THE PACK Message Boards

Silver:

Couldn't let this one alone.

First, if I remember all our postings on the subject, there is no reason why both types of chest can't be used. As the WW flows from bipedal to quadapedal, the chest shape would, I think, have to change. And back again.

Thank you! Like I said, SHAPE SHIFTER. That means more than one shape.

That's pretty much what werewolves are all about.

Now, on that note:
Adriancolac:

The thought about werewolves being misunderstood and peaceful is another concept i think is plainly stupid.

Before I start disagreeing with you and going on and on about this and that, first, I have to say bravo on all the other stuff that I agree with, and welcome to The Pack!

Now, on to disagreeing. Yes, I also agree that werewolves are scary, but for different reasons. They're scary because they're not supposed to be real. They're the stuff of monster stories we tell each other to scare each other. A real person turning into a wolf would therefore scare the (expletive or hyperbole of choice) out of any of us, by virtue both of pre-existing reputation and of the sudden realization that they do exist, and therefore reality as we know it is wrong.

But, while werewolf legends may describe ravenous monsters, our legends from the same culture got a lot of things wrong about things we know today. (Wolves don't have only one cervical vertebra; they've got seven, like the rest of us mammals. Some people of medieval days genuinely believed that wolves couldn't turn their heads. Where this idea originated, I haven't the foggiest idea.)

Wolves are aggressive, but humans are more aggressive. And yet, we all know humans who aren't compelled to murder and slaughter their children. Most of us don't bomb London subways or crash hijacked planes into buildings. Some humans even become great peace advocates--consider the fifteen Dali Lamas throughout history, or Ghandi. And, most people we know are really not that vicious.

Wolves are feral, wild animals. But, that doesn't make one vicious. The monsterous, ravenous dogs we hear about, such as the pit bull fighters, are not regressed to wolf-like behavior. They've been specifically conditioned to act outside what is normal for canines. (I'll avoid a detailed rant about misconceptions about pit bulls, but suffice it to say, the ones I know act more like oversized lap dogs. They're only monsters if they've been abused.)

Still, there are reasons for a werewolf to be a monster:

1. The human could be a psychopath, and lycanthropy just gives him or her some extra help.

2. The expectation of being a monster could bring about a self-fulfilling prophesy. (I've pictured werewolves finding themselves "allergic" to silver and forced to shift on full moons in a world setting where neither of those should affect lycanthropes, just because of the expectation.)

3. There could be a bad strain of lycanthropy that carries with it "a few dots of Rage" and the need for "frequent Willpower checks."

4. The process of rethinking one's life and existance could cause the person to get aggressive for awhile as a reaction to stress.

Do you know what the movie industry really needs in order to avoid all those problems? (Other than Freeborn, of course, which is an excellent start, but I don't harbor the illusion that it will manage to convince all of Hollywood to permanently give up bad werewolf designs.)

What the movie industry needs is a film with two different types of werebeasts in the same movie (which I know Freeborn won't be, but maybe eventually someone will go this route).
Imagine if you have werewolves and werebears in the same movie. Suddenly, you've got to make the werewolves look lupine and the werebears look ursine. If you make them both look like rat/dog/monkeys from the burn ward, then you know you're going to lose your audience.
Now think about a film with werewolves and weretigers. There, tiger stripes would help you a bit, but the audience is going to laugh you out of the theater if you bring out a deformed gorilla-thing with brown fur, say "this is a werewolf" and then bring out another deformed gorilla-thing with stripes and say "this is a weretiger." No way. You'd have to do better than that.
Eventually, especially if Freeborn does well (everybody, buy the DVD when it comes out!!!), there might be a film with two kinds of werebeasts in the same movie. It would need to be a theater film, of course, one with a wide release, not a low-budget wonder or foreign art house film or some piece of anime. If lots of people saw a film with two species of werebeasts, done right, then ever afterwards it would be hard to pass off drownded-rat-gorilla things as werewolves.

WolvenOne wrote:I'm not sure I like the "spontainious shifting to accomadate a 4 legged stance" on the fly idea. Seems too convenient to me.

I vote for, human chest with some slight modifications to make it somewhat better for a 4 legged stance.

That sounds good to me, a human chest that has slightly extended forward to make it more barrel-like, yet quite as much as that of a real quadruped...

I also vote for a more human looking werewolf. I like the one in VanHelsing. as you probably have notised no tail. Now if he had a tail that kind of stood up behind him like a husky that would be very cool.

WolvenOne wrote:I'm not sure I like the "spontainious shifting to accomadate a 4 legged stance" on the fly idea. Seems too convenient to me.

I vote for, human chest with some slight modifications to make it somewhat better for a 4 legged stance.

Yeah I know, I just can't see it etheir. Then being as I said that that measn the werewolf completely knows how to shift his body at will down to the point of expertly changing into new unreal shapes. Gestalt isn't something that had been created strait from nature but from our minds, which is why I don't see it realistic, just something we like and add in.

outwarddoodles wrote:

WolvenOne wrote:I'm not sure I like the "spontainious shifting to accomadate a 4 legged stance" on the fly idea. Seems too convenient to me.

I vote for, human chest with some slight modifications to make it somewhat better for a 4 legged stance.

Yeah I know, I just can't see it etheir. Then being as I said that that measn the werewolf completely knows how to shift his body at will down to the point of expertly changing into new unreal shapes. Gestalt isn't something that had been created strait from nature but from our minds, which is why I don't see it realistic, just something we like and add in.

true, and I aslo see the same as a guy just go poof into a wolf, this legendary creature, thats been in our history sence the dawn of man, is just better of being dismissed as fantasy, unless someone figures out out to fuse humans and a wolf together to be a gastalt, then you would be freakin rich, or have it stolen from you(Government)
I also just thought of something else, sence a werewolf is a wolf + man, well mabey is like a adding equations, wolf heals about the same time as a human right, well then it will be like this.

wolf healing + human healing= twice the healing
wolf face+ human face= wolf face that still retains humans details,(unlike godenwolf drawings)
human leg + wolf leg= digrated legs but with more meat than just skinny.
hands+paws= hands with paw prints details along with hair and thumb, but still has human hands movements.
human chest+wolf chest= well it could be somewhere inbetween, but thats a bit complicated, i go for human mostly,sence it is suppose to be half human.
human muscle+wolf muscle=double the mass, or an increase by 30% to 50% of muscle

So it seems that the Gastalt form is more realistic
I cant really support this theory very well, im gonna have to look into it, but it seems quite rational dont you agree

Not really.

wolf healing + human healing= twice the healing

human muscle+wolf muscle=double the mass, or an increase by 30% to 50% of muscle

Its sounds like you are adding two seperate beings here. It is one person with different forms, the gestalt being a half and half. Not entirely two mixed in one.

The Gestalt form does not exsist here on the earthly world, just, as said, in our thoughts. Which would be unrealistic to a werewolf. Now I do imagine a human could become partaily shifted into a hybrid of sorts, which may result into what is know as a gestalt form. As mentioned earleir, once again, we're just adding the gestalt because we like it that way!

Shadow Wulf wrote:I also just thought of something else, sence a werewolf is a wolf + man, well mabey is like a adding equations, wolf heals about the same time as a human right, well then it will be like this.

wolf healing + human healing= twice the healing
wolf face+ human face= wolf face that still retains humans details,(unlike godenwolf drawings)
human leg + wolf leg= digrated legs but with more meat than just skinny.
hands+paws= hands with paw prints details along with hair and thumb, but still has human hands movements.
human chest+wolf chest= well it could be somewhere inbetween, but thats a bit complicated, i go for human mostly,sence it is suppose to be half human.
human muscle+wolf muscle=double the mass, or an increase by 30% to 50% of muscle

So it seems that the Gastalt form is more realistic
I cant really support this theory very well, im gonna have to look into it, but it seems quite rational dont you agree

1) wolf healing + human healing = twice the healing
2) human muscle + wolf muscle = double the mass, or an increase by 30% to 50% of muscle

These don't make much sense to me at all. That's no better than saying wolf healing + wolf healing = twice the healing, yet we don't see wolf cubs with twice the healing ability of their component parts (their parents). If you wanted to make that model slightly better, you could make it an average -- (wolf healing + human healing)/2 -- but that's still way too simplistic.



3) wolf face + human face = wolf face that still retains humans details
4) human leg + wolf leg = digrated legs but with more meat than just skinny.
5) hands + paws = hands with paw prints details along with hair and thumb, but still has human hands movements.

These ones resemble an average, so they're somewhat better than the first two, but there's still very little logic in them. Rather, it seems to me that you're just saying what opinion sounds most sensible to you and passing it off as something more.



6) human chest + wolf chest = well it could be somewhere inbetween, but thats a bit complicated, i go for human mostly,sence it is suppose to be half human.

This one makes less sense than the others -- you completely abandon your addition simile altogether for some strange weighted average, or something.



Also, note the inconsistency: you use addition to mean three entirely different things, each depending on the situation. Very subjective.

This idea is certainly something that can be discussed and improved. However, it's not really valid support for the claim that the hybrid form is more realistic. In fact, it'd be hard to find any evidence to say that either one is more likely than the other, since the whole shapeshifting thing is far-fetched from the beginning.

-- Vilkacis

Hybrids tend to work by average rather than summation. (You don't have the life span or healing ability of your father and mother added together.) Neither wolves nor humans have super healing; a lot of us give our werewolves regenerative abilities because we feel it's a natural extension of the act of shapeshifting. Same to some of us about life span. Everything else is picking and choosing.

Granted, we tend to favor designs that are aesthetically pleasing, but aesthetics and functionality generally go well together--that is, something that walks on human feet, has front wolf paws, and a human face would be as shortchanged on actual functionality as it would be ugly. And, nature favors functionality, so score another one for Goldenwolf over slimy rats.

um its something I dont really believe,i just figured if they were to fuse together, its just something that poped up in my head, like I said before i cant support it.

Both chests look fine.

Oh, and I hate WWs in movies where their mouths just hang open/dont move. Stuck in an open mouthed snarl

Silverclaw wrote:Both chests look fine.

Oh, and I hate WWs in movies where their mouths just hang open/dont move. Stuck in an open mouthed snarl

Think of the drymouth!

Silverclaw wrote:Both chests look fine.

Oh, and I hate WWs in movies where their mouths just hang open/dont move. Stuck in an open mouthed snarl

Unless they are in total shock about something.

Silverclaw wrote:Oh, and I hate WWs in movies where their mouths just hang open/dont move. Stuck in an open mouthed snarl

Speaking of which, I dont't like it when the werewolves are constantly drooling either.

Lupin wrote:

Silverclaw wrote:Oh, and I hate WWs in movies where their mouths just hang open/dont move. Stuck in an open mouthed snarl

Speaking of which, I dont't like it when the werewolves are constantly drooling either.

Already mentioned.

http://calypso-blue.com/werewolf/viewtopic.php?t=451

whatever a werewolf looks like, he shouldnt have teeth like the teenage werewolf from the fifties movies.
i mean, he couldnt even open his mouth with those things.

Figarou wrote:
Unless they are in total shock about something.

Thats the face I made when I saw that thing, he dislocated his jaw or something!

I specialise in the transformation aspects of werewolf flicks; not knowing that much about Freeborn, I can't really comment on it individually, but I have a personal list of do's and don'ts when it comes to "the big transformation scene".

1.) There are pros and cons to both the Rick Baker AWIL-style "Big Transformation Scene", and the variable-quality CGI "quick changes when needed" style. Decide which style to used based on the flow of the movie - and obviously, the budget!

2.) In general, you shouldn't blow the budget on one central TF scene, and then half-a** it when TFs are needed after that one. Be consistant. AWIL and Howling were great, but both (Howling less than AWIL) suffered from making a centerpiece out of the TF, then neglecting it for the rest of the movie.

3.) Watch DarkWolf. Now, reconsider using CGI for your TFs. If the quality of what you're producing isn't up to scratch, either scrap it, make it better, or go for makeup-based TFs - they tend to look a little more realistic.

4.) Make sure your makeup effects are good, and that they work without causing serious bodily harm to the actors! I still don't know how Bob Picardo survived those effects in The Howling....

5.) If you're on a shoestring, Dog Soldiers-style "collapse under the table and reappear with fangs" TFs are acceptable, but barely. Try for Ginger Snaps-style TF flashcuts where possible.

6.) Going into the in-movie aspect of the TF, the TF should not be painful unless it is required. It's a dead giveaway that Character X is going to get big and hairy if he/she starts screaming the place down and tearing off their clothes, and brings forth "Power Rangers" criticisms of "Why don't they shoot them while they're transforming?". A malevolent werewolf should be practised, controlled - perhaps "enjoying" is too strong a term. I tend to view malevolent werewolf's TFs as a necessary step - uncomfortable, but you reap the rewards afterwards.

7.) On the other hand, if the character is good and is TFing for the first time, make it as painful as you want - without contradicting yourself, obviously.

8.) Female werewolf TFs should not be an excuse to get the girls' clothes off. Make it sexy if you want, but not gratuitous. Wes Craven's Cursed almost got that right.

Well, I can't think of any more points right now... I might get back to you later.

Very good points all CNash..

I am in complete agreement, as this is the phase we are in at the moment. This topic is extensively discussed all around the board, and I'm glad to see that everyone is in agreement.

This script has 4 full transform scenes. (it did have five, however it was gratuitous, and unnecessary to the plotline, so it was removed)..

The effects with the balance between CGI, prosthetics, and compositing is of great concern to me.

You say you specialize in transformations... might I ask what you mean by that?

Anthony Brownrigg
Director
Freeborn

I'm also gonna agree with CNash, that seems like a very practical and balenced approach to all this.

Topic-too lazy to write it

Bad looking werewolves....Howling. They look like bunnies! Werebunnys. Long ears, severely bucked teeth. Or maybe....Kangaroos, that's it. Longs legs and funny looking eyes. Yeah....Yeah.

CNash wrote: 5.) If you're on a shoestring, Dog Soldiers-style "collapse under the table and reappear with fangs" TFs are acceptable, but barely. Try for Ginger Snaps-style TF flashcuts where possible.

I hated that scene in Dog Soldiers!!!

"collapse under the table and reappear with fangs"

Throw that one OUT!!

CNash wrote:2.) In general, you shouldn't blow the budget on one central TF scene, and then half-a** it when TFs are needed after that one. Be consistant. AWIL and Howling were great, but both (Howling less than AWIL) suffered from making a centerpiece out of the TF, then neglecting it for the rest of the movie.

That was one of the things that annoyed me about Cursed. It had just one transformation scene, and that one wasn't even too good.

5.) If you're on a shoestring, Dog Soldiers-style "collapse under the table and reappear with fangs" TFs are acceptable, but barely. Try for Ginger Snaps-style TF flashcuts where possible.

Yes, done improperly, it just screams "Cop out!"

ABrownrigg wrote: You say you specialize in transformations... might I ask what you mean by that?

I generally watch werewolf movies for their transformation scenes. The look of the werewolf comes second, and the plot third. Over the years I've learned what works and what doesn't - although I am in no way a filmmaker. Perhaps the self-awarded title of "transformation specialist" is a bit too much... I knew someone was going to call attention to that, LOL!

I'd probably be more into the transformation "scene" were it not for the fact that I can't draw to save my life. Hence, the best people to ask about TF matters are TF artists. Have you visited Transfur.com?

Figarou wrote:

CNash wrote: 5.) If you're on a shoestring, Dog Soldiers-style "collapse under the table and reappear with fangs" TFs are acceptable, but barely. Try for Ginger Snaps-style TF flashcuts where possible.

I hated that scene in Dog Soldiers!!!

"collapse under the table and reappear with fangs"

Throw that one OUT!!

They had a lot of budgetary concerns...