WEEK:1

Task1: Guess the Movie from the Photo: A Cinematic Challenge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Task 2: Personal Favorites:  visual effects.

 

 

Task3: Example of Special (practical effects)

Special effects from early Star Wars movies are some examples of special effects created without the use of computers and post-production.  One of the most important practical effects that were reused throughout the original Star Wars trilogy was matte paintings. The decades-old technique allowed for Lucas to shoot awe-inspiring wide shots without building massive (and expensive) sets.

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Task 4: Reading (Homework)

Through the looking glass: Philosophical toys and Digital Visual Effects

Prince. S. (2010) ‘Through the Looking Glass: Philosophical Toys and Digital Visual Effects’; Projections, 4(2), pp 19-40

“Through the Looking Glass: Philosophical Toys and Digital Visual Effects” by Stephen Prince explores the philosophical and artistic aspects of digital visual effects in the context of film and media. The book delves into how these visual effects, often used in the creation of modern movies and entertainment, can be seen as “philosophical toys” that raise questions about reality, perception, and the boundaries of human imagination. It examines how digital visual effects challenge traditional notions of reality in cinema and prompt viewers to reconsider their understanding of the visual world. In essence, the book explores the intersection of philosophy and digital visual effects in the realm of filmmaking.

 

Abstract:

Perceptual realism:

Orthodox Assumptions about Visual Effects:

Realism and Digital Visual Effects:

 

Week 2:

What are the differences between “invisible” and “spectacular” VFX?

Almost all films and TV series utilize VFX (visual effects) in some shape or form.  Invisible visual effects typically feature in period to accurately represent the world at the time. The Crown, Assassins’ Creed, and Titanic,  as examples, had care and attention that was poured into the show’s creation—from clean-up work, matte paintings, and CGI—to bring this regal slice of history to life.

 

Visual effects, sometimes known as VFX, have grown to be a crucial part of the film making process in both the film and television industries. VFX has made it possible for filmmakers to produce visually spectacular and fascinating scenes that draw viewers into their narrative, from the breathtaking films like Avatar and Batman. For example in Batman movie The team at Weta led by Anders Langlands worked closely with director Matt Reeves and director of photography Greig Fraser to add complex destruction work and wet effects to the chase scene involving Batman and Penguin, delivering a total of 320 shots.

Everything had been prevised by the filmmakers, and they set out to get a version of pretty much every shot. Even when we knew we’d be going fully digital with them later, they still shot something representative for each one. This was a huge help for animation, FX, lighting and optical reference.

They worked alongside Matt on early versions of the cut,  to plan out CG elements for the sequence. A couple of storytelling beats weren’t quite working for Matt, in particular the whole sequence of cause and effect that begins with Penguin slamming on his brakes and ultimately results in this huge explosion at the climax.

The  animation team, supervised by Dennis Yoo, did many iterations  to polish the story. There was a constant back and forth with editorial as we supplied updated versions and they refined the cut.

For the scene’s climax, Weta FX team did a lot of complex destruction work in Houdini: for example, one truck hitting the overpass, another slamming into the central partition, and of course Penguin’s Maserati going flying and rolling.

also DeadPool

The Director Tim Miller’s first feature, the Fox film Deadpool, hasn’t just raised the bar for subversive, fourth-wall-breaking comic book movies, it also pushes the art in terms of visual effects. From completely synthetic environments for the freeway chase, to a fully CG dialogue-delivering metallic character in Colossus, to a unique approach to Deadpool’s facial animation and an unforgettable frozen moment opening title sequence, the film showcases a raft of impressive tech. We talk to Miller, overall visual effects supervisor Jonathan Rothbart and VFX vendors Digital Domain, Atomic Fiction, Blur Studio, Weta Digital, Rodeo FX, Luma Pictures and Image Engine about just some of these key scenes.

 

Homework: Introduction Beyond Spectacle

 

Prince, S. (2012) ‘Digital Visual Effects in Cinema’ : The Seduction of Reality

In the Introduction (Beyond Spectacle) Prince, Stephen introduces the concept of digital visual effects in the context of cinema, highlighting their significance in modern filmmaking. He discusses the historical evolution of visual effects in film, from the early days of cinema with pioneers

like Georges Méliès

to the more recent digital era. The challenge the conventional view that visual effects are mainly associated with fantasy and spectacle, emphasizing their broader roles in filmmaking. He also explores how visual effects can be used to achieve both realism and fantasy, expanding the traditional definition of realism in cinema. Explaining the shift from the term “special effects” to “visual effects” and how the latter encompasses a wider range of filmmaking techniques and the impact of digital tools on filmmaking, particularly from the mid-1980s to the present.

 

Week 3:Georges Méliès

The keys to visual effects are :

Assumption
Presumption
Context in reality

those are principles of illusion.

question in class: Who is Georges Méliès

Georges Méliès is one of the most influential filmmakers in cinema history. Just a few years after the birth of filmmaking in the 1890s, the French filmmaker began releasing his own minutes-long silent shorts in 1896. However, it wasn’t until the groundbreaking 1902 short A Trip to the Moon that Méliès became a bona fide international star.

In addition to being one of Méliès’s longest works, A Trip to the Moon was also an astonishing accomplishment in animation and special effects unheard of in 1902. In fact, the film’s widely popular image of a spaceship crashing into the moon’s eye turned Méliès into a legend, one that Martin Scorsese would eventually pay tribute to with his 2011 3-D adventure, Hugo. By the time of his death in 1938, the prolific talent had starred in, written, produced, and directed almost all of his 500 films.

GEORGES MÉLIÈS WAS AN ILLUSIONIST BEFORE HE WAS A FILMMAKER.

HE PIONEERED SOME OF TODAY’S MOST COMMON FILM TECHNIQUES.

HE BUILT THE FIRST MOVIE STUDIO IN EUROPE.

MÉLIÈS TEAMED UP WITH YOUNGER BROTHER GASTON TO BRING HIS MOVIES TO THE UNITED STATES.

MÉLIÈS DIRECTED THE EARLIEST ADAPTATION OF CINDERELLA.

Méliès started doing in the 19th century. He subverted the realistic translations of time and space by using jump cuts and featuring magical disappearances like the ones associated with stage performances. According to Méliès’ memoirs, these experimentations came about by accident when his camera jammed in the middle of a take and “a Madeleine-Bastille bus changed into a hearse and women changed into men.

 

Week:3

Cinema of attractions – Tom Gunning

 

The potential of the new art did not lie in “imitating the movements of nature” or in “the mistaken path” of its resemblance to theater. Its unique power was a “matter of making images seen.”

 

Gunning, T. (2006) ‘The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde’, in Strauven, W. (1.) The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 381-388.

The text discusses the concept of the “cinema of attractions” and its historical development, primarily before 1906. The cinema of attractions is described as a form of filmmaking that focuses on direct visual stimulation, spectacle, and exhibitionism, rather than traditional narrative storytelling. Early cinema, including the Lumière and Méliès traditions, is seen as a prime example of this approach. The cinema of attractions is defined as a form of filmmaking that emphasizes showing and exhibiting images to the audience. Also the role of actuality films in early cinema and the prevalence of non-narrative filmmaking before 1906. And the historical shift from the cinema of attractions to narrative cinema, highlighting how early filmmakers and their work exemplified the former. It also discusses the enduring appeal and potential of the cinema of attractions for contemporary avant-garde cinema.
It focuses on directly captivating the audience through visual spectacle, novelty, and entertainment. It aims to grab the viewer’s attention with a series of eye-catching images and effects. This approach prioritizes the immediate impact on the audience over storytelling or character development. Filmmakers of this era often used techniques such as actors looking directly at the camera, breaking the fourth wall, and involving the audience in the visual experience. It creates a sense of direct interaction with the spectators.. Illusion and special effects create a sense of wonder and amazement. Filmmakers like Georges Méliès were known for their innovative use of visual tricks and magical effects, which added to the overall spectacle.
The cinema of attractions has left a lasting legacy in the world of film and visual entertainment. While it may not be the dominant form of filmmaking, its elements can still be found in various genres and experimental cinema. For example, aspects of the cinema of attractions can be seen in avant-garde and experimental films, music videos, and certain genres like action and spectacle-driven blockbusters.

 

Ray Harryhausen 

Ray Harryhausen, in full Raymond Frederick Harryhausen, (born June 29, 1920, Los Angeles, California, U.S.—died May 7, 2013, London , England), American filmmaker best known for his pioneering use of stop motion effects.

When it comes to motion-picture special effects, there is only one name that personifies movie magic: Ray Harryhausen.

 

 

 

Week 4: What is digital Cinema? – Lev Manovich

Digital cinema is a particular case of animation that uses live-action footage as one of its elements:  — Lev Manovich

 

Manovich, L. (2001) ‘Digital Cinema’ ,The Language of New Media. Cambridge MA: MIT press

Digital technology challenges cinema’s core aspects, including narrative and its reliance on recorded real-world events. Digital tools enable the creation of lifelike computer-generated scenes, the modification of frames, and the simulation of reality, blurring the boundary between cinema and animation. The text also traces the historical progression from manual image creation to the emergence of cinema as a mechanical and uniform medium, with animation preserving older techniques. This cultural history has led to a distinct contrast between animation and cinema in the 20th century.

The meaning of these changes in the filmmaking process from the point of view of the larger cultural history of the moving image. Seen in this context, the manual construction of images in digital cinema represents a return to nineteenth-century pre-cinematic practices, when images were hand-painted and hand-animated. At the turn of the twentieth century, cinema was to delegate these manual techniques to animation and define itself as a recording medium. As cinema enters the digital age, these techniques are again becoming commonplace in the filmmaking process. Consequently, cinema can no longer be clearly distinguished from animation. It is no longer an indexical media technology but, rather, a sub-genre of painting.

The participants provocatively referred to movies as “flatties” and to human actors as “organics” and “soft fuzzies. As these terms accurately suggest, what used to be cinema’s defining characteristics have become just the default options, with many others available. When one can “enter” a virtual three-dimensional space, viewing flat images projected on the screen is hardly the only option. When, given enough time and money, almost everything can be simulated on a computer, filming physical reality is just one possibility.

Lev Manovich is an artist, writer, and one of the most influential theorists of digital culture worldwide. After studying painting, architecture, and filmmaking, Manovich began using computers to create digital art in 1984. His projects have been exhibited in 12 solo and 120 international group exhibitions at many prestigious institutions, such as the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), the Centre Pompidou, The Shanghai Biennale, and The ZKM | Center for Art and Media. Manovich is currently a Presidential Professor of Computer Science at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and the Director of the Cultural Analytics Lab. Manovich played a key role in creating four new research fields: new media studies (1991-), software studies (2001-), cultural analytics (2007-) and AI aesthetics (2018-). Since 1991, he has published 190 articles that have been translated into 35 different languages and reprinted over 800 times. He authored and edited 15 books, including Artificial Aesthetics, Cultural Analytics, Instagram and Contemporary Image, Software Takes Command, and The Language of New Media, which has been called “the most provocative and comprehensive media history since Marshall McLuhan.”

 

StarTrek

 

Adams Family

Nosferatu the Vampyre

Jurassic Park and Jurassic world

 

Batman Old and New

Find out who those people are ?

Alvy Ray Smith – is an American computer scientist who co-founded Lucasfilm’s Computer Division and Pixar

 

Loren Carpenter – He was a co-founder and chief scientist of Pixar.

 

John Lassester – is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He is the head of animation at Skydance animations He was also previously the CCO of Pixar and Disney studios.

Edwin Earl “Ed” Catmull – is an American computer scientist who is the co-founder of Pixar and was the President of Walt Disney Studios. He has been honored for his contributions to 3D computer graphics, including the 2019 AMC Reward.

 

A. Ray Smith (1998) ‘George Lucas Discovers Computer Graphics’ in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing: vol. 20. IBM Thomas Watson Research Centre P.O. Box 704, pp.48-49.

This article by Alvy Ray Smith explores George Lucas’s significant impact on the early adoption and development of computer graphics in filmmaking. It delves into Lucas’s journey, emphasizing collaborative efforts and innovative techniques that paved the way for the integration of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in films. The narrative traces the timeline of Lucas’s engagement with computer graphics, highlighting key projects and individuals shaping this cinematic revolution amid technological advancements. The article encapsulates Lucas’s pioneering spirit, showcasing the dynamic relationship between entertainment and technological innovation.

Analysis: The article serves as a testament to the symbiotic relationship between the entertainment industry and technological innovation, providing insights into the historical development of computer graphics in filmmaking. It underscores George Lucas’s profound influence and Alvy Ray Smith’s visionary contributions. Understanding this history is crucial for appreciating the evolution of special effects and CGI in the movie industry, highlighting the enduring legacy of these advancements in contemporary cinema.

The in-depth examination of the collaboration between Lucas and Smith emphasizes that cinematic innovation results from a blend of creativity and technology. Their partnership played a pivotal role in pushing the boundaries of what was possible, leading to iconic cinematic masterpieces that redefined storytelling and visual effects.

This source caters to researchers interested in the intersection of film, technology, and computer graphics, providing critical historical insights into the people and events shaping CGI in cinema. Film enthusiasts will gain a deeper appreciation for behind-the-scenes developments transforming the industry, while technology historians will find the article invaluable for understanding the intersections of art, science, and innovation in filmmaking.

Can you adapt the original graph (below) to include digital characters? Where would you place a robot character like C3PO or a CGI human character like Gran Moff Tarkin? Try to stick to biped rather than creatures.

 

The Uncanny Valley

Mori, M. (2012). ‘The Uncanny Valley’. IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE. (pp. 98-100).

(* Masahiro Mori is a Japanese roboticist noted for his pioneering work in the fields of robotics and automation, his research achievements in humans’ emotional responses to non-human entities, as well as for his views on religion. The ASIMO robot was designed by one of Masahiro’s students. – wiki)

Masahiro Mori delves into the concept known as “The Uncanny Valley,” a psychological phenomenon where the appeal for robots increases as they become more human-like until a certain point, at which it sharply declines, creating a distinctive valley in the graph, aptly termed by Mori as “The Uncanny Valley.”

This dip in affinity occurs when attempting to create robots that closely resemble humans but fall short of achieving perfect accuracy. Industrial robots, lacking human resemblance, garner little affinity from people and are situated at the initial stage of the graph. In contrast, toy robots, prioritizing appearance over functionality, exhibit a more human-like quality, making them more endearing to children and positioning them beyond the midpoint of the initial incline in the graph. Mori explores the impact of movement on the uncanny valley, noting that human-like motion can either enhance or diminish affinity. He illustrates this point with the example of a prosthetic hand that, despite its realistic appearance, induces unease in people when in motion. To mitigate the effects of the uncanny valley, Mori suggests that careful design choices are crucial. Continuing his exploration, Mori contemplates the possibility that the uncanny feeling may function as a human protective mechanism, shielding us from potential dangers associated with entities closely resembling humans.

 

12 principles of animation:

 

Squash and stretch – elastic

Arguably the most fundamental of the 12 principles of animation. Squash and stretch is applied to give a sense of weight and/or flexibility to objects or even to people. Animate a simple object like a bouncing ball – as it hits the ground, you can squash the ball flat and widen it. Although exaggerated, this animation is grounded in reality, because it creates the illusion of the ball being distorted by an outside force – just like in real life. You can apply squash and stretch to more realistic animation, too. But keep in mind the object’s volume. If the length of the ball is vertically stretched, its width must contract horizontally.

Anticipation – action  ( convey speed or surprise)

anticipation is to add some realism when you want to prepare your audience for some action. Consider what people do when they prepare to do something. A footballer about to take a penalty would steady themselves with their arms or swing their foot back ready to kick. If a golfer wants to hit a golf ball, they must swing their arms back first. Anticipation doesn’t just have to apply to sporty actions. Focus on an object a character may be about to pick up or have a character anticipating somebody’s arrival on screen.

Staging -silluetes

When considering staging, you’re in the role of a film or theatre director. You need to think about where you’re putting the camera, what it’s focusing on, where the ‘actors’ will be and what they’re going to do. Whether they’re fun cartoon characters or realistically drawn people, staging matters and is sometimes underestimated. You want your audience’s attention to be on the important elements of the story you’re telling and avoid distracting them with unnecessary detail. With a combination of lighting, framing and composition, plus ensuring that you remove clutter, you’ll be able to effectively advance your story.

Straight  ahead action and pose to pose

These are two different ways to animate an action. The straight-ahead technique means to animate your action from drawing 1 to the end in sequence order. The pose-to-pose technique is a bit more intricate as it means to draw the key poses first (often the beginning and end drawing of the action and some other key moment between. Once the key poses are done, the breakdown and in-between drawings are added to fill the rest of the animation. Smoke, water and other fluid elements are often animated using the straight-ahead technique. Actions that require tight timing and structure are often animated with the pose-to-pose technique. This method helps maintain a solid structure and preserve the volume. Sometimes, when using the straight-ahead technique, it may be difficult to calculate where the action will end up and the final drawing may be out of proportion and not where it should be.

Follow thru and overlapping action

These two movement-based principles combine to make movement in animation more realistic and create the impression characters are following the laws of physics. Follow through concerns the parts of the body that continue to move when a character stops. The parts then pull back towards the center of mass, just like with a real person. Follow through also applies to objects. Parts of the body don’t move at the same rate and overlapping action demonstrates this. For example, you could have a character’s hair moving during the momentum of action and when the action is over, it continues to move a fraction longer than the rest of the character.

Ease in and ease out

This animation principle is also known as ‘slow in and slow out’. In the real world, objects have to accelerate as they start moving and slow down before stopping. For example, a person running, a car or highroad or a pendulum. To represent this in animation, more frames must be drawn at the beginning and end in an action sequence. Ease in, ease out adds more realism to your animation and will help the audience identify and sympathies with your characters.

Arcs

In real life, most actions have an arched trajectory. To achieve greater realism, animators should follow this principle. Whether you’re creating the effect of limbs moving or an object thrown into the air, movements that follow natural arcs will create fluidity and avoid unnatural, erratic animation.  To keep arcs in mind, traditional animators often draw them lightly on paper to use as reference and to erase when they’re no longer needed. Speed and timing are important with arcs, as sometimes they happen so quickly that they blur to the point they’re unrecognizable. Of course, this is sometimes done deliberately, to give the impression of something unrealistically or amusingly fast. This is known as an animation smear. Chuck Jones, one of the greatest animators of the 20th century, was an expert at these. He was behind one of the first examples in a short for Warner Bros in 1942. Jones only used it to save time, but liked it and would return to the trope for many animations in the Looney Tunes series. It’s still used today in The Simpsons.

Secondary Action

This principle of animation helps emphasize the main action within a scene by adding an extra dimension to your characters and objects. Subtleties, such as the way a person swings their arms while walking down the street, give color to your creations and make them appear more human. Providing they don’t take attention away from the main action, secondary actions can really bring a scene to life.

Timing

As in real life, animation is all about timing. Get this principle right and it grounds your animation in realism, as everything will appear to follow the laws of physics. Think about the size and weight of your characters in relation to what and who are around them. A lightweight person or object is going to react quicker to being pushed than a heavy one. o get your timing right in animation, get your number of frames or drawings right. As with the ease in, ease out animation principle, the slower the action, the more frames or drawings you’ll need to add.

Solid drawing

Solid drawing in animation is one of the more difficult principles to get right, especially in traditional animation. This is because you need to make your creations feel 3D and give them weight and volume. Art classes are useful to give you deeper knowledge of weight, balance, gravity, light, shadow and more. In The Illusion of Life, Johnston and Thomas warned of the danger of creating ‘twins’, where characters would appear lifeless because their left and right sides were exactly the same.

Exaggeration

This is a fine art and one that Disney animators are experts at. Many of the 12 principles of animation are grounded in realism and this is no exception. However, if you totally avoid exaggeration, animation can often be too real and is in danger of looking dull. Disney believes that exaggeration should be true to reality to an extent, but made more extreme – often pushed just beyond the realms of realism, to make their characters pop and add fun to their adventures. A classic trope and great example of exaggeration in animation. When a character is surprised, shocked or falls in love at first sight, animators often don’t just show a slightly stunned, open-mouthed expression. They get their point across by showing their character’s mouth dropping way beyond realism – often literally to the floor.

appeal – (an animated character has appeal)

The last of the 12 principles of animation is one of the most important. In film, TV and theatre, directors want their actors to have charisma. It doesn’t matter whether they’re a hero or villain – the characters should be interesting enough to make viewers want to know how their story develops. Animators should give all their creations appeal, whether it’s a cute caterpillar or a dragon hell-bent on destruction. There is no real formula, though a good idea for giving a creation the ‘awww’ factor is to make their face round and childlike. Heroes often have strong, angular and symmetrical features. Bruno Madrigal in Encanto (2021) is a great example. At the start of the film, Bruno is the mysterious black sheep of the family, cast out by his family. The audience are supposed to think may be the film’s bad guy, so he’s portrayed as a shadowy figure, hunched over and his eyes can’t be seen. Once his niece Mirabel meets him and discover he’s not how he has been portrayed, his full face is unveiled and he suddenly looks a lot more sympathetic, with wide eyes and a less threatening demeanour. Bruno’s appeal switches as the role of his character does and the animators do a great job.

 

Matte Paintings

The word “composite” in this context comes from the Latin composite meaning “to bring together”. Compositing is a technique used in the visual arts to create an image by combining two or more images together. One of the most popular compositing techniques for video editing is keying, which removes all other colors from footage and replaces them with transparency so that one can composite another clip over it. The first technique is called “layer blending” and it combines images by placing them one over the other. The second method is called “masking” and it allows you to hide parts of an image by using a layer mask. Finally, the third technique is called “blending modes” which controls how colors in a photo interact with each other when two photos are layered on top of each other. The use of compositing in the productions and postproductions process has become a fundamental part of filmmaking.

Matte painting

in both traditional form and its current digital form, is a film technique that combines art and live action to create the illusion of a setting that would otherwise be too expensive, inconvenient, or impossible to film live.

Physical matt painting

Though most matte paintings these days are created in computer programs with the live action composited digitally, old school matte paintings use careful double exposure of the film to create the illusion of the live action happening in the painted scene. The original technique involved painting a photorealistic scene on a sheet of glass with either paint or pastels, leaving parts of the glass clear where live action would be inserted later. Once a matte painting was created with clear glass “holes” where the live action would go, the first step was to put a black covering behind the holes. This would prevent light from getting into the camera in those places so the film would essentially be blank in those spots. The painting was then filmed with a stationary camera for the length of the shot.

Digital Matt Painting

he first ever digital matte painting was created by painter Cris Evans for the 1985 film Young Sherlock Holmes, when he scanned a photographic image and layered it with a digital drawing to create a scene. Fun Fact: Chris Evans also did a lot of the matte paintings for the Star Wars films, including the spaceship hangar in the famous imperial march sequence.  Though digital renderings are the new bread and butter of VFX, actual painting still has a place in the film world. Sometimes pastel drawings or actual paintings are used as concept references or even photographed and scanned into a computer as a base for the visual setting to be digitally altered and layered with other images to create the final setting. Modern matte artists use a variety of digital painting techniques to create digital matte paintings, including scanning photographs or images of handmade artwork, collaging images, or even pure digital painting techniques. Modern matte artists might create entire landscapes or small set pieces such as statues or buildings to be digitally composited into footage. Digital matte painting is used to change the landscape, to turn a single background extra into thousands of people, to change a sunny sky to an ominous one, and to manipulate film footage in many other ways. This technique was used in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when paintings were printed onto six 100″ canvases and stitched together.

 

 

VFX Breakdowns

 

 

 

Question for A2

Power Point Presentation in Class