Len Wiseman Quotes

Over 55% of all shots using animals in 'The Hobbit' are in fact computer generated; this includes horses, ponies, rabbits, hedgehogs, birds, deer, elk, mice, wild boars and wolves.

I wouldn't want to do a whole movie with effects.

I think a lot of times, in a lot of modern-day movies, a lot of things are CGI, but so much of the stuff in 'Star Wars' is built and created by these artists.

While it's easy to sit back and cherry pick bad visual effects and blame the industry for making movies the way they are, you're really not seeing the whole picture.

Digital effects have progressed ten thousand years' worth since we shot 'ED 2,' but practicals are still just the same: Blood pumps, rubber latex, glue, the works.

It's what we live for, to be able to make great illusions. The thing about 'Entourage' is everything we do is realistic. We go to the real places, we shoot on location. We get the real people. It's a perfect marriage between fact and fiction.

I think about the period of, like, the '70s and early '80s where nobody had money to make big movies and there was no CGI or anything like that and people had to get super creative. And then, you know, when you've got somebody who can paint you any picture on a computer and you get hundreds of millions of dollars to make a movie, its almost like the creativity diminishes somewhat.

Sometimes, when people use too much blue screen in movies, the actors don't look credible, because they have their own opinion of what the thing will look like, and each person has a different opinion.

That one [in "2012"] was different because it was all CG, getting washed away by water. In "Independence Day," everything was still done in models, built in a certain scale out of plaster, and packing tons and tons of little explosives and charges in there. We had a second one in case it didn't work the first time, but it worked the first time.

The effects that interest me are not the guy flying through the sky, but creating reality - reality that you otherwise can't go and shoot.

When I filmed 'Power Rangers,' almost everything was being assisted by a green screen, but it wasn't the same with 'Stranger Things.'

Maybe I'm a product of my era, but I just enjoy the practical effects of 'The Thing' more than CGI aliens.

Even before 'Moon,' I did a short film called 'Whistle,' and it had a lot of the things that I thought I would need to be able to do on a feature film: I shot on location, there was special FX work, there was stunt work, we used squibs, I shot on 35 mm film.

Maybe 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' didn't have a lot of visual effects in it, but most movies have some sort of visual effects.

Arachnophobia' was one of the first films I did major effects for.

Making 'Pacific Rim' was a lot like what you imagined making movies would be like when you were 12.

If I can make a dance-based movie like 'ABCD', then I was sure I could make a superhero movie, too.

I think you should be prepared for a green-screen CGI at all times.

You hear people say that there's too much CG in movies today, but CG is what allows me to take a green-painted wall in a studio and make it disappear, and then put 100 miles of landscape in. CG, in the right hands, can be a marvelous tool.

There are shots that I had to walk away from because we had to get the movie in the theaters. There are some in "Independence Day" and "Godzilla," but lately I got smart. I would plan it so I had enough time [to get it right]. That just comes with experience.

You do a movie [where] you like the script [and] it has something to say that you care about. And there are certain people in this industry that you kind of stick with. Guys like [“The Congressman” producer] Fred Roos. They call you, and if you’re not working, that’s what you do.

I've done a few special effects movies in my life, so I've gotten that out of my system.

It's so funny when people who are not used to making movies get into it. You just can't believe how insufferably boring it is. Waiting around and doing these lines over and over and finally having to go in and loop the lines and dub them.

To be fair, it's not even the first time I've seen a dead version of myself. There was one on Harry Potter, on the last movie, that they actually used to bring to set in a body bag.

What's interesting as a director, and even studio executives don't understand this, is that if you're directing a $200 million movie with six million people, it's the same as directing a $25,000 movie with three people. The director's job is, "You stand there and do that," or "This is the shot I want." The logistics change, but the job remains the same. And I enjoy the job.