The Imagination Comes To Life
by S.L.M
The latest Harry Potter Movie trailer has been interesting so far with all the spectacular special effects. The movie should be great, but very dark due to how dark the book is. The special effects really benefit the movie because of the magical element added by CGI (computer generated graphics). You can almost do anything with CGI nowadays, its becoming more and more popular because of high demand from audiences. You can see the CGI getting better with each Potter Installment.
In The Order of the Phoenix, the graphics were outstanding! They really put the time and effort into the CGI. If CGI did not exist the Harry Potter movies would not exist because you can only do so much with puppets and special effects created by hand. In the scene with Dumbledore fighting Voldemort, when Voldemort “spits” out a fire snake, the fire looks real and could be mistaken for real fire.
With all these interesting visual effects the movie has really stood out from other fantasy movies. The key thing in a fantasy movie is the visual effects because of the limitations of some special effects made by hand. Meaning having to use real fire and then bring in the fire department, just in case if the set were to catch on fire.
If one were to look at th movies from the late 80s and early 90s the CGI would appear fairly new and untouched, but as time went on the use of CGI got more and more prevalent. Ever since Pixar created Toy Story and other great movies the use of CGI has sky rocketed. Not only was Pixar a contributor to the use of CGI, but when New Line Cinema released Lord of the Rings, the use of CGI added to the audiences’ hunger for better special effects. Not only fantasy type movies had special effects, but other movies such as Indiana Jones the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I am Legend, and more. Almost every movie has at least some CGI in it. It makes it easy to do explosion scenes without actually creating”real deal”. CGI helps eliminate danger for when actors/ actresses try to perform stunts needed in the scene.
The gaming industry has also added to the demand for better CGI. The 
release of the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 leave people at an awe because of how great the graphics are on the systems. The graphics card on the gaming systems allows the gaming designers to add more features to the game. With the PS3, the developers are able to add more features to the characters, meaning there will be more textures to surfaces and or people. In the game Drake’s Fortune, Naughty Dog (a video game company, who created Crash Bandicoot) has given a behind the scenes look at how much more they are able to do with graphics.
Since CGI is becoming more and more popular, you can now buy CGI programs. People can now do their own CGI and can post them on blog sites such as Youtube. There is one CGI video that is of particular interest, Dead Fantasy made by Monty Oum. The video is broken up into two parts Dead Fantasy 1 and Dead Fantasy 2. The video is about two video games clashing in an all out brawl to see which one is the best. The video has just female game characters from Dead or Alive and Final Fantasy. The movie is not yet finished, so part three is still in the making.
CGI is one of the greatest computer programs that has ever existed. The ability to create anything and everything is endless just like the human imagination. Since technology is improving the graphics will continue to get better and better until they are almost life-like.
The date for the next Harry Potter movie is July 14, 2009. The trailers for the movie look spectacular and hopefully it will be one of the best movies in the coming years. There will be a lot of expectations from the fans. If the director sticks to the book then the movie will be great, but of course there will be a few scenes that are going to need to be cut. You can’t have everything from the book in the movie, right?
