TIGAER-DESIGN.COM_.v5 – Digital Art by Christian Hecker

FOUNDATION

What we have here is a picture that I would consider a quickie. A mashup of my earlier Scifi cityscape pictures. It still took a while to get it done but the general composition was set very early on and kept throughout the making. Normally I tend to sometimes drastically change elements of a picture even within the making. Always depending on how good things work out. Sometimes you have to work out things and look at them, to fully understand if something in a picture works or not. Had not to do this hassle for this one. Instead I did a lot of finetuning, especially in the front parts. The city I kept rather basic without investing too much time and detail on it. Just wanted to keep the background more rough. Slammed some textures and lights on it. Does the job and creates enough depth for what I wanted. Something that works really nice is the sense of business that a city like this would generate I think.

Technically it’s, as usual, Vue to create me a base picture to work on. In Photoshop I added quite a load of textures and made them fit somewhat nicely within the scene. I added masses of lights to suggest even more detail. The lights required some time to place them good in the scene. Then I tried to add a little more depth with some atmospheric glow and haze. Overall it works good enough for what I had in mind for the picture.

The docked ship in front was originally a concept drawing I did a while ago. My french Luminarium colleague Sebastien Hue managed to create a nice 3d model from my rough drawing. So a big thanks to him! Pay him a visit here. You’ll see some variations of that ship in future works soon, that’s for sure.

6000 wide – Vue – Photoshop

Regards

If I would have to pick one movie that truly, from the bottom of its soul, defines ‘war’… then it would be Apocalypse Now. This movie left an impression when I saw it the first time and still does when I watch it today. There is such a depth and so many layers of detail to it, that no other production captured as good as this title did/does. There are a few close ones like ‘The Deer Hunter’. But when it comes to portraying the sheer madness, and what it all can do to your psyche/mind, then Apocalypse Now is this one milestone in moviemaking history that got it pretty much all right.

The psychedelic hotel scene with Martin Sheen, the famous helicopter scene, Robert Duvall’s Kilgore character, the huge massive napalm explosion, the slaughter scene at the end. This movie is so full of iconic details, that it’s almost unthinkable that the movie had so many production problems, they almost had to shut it down. ‘Hearts Of Darkness’ sheds some light on the production of that movie. Francis Ford Coppola’s wife got the opportunity to document a lot of things throughout the production. From day one up to the last day, we can see how much work and determination went into this project. At one point in production a huge typhoon even destroyed the already built sets and forced them to take a break for a couple of weeks. From the beginning there were financing problems that forced Coppola to use his own money to keep the movie on track. He really took some risks for that monster of a film.

The fascinating thing to see is how, not only the characters in the movie itself, turn more and more psyched out. The production crew went through the same thing. Filming happened on the Philippines. Of course the humid conditions and vegetations are similar to Vietnam. All that affected the crew and equipment as well. And after more than 230 days of shooting the whole crew has had such an experience that it made them not being who they were before. The documentary has a lot of footage from the sets. A lot of footage where Coppola is trying to explain the actors why their characters do what they do. Coppola constantly rewriting scenes and dialogue, trying to get that picture in his head, on paper and eventually on film. There is almost no scene where you are not able to see his inner struggle. To me he seemed like a driven man. He had to finish this monster, no matter the costs.

Under such conditions you are vulnerable for wrong decisions. One that always comes up is Marlon Brando. Coppola had the chance to cast someone else but he kept Brando. I personally can see how someone else could have played Kurtz’s character better. But I also belong to that, I guess rare, group that doesn’t care too much. Brando’s performance, by no means, destroys the movie or experience (and yes, I think that film is rather more an experience than a movie) for me. All the things that happen along the journey that leads to Kurtz are so impressive that Brando’s part doesn’t hurt. Yes, it may make the finale feel a little weak, but to me the trip as a whole works just fine.

This great piece of documentary takes you by the hand and lets you experience the movie Apocalypse Now from a very different point of view. As a movie fan it’s a gem! After wachting Apocalypse Now I often feel like hit by a big giant rock. And this documentary delivers some answers to the question ‘why’ it does. This monster of a movie wants you to feel that way. It even made the creators go through some kind of hell. A nice piece of documented movie history.

9/10

Hearts Of Darkness on IMDb

If you are firm with movies then you probably know the 1995 ‘Judge Dredd’ vehicle with Sylvester Stallone as Dredd. Although I think it does have some cool moments, I heard from various comic fans that it isn’t exactly very true to the original. And with an ego like Stallone in it… it’s pretty much sure that he changed quite a few things, moving it further and further away from the comic. But now there is a new one. And this version also gets a lot of good reviews from all over the press and net. But is it better than the Stallone one and more true to the comic? And is it always better to stay more true to the source material?

The story of the movie is as simple as it can be. The world we see shows a dystopian future. The movie doesn’t make a mystery about the fact that the chance, to live a good life, is very much not existent in this world. If people aren’t living in a slum or ghetto then they live in so-called megablocks. These consist to up to 70k people living in them. Really huge structures. Crime rate is over the roof and only the department of justice is able to fight the crime. At least to a certain degree. In this future the cops are called judges. These judges have the license to kill so to say. If they find you guilty in a crime then you are basically done.

We follow Judge Dredd. A man of not many words. But we can see and feel he’s eager to fight the bad guys. On this particular day he is getting a recruit to his side. Dredd’s job is to find out if the rookie is worthy enough to become a judge. A distress call gets them both into one of these megablocks. Of course this megablock inhabits a huge drug factory. Sure enough havoc breaks out, and we follow our two protagonists managing the chaos.

Yes a very simple plot and a not too original one either. Not the strength of the film to be honest. What it makes so good is that it doesn’t compromise its premise. The movie delivers what it promises and what it shows looks amazingly great. This is the first movie in a long time that makes great use of the 3d feature. The visuals are really beautifully shot. The action scenes are approached in a very old-school kind of way. Movies like Robocop, Die Hard or the 1990 Total Recall come to mind. Movies that deliver good looking and gritty action. There are no middle ways where they try to implement drama or conflicts. It’s just the good guys against the bad guys. And that simple structure, if done right, is fun.

Character moments are very rare. But when they’re happening it always makes sense. Especially when it comes to the law and jurisdiction in that world. Every now and then the recruit questions the law but also understands when it’s necessary to go the hard way. All this is done in a completely non-cheesy way. Good thing! What brings me to the acting.

The cast we got in this film doesn’t have any superstars. Karl Urban, who should be a superstar, plays Dredd without to invest too much. Not a bad thing! After all you only see his chin all the time. Urban noted that he’s a long time fan of the comic and delivers a good interpretation of his character. The recruit is played by a young lady named Olivia Thirlby. She’s pretty much doing the same thing Urban does. Trying to keep it real instead of too much drama. And that’s just right for this kind of movie. Lena Headey gets to play the leader of the bad guys. Some great makeup effects on her make her look wonderfully evil. Which fits her character of course. Overall I can see how it isn’t easy to find a character too root for. We don’t get too much background for all of them. Except the recruit. She is the connection to the audience. If you don’t root for her then you probably don’t like the movie at all.

Overall it is a movie that does a lot of things right. Especially things that have been missing in action movies so much over the last years or even decade. And that’s movies that follow a straight line. Yes the movie is violent! But in context of what story they want to tell, it’s necessary. And all the blood and gore is justified for believability and style purposes. You could argue that the movie celebrates its violence. So what? Have you seen any video games as of late? Blood and gore all over the place.

The movie is indeed better than the 1995 version and it’s closer to the comic. No compromises in style and execution. A few lengthy parts here and there though. It seems to be a good thing to stay closer to the source material in this case. The Stallone movie had a lot of cheesy and unintentionally funny moments and comic relief that made you more laugh about instead of with the movie. The new one does know very well what it wants to be. The 3d and general esthetic look very awesome. Definitely worth a watch!

7.7/10

Dredd on IMDb

This one was on my radar for years. Even before the first trailer hit the internet. It was a very ambitious movie project, completely financed by independent production companies as well as a significant part of internet crowdfunding. It is a movie that follows the paths of a traditional b-movie. But is it a good or bad b-movie?

The story is pretty simple and if you’re reading this, I don’t think I have to explain a lot. It’s basically about Nazi’s who found a hideout on the dark side of the moon. There they managed to build a society and follow their traditions. One of the traditions is, of course, to take over the planet. Planet Earth of course. So there is a long time plan on the move, to take over good old mother Earth. In the movie the USA are closing in on an election. Madame president (who does look a little like Sarah Palin) sent a 2 man team to the moon to take some nice pictures that shall help her to win the election. One of the guys is a model. A good looking guy… a black guy. He discoveres the Nazi base and gets arrested by them. He’s one of the protagonists we follow. The more he sees what’s going on, he wants to cross the evil plans, the Nazis are ready to execute. That starts a string of happenings and hijinks.

Now the first thing you can do wrong is to go into the movie with A: expectations & B: being easily offended by jokes that are politically incorrect. Some of the jokes are quite forced. Others require you to have some education to understand them. So it’s a weird mix of poor and quality jokes in there. Also the dialogue feels a little clunky at times. On the other hand we have actually a nice cast, that tries to get the best off of the stuff they got to work with.

One more thing is that the movie tries a little too hard to bring out a message. And my guess is that the message is something like: “when it comes down to greed and surviving… there will be no difference between a Nazi or anyone else” or “as long as we have the same enemy we will work together, but afterwards it will only take us a split second to find ourselfes new ones or even turn against former allies”.

Some might argue that a roughly 8 million dollar budget is a lot of money. But looking at the visual quality this movie has, it’s quite a remarkable job. The battle scenes in space look great. A lot of CG work in general. And all of it looks pretty neat! They also work with a ton of greenscreen sets. And yes, you can see it. Nonetheless it’s important to say that it really works in the context of the production. Much like a 60mil dollar ‘Sky captain and the world of tomorrow’ from 2004. It’s crazy how far CG production came in these 8 years. Will be interesting to see what other people might come up with. Now that the possibilities are there and easier to handle.

So my final verdict is that I tend to say that it is a legitimate good movie. You can see that the production really put some heart, sweat and effort into it all. And that is what divides a good b-movie from a bad one. All the missing elements of a big budget movie, that a b-movie obviously has, can be filled with heart and effort. And that is what you can see in this film. Yes it is clunky and cheesy… but hey it’s also a lot of fun. And that’s what the producers want you to have. Plain fun.

And maybe, only a little tiny maybe, it brings people to educate themselfes a little more about the real third reich.

7.5/10

Iron Sky on IMDb