Eye Candy

An IRON-clad movie!

Jeff_Upton — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:21:17 +0000

www.canmag.com

It’s finally here! Iron Man has finally hit DVD and Blu-Ray shelves and it’s making quite a scene. A combination of great story line and amazing action sequences is a sure fire hit for Marvel. One thing that really worried me upon it’s release in theaters was that Iron Man was going to look abnormally fake and digitized. WRONG! In an interview posted on Crave Online, Jon Favreau talks about his decisions for Iron Man’s special effects. He explains that his plan was to use the CGI in way that “does not take you out of the movie”. He goes on to say that he doesn’t want to “[make] it look like you are watching somebody else play a video game.”

I whole heartedly believe that Favreau was right on the money. The amazing amount of special effects was enough to convey the comic-book power of Iron Man, but not too much to overpower the movie and make people believe that Robert Downey Jr. wasn’t really in a suit. Speaking of suits, Jon talks about how he needed to create a suit that wasn’t going to be clunky, but rather kept Iron Man’s agility and power.

My favorite parts of the special effects are in the really small details. For instance, there is an extended scene of Stark (Downey) putting on the completed Iron Man suit. It’s visually appealing if you like the small details. You can actually see all the tiny little cogs and pieces being assembled together around him and fitting together into one, almost seamless suit.

If you’re more into large special effects, then you’d probably love the fight scenes in the streets. Huge explosions, large titanium suits with missiles and jets and concrete! It’s very visually stimulating in the fact that everything looks as though there truly were two giant machines fighting in the streets and destroying everything BUT each other.

If you want an action packed movie, great story, amazing special effects or any combination of those, definitely grab Iron Man and drool over the amazing film that has already announced a sequel for 2010!

Just for you, one more amazingly entertaining scene from Iron Man, in stores now!

- Jeff

Merge Right!

Jeff_Upton — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:43:22 +0000

In the last post, I mentioned that I would be blogging about film reviews. Well, to make the blog a little more my own, I’m going to focus on movies that should be great based 90-95% on Visual Effects. Not just Matrix style slo-mo, but also set extensions (i.e. LOTR) or facial manipulation (i.e. Wolverine in X-Men).

I hope you enjoy!

- J

Where the blog is going…

Jeff_Upton — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:56:09 +0000

Due to the fact that I’m trying to become a Visual Effects Designer for Film, I’ve decided that the blog is going to focus primarily on film itself. Not neccessarily how films are made, but a simple weekly roundup of new movies coming out in which I’ll give my opinion on how the movie is/will be provided that I see the movie in time. Also, I’m going to focus on comments from readers to get their opinions on the movies because one persons opinion isn’t enough to decide if a movie is worth seeing. Finally, I’m going to wrap up each week with a review of a movie in-depth. Thus, look for the first post soon!

BIO

Jeff_Upton — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:43:17 +0000

My name is Jeff Upton and I’m an ATEC major. I’m specializing in Visual Effects and Special Effects for film. I’m currently in my 3rd year here at UT Dallas and I’m going to be staying here for my Bachelors.