Who should do the special effects?

[gatorzilla]

ILM, Weta or Stan Winston Studios/Digital Domain

[Eunectes]

ILM, Weta, Stan Winston, etc.

[kaiju115]

For live action effects Stan Winston Studios, for CGI effects I would say Weta.

[Mr. X]

ILM or WETA Workshop. Either way, I'm happy. Both provide excellent effects.

[Shōbijin]

Seems like the Japanese miniature maker Marbling Fine Arts Co. wants to work on the movie.

Founded 38 years ago, Marbling Fine Arts Co. is one of the few miniature manufacturing companies still operating. Because business in Japan has dwindled, the company is looking to make inroads overseas.

"Our aim is Hollywood Godzilla," said the company's president, Norihiko Iwasaki.

"Our rivals are Industrial Light & Magic and other distinguished visual effects companies based in the United States and New Zealand, so the hurdle is extremely difficult to overcome," he said. "But we are pitching our hopes on a rumor that this time around, it will likely be a 'Godzilla' movie that pays homage to Japanese tokusatsu."

Source:
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/cool_japan/culture/AJ201208240032

Sounds more like wishful thinking, but if they can be cheaper than western miniature shops, then why should Legendary say no?

[Eunectes]

http://www.marbling.net/english/galleryenglish.html

Link to their site.

[Living Corpse]

Wouldn't it make more sense to work together? They can handle the miniatures while ILM does the CGI.

[omgitsgodzilla]

I personally would love to see effects done with miniatures and large-scale go-motion puppets akin to the T-Rex from the first Jurassic Park. Too bad they seem to have their hearts set on CGI...

[Shōbijin]

You mean the animatronic Rex. Go-motion is a special stop-motion technique to emulate blurred movement and was never used in the finished film.

Miniatures still get used sometimes these days, mostly to save the costly rendering of certain scenes. Inception had them for example. But in that case it was more because of Nolans love for practical effects.

EDIT: Here's a video of one of the practical miniatures from Inception.
http://vimeo.com/15115350

[omgitsgodzilla]

^^Animatronic, yeah. I thought go-motion was just puppetry that involved a model moving in real time in front of the camera, not operated from the inside, but somewhere else. Like with remote control.

...which is basically what animatronics are. Shit XP

[Bigdog]

I'd rather have a mix:

Legacy Effects [Stan Winston]: Practical Effects
ILM: CG
Or Weta:CG
And that Japanese miniature company

Unlike the Toho films, they'll be able to blend them far better, especially since the 90's films looked like Power Rangers [green screen was easy to tell by it graininess] while the Millennium looked sorta lifeless and a bit more convincing with some fakeness. The Showa films were bad save for 1954 and the early EARLY installments. The rest blown biscuits.

If they can accomplish the effects, well that is one thing done. I care more about the story and the acting if not that Godzilla acts like Godzilla.

[omgitsgodzilla]

Also, if Godzilla were an animatronic effect, they could make him far larger than a man in a suit, which would allow for larger miniatures, meaning more detail and a more convincing sense of weight.

[Shōbijin]

^^Animatronic, yeah. I thought go-motion was just puppetry that involved a model moving in real time in front of the camera, not operated from the inside, but somewhere else. Like with remote control.

...which is basically what animatronics are. Shit XP

Go-motion is a form of stop motion, the model gets photographed frame by frame like always but it is connected via wires to a computer wich moves the model slightly during the snapshot so it creates the illusion of motion blur that is normaly absent from normal stop-mo.

An animatronic is simply a hydraulic puppet that is remote controlled. Even the creepy robots in theme parks or places like Chuck-E-Cheese are animatronics. The heads of Godzilla were animatronics since the earliest films.

Also, if Godzilla were an animatronic effect, they could make him far larger than a man in a suit, which would allow for larger miniatures, meaning more detail and a more convincing sense of weight.

They tried this in Godzilla 1985 with the "Cybot". Too bad that thing couldn't move properly so it was mostly used for close up shots. lol

[Tyler]

^ Seems like they got more out of that than the giant robot Kong made for the '76 film.

[omgitsgodzilla]

That thing? That was why Universal was so ambivalent about the animatronic dinosaurs for Jurassic Park. It looked like shit too.