And Disney security didn’t kill you for it???

I’ll miss the old ghosts but I’m glad for the update.

You’ve just blanketed an entire industry’s magic-making with the word “CG” and been done with it. And I’m sorry to hear that – it’s truly magical, and far from the realm of understanding for those who care enough to learn.

I get what Adam’s saying, and I’m inclined to agree with him. About 18 months ago, I was working on a TV episode that happened to be, in part, about a supposedly haunted house. A character turned out to be pretending to be a ghost using the same Pepper’s Ghost gag that makes up the Haunted Mansion hitchhikers, as well as the big ballroom section.

As the wikipedia link shows, it’s a really simple gag, and all it takes is a sheet of glass and the appropriate usage of light and darkness. For some reason, when the scene was shot for this particular show, our crew did not shoot the effect as a “practical,” meaning they shot plates and greenscreen elements and ended up rendering the effect (which was actually supposed to be a 19th-century vintage Pepper’s Ghost effect utilizing 19th-century equipment) as a visual effects composite.

And it looked… well, to my eye, disappointing. Had they just used an actual Pepper’s Ghost rig and shot the effect, it would have looked more convincing (as a ghost effect) and more authentic as a representation of an antique sight gag. To say nothing of the fact that it would have cost $10,000 less. I suppose there were good reasons why they chose to go the route they did (I wasn’t privy to those decisions, I only worked there), but I’ve used Pepper’s Ghost myself several times in a Halloween Haunt my friends and I used to run annually at a local Halloween carnival, and if you’re careful with your lighting, it’s extremely effective.

Anyway. I don’t believe there’s anything fundamentally wrong with CG effects in and of themselves. It’s only a medium; another brush in the paintbox. My favorite approach to visual effects is that utilized by Peter Jackson in LOTR. He used CG to spectacular effect, but generally only when he couldn’t get away with miniatures or forced perspective or any other in-camera trick that has been invented in the last century.

I’ll always have a tender regard for mechanical FX, makeup FX, stunts and pyrotechnics. One of these days I’ll see something that is completely conceived and wholly rendered in CG that is so mindblowingly realistic, and yet simultaneously so impossible to film in real life, that I’ll gasp “How did they DO that?!” without having any credulity that it’s all just mouse clicks. Someday… but not yet. As it still barely stands now, all the genuinely amazing visuals that succeed in getting that reaction from me are the ones involving real people interacting with real props and environments. What made your jaw drop more in Inception: the folding cityscapes, or the fight inside the gimballed hotel hallway?

For me it was easily the second.

The more casual I am about it, the more FREAKED OUT they get by the trick. Even when I explain that it’s nothing more than a bit of misdirection they are stunned by seeing something REALLY HAPPEN right in front of them.

Computers and projectors are clever and cool, but mystery is always going to bowl people over.

Could this be another SF author who predicted the future?

You forgot, And Get OFF My Lawn!!!11!!! :)

Look at how well the effects from the original Star Wars trilogy have aged vs. the effects from the prequels. Or at the late-1990s effects in the “Special Editions” compared to the in-camera effects from the 1970s in the same movies.

Or at Disneyland, remember how groundbreaking Star Tours was when it first opened to the public in 1987, vs. how stale it had become before they closed it down to get rehabbed. That’s not a case of CGI becoming obsolete, but it is a case where instead of a real ride that moves on a track past scenery that’s really there, we were instead presented with a simulation of a ride while watching a film — it’s a couple of steps further removed from an actual tactile experience. But over the years motion simulators became commonplace and we got used to the technology, and the effect of the ride got stale much more quickly than the dozens of more traditional rides in the park.

As a kid of the 80′s, I too remember these effects and the curiosity I felt when I saw them. So much so that I grew up to make a career out of it – in CG. What I’m finding on a near-daily basis is the same sense of discovery and enjoyment of different techniques used to accomplish the same (slightly different looking) effect. Everyone has their own technique or method, and it’s absolutely as genius as any of the aforementioned practical techniques. What’s changed isn’t the sense of curiosity, but your unwillingness to pursue that and actually learn how it’s done. You’ve just blanketed an entire industry’s magic-making with the word “CG” and been done with it. And I’m sorry to hear that – it’s truly magical, and far from the realm of understanding for those who care enough to learn.

It wasn’t until the very last second when I glanced to the left and saw what I had just passed through: a mirthful hall of happy gosts. I was left with a feeling I had missed the most important part of the ride.