Trace the journey of visual effects from their humble beginnings in 1878 to the present day. Discover how they've transformed storytelling, shaping our perception of reality in cinema and beyond. Prepare to delve into the captivating world of visual magic.
Evolution of Visual Effects
The movie industry has relied on some type of visual effects even in the early years of film making
- Special effects help to create the fantastic, the things that simply do not exist in our world, or to help create a completely unique visual experience
- Early effects were produced within the camera (in-camera effects)
- Optical effects came later, using film, light, shadow, lenses and/or chemical processes
- Nowadays, the majority of effects are created through the use of a computer
The 90s
The first time motion capture technology was used in film was in Total Recall (1990)
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) featured many distinctive visual effects shots, as the liquid metal terminator could morph into any character
- In 1993, stop-motion animators working on the realistic dinosaurs of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park were retrained in the use of computer input devices
- Toy Story underscored the distinction between live-action and animated films
- Films like The Lord of The Rings trilogy (2001, 2002, and 2003) took motion capture to a totally new level with the creature Gollum
- Avatar pushed the boundaries of visual effects in the 2010s
The Mandalorian
The award-winning series uses a novel way of creating real-time CGI
1878
Eadweard Muybridge photographed The Horse in Motion
- In a series of pictures, he captured frame by frame, how a horse’s four hoofs were actually off the ground at the same time
- This groundbreaking work paved the way for animation.
The use of hand-drawn sketches in the single frame and stop motion technologies soon gave way to the more advanced technique of strategic camerawork for manipulating miniature models of movie sets, such as those used in the iconic Star Wars and Star Trek franchises.
The Jazz Singer (1927) was the first feature-length Hollywood “talkie” film in which spoken dialogue was used as part of the dramatic action. The movie King Kong, first released in 1933, remains as one of the finest examples of this VFX technique widely used in those times.
