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HISTORY OF
SPECIAL
EFFECTS
EARLY SPECIAL
EFFECTS
During the 1920's and 1930's, early special effects were improved by the motion picture industry. Techniques such as the 'Stop Trick' and Animation were developed. Animation creates the illusion of motion with either drawings or 3D models. Examples of these would be the early Disney cartoons or the 1933 King Kong film.
An optical printer was used for early special effects. An optical printer is a projector that is aimed into a camera lens, developed to make copies of a film for distribution. Linwood G. Dunn refined the design of the optical printer, showing that it can combine images in order to create illusions. An example of this is in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, where the location Xanadau was created by Dunn's version of the optical printer.
The introduction of colour photography enabled the development of things such as bluescreen and greenscreen. The 1956 science-fiction film 'Forbidden Planet' used paintings, miniatures and animation to create aliens and alien environments. Ray Harryhausen mixed stop motion animation with compositing techniques to create effects such as the skeleton battle at the end of Jason and the Argonaughts.
JASON AND
THE ARGONAUGHTS
Ray Harryhausen was an animator on Jason And the Argonauts
INDUSTRIAL LIGHT & MAGIC
Industrial Light & Magic is a visual effects company, founded by George Lucas in 1975, as a division of his company, Lucasfilm. The company was founded as George Lucas wanted Star Wars to include visual effects that had never been seen in a film before. The company began as a small team of college students, engineers and artists in a warehouse in Van Nuys, California.
Since its creation, Industrial Light and Magic has worked on nearly three hundred films, including the Back to the Future trilogy, Transformers, The Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Harry Potter series. The company also focuses on smaller and subtle effects, such as the removal of Lieutenant Dan's legs in Forrest Gump, which won an Academy Award for Visual Effects.
The company began using computer effects on the development of the sequel to Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back. Lucas wanted to use computer effects and contacted Tripe-I to produce them. The cost of the effects was too high so Lucas returned to using 3D models. He decided that he would form his own computer graphics department. He asked Edwin Catmull, a computer scientist to join the company with his empolyees, and they accepted the offer. A few years later, John Lasseter joined the company and worked on computer animation. The group was later sold to Apple founder, Steve Jobs, named Pixar, which released their first CG film, Toy Story in 1996.
FORREST
GUMP
Industrial Light and magic used visual effects in Forrest Gump for Forrest to meet deceased people such as John F. Kennedy and John Lennon. They shot Tom Hanks against a blue screen and used reference markers with archival footage from the deceased to match mouth and body movements.
Forrest Gump won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the Oscars in 1995.
ROGUE ONE:
A STAR WARS STORY
Industrial Light and Magic used both practical and visual effects when making Rogue One. They mixed 3D models and computer models when making the space battles. 3D models were also used to make settings and scenes from the original Star Wars, made in 1977.
Industrial Light & Magic has been nominated for 56 Oscars and has won 16 for their Visual Effects on films such as Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Mans Chest. ILM has also received 24 Scientific and Technical awards from the Academy of Motion picture Arts and Sciences. They are the largest visual effects company in the motion picture industry, with over 500 artists working for the company.
AVENGERS:
INFINITY
WAR
Industrial light and magic worked on Avengers Infinity War. The film was nominated for best Visual Effects at the 91st Academy Awards.
GRAVITY
GRAVITY
CASE STUDY
Gravity is a Science-Fiction Thriller film, co-written, directed and produced by Alfonso Cuarón. The film stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as two American astronauts stranded in space after the destruction of their space shuttle, and their efforts to return home. It was released in November 2013, with critical praise of its visual effects and cinematography.
Gravity's special effects were created by London-Based VFX company Framestore, they created most of the visual effects shots. Tim Webber, the Visual Effects supervisor for the film stated that over 80 percent of the film consisted of CGI. Framestore spent more than three years creating the Visual Effects for the film. The Visual Effects take up 80 of the 91 minutes the film runs for. Gravity was entirely produced in the United Kingdom
Photography for Gravity began in 2011. The film had a production budget of $100 million. It was filmed with multiple Arri Alexa cameras. The Arri Alexa camera has a Super-35mm sensor that can film at 3.5K resolution at 120 frames per second. The chip in the camera allows an extreme range of colour correction options in post production. Janek Sirrs, a visual effects artist noted that the Arri Alexa responds well to green and blue screens, and allows camera operators to add definition on small details such as strands of hair, edges and motion blur.
Before starting the project, artists at Framestore were not aware about how much CGI would he used when creating the film. Inititally, the actors were going to be shot in real space suits, suspended from wires on a set to simulate the gravity in space. Considerably more CGI was used in the final product than planned. In the majority of the shots, the only thing filmed with a camera is the faces of the actors. All of the visual effects, including the space shuttles, the internation space station, the Earth, the spacesuits and every piece of debris was designed by Framestore visual effects artists.
ZERO GRAVITY
Cameras were strapped to robotic arms and actors George Clooney and Sandra Bullock were placed in different rigs, specially designed for the film. To simulate the light in space, a structure named 'Sandy's Box' was designed and built. A 6x3 meter large box, covered with 196 panels made up of 4,069 LED bulbs each, to simulate the extreme light in space. The camera moved around the actors, giving the illusion of zero gravity and that they were moving instead it could zoom in on her at any position and stop dead, just centimeters from her face. The lightbox was named as one of the years greatest inventions by Time Magazine.
THE INTERNATIONAL
SPACE STATION
The Internationonal Space station was the biggest visual effects asset builds, using over 100 million polygons. They were created to be as photo-realistic as possible, as audiences would recognise the space station. The design team carefully used reference photographs. The design was made to be functional and believable, not adding details so the render looks better.
Sources:
Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity
Citizen Kane (1941) Film.
Directed by Orson Welles. USA, Mercury Productions.
Jason and the Argonauts (1963) Film.
Directed by Don Chaffey. USA, Morningside Productions.
Forrest Gump (1994) Film.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis. USA, Wendy Fireman Productions.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) Film.
Directed by Gareth Edwards. USA, Lucasfilm Ltd.
Avengers: Infinity War (2018). Film.
Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo. USA, Marvel Studios.
Gravity (2013). Film.
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron. USA, Heyday Films.
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