Special effects can be practical or visual. Practical effects are actual objects or elements that filmmakers manipulate or that actors interact with in real time while filming. Many practical effects have been used since the beginning of motion pictures. They include props, models, puppets, makeup, prostheses (artificial features that temporarily change a face or body part), animatronics (lifelike robots), and pyrotechnics (fireworks or explosions).
Practical effects can enhance films in a variety of ways. Early horror films made use of prostheses to bring monsters to life. Puppets have been used to portray aliens and animals. Using stop-motion animation, a director can build a scene by making tiny adjustments to a puppet between shots. Once the film is sped up, the inanimate object looks like it is alive and moving.
King Kong (1933) is a perfect example of this type of filmmaking. The giant ape in the film actually was an 18-inch flexible model covered with fur. The film crew built a miniature jungle set and posed the model in it. The stop-motion process for shooting those scenes was very time consuming. But when the resulting film was projected at 24 frames per second, it gave the appearance of a 100-ton gorilla on the loose!
Set building is another practical effect. In 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), director Stanley Kubrick had a large centrifuge built. It created an authentic, movable set in which to capture travel in a space station.
Another type of practical effects is the use of scale models. Director George Lucas broke the mold for this process in Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). He had detailed models of spaceships built. With creative camera work and helpful sound effects, the small models look like massive ships speeding through the galaxy in the movie.
Another form of special effects is visual effects. These effects are not filmed during live-action shooting. Rather, they are digital or computer effects that are added in after filming. Visual effects include green screens, computer-generated imagery (CGI), motion-control cameras, and digital compositing. Visual effects often are used to create dramatic realistic scenes. They also bring spectacular imaginary worlds to life.
Star Wars: A New Hope was groundbreaking in the ways it combined practical effects with visual effects. In fact, in 1975, Lucas founded a visual effects company — Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) — to help him bring his vision for Star Wars to life. Earlier science-fiction movies showed slow-moving spacecraft that didn’t turn. Lucas’s film crew shot scenes of model spaceships against blue or green screens. They then combined those scenes with the visual effects of motion-control cameras and digital compositing. The result was dynamic and believable spaceship movements.
Although CGI was introduced in the 1980s, director Steven Spielberg was the first to use this visual effect on a large scale in Jurassic Park (1993). Originally, the plan was to film the dinosaur sequences with huge models and stop-motion photography. But ILM designers thought that they could make better prehistoric creatures with a computer — and they did.
Jurassic Park successfully combined animatronics with CGI-created models to make dinosaurs come to life. Since then, advancements in technology have meant that visual effects can easily be blended with live-action scenes. Or they can be used to create a completely fictional but authentic-looking world, as in Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022).
Today, CGI characters stand in for live actors. Toy Story (1995) was the first feature-length movie to be created completely by computer. Creepy Gollum from The Lord of the Rings movies (2001–2003) was a CGI character based on the movements of actor Andy Serkis and a technique called motion capture. Of course, great movies must have a solid story. But thanks to the magic of special effects, filmmakers today are limited only by their imaginations
Multiple Choice: Which quotation illustrates how CGI has developed since it was first introduced in the 1990s?A. "Although CGI was introduced in the 1980s, director Steven Spielberg was the first to use this visual effect on a large scale in Jurassic Park (1993)." (Paragraph 9)B. "But ILM designers thought that they could make better prehistoric creatures with a computer — and they did." (Paragraph 9)C. "they can be used to create a completely fictional but authentic-looking world, as in Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)." (Paragraph 9)D. "But thanks to the magic of special effects, filmmakers today are limited only by their imaginations." (Paragraph 11)
1 answer
The quotation that best illustrates how CGI has developed since it was first introduced in the 1990s is:
C. "they can be used to create a completely fictional but authentic-looking world, as in Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)." (Paragraph 9)
This choice highlights the advanced capabilities of CGI in creating entire fictional worlds, showcasing the progress made since the early days of CGI.
