Revealed: The Visual Effects Behind The Great Gatsby

Sev­er­al days ago, Chris God­frey, the VFX super­vi­sor on the lat­est film adap­ta­tion of The Great Gats­by, post­ed a remark­able “before and after” film on Vimeo.  Run­ning four min­utes, the short com­pi­la­tion reveals the many sets and scenes cre­at­ed with com­put­er gen­er­at­ed images. It’s all pret­ty impres­sive from a tech­ni­cal point of view. No doubt. And yet this wiz­ardry con­tributed to mak­ing what’s wide­ly con­sid­ered a mediocre film. In The New York­er, film crit­ic David Den­by writes:

Luhrmann’s ver­sion is mere­ly a fran­tic jum­ble. The pic­ture is filled with an indis­crim­i­nate swirling motion, a thrash­ing impress of “style” (Art Deco turned to dig­i­tized glitz), thrown at us with whoosh­ing cam­era sweeps and surges and rapid changes of per­spec­tive exag­ger­at­ed by 3‑D.… Luhrmann’s vul­gar­i­ty is designed to win over the young audi­ence, and it sug­gests that he’s less a film­mak­er than a music-video direc­tor with end­less resources and a stun­ning absence of taste.

Some­times, as they say, less is more.…

via Richard Brody

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Only Known Footage of the 1926 Film Adap­ta­tion of The Great Gats­by (Which F. Scott Fitzger­ald Hat­ed)

Sev­en Tips From F. Scott Fitzger­ald on How to Write Fic­tion

F. Scott Fitzger­ald in Drag (1916)