This DAM Blog

A very interesting question was posed to me lately positing whether the proliferation of visual effects in contemporary films is to blame for an end to good storytelling in Hollywood.  I believe in order to address this question properly one first needs to prove that good storytelling is in fact mortally threatened.  In reference to such a provocative hypothesis, considering my extensive background not only studying the subject but also participating in its creation, I would have to say that while the abundance of visual effects in the masturbatory capacity has certainly diluted the importance of story, I truly do not believe that it has delivered a lethal blow.  However, before I elaborate on my dissenting opinion some general concessions must be made.

First and foremost I must admit that the traditional story focus of most creative executives, in Hollywood and beyond, is in fact becoming increasingly rare as studios and subsequently independent producers fall prey to what is commonly referred to as the “middle America syndrome.”  This highly contagious disease thrives in our predominantly capitalistic culture as those of us who frequent the multiplex can’t help but find an abundance of sequels and the repurposing of popular films and TV shows from generations past regurgitated and reintroduced on silver screen platters with a large a la carte serving of extortionate and elaborate marketing campaigns designed specifically to cater to the senseless majority (rather than the educated minority) who flush their meager incomes and irresponsible credit ratings down the collective international economic toilet by devouring any asinine form of purported “entertainment” featuring any number of the parasitic paparazzo’s newest flavor of the month.

Globalization and corporate mergers while at the very heart of a free market society and a symbiotic companion to our beloved democracy are the tools with which we drive the nail into the coffin of meaningful discourse in film.  The more Hollywood cuddles up with enormous multinational corporations, the less story-centric the industry becomes.  Ivy League number crunchers at the helms of huge conglomerates are suddenly making decisions about creative endeavors based solely on ambiguous cash flow statements.  Risk adverse CEO’s unleash global directives that are the death knell of any and all views that challenge the status quo.  As the purse strings get smaller so does the corporate appetite for taking chances.  Chances that in the 70’s delivered studio blockbusters like The Godfather (Paramount), The French Connection (20^th Century Fox) and The Deer Hunter (Universal).  All of which won Academy Awards for Best Picture.  All of which contained socially conscious and controversial subject matter.  None of which, I suggest, would have ever been produced within today’s studio system.

Over the last two decades, while major studios underwent corporate restructuring, independent filmmakers (the perennial champions of most if not all art films) were forced to figure out ways to finance productions on their own.  By pre-selling the foreign gross on name recognition alone banks were willing to front them money to make their artsy films.  The moment the banks realized the same thing the studios did, that “artsy” meant “risky,” a pandemic spread quickly that consistently placed bottom-line above artistic achievement, social commentary and controversial subject matter.  This paradigm shift drastically decreased the value of emotionally charged, experimental and didactic story lines.

Before long music video and commercial directors (coming from a segment of the industry with an inherent lack of concern with story) like Michael Bay and Tony Scott helped usher in a new revolution in film that crowned jaw-dropping, visceral action sequences as the new celebrities.  The star of the show became the horrifically grotesque monster or the relentlessly perilous fireball.  The more grotesque the better.  The closer the actor is to that perilous fireball, the more emotional impact the special effect has on the viewing public.  Hence the inclusion of copious amounts of gratuitous CGI in almost every studio tent pole, summer blockbuster, and popcorn film of our popular culture.

In 1977, on the smallest of studio budgets and after being dropped during early development stages from a two picture deal by Universal, a young filmmaker named George Lucas included an extravagant 90-second CGI sequence in his feature film Star Wars (maybe you have heard of it).  That one scene took a battery of computers 3 months just to render causing serious debate by the studio (20^th Century Fox) on whether or not to pull the plug.  Lucky for them both the film was an enormous success.

In the decades that proceeded, many advances in computer technology allowed CGI to take small steps forward but it wasn’t until twenty-four years later that it took a large leap into the future with the independently financed, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.  This first ever all CGI feature film, which boasted photorealistic computer animation and took four years to make, employed over 960 computers to render each frame of the film, running 24 hours a day for nearly 10 days.  The film itself was a box office nightmare, losing $52 million (most likely due to its dull and emotionally removed story line), however the reception of the computer generated lead character, Aki, was so positive that she made that year’s Maxim Magazine Top 100 list of the sexiest women ever.

In the ten years since, CGI has become a household phrase although I doubt most people can tell you what the acronym represents.  At least 75 more wholly computer spawned feature films have been released, some of which now sit atop the list of the most financially successful films of all time.  Every studio on the block is fighting to get their slice of the computer-generated pie.  Nowadays technology has put computer graphics programs into the hands of the common man allowing even the most bootstrapped production company the ability to explore outer space or create worlds that could never exist outside of your imagination.

For these very reasons, I believe that CGI is still within the ascending slope of the growth segment of its life cycle curve.  Just like any other new cinematic technology (ex. animation, color, 3D) many of the first adapters lose focus on story due to the excitement over their new shiny toy.  Once the luster wears off, the cream rises to the top and the films that really separate themselves from the crowd with respect to box office success are able to integrate an apt balance of technology and story.  If you consider the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be an acceptable barometer for outstanding visual storytelling then I suggest you peruse the list of Oscar winners over the last 20 years.  In that time only four films that can boast an even somewhat sizable special effects budget were chosen as the best of the year, the most recent of which was based on the second best selling novel of all time (Lord of the Rings: Return of the King).

Beyond the institutional kudos, film is still a reactive medium.  Just as any artistic venture reflects the unlimited potential and boundless limitations of the world in which its conceptions are steeped, so is the ambition of film and therefore it’s auteurs.  The best visual artists are, at their core, socially conscious, controversial thinkers, which makes them interesting storytellers.  As soon as films settle into an uninspired routine of trite mediocrity, the next generation of young, idealistic, revolutionary filmmakers are compelled by the nature of suppression to mount a revolt of innovative expression. These new visionaries will inevitably seize control of the subjugated technology, liberate it from it’s computer generated prison and redistribute it to the masses in a fresh and inimitable form that fully justifies their antithetical attitude towards it’s previous incarnation.

I, for one, am thrilled about this potentiality.  I sense the forthcoming deluge of original applications and tolerable utilizations of this vulgarity that is “CGI” to engender unique and captivating methodology for relating compelling stories.  New techniques for developing pre-existing stories that were traditionally too cumbersome or costly to be possible now may be granted their moment in the sun.

Maybe I’m naïve but I believe that entertainment consumers universally respond to inspired art at its most basic level.  Within the medium of film that art resides in story, told efficiently and effectively through a visual language that creates emotionality through the juxtaposition of images.  Whether those images were created by photographing reality or fertilized in a womb of binary code, the relation can be equivalent.  Without the complex threading of robust characters and enthralling story points functioning effectively to illuminate humanistic truths, the medium deteriorates into a hollow representation of a surreal and superficial caricature.  Although it may offer people momentary escapism it isn’t nearly as satisfying and cathartic as the aforementioned alternative.

Story has been an integral component of the human condition since the dawn of language and it will forever continue to be the foundation upon which good films are built.  At the moment one might be overwhelmed with the surplus of bad films that for whatever reason departed from the a focus on story and now clutter the local theaters but that doesn’t mean story in film is lost… it’s just waiting to be revitalized.