Matthew Vaughn, the director of the independently produced film Kick-Ass, which is due to be released on April 16th, likes to create his special effects with traditional methods such as stunt work and in-camera effects rather that with computer-generated effects. Vaughn told Crave.online that he uses CGI “as little as possible. I hate it. (Expletive) green screen! It’s like for me, CGI is for when you really can’t do it in camera. I use it when I have to, but I just think it’s fake.”
Vaughn, who backed out of directing X-Men III (more’s the pity on that one, since Brett Ratner ended up helming the film), now says that he would “love to do a big studio flick.” If the ultra-violent Kick-Ass is a hit, Vaughn may get another chance. In Kick-Ass Vaughn has attempted to insure that the violence in the film was not gratuitous by including narrative elements in every action sequence. The iconoclastic director is highly critical of the clichés of the modern blockbuster telling Crave.online, “I’m very bored of the way most of the big movies shoot action, all this shaky camera, handheld, close cutting, quick cutting.”
Vaughn’s dislike of CGI effects, shaky camerawork, and the extreme close-ups so common in modern movies mark him as something of a neo-classicist and explain why his films such as Layer Cake and Stardust will have a chance to resonate with future generations that will no doubt tire of the jittery faux-documentary affectations of films like the two Bourne sequels.