Free Essay. Special Effects

The special effects are known to be visual or illusion tricks majorly used in films, theatres, simulators, television, and video game industries to stimulate the imagination of events in a virtual world or a story. Initially, these effects were divided into two categories: optical and mechanical effects, where later Digital film-making emerged, creating a noticeable difference between visual effects and special effects (Rickitt, 2007). The latter referred to digital post-production as the special effects attributed to the optical and mechanical effects. The mechanical effects are completed in a live-action shooting where it involves: pyrotechnics, utilization of mechanized props, atmospheric effects, scale models, animatronics, and scenery. The effects create fog, rain, snow, and physical wind, and make an automobile seem to drive itself and finally blow up a building.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

The innovation of the First Motion Picture

The mechanical effects are merged into makeup and set design like people may use prosthetic makeup to make an actor appear like a creature. Optical effects is a way to create film frames and images photographically using multi-exposure, the Schiffman process or mattes in a camera, or by using an optical printer in post-production. Oscar Rejlander made the first effect by using 32 negatives to form a single image in 1857, thus creating a montaged combination print. Alfred Clark made a commonly accepted first moving image special effect while he filmed the reform of Mary Queen execution, the queen of scots. Alfred directed an actor to dress in the block of wearing Mary's costume, and as the ax was brought overhead, Alfred halted the camera, and all actors had to stop, and the Mary character stepped off the stage. Clark positioned a replica in the performer's position and permitted the slayer to let the ax down.

Creation of the Special effects

The earliest special effect to be created was via tricks or special camera lenses like a projection of a background in motion behind the actors. Optical printer development brought excellent flexibility as it was easier and possible to make a combination of varied fragments of a movie and swap a part of the picture hence accommodating illusions as actors soaring in the air (Hopkins, 2013). Special effects can be made on set mechanically by the use of explosives; puppets, wires, and miniature models create epic scenes like fighting and battles. The growing usage of computer-generated imagery and computer animations has made increasingly realistic and elaborate visual effects.

Developmental History

Movie studios have had independent special effects sections. The task is now done by reserved organizations like George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic, which was created to give innovative impacts in Star Wars and later movies after 1977. In the 1920s, special effects makeup was pioneered by actor Lon Chaney when he made personal looks to take part in The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Young, 2013). The film makeup art significantly took off with popular movies in the 1930s. Jack Pierce was among the first makeup creators of the time in collaboration with Boris Karloff in The Mummy and the Frankenstein. Jack used spirit gum and cotton to create prosthetics and to green makeup to look ghostly white in the camera. Time has allowed the film industry to develop and advance, allowing the adoption of full-color moving pictures to maintain the effects’ realism.

Purpose and the Significance of Special Effects

Special effects enable us to tell a more engaging and better story to the audience by expressing the great ideas in a movie to help touch those with the same preference. A good movie story allows the viewer to connect with the writer on the basics of the same opinion and interest in the story. People have dreams, illusions, and imaginations that are imagined but not happening in the real world; thus, the special effects create tricks or illusions to the eye which simulate presumed activities and events in the story satisfying the audience's curiosity. Visual effects are equally used to set clarity and mood to an account. If a story has an exciting theme, these effects can be demonstrated, creating a mentality on how the actors will execute the idea all throughout the movie scenes (Porter & Duff, 1984). It is agreed that special effects give the ultimate viewer entertainment and make people appreciate the great talents bestowed upon different characters in a story. The connection in a movie is created by making a captivating presentation that makes people feel like they are spectating a reality show or so to say, 'in a movie.' Special effects are an independent department. It employs many people in the industry with related talent and those who study the same field. The more exceptional picture of movie production entails the collaboration of many ideas and individuals, which we can refer to as uniting.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Special Effects

Special effects and visual effects are beneficial to all types of film production, as they are versatile and impact video production.

The special effects can showcase a product before it's completed and generate buzz. The products are showcased to possibly interested investors before they make a total investment in a product's production. The use of animations enables the audience to visualize products in a complicated manner using traditional shooting techniques.

For entertainment and memorability- The viewer manages to get an emotional stimulation in an effective manner using these effects. Our brains feed 90% visual information, which results in a high ability to recall verbal and visual information (Fielding, 2013).

The childhood associations receive a more significant advantage through animations that are easier to digest, putting the audience at ease. Through the visual effects, unattractive subject matters are transformed into an appealing message artistically.

Videos are polished and cleaned up from all the errors- The Invisible visual effects are subtly used to polish a product or fix the blemishes or present as dramatic as changing winter to summer.

The art is also accompanied by some demerits which include;

• The effects take away the originality of film creation as industries entirely rely on the ability of these effects to make a great product, which makes the level of creativity dormant and weak.
• The level of credited accorded to it depends entirely on how better it is, thus concluding that the better an effect appears, the less the credit offered to it.
• The special effects have crippled the film-making art and still making it more unrealistic than expected by the viewers.

Literature Review

Literature offered by Christian Metz and Smith displays how cognitive theory can be critical in line with film theory to broaden the knowledge on how the mind interprets special effects, ultimately primary to an opinion and stimulating an emotional response (Scherer, 2014). Film theorists adopt methodologies from realms of and social science, cultural studies, and social science. The tactics are imperative when evaluating a film’s impact on society, but pilots away from the effect a film has over an individual. The scholars intend to complement these studies by involving special effects. Moreover, the argument depicted is that a society is a structure composed of most individuals who value entertainment and leisure. It is significant to appreciate the findings to the methods of film theorists who desire to know how special effects and perceived and the impact on an individual.

Conclusion

Numerous scholars have studied special effects, and their influence, more studies ought to be carried out to assess and gauge the value of the unique film arts. This research hopes to help in the molding of other studies, focusing on analyzing the emotional reaction to both special effects and digital effects (Rickitt, 2007). To realize how people interpret visual effects, which, in return, create an emotional reaction, it is vital to focus on how other researchers have undertaken this review before. The digital era piloted in a new separation, which links the visual effects with special effects. Instead of the setting distinguishing the fact, special effects would then be categorized by digital or analog. All effects made in analog would be classified as practical effects or special effects, and all produced impacts digitally ought to be called computer-generated images.

References

Fielding, R. (2013). Techniques of Special Effects of Cinematography. CRC Press.

Hopkins, A. A. (2013). Magic: Stage Illusions Special Effects and Trick Photography. Courier Corporation.

Porter, T., & Duff, T. (1984, January). Compositing digital images. In Proceedings of the 11th annual Conference on Computer graphics and Interactive Techniques (pp. 253-259).

Rickitt, R. (2007). Special effects: the history and technique. Billboard Books.

Scherer, D. (2014). Movie magic makes better social robots: The overlap of special effects and character robot engineering. Journal of Human-Robot Interaction, 3(1), 123-141.

Young, C., & Rasinski, T. V. (2013). Studentproduced movies as a medium for literacy development. The Reading Teacher, 66(8), 670-675.