Are you still opposed to DOH Charger destruction?

[Mike DC]

why hasn't someone used a real nice 2nd gen as a plug and made a mould of one   scratchchin

with a fiberglass replica  on a space frame they could kill as many as they like and not impact on our hobby

               (borrowing my own comment from the other thread):


The "Knight Rider" crew tried a fiberglass shell jump car back in the day.  It didn't work.  They went back to wrecking brand new Trans Ams after a few months.  

The fiberglass shells weren't absorbing the impact like a steel unibody.  Crumpling metal saves the drivers.  

The shell-cars weren't flying well either.  A car actually flies higher/farther (for a given speed) when it's heavier.

[myk]

I don't get it. If we can CONVINCINGLY craft whole planets, cities, battling armies by the thousands, make Jeff Bridges look 30 years younger and even graft a young Armold Swarzennager's head onto a young weight lifter's body, I don't see why we can't realize a stupid orange car jumping to the audience's content without destroying an actual car.  I'm no tech guy but it can't be that much more difficult, and this way everyone wins...

[Stevearino]

I don't get it. If we can CONVINCINGLY craft whole planets, cities, battling armies by the thousands, make Jeff Bridges look 30 years younger and even graft a young Armold Swarzennager's head onto a young weight lifter's body, I don't see why we can't realize a stupid orange car jumping to the audience's content without destroying an actual car.  I'm no tech guy but it can't be that much more difficult, and this way everyone wins...

Even the new Star Wars movie is shunning CGI for full scale props and sets. So there's that. But I really don't see why it wouldn't be easier and cheaper to hang $10,000.00 of new AMD sheet metal on a purpose built chassis to get what you need rather than destroy a 46 year old original car.
And yes Keith88 that is the car I saw somewhere on the wild interwebs. Thanks for the find.

[myk]

I don't get it. If we can CONVINCINGLY craft whole planets, cities, battling armies by the thousands, make Jeff Bridges look 30 years younger and even graft a young Armold Swarzennager's head onto a young weight lifter's body, I don't see why we can't realize a stupid orange car jumping to the audience's content without destroying an actual car.  I'm no tech guy but it can't be that much more difficult, and this way everyone wins...

Even the new Star Wars movie is shunning CGI for full scale props and sets. So there's that. But I really don't see why it wouldn't be easier and cheaper to hang $10,000.00 of new AMD sheet metal on a purpose built chassis to get what you need rather than destroy a 46 year old original car.

Ironic, considering it was George Lucas and Star Wars that were made synonymous with CGI overkill since the last three movies.  I still say there are other alternatives to actually performing a jump with a car.  The idea of performing a stunt like that seems so anachronistic anyway; almost as if they perform those jumps out of sheer choice "just because" that's how they did it "back in the day." 

Again, I say they maybe use a combination of CGI and your purposefully built frame with AMD sheet  metal; there have to be alternatives to using a real car...

[Ghoste]

It's probably run its course anyway, I can't imagine we'll see much more DOH mayhem.  Now the F&F franchise seems to have life still in it and they don't mind wrecking a car now and again either.

[Mike DC]

  
Let's not lose sight of the bigger picture.  

Big-budget modern filmmaking tears up cars, period.  

The recent DOH movies tore up as many Chargers for non-stunt reasons as they did for stunts.  Duplicating damage on several cars for backups, filming stuff out-of-order, tow rig cars, in-car cameras, soundstage mockups, etc.  


Movie prop cars are little $25,000 parts in a $100,000,000 machine.  They are built VERY quick & dirty because they aren't going to be treated very well.  Same with any other set, prop, costume, etc.













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I don't get it. If we can CONVINCINGLY craft whole planets, cities, battling armies by the thousands, make Jeff Bridges look 30 years younger and even graft a young Armold Swarzennager's head onto a young weight lifter's body, I don't see why we can't realize a stupid orange car jumping to the audience's content without destroying an actual car.  I'm no tech guy but it can't be that much more difficult, and this way everyone wins..

Cost.  They'll spend $200,000 trying to do a realistic CGI car jump and it still won't look as good as the real thing.

[kab69440]

I submit for consideration the Gone in 60 Seconds reboot. Completely, utterly awesome movie. Right up until the "big jump"...

[myk]

   
Let's not lose sight of the bigger picture. 

Big-budget modern filmmaking tears up cars, period. 

The recent DOH movies tore up as many Chargers for non-stunt reasons as they did for stunts.  Duplicating damage on several cars for backups, filming stuff out-of-order, tow rig cars, in-car cameras, soundstage mockups, etc. 


Movie prop cars are little $25,000 parts in a $100,000,000 machine.  They are built VERY quick & dirty because they aren't going to be treated very well.  Same with any other set, prop, costume, etc.













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I don't get it. If we can CONVINCINGLY craft whole planets, cities, battling armies by the thousands, make Jeff Bridges look 30 years younger and even graft a young Armold Swarzennager's head onto a young weight lifter's body, I don't see why we can't realize a stupid orange car jumping to the audience's content without destroying an actual car.  I'm no tech guy but it can't be that much more difficult, and this way everyone wins..

Cost.  They'll spend $200,000 trying to do a realistic CGI car jump and it still won't look as good as the real thing.

Maybe so, but unless someone in the know can confirm that for me I will maintain that the CGI route should be an explored option.  IMO they've done far more impressive things with CGI than jumping a car.

I submit for consideration the Gone in 60 Seconds reboot. Completely, utterly awesome movie. Right up until the "big jump"...

Right, but that was over 15 years ago.  Technology has come a long, long way.  If they could produce a "passable and only slightly laughable" car jump with Eleanor I'm sure they could do something even better now with green/blue screens and CGI...

[Mike DC]

COULD car jumps be done photorealistically?  Yes, or pretty close.  Are they likely to do it?  Is it their best option?  No.  


I've got a decades-long interest in movie SFX.  My brother does post-production work for a living.  I can totally see why they prefer the real thing.

CGI effects aren't a magic wand to create anything they want with no other work involved.  They still have to use lots of real methods to work with CGI for the best results.  



First off, making CGI look realistic probably means some other real car gets jumped for the CGI guys reference the flight path.  That's by far the best way to avoid the "Gone in 60 Seconds" jump problems.  It could be an '86 Caprice Classic but they would want to launch something.  So that still brings most of the costs of a real General Lee jump right there.

Or else maybe they do the whole thing with a HUGE miniature.  I'm talking a car that's 4-6 feet long (not to mention costing 5 figures to build).   They would probably need a detailed miniature backdrop the size of a basketball court just for the car to interact with, even if that entire miniature backdrop still gets CGI'd into a larger real location later.  They could do it smaller but the size is what makes some miniatures look so much better than others.

Either of those options costs a lot and the realism still may be compromised.



On the other hand, they could cable-launch a $10k bondo-buggy of a real Charger . . .  do it unmanned to eliminate safety issues . . . landing without a heavy drivetrain & trunk ballast means they would probably even get 2-3 takes out of it with some repair work . . . no investment in post-production time & money . . . no realism concerns . . . see why this keeps looking like the best option? 

[Kern Dog]

I submit for consideration the Gone in 60 Seconds reboot. Completely, utterly awesome movie. Right up until the "big jump"...

I agree that the jump looked like shit. The rest of the movie wasn't that great in my view. It was a bit like an "Oceans eleven" with more likeable characters but the car action was lacking.