[prototype7]

This is just a pointless little observation I made last night and I'm SURE it's been spotted before but I just thought I would be sure.
In the first scene where they fire the packs... and blow up the cleaning lady ... I freeze framed it one frame at a time and can see the proton streams comming from offscreen and connecting with the throwers.
It reminded me of high speed video and photos of lighting strikes, you can watch these little wispy looking things comming up from the ground and down from the sky... and they meet in the middle.
Is this supposed to be the theory behind the proton stream? I got too tired last night but I'm going to check the rest of the movies and see if it's done the same way in all of them.
Has this been discussed before?

[Ecto96]

Well you have to remember each level of animation with the streams was drawn by hand. The stream might connect with a ghost like lightening connects with the ground, but they might have drawn them from the middle so as to connect properly.

[prototype7]

You know, I keep catching parts of the first movie and the streams are still starting offscreen and connceting with the throwers. I need to check GBII tonight.

[prototype7]

Just figured I'd dig this thread back up... I watched both movies last night and in the first movie, all of the streams begin off camera and work their way back to the proton thrower. In the second movie however - with advances in special effects - all the streams start at the thrower and shoot toward the ghost.
It would seem my theory was incorrect. Which is a bummer because I actually really LIKED that theory! I thought it was similar to the lightning concept.
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone here has had experience with rotoscoping or knows someone else who does, if maybe they could shed some light on why this was necessary to do in the first movie. Not really looking for guesses... does anyone have a concrete answer? My curiousity is nibbling at me!
Oh well.

[Ectofiend666]

Only necroposting because a] I can't find the other in-depth post about this, and b] starting a new topic on this would be redundant...

I was watching the new "Slimer Mode" on the recent Blu-Ray release of GB1, and in watching the screen-in-screen tidbits, during the "Slimer capture" sequence there are two differing opinions on where the streams originate from when the wand is fired:

1] Richard Edlund [Visual Effects Supervisor] describes the beams as "shooting out" from the neutrona wands.
2] John Bruno [Visual Effects Art Director] describes Dan Aykroyd coming into his shop and asking "How do these work? Explain it to me." [presumably to get a better angle on how to act with the prop in question], and his response was "They have these knobs [referring to the clear tubing at the top of the forward grip?], and these knobs, what they actually do, they actually don't shoot anything out, since they're catching things, they're sucking in atoms. So you could actually point at this wall, and pull the paint off the wall".

Judging by freeze-framing, as suggested in the posts above, it's apparent that the stream does start off-screen. However I believe that, again suggested in the posts above, was meant to help connect the stream and the target properly, due to the shots having been hand painted and roto-scoped. As mentioned in GBII they [the streams] start at the thrower - Not off-screen - Suggesting either an advance in said technique, or "artistic license" on ILM's part [which I doubt was the case being as though Richard was involved].

And while not hand painted - The streams start at the thrower in the game as well [which is canon with the films]...

So me personally - And I know I'll get called "dumb" for this [and I really don't care] - Believe in the simple "postively charged stream shooting out through the wand and ensnaring the negatively charged ghost" theory.

Discuss. Oh, and Cheers.

[Prologic9]

It's just an animation technique, it tricks the eyes into reading the initial blast as being very fast. You'll see the same thing in Star Wars, Star Trek, Sex and the City, etc.

[Letmebleed75]

Sex and the city? LOL that's great

[Ectofiend666]

Just an added note: Was watching the Ghostbusters: TVG "Making of" [On both the video game disc AND the blu-ray] and Dan was describing the Pack as a type of "protonic distillery" [clever nod to his alch? ] in which it apparently instantaniously sucks in atoms, takes what it needs, concentrates it, and spits back out the proton stream...All in the blink of an eye...

Cheers.

[Letmebleed75]

my head hurts now