Week 1 Introduction exercise: Famous shots
Raiders of the Lost Ark – 1981 – Steven Spielberg
Tron – 1982 – Steven Lisberger
Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) – 1902 – Georges Méliès
King Kong – 1933 – Merian C. Cooper – Ernest B. Schoedsack
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – 2003 – Peter Jackson
Godzilla – 1954 – Ishirô Honda
Some of my favourite VFX shots:
Blade Runner (1982)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Some of my favourite special effect shots:
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Star Wars (1977)
Week 1 Homework Reading:
Through the Looking Glass: Philosophical Toys and Digital Visual Effects – Stephen Prince
In this essay, Stephen Prince explores his idea of ‘perceptual realism’. This is ‘the replication via digital means of contextual cues designating a three-dimensional world’. Prince states that these cues include ‘information sources about the size and positioning of objects in space, their texturing and apparent density of detail, the behaviour of light as it interacts with the physical world, principles of motion and anatomy, and the physics involved in dynamic systems such as water, clouds and fire’. Filmmakers can utilise digital tools to replicate these cues in order to portray a fictional reality that is convincing due to the similarities to the laws of physics that exist in the real world. For example, while no viewer has actually seen a real dinosaur, the way in which they are portrayed in Jurassic Park is quite convincing as a result of how they act and move within their world, and how they and their environments interact with each other. The viewer is able to believe in the fiction as it is fairly successful in evoking perceptual realism.
Prince also explores some orthodox assumptions about visual effects, mainly the idea that visual effects equate with spectacle and that spectacle is anti-narrative. Some people are quite critical of the use of digital effects in film due to this idea. For example, some criticise how in Jurassic Park the narrative comes to a halt so that the digital effects can be showcased extensively and admired. Digital effects can become a visual spectacle purely for its own sake, detracting from narrative and story in the process. However, it is worth noting that in early films there was a heavy emphasis on spectacular views and attractions rather than stories, Tom Gunning claimed it was only around 1907 when narrative became more dominant in film. The method of filmmaking that involves visual spectacles and attractions is evidently not a new one, and in fact, can be traced back to silent films.
Digital effects are not only used for creating fictional worlds and creatures though, they are also used in less noticeable ways. For example, Prince explores how in the film Zodiac, CGI had to be used to construct a convincing depiction of San Francisco as it appeared at the time the film is set, decades earlier. Real footage of the city could not be used as it had changed in appearance. Instead, city blueprints and photographs taken by a U-2 spy plane were used in combination with digital technology in order to create realistic shots of the city from a different time.
Week 2: ‘Spectacular’ vs ‘Invisible’ Visual Effects
While the term visual effects is often associated with sci-fi and fantasy films and the creatures and settings that exist within them, ‘spectacular’ visual effects are only one type of visual effects. A very common example of ‘invisible’ visual effects is editing and tweaking real environments, for example changing a city so that it convincingly looks like another time period. Another common example is creating large crowds, often for shots that include large crowds that could not realistically be shot using just extras. Smaller crowds of extras may be essentially copied and pasted, or multiple shots of the crowd standing in different places may be compiled together. These types of shots are supposed to be invisible, they are usually very subtle and are not made to be a visual spectacle, yet are very essential in modern filmmaking.
Week 2 Homework Reading:
Beyond Spectacle – Stephen Prince
In the introduction to this book, Prince talks about the common perception of digital visual effects as being associated with ‘gaudy spectacle, overstuffed blockbusters, or action adventure fantasies catering to young audiences’. Prince, however, argues that ‘digital visual effects build on stylistic traditions established by filmmakers in early generations even while providing new and more powerful tools to accomplish these ends’. He also points out the existence of techno-nostalgia for the older analog forms of effects in film, arguing instead that visual effects maintain a continuity from the analog era to the digital one. Films such as Jurassic Park (1993) conjoin analog and digital effects technologies: a combination of animatronic models, costumes and digital animation. The latter stands out the most due to the more complex and nuanced ways the digital dinosaurs behave and move, making them more convincing.
Prince also brings up the phenomenon of the ‘uncanny valley’, the unease in viewers caused by a specific lack of photorealism in digital characters. Digital technology has often been unable to satisfy the deep-level, hard-wired impulse in viewers to search faces for information pertaining to a person’s feelings, thoughts and intentions. This often leads to an unsettling feeling, and has been one of the shortcomings of digital visual effects in terms of creating photorealistic characters.
Week 3:
Principles of Illusion:
- Assumption
- Presumption
- Context in reality
Georges Méliès
Georges Melies was a French illusionist and film director, known for leading many technical and narrative developments in early cinema. He is well known for his films A Trip to the Moon (1902) and An Impossible Voyage (1904), both of which are considered among the most important early science fiction films. He is often described as the ‘Father of Special Effects’, he built the first movie studio in Europe and is regarded as cinema’s first real fantasist.
Melies essentially discovered and exploited basic camera tricks such as stop motion, slow motion, superimposition and double exposure. Much of his work combined illusion, pantomime and comic burlesque.
Week 4:
Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen is well known for his pioneering use of stop-motion animation effects in his films. He was mainly inspired after seeing King Kong (1933), and began making short films in his parents’ garage. Harryhausen developed the technique known as ‘Dynamation’, which is used to make it appear as though actors and animated models are interacting with each other.
Week 5 Homework Reading:
George Lucas Discovers Computer Graphics – Alvy Ray Smith
In this paper, Alva Ray Smith talks about how the use of computers in Star Wars was for controlling mechanical devices such as controlling dollies for repeatable camera movements, not for making pictures directly. It was when ILM was tasked with creating a specific effect for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that they properly explored computer graphics technology. Smith had a desire to use their work on this film to show George Lucas what could be done with computer graphics. One of the ways Smith planned to achieve this was by appealing to Lucas’ focus on camera angles and movements, by creating a digital camera move that would ‘knock George’s socks off.’ The camera move was based on the idea of a flying spacecraft with a camera attached to the craft, and it achieved George Lucas’ praise. Smith’s team worked on Return of the Jedi, and then The Young Sherlock Holmes, and eventually their goal of producing a completely computer-generated film was achieved in 1995 with Toy Story.
Week 6:
The Uncanny Valley
Week 7:
The Twelve Principles of Animation
- Squash and Stretch – gives a sense of weight and flexibility
- Anticipation – adds realism and exaggeration
- Staging – importance of composition, lighting and framing
- ‘Straight ahead’ (animating each frame from beginning to end), and ‘Pose by Pose’ (drawing keyframes and then filling in the intervals later)
- Follow through and overlapping action – parts of the body still move after a character stops moving, and parts of the body don’t move at the same rate.
- Ease in, ease out – acceleration and deceleration of objects and characters improves realism.
- Arcs – most actions have an arched trajectory, for example moving limbs follow a natural arc.
- Secondary action – adds extra dimension and realism, compliments the main action when done correctly.
- Timing – timing should usually aim to follow the laws of physics in order to ground the animation in realism.
- Exaggeration – exaggeration should aim to be somewhat true to reality while being made more extreme, if animation is too realistic it can often look dull.
- Solid drawing – the creations displayed in animations must feel 3D and feel as though they have weight and volume.
- Appeal – animators should give all their creations appeal in order to engage viewers.
Week 8:
Matte Painting
Matte painting is an example of an old cinema technique that has evolved into a digital practice in modern filmmaking. Matte painting involves creating a painting while leaving a small section blank, that section will be filled with whatever is filmed with the camera. The result is a combination of a still painting and a moving image.
One of the most famous examples of the use of matte paintings is in the original Star Wars trilogy, where many shots used matte paintings painted by artists such as Ralph McQuarrie. This allows for shots of large environments that would be either impossible or extremely expensive to physically build and then film.
In modern filmmaking this would be done digitally, using a green screen in order to composite real footage and digital environments together. While this doesn’t involve physical painting, the concept is the same – to use artificial environments and images to enhance real footage. This is an example from The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials.
