Increasingly surprising effects in times of 'blockbusters' | TV
Game of Thrones It has changed the rules of television in many aspects since its premiere almost eight years ago. One of them has been to improve visual effects, a terrain in which television (series and advertising) is increasingly closer in terms of the quality of the great cinematographic blockbusters. What makes the difference between both worlds, time and money. Although less and less.
"The film viewer is the same as the series viewer. Compare and demand equally ", says the special effects artist Carolina Jiménez, who has worked on the last episodes of Game of Thrones, which will premiere on April 14, in the documentary series Cosmos and in films like Aquaman or the next installment of Terminator, that will be released in November. "The working method for both fields is the same. The same technologies are used, the same type of artists, the same working channel and preproduction must be similar. So far, the rhythm and the budget were what most differed, but even that is changing, "he continues. "Any effect, both in television and film or advertising, needs those two elements to be the best possible budget to have the best studios, teams and artists, and time to do the job with the quality and detail that is When we see today that a production has poor visual effects, in almost all cases it is because one of these two things has been missing, if not both, "explains the artist.
The evolution of the effects in the big blockbusters of Hollywood in recent years and the success at the box office of action movies, superheroes and science fiction has favored chains like HBO bet clearly to improve their series with large budgets. It is the case of fictions like Game of Thrones [15 millones de dólares ha costado cada uno de los episodios de la octava entrega], Westworld or The Leftovers. "That technology that is evolving so much [en las grandes películas] It is coming very well to other formats that are not as rigid or as long-term as is the cinema. The processes of years and years you receive. You inherit this technology from large companies, which are like icebreakers, which are opening the way and TV shows and television are benefiting from these openings, "explains Gonzalo Carrión, deputy general manager of El Ranchito. of the effects of series like The Knick, Lost in Space or some of the most memorable moments of the last three seasons of Game of Thrones (the famous resuscitation of the dragon in the ice lake provided them with an Emmy) and just won his new Goya for his work in the film Superlopez.
"Film effects studies compete to innovate and improve in quality and time constantly, which makes the effects more accessible, and artists can work indistinctly in studios that work for film or television, which makes the flow of information and talent is common to both worlds, "says Jiménez, who began his career a decade ago in Spain with the series Red Eagle.
Not all visual effects are spectacular, especially on television, as Carrión points out: "We see the effects today as something only of dragons, but it goes a lot further, they are the invisible effects." The manager of El ranchito gives as an example the series The Knick, where they had to recreate the New York of the early twentieth century and in the eyes of the viewer do not know what is real and what is involved in postproduction. And he also cites examples of basic elements, such as making elements disappear from the screen, assembling a conversation between several interpreters using different shots or adding to a sequence shot in a street more cars or more pedestrians to give it more life.
"Times change, visual effects become more accessible, the most competitive technology and the way to present and consume fiction changes with distribution platforms, social networks ... And the rage that generates Game of Thrones It is something never seen. It breaks schemes and forces to raise the bar, and they begin to hire large studios of visual effects of cinema to create those of this series. The qualitative distance between cinema and series is reduced and blurred, and everything seems to start to be possible also on the small screen, which is great, "Jiménez concludes," The speed at which visual effects evolve favors small products. at the HBO level and Game of Thrones, the great blockbuster of television, maybe it's too much at the moment, but the impulse seems to have worked.
