As I mentioned in an earlier post, a lot of this year's film viewing was devoted to horrors, sci-fi's, and the crossroads in between. So of course, it's par for the course that I saw a lot of special effects, from CGI to animatronics, blood packs to stylized computerized blood spatters.
As the poorly photoshopped image above shows, this award goes to the film that I thought had the best implementation of low budget special effects. And the winner is...
Automatons (2006 / James Felix McKenney)
Automatons is one I came about by chance. I was looking for new horrors and found this director named Larry Fessenden, who did a very polarizing film called
Wendigo. It was out of stock at the time, so I chose to order this little sci-fi which featured him in a supporting role, because it was cheap and I loved the DVD cover art.
This film is about the politics and moral ambiguity of war, much of this message being communicated not-so-subtley through lengthy monologue sequences performed by Angus Scrimm of
Phantasm fame.
But of course this is an effects award, so let's move on to that area.
Both mimicking the style of '50s invasion films as well as using its own low budget to its advantage,
Automatons features purposely low-tech effects. It adds both a charm to the aesthetic, and a cynicism to the film's message - war is so stupid, we all look pretty silly (like, say, guys wearing cardboard robot suits) when it's taking place.
Indoor and outdoor shots were done differently in the film. For anything indoors, the robots are men wearing cardboard, insulation, metal tubing - stuff you may expect to see on a robot costume in your neighbourhood on Halloween night.
Outdoor shots are done in erratic stop motion using mini figurines, such as LEGO and action figures that have been painted or given the same cardboard-and-tubing treatment as the actors on indoor shots.
Explosions are done with cherry bombs and mini fireworks, laser fire is done with tricks of light and limited post-production CGI work, and you'll often see the same robot filmed from several different angles to give the illusion of a massive army.
The film itself is certainly not everyone's bag. It's ambitious and original, but may have been better suited to a short-film style as it tends to get a little dry at times while running at a mere 83 minutes. But it's one of those films that shows what you can really do if you sit down and plot out something original with the materials you have access to.
It runs on novelty, but it's entertaining and fun for the most part. It's an effects show in the same way that George Lucas'
Star Wars prequel trilogy was, but it has more soul.