harvard referencing

cite them right

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Week Ⅰ – Film Quiz

First week of this module started out with a short film quiz that taught us about many important and ice breaking films where vfx were used in innovative ways, such as one of the first vfx films (The Trip to the Moon) or the first fully 3D animated film (Luxo Jr.).

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) directed by Stanley Kubrick

The Abyss (1989) directed by James Cameron

Jason and the Argonauts (1963) directed by Don Chaffey

Pirates of the carribean

Luxo Jr. (1986) directed by John Lasseter

Tron (1982)

A trip to the moon (1902) directed by Georges Méliès

King Kong (1933) directed by Merian C. Cooper

The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001) directed by Peter Jackson

10. An American Werewolf in London / John Landis / 1981

Tron Legacy (2010) directed by Joseph Kosinski

Terminator 2 / 1991

Young Sherlock Holmes / 1985 /

Total Recall (1990) directed by Paul Verhoeven

Interstellar (2014) directed by

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) directed by Werner Herzog

 Startroopers / 1987 / 

The 4 troublesome haeds 1898 

Godzilla / Ishirô Honda /1954

My favourite VFX shots

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) directed by Peter Jackson – Destruction of the Lake Town

The Lord of the Rings: Return of The King (2003) directed by Peter Jackson

Game of Thrones – The Great War

My favourite SFX shots

Lord of the Rings Trilogy – The city of Minas-Tirith was a miniature model created on set, and not a 3D model created in a computer software

The Lord of the Rings – City of Minas-Tirith

Writing Assignment 1 

Prince, S. (2010). Through the Looking Glass: Philosophical Toys and Digital Visual Effects

 

The article begins with a statement in which Prince explains that visual effects combine art and science in ways that allow filmmakers to significantly expand their currently available creative arsenal. Thus, the connection of art and science, which has paved the way of modern cinema is important to our perception of how digital imaging tools work within the film industry these days. The way modern cinema combines art and science is by creating worlds where fantastic characters, creatures and even environments are built, while at the same time staying true to the basic laws of physics that function in the real world, for example, faithfully replicating the behaviors of solids, liquids, gases, light, motion, and sound. In many cases, filmmakers go as far as working in partnership and taking advice from scientists or expertst in specific fields just to make sure that the digitally created scenes that will later make their way to the cinema screens will stay as true and credible to real life laws of physics as possible. The author further elaborates on, in this case, rendering of fluid dynamics which have come a long way in modern filmmaking in very short time due to their overall complexity that made it exceptionally hard to master. He mentions one specific instance, in which the team responsible for visual effects in ”The Abyss” (directed by James Cameron, 1989) hasn’t been able to achieve a convincing, realistic effect water effect which was caused by lack of experience in fluid texturing, as it was the first attempt of digitally replicating water. It was only in 2006, in the making of ”Poseidon” (directed by Wolfgang Petersen) that the water simulation effect has drastically improved thanks to the fact that the VFX team working on the project (ILM – Industrial Light & Magic) has collaborated with Stanford University to incorporate the current research on fluid dynamics. Thanks to the collaboration with experts in the topic, ILM was able to build that information into the movie and succeed at making the rendering of the water much more realistic than in the years before.

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Week Ⅱ – Differences between invisible & spectacular VFX

Invisible vs spectacular VFX

Despite the popular misconception, VFX is not only used in in fantasy or science fiction action films such as the popular harry potter or marvel series, but almost in every single movie – even the ones where you wouldn’t expect any type of work being done whatsoever. Those types of effects can be called invisible vfx, ones that the audience is not supposed to notice. Some examples of those subtle effects could be creating big audiences, sceneries that may be from a different time period than the one in which the movie is being recorded, or putting many shots into one by compositing or creating environments using digital matte painting. Often done for safety or convenience reasons.

”The Crown” deer created because it was more convinient to make a CGI deer, rather than try to record an animal that won’t listen and do what the humans want it to do

On the other hand, we also have visual effects done for the sake of creating dramatic moments in movies, or impressing the audience with the VFX team’s skills. Those can be called spectacular effects, which are done specifically for the audience to notice them, such as fantasy creatures & environments, magic, robots, surreal explosions or fights and many more.

Writing assignment 2

The author states that for many people, the first thing that comes to mind when hearing the word ”visual effects” is often some kind of spectacular battle taking place in an imaginary world. What often is overlooked though, is the extremely important role that visual effects serve in modern filmmaking asides from spectacular moments in movies. He explains that regardless of what overwhelming majority of people thinks, visual effects are not only an addition to modern cinema, but a core and essential feature of it. To back up that claim, Prince states that ”visual effects can be used to create spectacle, but more often they work in subtle, nonspectacular ways”. He argues that vfx open endless possibilities of enhancing and creating both; realistic and imaginary worlds.

As an example, Prince brings up movies such as Changeling (2008), Master and Commander (2003) and Zodiac (2007) which set place in relatively realistic worlds, but even despite that, we can still find a lot of vfx in them such as digital environments that are indistinguishable from real locations. On the other hand, there’s also movies such as Avatar, where fantasy locations are very obviously created in post production with the use of vfx. That goes on to show that no matter what type of movie, visual effects are most likely going to be used, and in most cases they’re not very obvious, but subtle and not noticable to the human eye.

 

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Week Ⅲ – History of VFX

➤ Principles of Illusion

‣ assumption

‣ presumption

‣ context in reality

‣ do not betray the illusion

comparisons between how vfx used to be made vs how it is now

Pioneers of VFX

➤ Lumière Brothers

Despite being just 50 seconds long, The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station is one of the most important pieces of filmmaking in cinema history.

Made by the pioneering brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière in 1895, the black and white reel shows a steam train arriving at a station in the coastal town of Ciotat, in the south of France.

The Arrival of a Train (1896)

➤ Eadward Muybridge

pioneer of moving image

The human and animal locomotion protographs

The horse in motion

➤  Georges Méliès ”The father of special effects” 

Georges Méliès (born December 8, 1861, Paris, France – died January 21, 1938, Paris, France)

One of cinema’s most important pioneers – Georges Méliès was a french illusionist, actor, and film director.

During the time when Lumiere brothers had invented the movies, he fell in love with it ”it was like a new kind of magic”. He built his own camera, and later on first movie studio in Europe.

With a magician’s intuition, he discovered and exploited the basic camera tricks: stop motion, slow motion, dissolve, fade-out, superimposition, and double exposure.

technique called double exposure

film himself, stop camera, pain out certain bits in front of the camera

Many of his films didn’t really have stories or characterization, as what he was interested in was the ”magic tricks” and creating fantasy events.

Four Heads Are Better Than One (1898)

Méliès’s most famous film is probably Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon), from 1902. It’s a work of science fiction, inspired partly by stories by people like Jules Verne. In the almost 13-minute film, a group of space explorers travel to the moon, encounter a tribe of strange beings, capture one, and return to Earth. Méliès himself played the crew’s leader, Professor Barbenfouillis.

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moving images is about

sequences,

frame rates,

Zoetrope

Zoetrope animation is one of the most popular pre-film animation techniques. Originally developed in the 1830s, it became a popular Victorian toy. It is still used today – adapted and updated to make 3D versions by the likes of Pixar. Find out more about how this simple but effective technology works.

A zoetrope is a cylinder with vertical slits down the sides. The inside of the cylinder displays a band with a set of sequenced images. When the cylinder spins, the user can see the pictures inside as they look through the slits, which prevent the images from blurring together. Combined with the rapid succession of images, the illusion of motion in a continuous loop is created.

As with other motion simulation inventions, the illusions created by the zoetrope rely on the human retina retaining an image for roughly a tenth of a second. If a new image appears in that time, the brain merges them and the sequence appears continuous.

Pixar Zoetrope

Studio Ghibli Zoetrope

Persistance of vision

The phenomena that make motion pictures possible

The eye by which an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one twnety fifth of a second on the retina.

A willing suspension of disbelief

A formula for justyfying the use of fantastic or non realistic elements in literary works of fiction

suspension of disbelief often applies to fictional works of the action, comedy, science fiction and horror genres

Metropolis (1927) directed by Fritz Lang

Writing Assignment 3

The cinema of attractions: early film, its spectators and the avant garde

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.

 

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Week 4

 

Ray Harryhousen

Born in Los Angeles, the signature event in Harryhausen’s life was when he saw King Kong (1933). So awed was the 13-year-old Harryhausen that he began researching the film’s effects work, ultimately learning all he could about Willis H. O’Brien and stop-motion photography -he even contacted O’Brien and showed an allosaur short he made, which caused O’Brien to quip to his wife, “You realize you’re encouraging my competition, don’t you?” Harryhausen tried to make a stop-motion epic titled “Evolution,” but the time required to make it resulted in it being cut short. The footage he completed–of a lumbering apatosaurus attacked by a belligerent allosaurus–made excellent use as a demo reel, and as a result, Harryhausen’s first film job came with George Pal, working on the Puppetoon shorts for Paramount. A stint in the army utilized Harryhausen’s animation skills for training films.

 

Techniques used by Ray Harryhousen

 

Stop motion animation

Stop motion animation can be thought of as just a series of still photographs. Objects or puppets are moved and filmed frame by frame to simulate movement. When all the frames are played in sequence it shows movement. Clay figures, puppets and miniatures are often used in stop motion animation as they can be handled and repositioned easily. Films like the original King Kong and Star Wars made heavy use of stop motion animation using miniatures and puppets. This was the only way to bring objects that cannot move by themselves to life on screen. Stop motion animation is almost as old as film itself. Film makers needed a way to animate objects on screen and the technique was devised.

Dynamation

Dynamation, a.k.a. the blending of stop-motion elements with live-action footage in the same shot is technique pioneered by legendary 20th-century animator Ray Harryhausen. The process involves a sandwhiched composite of rear-projected footage, varying horizon lines, and matte glass layers. But in truth, it’s easier to see the process in action. The following video essay does just that, unpacking how dynamation works, what its limitations are, and the creative solutions Harryhausen came up with to allow stop-motion beasties to sword fight, pick up, and otherwise spar with live-action heroes.

One Million Years B.C. (1966)

 

Lev Manovich – What is Digital Cinema?

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

The author explains that until recently hollywood studios were the only facilities that had the resources to pay for the addition of VFX to their films. However, in the more recent years the shift to digitally made effects has taken over the entire film industry and not just hollywood. As time passes, traditional tools and techiques of creating film are more and more often being replaced by computer generated imaginary and vfx. Manovich lists the 3 main principles of digital filmmaking. One of them being frequent replacement of live footage by digitally made material.  He explains that live footage is now only raw material that has yet to be manipulated by vfx artists; animated, combined with computer generated scenes and painted over. The author also talks about what the relationship between production and post production in the times of traditional and digital cinema. He goes on about how traditionally, the manipulation of reality was obtained through the use of sts, models, art direction, cinematography, etc. instead of manipulating the recorded film after the recording has taken place. However in digital cinema, the shot footage is no longer the final point of production but just the first step. It’s yet to be adjusted and digitally manipulated. He states that ”the production becomes jus the first stage of post-production”.

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Week 5 – Remakes

King Kong

King Kong is considered to be one of the greatest films ever made and has frequently been remade over the years. The 1933 original was a ground-breaking bit of filmmaking, telling the story of an expedition to a secluded island where a giant ape is discovered. The movie was remade in 1976 to pretty awful reviews in an update starring Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges. Peter Jackson took a stab at the classic in 2005, creating a big-budget adventure epic from the story.

Evolution of King Kong throughout the years

King Kong (1933) directed by Merian C. Cooper & Edgar Wallace

The oryginal King Kong made in 1933 was directed by Merian C. Cooper. It was a pioneering technical masterpiece, one of the first of it’s kind, featuring early use of stop motion animation, mechanically controlled models and special effects.

 

The 1933 King Kong is a classic of stop motion, regarded by many as a pioneering achievement of the art form. The Kong stop motion armatures were animated under the supervision of the legendary Willis O’Brien.

Four scale-sized stop motion models were built for animating: three out of aluminum, foam rubber, latex and rabbit fur, and another simpler lead-and-fur model for the famous scene of Kong falling down the Empire State Building. These fragile armatures have not all survived, but Peter Jackson (who directed the 1995 King Kong) owns one.

An oryginal King Kong 1933 stop motion armature

King Kong (1933)

King Kong (2005) directed by Peter Jackson

In 2005, Peter Jackson directed King Kong. This big-budget, thrilling adventure movie retells the original King Kong storyline in a way that is entirely new and refreshing. The original 1933 King Kong was Peter Jackson’s favorite movie growing up, and he previously attempted a reboot in 1996.

set of the 2005 King Kong movie with mocap suit

Having shown the world how successful a performance captured character could be with Gollum in their The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson and mocap collaborator Andy Serkis revisited the technology for the 2005 version of King Kong.

Clearly, Kong’s proportions were very different from Serkis’s. But several leaps and bounds had been made by Weta Digital in terms of re-targeting the motion acquired from the actor’s body and facial movements (his face was littered with stuck on tracking markers) to a digital puppet.

Serkis also performed scenes directly opposite Watts, sometimes even decked out in ape proportions, so that the actress wasn’t just looking into a green or blue void. Weta then took raw capture data and the essence of what Serkis produced and fed that directly into their CG Kong.

In the 2005 film, the advent of motion capture and digital visual effects sufficient enough to create a physically plausible King Kong paved the way for just about all future creature features, especially those involving apes.

One of Weta Digital’s principal challenges, apart from ensuring Serkis’s performance came through in their digital Kong, was implementing a photo-real fur system. This they did via a bespoke grooming solution, something that could enable between 30,000 to 40,000 clumps of hair on Kong’s head alone, and also have it collect leaves and mud as he stomped around. The studio has continued to develop its fur system over the years; it’s now called “Barbershop.”

Comparison of the 2

VFX History of ‘King Kong’, From Stop Motion to Motion Capture (inverse.com)

Jurassic Park – animatronics & cgi

Writing assignment 5

A. Ray Smith – George Lucas Discovers Computer Graphics

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.

 

Smith talks about his experience collaborating with three american technological innovators; Alexander Schure (patron of the New York Institute of technology’s computer graphics lab), George Lucas (Star Wars) and Steven Jobs (cofunder of Apple), who had a big impact on his life, especially regarding his knowledge off the computer graphics industry. He thinks that all of them fully deserve the title ”visionary” thanks to their huge impact .on the computer graphics development, though he does not believe that they realized the entire power of the constantly developing technologies they supported.

The author goes on about how he’s been hired by Lucas for the purpose of using computer graphics in his films; his specific request was to build three pieces of equipment to further develop the new technologies of filmmkaing: a digital printer, a digital audio synthesizer, and a digitally controlled video editor.

 

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Week Ⅵ – The Uncanny Valley

We are genetically programmed to recognise human faces. It turns out, for instance, that if we make a perfectly symmetrical face

Synthespian

A synthespian is the digital clone of a human being, in voice and appearance, created using both CGI 3D techniques and digital animation, and computer systems for the manipulation and creation of sound.

Geralt from ”The Witcher”

The Uncanny Valley by Masahiro Mori 

 

The article written by Masahiro Mori touches on the subject of a phenomenon called the Uncanny Valley. The term can be used to describe a relationship between the human-like appearance of a robotic object and the emotional response it evokes, often causing a sense of discomfort in the viewers.

The phenomenon takes place when creating characters that resemble humans in some way, but never do so close enough to be viewed as an actual human being.

 

Industrial robots, often seen in factories, do not resemble humans at all, despite the fact that their design is based solely on funcionality, which in this case is mimicking the actions of human factory workers, but whether they look similiar doesn’t matter. Due to lacking any features that would resemble a human being, in general people don’t tend to feel any type of affinity to them, and thus they don’t tend to cause any feelings of unese in people.

 

On the other hand, a toy robot for example from a pixar movie or a simple toy, often times will focus way more on apperance rather than funcionality. And thus, despite still being a highly unrealistic figure, the toy robot will start to resemble a human being in one way or another, for example start having a human looking physique; a face, two arms, two legs, torso, causing children to start feeling a deep connection to their beloved toy robots.

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Week Ⅶ – The (Disney) Principles of animation

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Week 8 – An introduction to Concept of The Composite

 

Partial models

typically used as set extensions such as ceilings or the upper stories of bulidings. The model built to match the actual set but on a much smaller scale is hung in the front of the camera alligned so that ita ppears to be a part of the set

models are often quite large because they must be placed far enough from the camera so that both they and the set far beyond them are in sharp focus

 

Matte painting

For years, matte painting vfx has been a well-known VFX technique. It simply means that a landscape is used as the background in paintings. You can remove your movie from the confines of the stage by placing a blue or green screen behind your performers. Matte paintings in movies has come a long way today!

Audiences may believe that the location depicted in the movie is genuine, even though it is really a product of the director’s wild imagination.

When building a physical set or traveling to a specific location to film is either prohibitively expensive or impossible, it is frequently used to create landscapes, sets, and scenes for movies, television, and print. A thorough understanding of light, exposure, colour theory, and composition are necessary for this technique.

One of the most common uses of matte painting in VFX is creating a background completely different from the live-action footage. This could be a landscape, cityscape, or even an entire planet. For example, in the movie “Avatar” (2009), the entire planet Pandora was created using matte painting.

The use of matte paintings also allows filmmakers to create historical or fantasy environments that would be difficult or impossible to film in live-action.

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. The basic principle of matte painting is that part of the scene is “masked off”, either with black material, green screens, or digital cropping. While it originated as a photography technique, matte painting has been used by the film industry since the late 19th century and some of the most famous films in history used them to create fantastical worlds.

 

• Traditional Form

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. After the initial shot the film was rewound. The black coverings were then removed from the clear glass holes and a projector behind the painting would project the live action onto those spaces on the painting.

So when the painting was filmed again, the live action would fill the blank spaces on the now double-exposed film.

 

One of the very last hand painted matte paintings was used in James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic. This shot of the Carpathia was crafted by Chris Evans (the architect behind blockbusters like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Empire Strikes Back and The Green Mile).

• Modern Form

The principal of matte painting, inserting live action shots into a painted fictional world, is still used in nearly every film made today. But now matte painting is primarily digital and almost unrecognizable from its origins as paintings on glass. The first ever digital matte painting was created by painter Chris 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.

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.

Glass paintings

Large glass pane that is big enough to cover the camera frame is placed at a distance from the lens so that the plane is in focus. The entire set is painted onto the glass with gaps so that the background is visible through these gaps. While holding up the glass pane live action is shot through the glass and composited the painted area. The painted glass can be an economic foreground or background saving a lot of time and money .

A glass matte painting is a variation of matte painting. It is a technique where a painting on glass is used to create a background element. The painting is photographed and composited into live-action footage.

Glass matte paintings were widely used in the past, but with the advent of digital matte painting, the use of matte glass paintings has decreased.

Physical compositing

Seperate parts of the image are placed together in the photographic frame and recorded in single exposure.  The components are alligned so that they give the appearance of a single image. The most common physical compositing elements are partial models and glass paintings

 

Digital compositing

Green screen

Green screens are green because green is a colour that is not present in the human skin tone. This makes it easier to isolate and remove the green background using a process called chroma keying. Chroma keying involves turning a specific colour transparent and replacing it with another image or video.

 

Multi plane camera

In 1937, Disney developed its multiplane camera. While these kinds of cameras existed before Walt’s team perfected them, it was Disney that put them on the map. Basically, animated cells used to be all drawn on the same plane, but those images never had any actual depth. Disney wanted his cartoons to be more lively.  So, his team of camera techs and animators worked to create a panel that had many layers. They used the traditional animation process that moves hundreds of pieces of artwork past the camera at various speeds and at various distances from one another. That creates the moving image and creates depth.  Then they added transparent layers on top of those animated layers, adding more background, other characters, and objects. As each frame progressed, the result was an illusion of depth by having several layers of artwork moving at different speeds.That meant the further away from the camera, the slower the speed.

Before the multiplane camera, animators found it difficult to create a convincing tracking shot that kept perspective (for instance, a moon of constant size in distant background) by using traditional animation methods. Furthermore, the act of animating the forward motion was becoming increasingly costly and time-consuming. The multiplane camera answered this problem by creating a realistic sense of three dimensional depth in a cartoon setting. The multiplane also made possible new and versatile types of in-camera special effects for animated films using, for example, 3D practical elements/mock-ups in foreground, filters and planar lighting, distortion glass and reflections, to achieve naturalistic moving water, flickering light and other subtle effects.

Digital compositing similiar principles to physical compositing but different technologies used

can be layer based or nodal

Alpha channel

the software used removes the background to create an alpha channel and a transparent area to

Nodal based compositing

Nuke

Task: The art of the breakdown 

Locate at least one compositing breakdown. Consider the following:

• what different elements of the composite can you spot
• why has the shot been built in this way
• why are those decisions being made

The shot I chose to analyze for this task is a Lord of the Rings shot of Gandalf arriving at Bilbo’s house in Bag End. Something that is constantly showcased in the trilogy is the very obvious difference in size between the all the different races of middle earth; dwarves, elves, hobbits, humans and wizards. A combination of various techniques was used to achieve this, one of them being altering the size of the world around actors by creating different sized sets. In this case, at Bag End, two different sized sets were built, every book, cup or candle had to be made twice. For this particular shot, a technique called scale compositing was used. It involves shooting the two actors separately and then combining both shots to in the end make one. In this case, the first shot is the one of Bilbo, the hobbit, who is recorded picking up Gandalf’s hat on the set in normal scale, and the other shot is just Gandalf on blue screen, which was later scaled to fit in the first, small location using a digital software and composited.

wireframe

model

final effect

wireframe

model

final effect

Life of Pi: a tiger’s tale – fxguide

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Week 9: The Visual Effects Industry Model

VFX Breakdown of Life of Pi (linkedin.com)

Assignment 2: Question 1

Using historical examples, discuss how has Visual Effects impacted film narrative.

The economic value of the UK’s VFX sector | UK Screen Alliance

Visual Effects or VFX for short is the digital manipulation of images to enhance, augment or entirely replace elements of live action shots in films, TV programmes or commercials. It has become intrinsic in most films and many TV dramas. VFX is still a relatively young industry, which has gone through a period of significant growth in volume demand which is characterized by constant a re-invention of the technology and workflows necessary to create increasingly complex effects.

 

In 2012 VFX company Rhythm and Hues won the Academy Award for best visual effects 11 days after declaring bancrupcy

Green Protest

Factors affecting VFX companies

• globalization much of the low cost work such as rotoscoping is framed out to China & India
• VFX companies traditionally work to set costs or fees if there is a change to a film then they have to absorb the cost
• VFX is not unionised, it does not have employment unions like many other aspects of the film makiing business

The economic value of the UK’s VFX sector | UK Screen Alliance

Assessment 2

Question 1

Using historical examples, discuss how has Visual Effects impacted film narrative.

 

Research and discuss oppositing viewpoints, citing examples to support your argument. 2000 words.

 

”Computer generated graphics are often blamed for bad Hollywood movies” However visual effects can often be a useful tool for enhancing storytelling with sound, colour and experimenting with camera angles” (Mcclean, 2007)

Resources:

 

• Digital storytelling: the narrative power of visual effects in film McClean, Shilo T.

•  Whissel Digital Visual Effects in Cinema : The Seduction of Reality Stephen Prince

• THE EVOLUTION OF VISUAL EFFECTS IN CINEMA: A JOURNEY FROM PRACTICAL EFFECTS TO CGI Soumen Das 

Visual effects and their significant impact on storytelling has been a subject of debate for many years now. Regardless of people’s opinions, either positive or negative, it remains an objective fact that visual effects and computer generated imaginery have completely changed the way we think of cinema now, and thus became a crucial part of it. Whether it’s a Hollywood blockbuster or a barely known series created by a smaller studio, chances are, they’ve all used visual effects to at least some extent. It could be something as simple as basic compositing or, on the other hand, beautifully created battle scenes filled with fantastic creatures that the viewers could not even imagine. But why have digitally created effects basically taken over the modern film industry? What impact have they left on the entire film industry? Some people argue that the popularization of digital effect use in films has left a negative impact – reduced the storytelling quality in modern cinema.

In the book ”Digital storytelling: the narrative power of visual effects in film”, Shilo gives his take on the subject of the impact that VFX has had on hollywood and discusses both sides of the argument. He brings up Paul Byrnes’s review of Van Hellsing (2004) where the heavy usage of digital visual effects is seen as one of the main reasons of why the movie lacked good storytelling. Shilo points out flaws in logic in Byrnes’s review that are common for film critics who stand against visual effects. The reviewer himself has showcased a good amount of factors that could’ve lead up to the low quality storytelling in Van Hellsing (2004) such as poor structure, not staying true and implementing massive changes to the oryginal story, lack of proper character development and many more, yet still decides to put the blame on the visual effects instead of paying more attention to all the other flaws the film had. Shilo explains; ”In other words, it seems fair to say that it should come as no surprise that the film is a disappointment”. This type of criticism towards visual effect is however, as the author points out, not new or unique in the history of filmmaking. New technologies often have to face the disapproval of audiences and prove themselves otherwise, a perfect example of that is when colour and sound were first introduced, the arguments against them were exactly the same as the ones pointed at visual effects in our modern times.

On the contrary to the commonly used criticism that visual effects ruin the quality of the narrative in modern cinema, Soumen Das (2023) takes on a completely different point of view. In his article, he states that visual effects of many different kinds are crucial to the narrative as they allow the viewers to forget about their boring everyday lives and escape into a completely new imaginary universe. He explores various different narrative enhancements that digital effects help achieve in modern cinema; ”visual effects have played a pivotal role in giving life to narratives. Whether it involves the creation of otherworldly landscapes, the depiction of larger-than-lifecreatures, or the simulation of impossible occurrences”. New technologies like VFX & CGI are what allows filmmakers to go beyond the limitations of reality and make their creative visions and ideas come true. Rather than distracting the viewer, they contribute to the emotional impact of the film, which then intensifies audience’s admiration for the entire story.

Stephen Prince shares a similiar opinion on this subject as well. In his book titled ”Digital Visual Effects in Cinema : The Seduction of Reality” he expresses his opinion that visual effects play a very important role in building realistic realms, characters and creatures that not only enhance the story, but are an essential element of it. To back up his claims, he brings up a film that revolutionised the film industry and changed cinema forever – Jurassic Park. The film combines analog and digital visual effects technologies – the dinosaurs are portrayed using animatronics and digital animation, but it’s the digital aspect of the spectacle that generated the most viewers and public buzz for the movies. The author explains how in comparison to the animatronics, the digitally made computer generated creatures are more believable for the audiences – they are more supple, their movements are more complex, and their interactions with live actors are way more convincing and realistic. Thanks to the combination of good story and impressive visuals used as a great narrative enhancement, the film achieved great success and became a must see spectacle while the audiences were left amazed by the experience of seeing real life like dinosaurs on the screen for the first time in history.

Visual effects are also a core aspect of the history of moviemaking, as even the earliest days of film involved experimenting with different kinds of special effects. Pioneers like Georges Méliè or later, Ray Harryhausen saw the potential in those effects and explored new techniques such as stop motion animation, double exposure or matte paintings which all allowed them to broaden the scope of visual storytelling.

Some of the most widely loved films such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter series used large amounts of computer graphics, which proves that visual effects are not to blame for bad storytelling.

Digital visual effects can offer endless possibilities to storytelling with computer graphics, such as ability to immerse yourself in fantasy worlds or exploring any characters or situations you can imagine. It’s an essential aspect of storytelling, as without it, film directors would be limited only to what’s real – which would significantly damage the creative aspect of modern cinema. Visual effects help express originality and aplify the emotions that filmmakers want to elicit from the audience. They’re not a distraction, but quite the opposite – they help communicate and emphasise the meanings of the stories we see on big cinema screens. Enhancements to the narrative like such make the story more memorable and impactful.

McClean, Shilo T.(2008). Digital storytelling: the narrative power of visual effects in film. The MIT Press.

Das, S. (2023). THE EVOLUTION OF VISUAL EFFECTS IN CINEMA: A JOURNEY FROM PRACTICAL EFFECTS TO CGI. Journal of emerging technologies and innovative research (JETIR).

Prince, S. (2012). Digital Visual Effects in Cinema: The Seduction of Reality. London: Rutgers University Press.