
Max Headroom and the Strange World of Pseudo-CGI - jnazario
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/max-headroom-and-the-strange-world-of-pseudo-cgi-82745.html
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greggman
Also see Tron. Many of scenes that look like CGI are not. Pretty much any CG
looking scene with a person visible has no CGI and several of the scenes that
look 100% cgi are not as well

For example no part of this clip is CGI.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiw2FbHBd14>

No CGI in any of this either. Zero Zilch Nada.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PFd9SPuuDM#t=1m10s>

no idea how long this will stay up
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrCdMHUNznc>

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joezydeco
Totally right. Here's an example of a live-action frame from Tron. The scene
was shot in black and white with insanely high contrast, then color was added
by hand.

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/todbot/562635012/in/photostream...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/todbot/562635012/in/photostream/)

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TazeTSchnitzel
Ah, so that's why the faces remained eerily black-and-white!

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harrylove
For example: Max Headroom[1] portrayed by Matt Frewer[2] doing vocals in the
video[3] for "Paranoimia"[4] by Art of Noise[5] (1986)

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_(character)>

2\. <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001242/>

3\. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YubzvkNh77w>

4\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoimia>

5\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_Noise>

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dualogy
Art of Noise---still in love with their highly creative early-electronic-
music. Truly in awe.

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Stratoscope
Somewhat related is S. G. Collins' interesting video explaining why they
couldn't have faked going to the moon; it was easier and cheaper to actually
go:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGXTF6bs1IU>

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gohrt
People seem to forget that "electrical" effects predate digital computers.
Cathode rays (before and after television) create "high-tech" animated vector-
drawn images using analog systems to move the tube. Laser light shows are
another example.

The original _digital_ raster graphics were worse in some sense than the
analog vector graphics that predated them.

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joezydeco
Just to throw this in, but the original Max Headroom movie "20 Minutes into
the Future" is not as bad as the Channel 4 / Cinemax music video show or (oh
god) the American ABC series.

It's an interesting bit of proto-cyberpunk that even addressed things like
digital avatars and real-time viewer feedback nearly 30 years ago.

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js2
[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlmclb_arsenal-09-max-
headr...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlmclb_arsenal-09-max-
headroom-20-minutes-into-the-future_creation)

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joezydeco
Yup, that's the one!

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FollowSteph3
Am I the only one to feel like an idiot for not knowing Max Headroom was not
an animation. I haven't seen the show since I was young, but now I just want
to go find an episode to watch and look at the animation to see how they
fooled my younger me.

I remember thinking I wasn't sue but how else. That's also why tv shows you
watched when young where better than you remember, you could be fooled more
easily and use your imagination whereas today were so use to the special
effects that we almost need them, we can't easily imagine it unless its there
and looking real'ish.

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harel
I'm shocked it's a fake-nimation... As a kid I loved Max and was amazed what
the highest end computers can do. I was patiently waiting for that tech to
trickle down to us mortal consumers. Of course I only got that when I became
'grown up' and now I learned it was all fake to begin with... Glad I found out
now though, and not back then. I even remember, as an Amiga owner at the time,
of a word circulating in Amiga circles (way way pre-internet) that Max is
created using Amigas.... Silly me.

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Niten
You could also put the LCARS panels from Star Trek: The Next Generation into
this category.

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MacsHeadroom
Very interesting.

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dmead
they forgot the display screens in 2001

