Roland Emmerich Quotes

I don't have anything against CGI.

I think a lot of times, in a lot of modern-day movies, a lot of things are CGI, but so much of the stuff in 'Star Wars' is built and created by these artists.

I think you should be prepared for a green-screen CGI at all times.

I think some of the special effects in Close Encounters hold up better than the new more expensive special effects is because they were better actually.

Over 55% of all shots using animals in 'The Hobbit' are in fact computer generated; this includes horses, ponies, rabbits, hedgehogs, birds, deer, elk, mice, wild boars and wolves.

I wouldn't want to do a whole movie with effects.

Truthfully, I don't know how those special effects people do it.

I think sometimes big budget means explosions! CGI! CGI, the possibilities are so limitless that it begins to be impractical.

I'm in 'Gods of Egypt.' It was CGI on a level that I've never encountered. You're in a blue environment on a mirrored floor because that's going to be looking like Ra the Sun God's boat. In the studio, it was like I was in a Robert Lepage theatrical piece.

Special effects are becoming more and more affordable and looking more and more like the real thing.

When I filmed 'Power Rangers,' almost everything was being assisted by a green screen, but it wasn't the same with 'Stranger Things.'

I mean, I certainly wouldn't want to paint myself as, you know, the evangelist for practical effects or some sort of anti CG guy because it's really a tool. Like filmmaking is this toolbox and you use what's appropriate in relation to the story.

I mean I think people prepared me for like a lot of green screen [in Oz the Great]. I didn't have a lot of green screen. They build most sets. When this castle was tangible, Emerald City was tangible, the forest, the woods was tangible, the cemetery, everything was there.

You know, I gotta be honest. I have not done a lot of CGI work. I just haven't. I mean, there were hundreds of effects in Watchmen, and I probably dealt with almost none of them, because all my stuff was very practical.

I've never been bothered by proximity to special effects and I've never felt disadvantaged by them. They're all part of a movie, and when the movie's under control I don't feel upstaged by them.

I think that in big-budget movies there's a lot of other stuff going on besides acting, like special effects.

I feel that so many sci-fi films and films in general have just become really dependent on and addicted to CGI, and that some of the big CGI films of the summer, you see these effects that look like crap. You don't know if you're watching a cartoon or something that's real. And I didn't want to fall into that trap. I really thought there was a way to use a lot of these old techniques to do some new and really neat stuff.

We're always striving to make Avatar look like a cinematic, live-action movie.

I started off as a model maker, so the first part of my career was a model maker and then a motion control camera operator, so I shot a lot of miniatures.

In 'The Greatest Showman,' I'm back doing VFX myself, allowing me to craft exactly how something looks, one frame at a time.

'Galaxy Quest' was cool to work on. When I first signed on, I really didn't know anything about it. I read the script, which I though was cool, but it wasn't until I saw the designs for the CG stuff that I knew it was going to be pretty sweet.

As a writer, being on the set of 'Gravity' was such a surreal experience. It was nice to see them using the technology to translate what we had on the page.

Nowadays, you can't broadcast dodgy special effects and then put up a caption saying, 'Sorry, this is what the budget was.' You have to do it with high production values because the audience has been spoilt by the special effects on things like 'The X Files' and 'Independence Day.'

Maybe I'm a product of my era, but I just enjoy the practical effects of 'The Thing' more than CGI aliens.

Digital effects have progressed ten thousand years' worth since we shot 'ED 2,' but practicals are still just the same: Blood pumps, rubber latex, glue, the works.