This article is missing any clips of Max Headroom so here is one, an interview with Max on the Wogan chat show in 1985<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f_hWGCsY1g" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f_hWGCsY1g</a><p>The effects were great for the time, and done in real time, allowing Max to ad-lib
To me the Psudeo-CGI or straight up non CGI effects have more character. Is it intentional or just "found" I don't know, but I always feel like there's more of a unique look to them.<p>Straight CG still looks more often than not, too clean (even if trying to look dirty), too polished, too uniform, no character, and just feels like CGI for CGIs sake. Something feels lost and while I expected it to get better over time, I don't feel like it has gotten better.
I think the best example of pseudo CGI are the user interfaces from Star Trek the Next Generation in the late 80s, early 90s.<p>In the show, every display is supposed to be an interactive digital display, but because such displays didn't exist at the time, they actually faked it using exacto knives and cellophane.<p>For the 2023 Star Trek Picard show, they actually recreated the Enterprise Bridge, but replaced most of the fake LCARS cutouts with actual OLED screens!<p>The artist who created the LCARS design talks about it in this video:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/iRlSQiYnDLI?si=pN6OvmvNeaOO_OmI&t=62" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/iRlSQiYnDLI?si=pN6OvmvNeaOO_OmI&t=62</a><p>He talks about how actors in the late 90s had no conception of pushing digital buttons, and had to be coaxed into the idea that you could touch a screen rather than a physical control!
Max Headroom TV series, 2 seasons 14 episodes total is a really great cypherpunk series. If you watch it today, its cypherpunk and 80's nostalgic retro scifi.
> Of course, if Max had been made using actual CGI he would have ended up as a creaky old relic, rather like the “Money for Nothing” video which came out the year after his debut. Instead, Jankel, Morton and Frewer came up with a genuinely iconic creation that has aged surprisingly well.<p>Ouch! Just last night, I couldn't sleep and wound up watching a deep dive on youtube regarding the video, one of the original animators even commented on the thread (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHJj25PBIhg)…" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHJj25PBIhg)…</a> calling "Money for Nothing" creaky and old is like criticizing 8 bit pixel art for being blocky. Yeesh.
If I want one thing out of AI (besides not destroying humanity) it would be an old CRT in the corner of my house with an AI Max Headroom I could talk to.
And most of those old panels on spaceships etc were just gel printed, often with hand-applied Letraset etc<p><a href="https://propstoreauction.com/lot-details/index/catalog/347/lot/113896" rel="nofollow">https://propstoreauction.com/lot-details/index/catalog/347/l...</a>
I understand that Commodore Amiga (e.g. visual effects) was also used for the Max Headroom series [1][2].<p>If we go backwards, probably new generations think that Star Wars was also done using CGI.<p>[1] <a href="https://network47.org/vault/max-headroom/max-headroom-and-the-amiga/" rel="nofollow">https://network47.org/vault/max-headroom/max-headroom-and-th...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom</a>
I think this was posted here in the past year but why not... how the Windows 10 wallpaper is, in fact, not a computer graphic. <a href="https://youtu.be/ewmXizBqjl0?si=ME-US9M5PgQcF4dH" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/ewmXizBqjl0?si=ME-US9M5PgQcF4dH</a>
Sci-fi Interfaces is a good source of similar content<p><a href="https://scifiinterfaces.com/" rel="nofollow">https://scifiinterfaces.com/</a>
Max headroom used to scare the shit out of me when I was a kid. I think they used him in an ad campaign, and I just remember people talking about the show but not understanding it and then seeing it occassionally and being totally freaked out.<p>But then again The Young Ones also scared me because there's one where Neil drives a nail through his foot or something.
Related to the idea of pseudo-CGI (in which practical effects are trying to look like computer graphics) was the 1970s/1980s mechanical games like "Digital Derby" that were made to look pixelated for no reason other than to make it look like the crude graphics of video games of the time.<p><a href="https://toytales.ca/digital-derby-from-tomy-1978/" rel="nofollow">https://toytales.ca/digital-derby-from-tomy-1978/</a>
Great video on why Max Headroom is wildly missunderstood.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsDrXc94NGU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsDrXc94NGU</a>
Reminds me of this short-lived (and IIRC pretty goofy) TV series that nevertheless somehow indelibly implanted itself into my teenage computer nerd brain:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automan" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automan</a><p>Lots of Pseudo-CGI there too (along with some rudimentary real CGI).
Today's pseudo-CGI effects are the distortions Youtubers apply to stock shots.
The dust-and-scratches insertion filter, the camera-jitter insertion filter, the sprocket area visible filter, the sepia tone filter, fake analog TV noise, fake zoom and pan... Usually narrated by a neckbeard with an oversized microphone.
Or this: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agS6ZXBrcng" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agS6ZXBrcng</a><p>(SD unfortunately but then it is old - impressive amount of model building to achieve something that would be a CGI nobrainer today)
Huh. I was just telling a workmate about Max Headroom yesterday. It would be neat to have a Max Headroom filter for Zoom (would use a video background as a starting point except for zoom's lack of video backgrounds on Linux)
More Tron (1982). Nearly any scene with humans in it is mat paintings and then hand masking of live action.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/sbgHMrLPQrE?t=2928" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/sbgHMrLPQrE?t=2928</a>
Thanks, I was unaware of Annabel Jankel, sister of Chaz Jankel.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/uf0JKWSLd3I" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/uf0JKWSLd3I</a>