Building a scene in Maya

2nd term paper

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction

With the introduction of CGI, movies have become more and more realistic. It is fascinating how animators, through the intensive studying of an object or living being, can manipulate an image to make an action look real and believable. Most people don’t even realize that the physical laws are stretched during a good movie because the action is to enticing to notice the flaws. The laws of physics are often bent and for the most part fictitious to some degree. Especially, when it comes down to action sequences were elaborate stunts are preformed to aw-inspired an audience. We usually do not notice the physical mistakes that happen in the movie because they look real to us . Most people know the basics of physics but don’t have a extensive understanding in the laws of physics, so sometimes it makes it hard to tell fact from fiction. Also, if the action sequences were not dramatized by either slowing down time to create anticipation or by making a chemical reaction work faster than it actually did, it wouldn’t be as much fun to watch the movie and would probably be rather boring because the whole scene would happen way to fast or to slow. The director also needs to consider the audiences needs. If the hero gets hurt to such an extent were he can’t fight back anymore and ends up in a coma or even dies the audience would not want to see such motion pictures. We want to see our heroes survive a 100 foot drop from a building or cliff because we want good to succeed over the dark side. Same goes for the bad guys. If the bad guy dies from a single punch to the head the film will become boring and we wouldn’t be as proud of our hero for beating him in a fight because the task presented no challenge. Movies are made to entertain people and that’s why the science behind the action is sometimes stretched because this adds to the visual entertainment and keeps people engaged in the subject matter.

So, before we start talking about movies with unrealistic scenes in them we will first examine the action/reaction principle. Newton’s third law of action/reaction principle states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Sadly, sometimes in movies this law is not always followed in favor of dramatic purposes and visually stunning scenes.

The first scene that will be discussed involves a parachute sequence from Jurassic Park III. Erik, a 12 year old boy, has just been snatched up by one of the Pteranodons, which is a flying dinosaur. In reaction to this Billy gears up and runs up the stairs to a higher location, jumps on the side of the railing and jumps off, releasing his parachute in the process. He glides away in the hopes of saving Erik from being eaten by the Pteranodon’s young. Billy falls approximately 15 feet in 2 seconds and his chute deploys in 1.5 seconds.

There are many things wrong with this scene. In reality he should have fallen much further than depicted in the movie. Objects with minimal air resistance fall at about 16 feet per second. In 1.5 seconds a human would fall close to thirty feet.

Also, the parachute would take longer to deploy. A good parachute takes close to 3 seconds to fully open up and “catch“ the air which slows down the falling speed of a human or object. Billy’s chute only took 1.5 seconds to do the same thing. The chances of his parachute even opening correctly is quite far fetched. A parachute needs to be folded correctly for it to catch the air as the person is releasing it in free fall. In the movie Billy just bunches the old parachute they find in the jungle at the beginning of the movie into his backpack. This would probably cause the parachute to unfold incorrectly which would cause Billy to crash and die depending on how much force he would hit the ground with or if he landed in water.

Another action to take into consideration that is vital in a real life situation of correctly deploying a parachute and does not take place in the movie, is that nothing is pulling the parachute out of the backpack as Billy jumps off the railing. Parachutes in real life have a smaller chute that comes out first and that drags the main one out after it. Just because you pull the ripcord doesn’t mean the parachute will come out automatically. There needs to be something that helps drag it out.

The last error to be considered is that Billy would have not reached terminal velocity at 2 seconds. It takes 12- 15 seconds for a human to speed up to his or her terminal velocity which is about 120 mph. He wouldn’t be falling very fast yet. This would also be important in deploying the parachute because it relies on wind resistance to deploy correctly.

The second scene to be discussed happens in X-men origins: Wolverine. Logan is laying in a pool of water or some other sort of liquid and has just been injected with the Adamantium. He overhears Stryker telling his employee to erase his memory. Logan gets furious and jumps out of the pool enraged. In reaction to this Agent Zero shoots Logan in the head. Now, the Adamantium has made his bones indestructible and Logan does posses the ability to spontaneously heal but it should have at least blown away a good portion of the skin around the entry point of the bullet, especially in such a close range. Agent Zero is no further away than 25 feet and has a sophisticated weapon at his disposal. The bullet would reach speeds between 1000mps and 4000 mps and travels a very short distance until it would come into contact with Logan’s head. The bullet would not lose much speed due to air resistance and upon impact the force itself would destroy the surrounding area of the skull because the skin around the skull is not affected by the Adamantium. The instant healing would also have to take place after the bullet had hit because the skin cannot anticipate an injury.

Now if we consider the whole situation in the real world it would not exist. A normal human being would die from such a close range shot. The skull would literally shatter. It is not possible to coat our bones in a metal. The proper reaction would most likely be death if science even attempted to do this.

Also, the ability to spontaneously heal in an instant like Logan does, is also something that future generations will come up with, but probably not in our lifetime. Our skin does regenerate new skin cells but at a much slower pace. Small cuts usually take 2 weeks to fully heal. There are also some animals that can re-grow body parts, such as lizards when they lose their tails or when a starfish looses one of it’s legs, but it takes a very long time to do so.

The last movie to be discussed is The Day After Tomorrow. There are numerous physical errors portrayed in this movie but lots of them go unnoticed because the world is coming to an end and this has a better attention grabbing capability than does trying to figure out what laws of physics the director stretched. The sequence that will be discussed here is when Manhattan gets flooded by an enormous wave. First, if we examine how waves come to creation it’s through wind blowing against the surface of the water. The same reaction can be observed if there is water in a sink and a person blows on the surface of the water. Ripples will form. This is essentially how waves are made in the ocean by the wind.

The wave in the movie is well over 300 feet and could not have been created by any wind that inhabits our world like they say it does in the movie. Such an enormous wave could possibly be created by a landslide or some other really, really heavy object dropping into the ocean or an earthquake disturbing the ocean floor.

Also, the wave would cause way more damage than it did in the movie. The sheer force of the water that hits the buildings would make them implode and be blown to smithereens. The statue of liberty could not have survived such an event. As for the survivors, there would be none. The buildings that people ran into for shelter would not exist anymore. All of them would have gone down with the buildings.

Also, one of the most curious parts of this scene is that the wave approaches from the east when the Atlantic is located in the south of Manhattan. The nearest body of open ocean is found due east of long island.

As we can see movies bend the laws of physics to provide people with a better entertainment experience. This usually means bending the laws of our physical world and adapting them to the movies content. Nobody wants to see heroes or innocent people die for no good reason and the bigger and more spectacular the action sequences are the more entertaining the movie becomes as long as the action looks real and believable.

Outline for 2nd Term Paper

Science fact or cinematic fiction

Intro

Action reaction principle

What it is

How it affects things

Movie Scenes

Jurassic Park

- The Pterosaurs

Wouldn’t be capable of swooping down and carrying off a 12 year old

These animals were gliders and would use winds to gain altitude

X-Men

- Healing Factor

Wolverine is capable of withstanding any injury whether it be bullets or massive explosions or falling from a nuclear reactor

The Day after Tomorrow

- Manhattan Flooded by a Tsunami

Massive wave could not be caused by wind

Buildings would implode

No survivors

Incorrect location of approaching wave

Conclusion

Summary of points made above

stop motion animation

Untitled from katja wiss on Vimeo.

midterm anonymous survey

"This is to certify that I completed the anonymous mid-semester survey for Art/Physics 123 and am requesting the five points of extra credit.