Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
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Introduction
43 of the top 50 films of all time are visual effects driven. Today, visual effects are
the “movie stars” of studio tent-pole pictures — that is, visual effects make con-
temporary movies box office hits in the same way that big name actors ensured the
success of films in the past. It is very difficult to imagine a modern feature filmor TV
programwithout visual effects.
The Visual Effects Society, 2011
Neo fends off dozens of Agent Smith clones in a city park. Kevin Flynn confronts a
thirty-years-younger avatar of himself in the Grid. Captain America's sidekick rolls
under a speeding truck in the nick of time to plant a bomb. Nightcrawler “bamfs” in
and out of rooms, leaving behind a puff of smoke. James Bond skydives at high speed
out of a burning airplane. Harry Potter grapples with Nagini in a ramshackle cottage.
Robert Neville stalks a deer in an overgrown, abandoned Times Square. Autobots
and Decepticons battle it out in the streets of Chicago. Today's blockbuster movies
so seamlessly introduce impossible characters andaction into real-world settings that
it's easy for the audience to suspend its disbelief. These compelling action scenes are
made possible by modern visual effects.
Visual effects
, the manipulation and fusion of live and synthetic images, have
been a part of moviemaking since the first short films were made in the 1900s. For
example, beginning in the 1920s, fantastic sets and environments were created using
huge, detailed paintings on panes of glass placed between the camera and the actors.
Miniature buildings or monsters were combined with footage of live actors using
forced perspective to create photo-realistic composites. Superheroes flew across the
screen using rear-projection and blue-screen replacement technology.
These days, almost all visual effects involve the manipulation of digital and
computer-generated images instead of in-camera, practical effects. Filmgoers over
the past forty years have experienced the transition from the mostly analog effects of
movies like
The Empire Strikes Back
to the early days of computer-generated imagery
in movies like
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
to the almost entirely digital effects of
movies like
Avatar
. While they're often associated with action and science fiction
movies, visual effects are now so common that they're imperceptibly incorporated
into virtually all TV series andmovies —evenmedical shows like
Grey's Anatomy
and
period dramas like
Changeling
.
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