A cinematic journey through visual effects Don Levy
the filmmaker George Milius was first a
magician
now movies proved to be the ultimate
medium for magic with complete control
of everything the audience can see movie
makers had developed an arsenal of
techniques to further their deceptions
motion pictures are themselves in the
illusion of life produced by the
sequential projection of still friends
and they astonished the Lumiere brothers
early audiences even today’s
sophisticated moviegoers still lose
themselves to the screen and filmmakers
leverage this separation from reality to
great effect now imagine if people have
been having fun with this for over 400
years
Giambattista della Porta I’m Neapolitan
scholar in the 16th century examined and
studied the natural world and saw how it
could be manipulated playing with the
world and our perception of it really is
the essence of visual effects so digging
deeper into this with the Science and
Technology Council of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences reveals
some truth behind the trickery visual
effects are based on the principles of
all illusions assumption things are as
we know them
presumption things will behave as we
expect and context in reality our
knowledge of the world as we know it
such as scale now a fourth factor really
becomes an obsession which is never
betray the illusion and that last point
has made visual effects a constant quest
for perfection so from the hand-cranked
jump cut
early days of cinema to last Sunday’s
Oscar winner what follows are some steps
and a few repeats in the evolution of
visual effects I hope you enjoy the
filmmaker George yes it was one of the
first to realize that films had the
power to capture dreams
are you feeling Jake hey guys welcome to
your new buddy Jake well if you want to
sit up that’s fine
good just take a nice no Jake okay we
know truncal ataxia that’s good what’s
happening to me
it’s all over don’t worry about a thing
it seems to me that the worst is over
thank you
you