Lens flare in CGI movies
No, I am not talking about J.J. Abrams’ love affair with shiny pixels.
The other day I watched Interstellar and 2001: A Space Odyssey back to back. Let’s not go into the holy wars here, please.
I would like to point out a peculiar little detail that struck me as I was watching those movies.
In Odyssey, the opening scene (well, after you have been staring into the black screen for a solid three minutes, which by the way many believe to be the first appearance of Monolith) features a nice shot of space:
If you are into technical details about how the effects in Odyssey were filmed, you can read this amazing article. That movie was filmed in 1968 and can to this day hold its ground compared to what is pumped out by Hollywood these days.
Then, there is this shot of space from Interstellar:
See that sparkle of light causing circles and various geometric shapes? That is lens flare. It is an effect which happens on cameras due to light falling onto the lens from a side angle, causing all sorts of light refraction. Basically, it is a side effect of using cameras.
And here is the plot twist. Obviously, Nolan did not go to space to take this shot. It was computer generated. Therefore, there are no real cameras involved. Hence the question, why the lens flare?
In Odyssey, Kubrick makes you feel as if you are in space. Kubrick is doing an amazing job of directing and puts you there, in the deep black of the absolute zero, observing the planets and the sun.
You are there. Observing space.
In contrast, by introducing lens flare in Interstellar, Nolan breaks the illusion and instead of putting you, the viewer, in space, he just shows you a camera shot of a space scene. Which, of course, is about a hundred times less impactful.
You are watching a recording of space.
For me, the difference is like being on a vacation myself, versus someone showing me a recorded video of their vacation. It feels second-hand. Feels non-genuine. Artificial.
I have Photoshopped the lens flare out of that shot, take a look:
Look at that. There are no cameras involved, it is just you watching the distant Sun and Saturn. You can feel the isolation and loneliness. The horror of deep space.
The kicker to this is that Nolan is absolutely well aware of the importance of not breaking the illusion. He came up with an amazing movie Inception. You do know Inception is a movie about movies, and making of movies, right? You don’t? Oh wow, do I have a treat for you.
In brief (assuming you watched Inception) when a dream in Inception gets “strange” all the surrounding people start to stare at the dreamer because they are realizing something is wrong. This is a direct parallel to, for example, a bad special effect in a movie. As you are watching a movie and you are immersed into it, then all of the sudden something awkward happens — like a bad explosion, or a really bad rendering of a monster, or even a bad pacing or a dialog — you get pulled out from the immersion and the spell is broken. You are no longer part of the movie, instead you are just sitting in the cinema or on your couch watching a recording.
When you think about it, Kubrick was actually using a real camera to do that shot, and there are no lens flares. Why is there a lens flare in the computer generated space shot? I do not know.
All I know is that lens flare should be avoided as much as technically possible as it breaks the illusion. Lens flare visibly puts a camera between us, the audience, and the magic of movie.
J.J. Abrams, I am looking at you. Bad J.J., stop that. J.J. stahp!
