Revealed: The Visual Effects Behind The Great Gatsby

Several days ago, Chris Godfrey, the VFX supervisor on the latest film adaptation of The Great Gatsby, posted a remarkable “before and after” film on Vimeo.  Running four minutes, the short compilation reveals the many sets and scenes created with computer generated images. It’s all pretty impressive from a technical point of view. No doubt. And yet this wizardry contributed to making what’s widely considered a mediocre film. In The New Yorker, film critic David Denby writes:

Luhrmann’s version is merely a frantic jumble. The picture is filled with an indiscriminate swirling motion, a thrashing impress of “style” (Art Deco turned to digitized glitz), thrown at us with whooshing camera sweeps and surges and rapid changes of perspective exaggerated by 3-D…. Luhrmann’s vulgarity is designed to win over the young audience, and it suggests that he’s less a filmmaker than a music-video director with endless resources and a stunning absence of taste.

Sometimes, as they say, less is more….

via Richard Brody

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