SPECIAL EFFECTS

Special effects (which typically refers to visual effects in live-action moving-image media but also includes audio effects and other possibilities) are the methods used to produce on-screen (or on-air) events and objects that are physically impossible or imaginary, or too expensive, too difficult, too time-consuming, or too dangerous to produce without artifice. The ethics of the related technologies are seldom discussed but are nevertheless significant.

Origins

Cinematic special effects grew out of trick photography and began with the trick film tradition popularized by early filmmakers such as Georges Méliès (1861–1938), a special effects pioneer who was the first to develop many in-camera techniques. Silent films used a variety of special effects techniques, particularly in the genres of science fiction and horror. Many new special effects technologies became possible after the invention of the optical printer in 1944, resulting in a new generation of science-fiction films in the 1950s that used the new techniques, as well as more realistic-looking effects in other films. Finally, the late 1980s and 1990s saw another advance in effects technology: the rise of digital special effects created in computers, which allowed live-action footage to be combined with anything that could be rendered in computer graphics.

Special effects are a large part of the film industry in the early twenty-first century, with a number of companies such as Industrial Light & Magic and Digital Domain specializing in the production of special effects. Special effects can be found in almost every genre of filmmaking, in both big-budget and low-budget films, as well as on television, most notably in advertising, where high budgets and short formats allow filmmakers to experiment with expensive new techniques.

Types of Special Effects

Special effects can be divided into four types: practical effects, in-camera effects, optical effects, and digital effects. Practical effects, also known as physical effects, are those that occur in front of the camera, such as rigged explosions, pyrotechnics, animatronics figures or puppetry, makeup effects, and so forth. Practical effects have the advantage of occurring on the set where they appear directly in the scene and the action of the shot, and require no postproduction processes.

In-camera effects are achieved through forms of trick photography and are made in the camera at the time of shooting. Such effects include shots taken at different camera speeds, shots using lens filters, and day-for-night shooting, all of which change the kind of image being recorded. Superimpositions and multiple-exposure matte shots require the film to be exposed, rewound, and exposed again, adding two or more images together onto the same piece of film before it is developed (this combining of imagery is also called compositing). Foreground miniatures, glass shots, and matte paintings make use of the monocular nature of the camera by falsifying perspective and making small objects close to the camera look as if they are part of larger objects farther away from the camera. Buildings can be extended and other large set pieces can thus be made inexpensively through the use of detailed models and paintings done with the correct perspective. Front projection and rear projection processes combine foreground sets and actors with backgrounds made from projected imagery (most typically as moving background imagery placed behind an actor driving a car).

Optical effects involve the use of an optical printer, a device invented by Linwood Dunn in 1944 that allows images on developed pieces of film to be rephotographed and composited together onto a single piece of film. An optical printer is basically a camera and a projector (or multiple projectors, in some cases) set up with a camera in such a way that film frames can be rephotographed directly from another strip of film. Optical processes allow frame-by-frame control and greater precision in spatially positioning elements than is possible with in-camera compositing. Perhaps the most common form of optical compositing is the matte shot, wherein a foreground element is combined with a background, without the background visible through the foreground element (as would be the case with superimposition). To achieve this, keying processes are used for the production of foreground elements, and the most typical of these, blue screening and green screening, place the actor in a solid-color background, which is later optically removed from the shot. A holdout matte is made from the foreground element, which leaves a part of the rephotographed background plate unexposed, and the foreground element is later exposed onto the same plate, fitting into the unexposed area. Traveling mattes also make this technique possible for moving objects and moving camera shots.

Digital effects are all done in a computer. Images are either shot with digital cameras or scanned from film into a computer, where they are edited and composited digitally. Digital effects avoid the generational loss (the loss that occurs when film images are rephotographed onto another piece of film) that happens during optical rephotography, and the computer makes matteing much easier and faster and gives the effects technician greater control over the image. Digital effects technology also allows computer-generated imagery to be combined with live-action footage, and allow images to be controlled down to individual pixels. Light, shadow, and color can all be adjusted, and digital grading can replace color correction and matching that was previously done during the color timing (the matching of colors from shot to shot during postproduction) of prints in postproduction. Digital effects were experimented with during the 1980s and came into common use during the mid-1990s as techniques were developed and computer systems became powerful enough to make digital effects work affordable.

Some special effects (such as dinosaurs, space battles, monsters, and so forth) are obviously special effects no matter how well they are done, because the objects or events they portray clearly do not or no longer exist. Other effects, known as "invisible effects," are less noticeable because they portray objects and events (for example, background buildings, smoke, and building extensions) that do not call attention to themselves and that usually could have been done conventionally had the budget allowed it. Another type of invisible effects are effects in which something is erased or removed from the image. One example is wire removal, in which the wires used to fly an actor or object are digitally erased during postproduction.

Ethics

The alteration and faking of photographs has existed as long as photography itself. Whether or not the use of special effects is ethical depends on the intentions and truth claims of the work in which they appear. By altering, combining, or fabricating images, special effects work reduces or removes the correspondence, or indexical linkage, that an image may have to its real-world referent. Thus, while special effects may be acceptable in films that are fictional or are clearly re-creations of events, one would not expect to find them in news or documentary footage that claims to be a record of actual events. Even when they are used in an entirely fictional film, how special effects are used can still greatly determine how a film is received by an audience. For example, Jackie Chan's earlier films, in which he actually does all his own stunts, are more impressive than his later films in which some of his stunts are the result of wire work and special effects. Likewise, while the digital crowd scenes in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) are impressive, one is still aware that they are special effects, unlike the massive crowd scenes in older movies such as Gandhi (1982) and the Russian version of War and Peace (1966–1967), which were all done using actual crowds. At the same time, not only are special effects used to create spectacle, but their creation itself has become a spectacle, as witnessed by "making of" featurettes often found among the DVD extras. For many, knowing how an effect was made can enhance the viewing experience rather than spoil the effect.

Advances in special effects have made fantastic ideas possible and allowed filmmakers to give them concrete expression. The fact that many effects in the early twenty-first century are photo-realistic and seamlessly integrated into live-action footage also means that a discerning viewer will need a certain degree of sophistication. Combined with unlikely storylines, the use of special effects, which makes unlikely or impossible events appear possible and plausible, may help to erode the ability of younger or unsophisticated viewers to distinguish between what is plausible and what is not. Despite the fact that the films in which special effects appear are often clearly fictional, seeing photo-realistic representations of what look like actual events can make an impression on some viewers, particularly in a culture in which so much of what people see of the world is mediated through film and television imagery. At the same time, because of magazines, books, and DVD extras detailing special effects techniques and technology, contemporary viewers often are more aware of how special effects are done and how they are incorporated into a film.

MARK J. P. WOLF

SEE ALSO Computer Ethics;Entertainment;Movies;Video Games.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

McAlister, Michael J. (1993). The Language of Visual Effects. Los Angeles: Lone Eagle Publishing. A dictionary of special effects terminology.

Rickitt, Richard. (2000). Special Effects: The History and Technique. New York: Watson-Guptill. A good overview of the history and techniques of special effects.

Vaz, Mark Cotta, and Craig Barron. (2002). The Invisible Art: The Legends of Movie Matte Painting. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. A book on a specific effect, matte paintings, which are the background images used in wide shots and combined with live action.

Wolf, Mark J. P. (2000). "Indexicality." In Abstracting Reality: Art, Communication, and Cognition in the Digital Age. Lanham, MA: University Press of America. A look at how digital technology has changed art, communication, and how people view their world and environment.