The Impracticality of Practical Effects

If you know anyone with any amount of interest in filmmaking or the practises of filmmaking, if you were to bring up the discussion of CGI, at somepoint someone will say "practical effects are always better" and there is a lot of reasoning behind that. Practical effects have a less likely chance of looking dated because the effects are physically there so they are always going to look real, while CGI, even from as early as 10 years ago look dated by today's standards, not all, but a fair amount do. Also the physics of a practical effects movements are more accurate, again, because they're actually there, with CGI, a lot of guess work and statistics have to go into making the effect look natural, but it doesn't always work. Take for example The Hulk in Avengers Age of Ultron, there are times when him jumping around looks like he weighs the same amount as a balloon, because it's hard to get it accurate. Now there are two types of people who support practical over CGI, the realists and the purists. The realists know that there are times where you have to use CGI, again, The Hulk is a great example, there is no way to make that a practical effect and have it be nearly as effective (Puns!). While the purists believe that practical is always the way to go 100% and it will always look great, which is not true, just look at Lou Ferrigno's physical Hulk versus the computer generated Hulk, it's obvious which one is the better version, both in terms of adapting the character and making them look like an unstoppable juggernaut.

So I have always considered myself to be a realist when it comes to practical effects, if you can use em, then use em, it may cost more but it'll improve your movie as a whole. But then I saw the movie Labyrinth, directed by Jim Henson. which i have always heard looks amazing due to the practical effects and the amount of effort used, so i was really excited and boy did the effects underwhelm me. Now the rule still applies here that practical effects were the right way to go, after all, what little CGI is in the movie, looks terrible, but that doesn't instantly make the practical effects good, and this is a principal law that people have forgotten, having a practical effects isn't enough, it also needs to be a convincing practical effect. When I watch The Thing or Gremlins 2 or Hellboy or even another Henson production Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, i think the practical effects look amazing and i legitimately believe that what i am looking at is really there. Because that is the purpose of having effects in the first place, to make us believe that whatever we are looking at is real, and Labyrinth doesn't have that. Whenever I look at the puppets, i'm always aware i'm looking at a puppet, when i'm looking at someone in a costume, i'm always aware i'm looking at someone in the costume. It's the same issue that CG has, if i'm aware that i'm looking at an effect then it's a bad effect.

Some people would argue that practical effects require more effort, and i think that's offensive to effects artists who work on CG, have you ever actually seen how many people work on those effects and how long it takes? Don't act like practical effects takes more effort to make cause in reality they take roughly the same amount of time to produce. It does seem like a lot of the praise for these type of films that does have a focus on practical is really there just more of a participation trophy rather than actually being convincing effects.

So in my eyes, when it comes to practical effects and cgi, there are three rules to consider:

ONE: If you can use practical effects, use them

TWO: Sometimes CGI is the better route

THREE: A practical effect is not the same as a convincing effect

-Danny