Outline for Third Term Paper

1. Introduction:
a. Thesis: Car flip scenes in films, depending on how the shot is set up, can use either practical effects or CG and depending on how well the physics are portrayed determines the believability.
b. Introduce two scenes to be discussed from Batman The Dark Knight and Wanted.

2. 18 wheeler flip scene from The Dark Knight.
a. While some CG was used, such as with Batman's cycle, the 18 wheeler flip itself used practical effects.
b. Because of the use of practical effects, there was no need to for an artist to figure out how gravity would take hold of the truck. The shot does seem to slow the speed at which the truck is flipping but it is done more for the audience to take it what is happening rather than to cover up any physics flaws. It performs tipping motion in that as it reaches the apex of the flip it holds for just a bit and then very quickly catches speed falling to the ground.

3. Car flip/bus tip scene from Wanted.
a. Towards the end of the car chase scene, the car that the two main characters are in flips over a group of police vehicles colliding into a bus causing it to tip. This scene heavily relied on CG.

b. Because it was done with CG, several problems arise from the physics. As the car begins to flip, it begins its flight before hitting the cop cars and seems to almost jump off the ground instead of having the flip be caused by contact of hitting something. When the car hits the bus, the shot is sped up when coming into contact and slowed down for when the bus is actually tipping over to cover up any flaws in the physics that might be there.

4. Conclusion:
Of course practical effects are more expensive to use than CG so many times it is not considered economical to use this option; however, for obvious reasons, it does give a certain quality to the film if practical effects are used. If the CG route is taken, then must be fairly accurate if scene is to be believable