Week 1

Lens FX

Hunger Games – Depth of Field

Star Wars – Lens Flare

A$AP Rocky Music Video – Motion Blur

Harold Edgerton Examples

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 – Bella’s transformation scene They way the liquid moves on top of the veins in the Twilight scene resembles the liquid from Edgerton’s photo.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi – Holdo flying through the Raddus through the supremacyWhen Holdo flies through the ship she flies through in super speed, but the destruction moves in slow motion since it’s weightless. It gives an effect that is similar to Edgerton’s photo where it looks like the bullet is frozen in time.

Week 2

The Allegory of the Cave

The Allegory of the Cave is a metaphor by Pluto that illustrates the perception of reality and knowledge. The story talks about a group of people stuck in a cave, they see shadows on the wall and believe the shadows to be real. They are stuck in the visible realm, what they know is what they see. One person breaks out from the cave and discovers the world outside. The discovery of true forms of beings moves him/her further towards the intellectual realm. When the person tries to tell the others in the cave about their discoveries they disregard him and punish him/her for spreading lies about their truth. They are stuck in their reality unable to see truth in anything else.

The metaphor still holds true today in the modern world. With the rise of new technology and social media there are a lot of people who are fooled by images online believing them to be true. They are stuck in the visible realm, only believing what they can see instead of questioning it. An example of this is peoples perception of celebrities life’s and looks. They are portrayed as spectacular and perfect on social media, and people believe those images to be true, just like the cave people believed the shadows to be true.

Week 3

Manipulated analogue photographs

William Mumler’s spirit photography (approximately 1860s). He reused photographic plates and there were imprints left from previous sitters that would appear as ghosts on the new photograph.

US General Ulysses S. Grant. Combined from three different images.

Albert Einstein riding a bike away from nuclear testing

John Lennon and Che Guevara sat across from each other and playing guitar together. (1972) Most likely they never met. This was originally an image of John Lennon and Che Guevara was manipulated into the photograph.

Digital Manipulated Photographs

Rainforest #10yearchallenge picturing a fake 10 year difference in the rainforest

Influencer uses same clouds in multiple locations throughout the world

Cyclist being chased by a bear

Venice rivers frozen

Week 4

Photorealism

Photorealism painting by Charles S. Bell

Photorealism is the art of trying to replicate a photograph. It started as an art form in the 60/70s for painters. It was a reaction to the abstract pop art movement at the time. Painters would use photographs as references and try to replicate them in the painting. They especially focused on things such as reflection and light. In more modern time we usually use the term in the context of Visual Effects, especially within the 3D field. Its the art of digitally being able to create something that looks like it was filmed with an actual lens. It could be seamless blending a 3D object into live action footage, or creating an entire digital environment.