Since I never studied writing or even had one class in creative writing I urge you, please, to comment and give me feedback of what you like, what you don’t, what confuses you and when you start wondering what the hell I was thinking. The next chapter is soon to follow. (Boy, I really hope so! Usually if I write something like “soon!” or “I promise!” it means certain death to the promised post…)

I was working like crazy for many hours straight on that song, the melancholic and desperate flair I was trying to achieve eventually made images pop up in my head, so I guess I succeeded in creating something evocative. In fact, the images and the feel was so clear that I wrote down a little story.

Ideally you click now the play-button and read the short story below.

This is a short photo-blog-post of my impressions.

But wait, there’s more!
There also is a photo book available now with many many more colorful pictures. Check it out if you’re interested

I chuckled but I couldn’t forget about this little conversation. While her statement was not always true it still bears some truth. As the VFX keep getting bigger and better their underlying plots degenerate and become more one-dimensional than the comics most of them are loosely based on. The money of the production is mainly spent on stars and on post-production sweatshops facilities on the west coast. The companies make good money and so nobody ponders: Is it all worth the effort?

Techno Breed

Every couple of years there’s a new breakthrough in technology that the upcoming movies feature. Disney’s Dinosaur was prominent for the dinos having digital muscles under their displacement-mapped skins; Lord of the Rings was one of the major features to use sub-surface scattering on Gollum and Watchmen showcases that live-action tracking finally works. So what’s next?

Nowadays computing speed has more or less leveled out, you can’t get considerably faster than 3.5 GHz (by staying somewhat economic in your efforts), so for the last couple of years we experienced and still experience a shift towards multi-core CPUs. You won’t get more MHz for your buck, but more parallel processes. So instead of doing things faster and faster one after another, especially in real-time environments we do more and more computations simultaneously which imposes better programming on what’s already there. This may be one reason why there is nothing really groundbreaking going on in the visual department in the last few years except the usual “bigger” and “better”. Whereas bump-mapping, anti-aliasing or HDR rendering really were obvious to the occasional gamer, better physics, ambient occlusion or parallax mapping aren’t that much of a blast compared to what we’re already used to. I won’t go much deeper into the gaming sector because it is a topic of its own, yet film and game share the same efforts in making things look more real.

Photoreal Seductions

So can we get more photoreal? I bet. In games we’re already there. In movies, well, we’ve already arrived: Jurassic Park, Terminator 2 were trailblazers for VFX-flagships auch as Cloverfield, Watchmen and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Do we want to get more photoreal? What’s beyond photoreal?

Stylization — that’s what’s beyond and I see this as a big trend in the upcoming years and, frankly I can’t wait for it to happen if it is done with thought and consideration. Since anything’s possible in CGI, well, anything’s possible and filmmakers (as well as some game designers) aren’t inclined anymore to find creative ways around showing something that’s technically not possible. You don’t have your protagonists worry about how terrifying a monster is, you just show it. But is this really more terrifying?

Fig. 1: Typical blockbuster plot.

This trend has started around ten or twelve years ago when most films wrapped their plot around visual effects (consider Godzilla). I like good movies but I feel that this technology-driven way of film making opened the door for hollow shells, fancy CGI with a plot that lacks mostly of a plot (see fig. 1). Let’s face it: Transformers was just a CG-showreel with enormous budget and had a plot that insulted anybody with an age of more than one digit (or an I.Q. with more than two digits).

Of course, there are exceptions, but in general the more “groundbreaking” CGI is in a movie, the more holes has a plot. More than the antagonist after the final battle.

So am I proposing to ban CGI from movies and do it as Quentin does, edit your masterpiece on a Steenbeck and the only “optical effects” in it are titles and credits? Of course not.

Visual Storytelling

I am not the only one (and by no means the first one) to notice. So what is visually interesting enough to burn a bonfire of visual effects, yet still has something one can call a plot? Comics. It started with Spiderman, along came X-Men, Batman, a bomb of Superman, Iron Man, Hancock, Watchmen… and I am sure I missed some. Do you see a pattern there (apart from the Men ¹?)

There’s a lot of good will to adopt the comic style in films and some bold attempts do succeed. Just look at Sin City! In my opinion Frank Miller is not a really good comic author nor artist but, hey, it’s a step in the right direction. If you want to know who I feel is the best comic artist at the moment then read David Mack‘s Kabuki series. It is so good that I hope there will never be a movie.

CGI can do so much more than just enhance movie reality. It can create one. But why stop there? It doesn’t have to create anything realistic. Today’s audience grew up with television, movies and animé, they know about film language, have an instinct for how story arcs work (even without attending an overpriced Robert McKee lecture) and they are familiar with all kinds of crazy shit. They don’t need to be shown the devastation a hostile army can create ². They don’t need to be treated like idiots!

What are films about again?

Having all that eye candy surround you in every film it is hard to take a step back and see the big picture (pun intended): Films are about people. They are about emotions, feelings and relations. Consider Terminator 2: It’s not about the T-1000 being able to morph into anything it wants to, it is about John Connor who is terrified of this machine, yet he has to trust the T-800, another machine, the only person in his life that is more father-like than any human. This movie would work even without the CGI. Transformers on the other hand would just be silly. It already is silly.

Fig. 2: Still from Ryan, (2004)

But well placed CGI and visual effects may help to transport the feelings, emotions or perceptions. A good example I feel is Ryan (fig. 2). Just the opening shot tells so much more about the characters than dialogue ever could. The inner workings are visualized and are in interplay with the traditional film making techniques. And Ryan is not the only attempt into this direction. The more indie a film is, the more experimental it can be.

This way CGI shifts from being the silver coating of a turd ³ to becoming a wheel on the delicate cart where the plot is pushed along.

Yet we all know: As soon as a film has to accumulate money the producers lack the balls like a mule and rather please the 8 to 22 year old males who are prone to bring their sorry girlfriends along.

So?

Think beyond! Use your imagination! Feel! VFX are more than wire removals, rotoscoping or giant dancing robots. VFX are art and craft. VFX are a wonderful tool to create and reveal what can’t be captured by any other medium in the world.

Be indie! Be involved in pre-production. Find fellow artists who want to be more than roto-monkeys in the guts of some galley. For transforming VFX from just a finishing tool to a source for inspiration and art it is crucial that “post-production” should become “pan-production”.

And that’s tonight’s word.

If you want to read about Stefan Sagmeister, a sudden incident and a cat, sacrifice ten minutes of your precious time and read on.

Prologue: The Dream

I am cruising with my car somewhere around Graz and its surroundings. I feel at ease, it is a warm day and I have nothing to worry about, I just feel the flow when I suddenly hear glass breaking, the terrible scratching sound of metal shoving against metal and wrinkling like tin foil. I am shaken, badly, my head hits the steering wheel. I taste the metallic flavor of blood. I just had an accident. The windmills in my mind catch a fresh breeze: “It had to happen sooner or later!”, “I didn’t pay enough attention!”, “I am gonna die!”, “Who’s gonna pay for the total?”, “What am I gonna do without a car?”, “What are my parents going to say?”. I felt a stinging pain near my ankle, like sharp needles closing in on my flesh.

The Cat, Part I

This was the first new experience, and I had it half an hour before waking up. “Ouch!” I pulled back my leg and opened my eyes a little. The big red tomcat that likes to crash at my place (and in my bed), bit me above my left foot. It wasn’t a mean bite, just a playful one. Still I haven’t been bitten by a cat in my sleep ever before…

The alarm on my cell phone rang exactly at 11:30am, half an hour before the lecture of star designer Stefan Sagmeister from Sagmeister, Inc., New York took place in the FH Salzburg. Interestingly, the same time the FH was crammed with people because it was Open Door Day and word had spread about Sagmeister. From what I heard there were even some classes from design-high schools around just to look at the god of design. Way more people than last year made the building buzzing like a hive. In the lobby some Stomp-inspired group was drumming on cans and barrels and made a terribly loud and uncomfortable noise. Lisa had a quick cigarette and we hurtled into the main auditorium which was already full. Luckily Lisa pulled some strings and so we both got a seat. Actually I was sitting between the seats (not metaphorically). After some schmoozing of our head of department, Mr Sagmeister stepped onto the podium and began his lecture with a curious “Helloooo?”. A baby cried. He turned into its direction, smiling “Helloooo!”. Then he went on, one word every two seconds – obviously he wasn’t used to German anymore. Thankfully he sped up after his MacBook materialized his slideshow on the screen. Just after two words I instantly discovered and then recalled that he was from Vorarlberg county, and he reminded me a lot of Fabian, an old school colleague who is from Vorarlberg too. They all seem to be related in some ways.

Sagmeister’s List

Stefan Sagmeister called his lecture after a typography series he is working on for some years now, inspired by a list in his diary: “Things I have learned in my life so far”. Inspired by the works of Jenny Holzer, with whom he did some early works in New York, he designed the small sentences that he only noted down for himself. Maybe because of this honest, personal and simple messages that series really touched me in some ways. It was so refreshing: A sentence with no underlying “Buy me!”-message where you always have to look twice for what they want you to buy. Instead it was honest and positive, a little naive in its openness maybe but hence even more charming.

Of course, the geek and teacher’s pet in me (which is pretty obvious) copied Sagmeister’s list. Here it is:

• Helping other people helps me.
• Having guts always works out for me.
• Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
• Starting a charity is surprisingly easy.
• Being not truthful works against me.
• Everything I do always comes back to me.
• Assuming is stifling.
• Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
• Over time I get used to everything and start taking for granted.
• Money does not make me happy.
• Travelling alone is helpful for a new perspective in life.
• Keeping a diary supports personal development.
• Trying to look good limits my life.
• Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
• Worrying solves nothing.
• Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.
• Actually doing the things I set out to do increases my overall level of satisfaction.
• Everybody thinks they are right.
• Low expectations are a good strategy.
• Whatever I want to explore professionally, its best to try it out for myself first.
• Everybody who is honest is interesting.

A Win-Win Situation

In this list there lies some thruth and insight Sagmeister packaged in small doses for mass media. Especially the story about “Having guts always works out for me” was as interesting as enlightening:

One day in 1983, young student Stefan Sagmeister was riding the tram somewhere in Vienna where he sat next to a, in his terms, absolutely stunning old lady in her eighties. For the whole ride he wanted to tell her that but he didn’t have the guts to. When the old lady eventually got off he decided to jump off too the last second, stopped the old woman and told her that she looked absolutely great. Both of them shared a good laugh and from that day on Sagmeister decided to always have the guts – and it always worked our for him. A nice story, an interesting experience 24 years old…

I came to think about the last time when the guts doing/saying something. The only thing that came to my mind was the day when I asked Prof. James W. Nickel, special guest professor in human rights and ethics who visited Graz in 2005, to take his picture for my website. He said yes, I took his photograph and we swapped email addresses. Maybe I’ll have the guts to ask Stefan Sagmeister the same, because he really has an interesting face for a black and white portrait against a white backing. If he says something like “Why are you asking me that?” I can boldly reply: “Because you told me to have the guts!” – a typical win-win-situation.

The Cat, Part II

Lisa and I left for Graz rather late, around 8:40pm so we spent the whole three hours of our journey in the dark – nothing special here. In the back there were piles of luggage: My new Mamiya RB 67 (to be reviewed soon!), two crammed notebook-bags, an e-guitar, an e-bass, a preamp and my dirty clothes. During our long journeys through a black and indifferent landscape Lisa and I share the best conversations. Far better than in our small rooms where we float in circles like bacteria in a slowly drying puddle somewhere in Nairobi. We developed some interesting theories about why society needs stories and narratives from books, films, commercials to dry statistics and calculations. Lisa came to the point that everything needs an ending to be a story. Like our lives. We only can tell the morale when it’s over and everything’s too late. So, via a narrative, we try to virtually live through experiences that have an ending like death (and in most cases death literally is their ending condition). The bottom line is that every narrative is a little death when it ends – the ultimate end.

Twenty minutes later everything happened in a few seconds. Lisa saw the red cat as late as I did. A furry red cat was crossing the highway from the left to the right and came into my sight too late to draw rational conclusions. My id region in my brain reacted for me and pulled the wheel hard left. It would’ve been okay if I was driving in the city with comfortable 30kph but at around 140kph it was way too hard: My bulky Toyota Yaris Verso jumped to the left the very instant I knew I had lost control over it. Lisa let out a quiet scream. I was screaming louder when the car was about tipping. I pulled the wheel hard right to catch the weight in the back. The car hopped into the other direction. Now I did the pedal work. My mind was echoing “It had to happen sooner or later!”, “I didn’t pay enough attention!”, “I am gonna die!”, “Who’s gonna pay for the total?”, “What am I gonna do without a car?”, “What are my parents going to say?”. All four tires where screaming because of the immense forces put onto them, in the headlights I could clearly make out the beam barriers on my former left. Now they were perfectly parallel to my cockpit instead of merging to a point in infinity. The car wouldn’t slow down and already completed a 90° twist at 100kph. White smoke emitted from the pitch black skid marks my tires assumingly left on the tarmac. “I am not going to hit that barrier!” I was resolute and when I felt the weight shifting again, I pulled the wheel another time in the right moment. I could hear a hard breath – it was me, my fingernails dug into the plastic of the wheel while everthing seemed to slow down for a brief moment… “Was my dream that realistic? Or is everything now so dream-like?” I heard my camera bag hitting a gig bag real hard when I could see for a moment perfectly into the direction I just came from – and felt the car still having way too much momentum. In the distance I could make out a pair of headlights, no, two pairs of headlights. “Please, don’t come to a stop on the tracks in that direction!”. Now the car was pushing backwards, into the direction of the ditches, where a few seconds earlier my right side had been. “No way! I am not going to have the car pulled out from there!”. Another time I jerked on the wheel and brought the car back onto the first track even facing roughly into the direction before the incident. Finally, FINALLY, it came more or less to a halt. For good I released my foot from the brake that I wasn’t pushing very hard. I cranked in the first gear and rolled onto the emergency track and lighted the hazard blinkers.
“Whoa!”
The cockpit smelled as if I had hand-grilled my tires in there, mixed with a healthy stench of the clutch. White smoke was in the air – lots of. The other cars passed by. I took a deep breath. Then – another one. Lisa was silent but perfectly okay. I checked whether any warning lamps on my display were lit. None were. I accelerated the car a little and it felt okay. I kept on pushing the gas and it still was ok. I pulled back onto the tracks; the steering felt awkward but okay. We were back on our way, about one kilometer before Übelbach.

“It was like ballet” Lisa said after my rush of adrenaline had more or less subsided. In fact, it came when we were already rolling again, but fiercely, so my hands were shaking.

In that very 15 seconds of our near-crash the countless hours of Gran Turismo 4 driving school payed off. If I had pushed the brake too hard I would’ve triggered the ABS and probably lost any control over the drift. Luckily I was so insanely calm during the maneuver that I did *everything* right. Best thing was that the little kitty was okay – and probably as shocked as we were.

Weasel Questions

Three kilometers later some kinda weasel crossed our way from right to the left, also very close to the car. But this time I was like wrapped in bubble pack, slightly adjusted the wheel and passed by the little critter as if I just did the same with the cat.

What concerns me most about this incident is that it didn’t concern me at all: After half a minute Lisa and I were back on the road as if nothing had happened – and that felt so weird. I expected something like “I nearly died and met Jesus and he told me to raise 20,000 Duracell-bunnies in my bathroom”, but there was absolutely *no* morale or insight. It just was bad luck paired with a hunk of good luck right after.

But nothing changed – I feel exactly like before. Well, not quite. I am still awake (it’s now 4:06am) because I want to say that I had a moment of insight, that I have a clear vision of what I really want after this Grenzerfahrung, philosopher Albert Camus called it nearly hundred years ago. Maybe my insight is that there is none. Maybe my vision remains the same as before. Maybe I am just afraid of going to sleep and dreaming…