emulated these striking designs for spacecraft, these great open scaffolds and Crystal Palace architecture? They're missing out. And I have to confess, I had a "Whoa!" reaction when the darkened Cygnus suddenly lit up, even though I was expecting it at any moment, and even though it was pretty clearly done with a simple photographic dissolve from a shot of the unlit model to a shot of the lit one. It would've been even cooler if they could've shown the lights going up sequentially rather than all at once, but it was still impressive. The matte shot of the Cygnus control room was pretty awesome too.
The scene where the crew was studying the hologram projection of the black hole and the Cygnus was interesting. I assume the initial hologram shots were your basic double exposure, but when we got mid-closeups of the individual characters seen through the hologram, it looked to me like the "hologram" footage was simply projected onto glass between the actor and the camera. Very clever and effective. And as far as I could tell, they did a pretty good job keeping track of how the angle of the "hologram" image should change when they cut among the three people watching it from different positions.
When V.I.N.CENT went outside to secure the loose hatch, at first I went, "Oops, I can see the wire he's hanging from!" But then a minute later I realized he was attached by a tether and it was supposed to be visible!
And I don't care what anyone says, I've always liked V.I.N.CENT. Roddy MacDowall's delivery elevates the character above Disney cutesiness and lends him some real class and dignity.
Sorry for the late reply, I actually gave away the old Anchor Bay version when I got the new one.
My HT setup makes it nigh impossible to watch non-anamorphic widescreen DVDs (I have the progressive lock-in-full feature on my HDTV).
That said, I've watched the 16x9 version a couple of times and it looks fine to me, though I only have a 30" diagonal widescreen set. I'd just rather not deal with having to zoom or scale non 16x9 stuff (I've been waiting for a 16x9 copy of 2010 for years!)
For years I've wanted to script a remake of this movie...
Might be fun to get to do a really hard-SF version, except that ending would have to go...
I have a question about the animation in the main title sequence. The vector graphics of flat space and the black hole within it looked computer-generated, but I thought it was accepted that the TWOK Genesis simulation was the first computer-animated sequence in motion pictures. So how was it made?
It was CGI but The Black Hole wasn't the first use of that kind CGI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_CGI_in_film_and_television
A fun movie that blew me away when I saw it as a kid. I remember reading about the design on the robot soldiers (Star and his buddies) and the guy who designed them said they were originally supposed to be very agile and mobile but Disneu stepped in and changed it so they appeared very stiff and awkward. The battle between Vincent and the robot troops was supposed to be very dynamic (thus expensive) so they changed it into what was basically a shooting gallery (robots falling off walkways etc)
What about the Death Star animation in the briefing scene of the first Star Wars movie? I seem to recall seeing a documentary (a long time ago..) detailing how difficult it was producing those few seconds of wire-frame graphics due to the state of computers back in the mid-1970's. (Ah, the wiki article linked up-thread says yes. Nevermind.)
Also: am i the only one who thinks the Palamino in BH resembles the recorder-buoy found by the Enterprise in Where No Man Has Gone Before?
So I guess what's pioneering about the Genesis animation was that it was the first time CGI was used for an entire in-story sequence rather than a title sequence or a background display. And the fractal thing.
I think you're right about that aspect of it.
Outstanding! I'm not crazy. As crazy. Um, more-or-less sane?
^ More or less.
Check this page out. It's not 100% accurate, but it gets most of it right. You may be surprised to find early computer graphics in films you didn't think had any.
http://www.filmsite.org/visualeffects9.html
http://www.filmsite.org/visualeffects9.html
But I wonder, were the vector graphics produced by computers directly on the film with no mediation, or were they printed out onto animation cels and photographed traditionally?
I'm surprised to learn from that list of milestones that the Superman titles were computer-animated. I'd assumed they were flat animation cels shot with a slit-scan or multiple-exposure effect to give them dimension and movement.
And I can't believe Alien beat ST:TMP and The Black Hole at the Oscars! We wuz robbed!
That's misleading because it implies that was an optical effect using a miniature or something. It was a live, practical effect with a full-size boulder (one made of papier-mache, but still heavy enough to be very dangerous if Ford -- who did the stunt himself -- had fallen).
I'm surprised to learn from that list of milestones that the Superman titles were computer-animated. I'd assumed they were flat animation cels shot with a slit-scan or multiple-exposure effect to give them dimension and movement.
And I can't believe Alien beat ST:TMP and The Black Hole at the Oscars! We wuz robbed!
That's misleading because it implies that was an optical effect using a miniature or something. It was a live, practical effect with a full-size boulder (one made of papier-mache, but still heavy enough to be very dangerous if Ford -- who did the stunt himself -- had fallen).
The wiki article's wrong, it wasn't computer animated - I know the guy who did it...
Then you should tell that to George Lucas as well since it's in the commentary for a A New Hope as well.
Like so many DVD commentators, Lucas occasionally misremembers things from that far back. It's always better to go by what was written/recorded at the time.
I've found that's a good general rule for DVD commentaries.
I've found that's a good general rule for DVD commentaries.