Metropolis - Why is it backlot/cgi..uhg

[Xx.Kal-El.xX]

Fringe does an awesome job making people think Vancouver is downtown New York or Boston, why can't Smallville do the same? Whoever producer chose to make Metropolis CGI must be an inbred. The back lot they use... there are no buildings higher than 3 or 4 stories, lol. We're supposed to believe this is one of the (if not) biggest metropolitan cities in north america? -- I know some of the shots are actually vancouver, but most use that god awful backlot.

It'd be infinitely cheaper to just film the metropolis scenes in downtown Vancouver. Hell, they should have moved the production to Ontario and taken advantage of Ottawa and Toronto. This has been bugging me for the past several years, and I cringe every time theres a shot of CGI metropolis. Especially in the latest episode, Supergirl.

When Kara saves the crowd by catching the falling billboard, when Clark and everyone look up, and the camera pans to Kara, theres some awful.. awful looking buildings. How hard can a solid object be to make detailed via computer graphics? Keep the model and textures saved on hard drives.. honestly. Looks like a 2005 video game with increased HDR glow to hide imperfections.

Filming in a real life city would make this a lot easier, and cheaper. How is creating CGI shots cheaper? If it is, I'll say sorry and move on, but from what I understand using real life locations is a lot cheaper. Especially here in Canada.

A bit off topic but on the same topic of CGI, another thread I have got me started on this little rant:

Why is the flying in this show so awkward.. Why are we seeing visible movement waves? That doesn't really make much sense. Wouldn't doing wirework and green screen (with todays editing technology looks amazing) be again, cheaper? it also feels more fluid.. I miss watching Chris Reeve's superman take off and fly away in one fluid motion. It looked so nice, and that was a film 30+ years ago.

I like the slow-mo superspeed shots but they are way overused imo =\ One in particular I thought was great was from last season, where Clark is saving (.. I forgot who) at a Checkmate base and the lights were flickering, and each flicker clark had taken out a guard. That was badass.

You can argue budget till you're blue in the face, but Stargate SG1 and Atlantis had a similar budget and we got some awesome looking scifi cgi on a weekly basis.
/endrant

Can't wait for homecomming :D

[omnomnom]

first.
you make it sound easy when it's not. Whoever or where you heard from. You've been terribly misinformed.
It's not cheaper to film in the middle of downtown.

why?

you have to get permission to close down the street. which disrupts city traffic. Plus. there has been a huge number of production going around Vancouver in recent years.. it can't compete with them because they are higher budgeted television and film shows. Production has to pay the city to shut streets down and have Police on standby for safety and traffic control. not to mention all the security guards to keep fans away. That's already a huge chunk of money.
Being on set requires lot's of gear which takes hour's to set up.
Large crew's are needed and they need to be fed; hence, caterers. They aren't cheap either.

Filming on a built set saves the studio a huge sum of money. Everything is set up. Take's 1/10 of the time. and you save money from crew's having to work overtime from early setup to late dismantling at the end of the day.

As for background replacement.
It's cheaper to do in post because you only have one or few artist working on it. In the end the shot may have cost.. say $1500 (just a rough example and estimate if it was a non-complicated background replacement for tv). Where as, if you have went to downtown Vancouver to film this. Would have probably cost you in the $10,000's; likely more.

Yes it'll look better if it was filmed with in a live city. But doesn't fit the budget. The set extensions could look real if the artists were given more time. But they have to pump out an episode 1-2 weeks. TV do not have much time to work on. So you get what you get and it makes it's point that it's a city even if it's bad.

As for the flying. Having a bunch of wires on a greenscreen is brutal and time consuming to clean up. They are trying do whats possible in short amount of time. Most flying scenes are not them flying. It's a CG model of them.. For TV.. best way is to do quick transitions from CG to actor.. Film.. yes you probably could make him take off at a nice speed/flow. but again. Time will never allow for it in TV.

Stargate SG1 and Atlantis.. again where are you getting info that it was a similar budget. Which is completely false. SG1 and Atlantis had a much bigger budget. Both productions had their own on-the-lot team of artists, as well as, they had the budget to outsource work to other studios (some were high profile studios) to work on. Furthermore, they had time. Able to film a month or two.. sometimes more.. in advance.. giving more time for artists to work on the visual effects.


Smallville does not have that luxury. Most episodes you see were literally filmed within the last 3 weeks it was aired.
It was never intended to be a big budget show. This show wasn't even suppose to last this long in their original plans. Hence, the low budget. They only kept going cause of the fans. It's all the money they can find for a dying series.

...and saving for last episode is not how it works. Don't expect much unless they get time.

[jjgravitas]

I hear what you're saying. I have another take on it.
Smallville's look is by choice. The CGI, the cinematography, lighting with strong chiaroscuro, functions together to make Smallville look like a graphic novel come to life. Smallville has more to do with D.C. Comics than with the movies of the '80's. And it's all been done on the budget of a TV show. Works for me.

[AntiRellik]

In "Superman Returns" that scene where the space shuttle separates from the plane, we get to see Superman holding the shuttle and taking it out of the atmosphere, that was all CGI... Brandon Routh didn't even have to act in that part.
My point with telling you this? The could make Smallville look totally real and awesome, just like most things you see in films look so damn real, its actually top notch CGI... and that comes with time and money. Smallville doesn't have these luxuries...

[DC Fanboy]

The city usually looks fake but the Metropolis CGI (when Clark was on the roof) from Homecoming looked very realistic.