Why do some of the most expensively made movies in history have trouble depicting a simple flame?
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Theres a scene in the Jennifer Lawrence movieNo Hard Feelingswhere her clothes catch fire.
But the flames dont look like any real ones that youve ever seen.
Theyre plasticky and neon yellow, pointing straight up when they should be blowing back toward the windshield.
Even in a low-effort comedy such as this one, the effect is distractingly flimsy.
Its not an isolated incident.
Computer-generated fires are breaking out everywhere, and they look terrible.
That makes it hard to simulate, even on todays most powerful VFX workstations.
But over the past decade or so, most productions have made the switch anyway.
(Nobody was hurt.)
And with fire, there isnt much of a reset.
The set is gone.
That steers them toward digital because they dont like that pressure.
(The effect was created by mixing CGI with stock footage.)
Maybe some smoke, but thats it, Friedlander says.
But he still prefers real flames to the alternative.
But CG fire is something the effects industry still struggles with.
Effects artists usually like to incorporate at least a small amount of authentic fire.
This helps those artists know how their fire should look and blend into its surroundings.
Alas, it isnt always possible.
With enough lead time, they can sometimes make it look more presentable.
Sometimes the problem is color correction.
It was a horrible and embarrassing shame for me.
He used scale models and real fire and flares.
It was all in-camera, and it looked fantastic, says Conway.
When a shot is simple, the viewer buys it straightaway.
But movies today, especially superhero ones, theyre like cartoons.
Theres too much going on, and none of it is real.
Maybe real fire will soon be the thing that looks out of place.
Howard tells me he had initially planned to augmentBackdrafts real fire with large amounts of then-primitive CGI.
Then, a few weeks before production, we saw the final test and it just wasnt very convincing.
The fire looked pixelated, and the way it moved was too repetitive.
It was 99.9 percent in-camera and scary as hell.
No one was hurt during the making of the film, though someone probably could have been.
I was yelling Cut, but nobody could hear it.
All the actors had to find their own way to the windows.
He glanced down, and heat rises, so he wound up singeing an eyebrow, says Howard.
His wife was furious.
(Howard did not direct 2019s straight-to-videoBackdraft 2.)
If I were makingBackdraftnow, I would use a lot of digital fire.
I think its the responsible thing to do.
It was a moment of new versus old-school tech, Howard says.
I was a big fan ofT2and what they achieved.
Nobody sacrificed an eyebrow, though.
No, thank God, he says.
At least not that we know of.
Maybe there was some carpal tunnel.
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