During this semester at UAL, the critical report is one of the key assignments. According to the university’s requirements, I read the article “Choosing a Critical Report Topic”. This article helped guide me toward a general direction for my paper and led me to decide to approach the topic from an area I am genuinely interested in and eager to explore.
Initially, I intended to focus on the real-time rendering technology in Unreal Engine, which I had recently been researching. However, through further investigation and discussion with my tutor, I realized that my critical report should concentrate more on exploring critical issues rather than delving deeply into technical analysis. After further reflection, I decided to discuss whether the emergence of high-quality visuals enabled by new technologies has diminished the importance of narrative and thematic depth in filmmaking, and whether this shift may affect how audiences judge the quality of a film.
Week 1–3: Original Idea
In the first week, I read relevant academic materials, identified the general direction of my critical report, and carefully considered its content. As I have recently been researching real-time rendering technology, I initially planned to write my paper on the comparison between real-time rendering and traditional rendering.
I intended to structure the report around three key areas: Real-Time Rendering in the VFX Context, Optimization Techniques in Unreal Engine, and a Case Example or Mini Test. I planned to explore relevant literature related to these three aspects and reflect on them as the foundation of my critical discussion.
Week 4–5: New Reflections
After discussing with my tutor, I decided to shift the focus of my report towards a more critical perspective rather than a purely technical one. As a result, I revised my topic and chose “The Visual Trap: How Advancements in Film Technology Are Undermining Narrative Depth” as the new title of my report.
The restructured report will explore and critique this issue through three main sections: The Rise of Visual-Centric Filmmaking, Narrative Sacrifices in the Age of Spectacle, and Is Technology to Blame? A Nuanced Perspective. Through multiple case studies, I aim to analyze the widespread phenomenon in which advancements in visual technology have coincided with a noticeable weakening of narrative substance and thematic depth in contemporary film.
Week 6–7: Framing the Question
My initial idea was to explore the comparison between real-time rendering and traditional rendering. To that end, I consulted a substantial amount of literature related to real-time rendering and computer graphics. Although I later revised my research topic, I found that some of the sources I reviewed remain relevant and can still serve as references for my new paper.
For instance, Liu, J. Y. in Real-Time Neural Rasterization for Large Scenes notes that “traditional graphics-based rasterization rendering is fast for large scenes but lacks realism and requires expensive manually created assets.” Similarly, Haines (2018, p.1) explains that “real-time rendering is concerned with rapidly making images on the computer. It is the most highly interactive area of computer graphics…” These insights highlight how powerful visual technologies such as real-time rendering can significantly influence the viewer’s experience, and how filmmakers may even promote their films using these visual advancements as a key selling point.
Week 7–8: Identify case studies to further support and strengthen the central argument.
This section of the report is primarily dedicated to constructing and reinforcing critical analysis. The two case studies I selected are drawn from films I have personally watched and found particularly memorable.
The first is The Lion King (2019). In my impression, the film made extensive use of on-set virtual production techniques to create highly detailed 3D environments, and the CG animation of the characters was visually impressive. However, the film lacked depth in both narrative and emotional atmosphere. As David Ehrlich of IndieWire remarked, “this soulless chimera of a film comes off as little more than a glorified tech demo from a greedy conglomerate — a well-rendered but creatively bankrupt self-portrait of a movie studio eating its own tail.”
The second case is the more widely known Avatar: The Way of Water. While the first Avatar was a groundbreaking film for its time—not only visually stunning, but also thematically coherent and narratively compelling, successfully portraying a story of resistance against colonial invasion—its sequel, though visually even more advanced, was comparatively underwhelming in terms of storytelling. The underwater virtual environments created by Weta FX were breathtaking, but the film’s emotional resonance was weak, and the plot felt generic and formulaic. As The UCSD Guardian notes, the film “introduces too many underdeveloped characters, resulting in a plot that feels shallow and scattered.”
I believe these two examples form the most persuasive and illustrative evidence for the core argument of this paper.
Week 9–10：Follow-up on the previous point
In this week’s research, I aimed to further strengthen my argument by emphasizing that technology itself is not the problem. To support this perspective, I examined a highly successful example—The Mandalorian. This series not only employed cutting-edge LED volume virtual production technology, but also received widespread acclaim for its narrative and storytelling quality. As Jon Favreau aptly stated, “Technology is a tool, not a replacement for storytelling.” This quote underscores the core of my argument: when used thoughtfully, technology can enhance rather than undermine the narrative experience in film and television.
Week 11–12：Further points of critical reflection
During the further development of my report, I came up with a new idea that I would like to include as one of my arguments. In today’s film industry, productions that rely heavily on advanced technologies and deliver visually refined images often achieve significantly higher box office performance. This trend has led more and more studios to prioritize the production of large-scale visual spectacles. As a result, audience expectations are also being reshaped—visual quality is increasingly favored, while narrative depth is becoming less important.
This shift poses a serious concern for the artistic integrity of cinema. When visuals take precedence over storytelling, films risk becoming shallow, emotionally disengaging, and commercially driven rather than artistically expressive. While technological progress has undeniably expanded the possibilities of cinematic expression, its overuse as a primary selling point may ultimately undermine the balance between form and substance that defines meaningful filmmaking.
Reference Collection
For the reference section, I have found many different materials to start the research, including research forum videos about developers, paper reports found on Google Scholar, and research on wiki. I will start to summarize in the near future, browse these materials as a whole and then summarize, and finally start writing the report.
Additional Supplement
During the writing stage, I initially outlined the structure of the paper according to the academic format, organizing it into the following sections: Introduction, The Rise of Visual-Centric Filmmaking, Narrative Sacrifices in the Age of Spectacle, Unreal Engine and the Role of New Technologies, Counterexamples and Balanced Practices, and Conclusion.
At the early research phase, I collected industry case studies involving virtual production and real-time rendering, such as The Lion King (2019) and Avatar: The Way of Water, and reviewed relevant commentary and critique from platforms like RogerEbert.com, IndieWire, and academic publications.
However, I soon realized that I was overly focused on technical tools—particularly Unreal Engine 5—and lacked sufficient discussion on narrative theory and audience reception. This imbalance caused delays in developing a coherent argument. To resolve this, I restructured the paper to shift the focus toward the cultural consequences of prioritizing spectacle in modern filmmaking. This adjustment helped me maintain a critical perspective throughout and reinforced my central argument about the erosion of narrative integrity in the pursuit of visual perfection.