I am investigating how technological advances can influence the reception of a film; specifically Peter Jacksons Tolkien films
Presentation Script
Projector:
A picture of Peter Jackson is shown on the first slide of my presentation, as well as pictures of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (ITEM 1), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (ITEM 2), and The Lord of the Rings: The return of the King (ITEM 3)
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Projector:
My area of investigation is shown on this slide, as well as a list of my chosen films and a list of the topics I will cover in the presentation, giving the audience an idea of what to expect.
Presenter:
I am investigating how technological advances can influence the reception of a film; specifically Peter Jacksons Tolkien films. My focus film will be The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies (ITEM 1) and I will also be using, The Hobbit: An unexpected Journey (ITEM 2) and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (ITEM 3). I have chosen these films because, while they were all well received, some suffered from harsher critical reviews than others, particularly The Hobbit films, which additionally had a 10 year gap between, theLord of the ring’s release date. Most importantly they each used different forms of technology, and it’s these advances that I will be comparing to see if they impacted how the films were received. In this presentation I will be introducing Peter Jackson, the directors, work, as well as going over a brief history of technology in Hollywood films. I will then compare the similarities and differences of my chosen films, look at the technology they each used and compare this to their critical reception. This will finally lead me on to my conclusion where there will be time for questions and a discussion.
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Projector:
The next slide shows images of Peter Jackson, J.R.R. Tolkien and a map of Middle Earth, as well as some bullet points about Jackson.
Presenter: Peter Jackson, the director of all three films I will be analysing was born on the 31st of October 1961 and is best known for directing the Lord of the Ring’s film trilogy, one of which I will be looking at. Importantly he also directed the prequel trilogy to The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit. Although I am not analysing Jackson as a director, my three films are all his work. The writer of the source material for the films J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), published the Hobbit in 1937 and the lord of the Ring’s as 3 novels from 1954 to 1955. The books are some of the best-selling novels of all time, and were published around a time of war in Britain and in some ways reflected real world conflict as Tolkien fought in the First World War himself, at the Somme. Peter Jackson’s more recent screen adaptations helped bring Tolkien’s middle earth universe to a new light, thus bringing the genre of high-fantasy to a new generation of fans who continue to love Tolkien’s work and respect Jackson for his additions to the universe. Although not all share the view that Peter Jackson’s work properly depicts Tolkien’s middle earth and that Tolkien would not have agreed with some of his decisions. One of these reasons detailed by many in reviews is the technology Jackson used to show some key scenes in the films, which some feel made the world feel artificial. This is the main focus of my research which I will begin to look at by analysing my three films after going over a brief history of film technology in Hollywood
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Projector: The next slide details some facts about film technology along with some example pictures.
Presenter: Throughout history film has constantly been changing and being shaped because of technology, for example the ‘coming of sound’ then the ‘coming of colour’ and the more recent CGI. Technological advancements are perhaps the most important reason that certain films are successful with audiences in today’s market, as big budget films using sophisticated technology are able to use this as a unique selling point and do well critically as well, although not all critics are impressed by technological prowess alone. This I will be looking into in detail later. One of the main recent features in technological advancement in film, specifically in the films I am analysing is Computer generated graphics. This tool allows designers to construct whole set pieces and props for actors to interact with which usually look very realistic and save lots of time and money for filmmakers. Whilst CGI can also be very expensive to produce, a quote from the section on CGI technology from the book, ‘Introduction to Technology’ by Nick Lacey (ITEM 4), says, ‘The growth of CGI has been fuelled by the decrease in computing costs. Another big part of CGI is motion capture. This involves putting actors in motion capture suits and animating a body over them to put into the film. This is used in The Hobbit films as it is in some cases easier than putting extensive makeup on an actor and also makes it easier for the filmmakers to choose how they want the character to look. Although this can take some realism out of films as this often looks very artificial compared to makeup. Another technological advancement in recent years is the jump in some films from the traditional 24fps film to 48 frames per second HDR. This gives the shots in a movie a much smoother realistic feel, but can also take the traditional cinematic feel out of films that the audience are used to.
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Projector: Shows the poster for my focus film as well as some bullet points about the films technology and reception, and pictures of some key scenes I will reference.
Presenter:The final film in The Hobbit trilogy is the best one for me to focus on as while it was perhaps less talked about than the first film, it brought in many reviews from critics summarising their opinions of the whole franchise as well as the many notable technological advancements in it. I will start by talking about the technology first, starting with CGI. This film is generally very CGI heavy but one of the key scenes is when the lead orc Azog, leads his army to battle. This involves an army of CGI orcs and worm like creatures who burrow through the earth, over a rendered landscape making the scene appear quite artificial. Some critics had a problem with the amount of CGI used in this film and named it as the biggest reason that they didn’t like the film. An article from the Boston Globe (ITEM 6) by journalist, Ty Burr, even claims that ‘the final ‘Hobbit’, marches off a CGI cliff’, and also claims that, ‘There are Orc armies boiling over the ridges headed by Azog, a hulking but fatally dull digital villain’ showing that he disliked this scene in particular.
Another article from Wired (ITEM 8), titled ‘Peter Jackson must be stopped’ talks about the CGI used in all three Hobbit films but focuses on how ‘The Battle of the Five Armies is no different. He invents giant burrowing worms whose tunnels the invading orcs march through. Trolls have catapults mounted on their backs.’ And importantly claims that, ‘the computer-generated combat reaches new levels of kinetic fury’ with the characters performing ‘gravity defying’ feats.
My final point on the CGI in this film, comes from an article from Screenrant.com (ITEM 7), which details criticism of the CGI in the Hobbit from Viggo Mortensen, a star of Jackson’s previous trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. Mortensen, says that the while the first Hobbit film had CGI in it, ‘there’s a sort of organic quality to it’, although ‘The second movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects.’ This point shows that even some actors in the industry disagreed with the direction Jackson took with the special effects in the Hobbit films.
Another technological advancement used which relates to CGI is motion capture, for animated characters like Azog. While this technique allows for CGI characters to have more natural movements it replaces the use of makeup for orcs, which was used for orcs in the Lord of the Rings and helps add to the artificial feel of the entire film.
My final main point about technological advancements in this film is the use of 48 frames per second or HDR to capture the footage for the film. This technique is said to give the film a more realistic feel but some critics and journalist felt that this gave the film a strange, almost too real feel. I will elaborate on this point later, as while this technique is used in my focus film it is more prevalent in one of my other film.
Moving on from negative points about this film, it is useful to look at what the director himself thought of his work on this final entry in the trilogy. As Jackson himself does not share the opinion of many critics and feels proud of his work and the advancements.
Cut to video clip (ITEM 10).
As well as Jackson some critics in fact did have a positive view of the Hobbit series and gave positive reviews of the final entry in the trilogy. A review from The Hollywood Reporter(ITEM 12) starts off by calling the film, ‘purely entertaining’, and focuses less on how the CGI affected the experience but more on how the characters and narrative made the film good. This review continues to praise the film throughout, and even references the complaints of others at the end, ‘After all the initial fuss and bother about the 3D and 48 frames-per-second images, Jackson and his visual team made the necessary technical adjustments to smooth things out’ showing that this reviewer, thought the technology used in this film was actually as positive thing.
To sum up on my focus film, the reviews of this film are very mixed with some disliking it and using the choice of technology as a criticism and others focusing on the film overall who are able to ignore things such as heavy use of CGI, or even approve of it.
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Projector: Shows the poster for my second film as well as bullet points about the technology used in the film.
Presenter: The first film in the Hobbit trilogy shares almost all of the same technological advancements as my focus film, although the reviews for this film differ, as it was the first entry in the trilogy, giving reviewers a different perspective on it. Likewise to Battle of the five armies this film is CGI heavy, one scene where this is particularly visible, is when the dwarves escape from the goblins lair. This CGI set piece was heavily criticised by some; referencing an earlier source, Peter Jackson Must be stopped (ITEM 8), which likened these moments to ‘Three Stooges-calibre pratfalls’, The motion capture for characters like Azog appears again in this entry as well as for the character Gollum. This was also used in The Lord of Rings, but was necessary for the movements for Gollum’s character. Although the biggest use of technology to spark debate about this film was the use of 48 frames per second, HDR, as referenced earlier. An article titled, ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Masterclass in Why HFR fails’ (ITEM 11), goes into detail about why some felt that high frame rate film, does not work for blockbuster fantasy films of this calibre. The writer of the article who went to see the film in 3D HDR and in 2D to compare, claims that seeing the film in 3D HDR is‘like being on a film set in person: all of the magic is lost.’ And that the frame rate makes the film look like an ‘atrociously bad state run TV show’, which is basically a soap opera. In essence the high frame rate, for some takes the magic out of film and ruins the suspension of disbelief, meaning that the viewer is constantly aware that they are watching a film, finding it hard to be immersed, which was of course Jackson’s original intention by putting up the frame rate.
Of course this film to received positive reviews as well as negative, for example a review from ‘Sight and Sound: the February 2013 issue’ (ITEM 5), a well-established film magazine
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To sum up analysis of this, film, the technology used and reception are largely similar to my focus film, apart from more of a debate about the frame rate issue, which is said to have been fixed in the later films, whilst still implementing it.
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Projector: Slide shows the poster of my third film, as well as bullet points about the technology used as well as pictures from the film.
Presenter:The final film I will be analysing is from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which released a decade earlier than ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy. Because of the films time of release, modern technologies such as CGI could not be as heavily implemented as in the Hobbit trilogy. For example, instead of rendered CGI locations, large scale models were used to show locations, such as the city of Minas Tirith. These were used for the shots and animation was then later used to add people and creatures to the set. Although CGI was still used for some locations in the film. This film heavily implemented motion capture but only for one character, Gollum, and was heavily praised for introducing this ground-breaking technology, as the characters movements look very realistic. As opposed to the criticisms people had about Azog in the Hobbit, who they felt would have looked better as an actor with make up on. Another element this film used more than the Hobbit film was use of real landscapes in New Zealand, bringing attention to the beauty of the country, rather than showing off CGI backgrounds to show off technological prowess. Importantly this film was also shot in 24fps which viewers felt made the films look more cinematic, adding suspension of disbelief which was said to have been lost in ‘The Hobbit’ films.
This film received much better reviews from fans and critics, with very little complaints about the technology used, rather about the length of the film. Here is an interview from big film reviewer, Roger Ebert (ITEM 13), who has many positive things to say about the films technology. For example, he described the visuals as ‘exhilarating’, claiming that Gollum seems ‘as real as anyone else on screen’ calling the action sequences, ‘epic’ and ‘of awe-inspiring scope’. This comments are vastly different than those made about the effects in ‘The Hobbit’ which were mocked by many critics.
To sum up the reviews for ‘The return of the King’ are more positive than the mixed reviews received by my other two films. The comments on the films technology are mostly positive, supporting the new technological advancements implemented.
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Projector: Slide shows similarities and differences of films as well as some pictures.
Presenter: Now to compare my the three films I have analysed to see whether technology has affected the reception of them. To start with it is evident that the Return of the King was more well received than the other films. It received the highest IMDB rating of the 3 (8.9/10) and generally got more positive feedback than the other two films from ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy.
Whilst CGI was used a lot in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ it was used substantially more in ‘The Hobbit films. An article from whatculture.com (ITEM 9), highlights the supposed, ‘10 Biggest Mistakes That Completely Ruined the Hobbit Trilogy’, with one of the reasons being ‘unnecessary’ and ‘over the top’ CGI. The motion capture used in ‘The lord of the Rings’ was praised for it’s advancements in modern film technology, whereas in ‘The Hobbit’ the motion capture software used on some characters was called unnecessary.
Finally the frame rate at which ‘The lord of the Rings’ was recorded was not even mentioned in reviews, as 24fps is the standard and wasn’t an available option in the early 2000’s, but the high frame rate used to record ‘The Hobbit’ was criticised for looking unrealistic.
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Projector: Slide shows points to conclude on and pictures of ‘The Hobbit’s’ set.
Presenter: To conclude, it appears that the technology used in the three films directed by Peter Jackson that I have analysed, especially in ‘The Hobbit’ films, has affected the critical and journalistic reviews they received. Although in a negative way for the more modern Hobbit films, although in a positive way, for ‘The Lord of the Rings’ released ten years before.