Special Effects - Unlimited Imagination

Author: Ronald Newman

The special effects are a set of techniques used in show business or in the audiovisual field, celebrity, illusion, theater, opera, film, television, video released on the internet, rock concerts, etc.. These techniques are designed to create a visual illusion through which the viewer attends scenes that can not be obtained by normal means, such as space travel or a man transforming into a werewolf. Special effects can be used for the representation of objects or beings exist, such as a dragon, but most of them are sometimes used when obtaining the effect by normal means is too expensive or dangerous. For example, it may be safer and cheaper to shoot the explosion of a small scale model to shoot a real explosion on a human scale, with risk of death or injury to the cast and crew. Also in the film also makes use of special effects to enhance previously filmed with real elements by conventional means. This can be done through the inclusion or removal of elements in a plane or even by improving objects that were already present at the time of filming. They often use different techniques on the same level or scene to achieve the desired effect and special effects are often "invisible", meaning that the viewer does not realize that the image or sequence you are seeing is actually a special effect. An example of this are the sets of historical films in which architecture and surroundings are recreated via special effects.

Techniques and types of special effects

There are many special effects techniques, ranging from traditional effects in theaters, to classic film techniques invented in the early twentieth century such as stop motion animation (which is the most evolved form go motion) to the techniques modern computer animation known as "digital effects" which are characterized by being obtained by the use of computers.

The special effects are divided into several types:

Optical effects, also called visual or photographic effects, which consist of the manipulation of a photographed image.

Mechanical effects (also called practical or physical effects), performed live during the filming of the movie. These include animatronic puppets, scenery, fireworks, etc. Artificial rain.

Sound effects.

Special effects makeup.

The digital effects.

Optical effects (also called visual or photographic)

Optical effects, also called visual or photographic, are the oldest. Pioneers like Georges Mlis, Chomn Second, Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen were the founders of such effects. Examples of such effects are, for example:

The animation in volume, known throughout the anglicized stop motion. Famous films that used this technique are, for example, "King Kong" (1933, with special effects of Willis O'Brien) and "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963, with the effects of Ray Harryhausen). In late 1970 Phil Tippett invented for the movie "The Empire Strikes Back," an advanced technique of stop motion: the motion go.

The rear projection or transparency, a technique in which live actors are filmed simultaneously with a projection on a screen behind them. This technique was used to film such a scene from the movie "With the North by Northwest." In that scene look flat in which Cary Grant is pulled to the ground as a plane pounces to kill him. The actor was pulled to the ground behind a decorated while on a movie screen, he was projecting the plane of the plane approaching head on at full speed.

Zoptic. Backprojection allows an actor or an object can be projected in front of a plane against a screen that is just behind. However this does not allow the camera is filming the whole can move. In 1978, for the movie Superman, Zoran Perisic zoptic devised the technique, which consists of providing the projector zoom zoom paired with another, placed in turn on the camera that filmed the plane. Thus, when the camera is close to Superman as he assumed that it is in flight, projected behind the plane (which can be seen parading the landscape) grows at the same rate, creating the illusion that the camera is filming a man in his immediate environment and it is really flying.

The chrome inserts, a technique in which color is replaced by another flat plane, merging both into a single plane. The technique of shooting against a uniform background blue or green uniform has become very popular and is today well known by the public.

Rotoscoping, a technique in which a transparent table on two simultaneous planes are projected as an animator paint or draw an object on one of the two planes. This technique, invented by Max Fleischer and Dave Americans Fleischer in 1915, was used in 1977 to the brightness of the lightsabers in the movie "Star Wars".

Matte painting. At the matte painting is also called "technique of painting on glass." In this technique a decoration is painted on a glass plate, leaving free of paint (and therefore transparent) background area where the actors should be. When projecting the filming of the actors behind the glass plate camera can film the whole, giving the impression that actors are embedded in the painted scenery. The more realistic glass painting is best achieved the sense of reality.

Technical mock hanging in a model that stands between the camera and a real heart, often a setting, which allows three-dimensional background, an effect not achieved by the matte painting, this kind of action was very used between 30 and 60.

The filming of camera models in motion is a technique called motion control photography in English. In this type of film the camera is moving while the model is fixed and immobile. The first attempt to develop this technique was the American John Whitney. Douglas Trumbull's used for the film 2001: A Space Odyssey with very satisfactory results but who took it to its climax was John Dykstra, who perfected it in 1976 for the movie Star Wars (1977). Dykstra invented a camera that he called Dykstraflex and allowed synchronized the filming of the models of spacecraft with the memory of a computer, so that the simultaneity of the various components of a single plane (the starry background of space, stars and planets, other ships and vehicles, etc.) could be achieved with greater synchronization and realism.

Mechanical effects

Mechanical effects (also called practical or physical effects) are performed during the live filming of the movie. These include mechanical puppets, scenery and fireworks. Besides being those which create scenes such as rain, fire, destruction of walls and so on. The more elaborate mechanical effects are used in a technique called animatronics. In "Jurassic Park" (1993), for example, were used, along with real actors, animatronic dinosaurs designed by the team of Stan Winston.

Sound Effects

The sound effects are those obtained with prerecorded sounds, with or without mixing between them. For example, to the grunts and roars of the Wookiee Chewbacca, Ben Burtt used mixtures of sounds emitted by bears, dogs, walruses and sea lions. Also included in the sound effects are recorded in those who study to be added to the soundscape of the film, as two coconut shells rattled to simulate the hooves.

Makeup effects

Makeup is often made that need volume or produce accurate impressions, this is often not possible with chiaroscuro, the theatrical makeup base and social, therefore it is necessary to create different things, such as prostheses and / or masks mechanisms ( animatronics), this is applied to both a human being or to play other things, such as advertisements that you see "the perfect hamburger," that there is a special effect to highlight the virtues of product X, or replicas of parts of photorealistic body either by direct copy of the actor or model if not possible, for example, a newborn or an animal. The basic difference between the prosthesis and masks is that the former are divided into several parts and / or modify only a small area. Example: a nose, so these need more skill and time for implementation, the gain is to implicitly do not miss the gestures of the actor. It is often confused these effects with conventional makeup and / or special effects in general, but they are different techniques. Special makeup effects is SPMFX initials.

Digital Effects

Digital effects (also referred to as computer graphics or computer generated images) are all those digital images are created by computer but can be real images retouched by computer, composition or process of integrating them all together. In the 70's and began to be used in some shots, especially to represent computer screens, such as the targeting system on board the X-Wing fighters during the Battle of Yavin, in the movie "War of the galaxies "(1977). Later, the digital effects were used to create full-page, especially from the movie "Tron" (1982). Over time these effects have been refined and today there are different types:

Morphing, a technique involving the metamorphosis of a photographic element to another by selecting common points or origin and destination. The first morphing of the story is the transformation of the sorceress Fin Raziel into a series of animals (in the movie "Willow", 1988).

Computer Imaging, a technique increasingly used (especially for animating digital images) and which do not use any photographic element, the image is created entirely from the computer tool. The first films that were first used computer-generated images were entirely "Tron" (1982) and "Young Sherlock Holmes" (1985). This technique consists of several phases:

Design of the characters or elements to create (using traditional techniques of drawing as a sketch).

Model creation, 3D development volumes.

Building materials, ie the behavior of light from the object. Creating setup, internal structure that makes the animation.

Animation and finally the finishing details (sometimes referred to by the term rendering).

Motion capture, a technique that is scanned a number of points on a real object in motion. So recorded in the memory of the computer, these points are used to make them match the homologous points of an image generated by an artist later thanks to the computer. An example of the application of this technique is provided by the movie "The Two Towers" (2002) and "Return of the King" (2003), in which the actor Andy Serkis performed in front of green screen dressed in a suit on which identified the points needed for a digital artist later created the fictional character of Gollum.

Technology and Digital Effects

As for the technological elements important for the creation of digital effects we distinguish between two groups, hardware and software:

Hardware: In this highlight the scanner, the workstation and register. The scanner is essential in digital effects, since the digitizer images, this allows us to enter into the computer the information that was in the movie to your computer for further processing. Another important element is the hardware workstation. Computers are specialized in image processing. Part of this team are also peripherals such as the resolution film scanning needs a large storage capacity. There is also the register, which is the reverse operation of the scanner, converts scanned images into frames of a movie.

Software: This software highlight the 3D digital compositing software, chromakeyers (chrome), graphic palettes (photo editing software). It has animation packages that consist of one or more modules that can model, animate and give real look at an object. The most important software Wavefront, Softimage, Alias, etc. With composers can mix in digital images without loss of image. Another important software are the chroma (Chromakeyers), his technique trying to do an overlay of one image into another, we need a black and white image called mask (alpha channel) of the figure. Thus, we have three images: the background, the figure (RGB) and the mask corresponding to the figure (alpha). This mask will be white in the image of the figure we want to keep in the final image, the black and we want to keep the background. To achieve this, we roll the figure on a background of flat color, usually green or blue. The chroma masks allow us to generate the images shot on a flat color for use by digital compositing programs. With graphic pallets can retouch scanned images and are used to touch up funds, remove parts of images that do not interest us for the generation of textures and so on.

The modules of the 3D animation packages are:

Modeler: to work geometry.

Moderator: to give motion to objects.

Materials and Lighting: give the appearance and texture to objects.

Render: calculation of the images.

Special effects shows, performances, entertainment and celebrations

The use of smoke machines in the live music is an industry standard. Machines and vertical flame thrower. In the boom years were especially heavy in the present. In recent years it has begun to use these effects on performance of avant-garde theater groups, fire effects, bubbles, high and low smoke, foam, snow, etc.. And in the fields of advertising and events, a very popular special effect is of course, the showers of confetti and streamers, also widely used in sports events. This effect is also being used in all kinds of parties, the realization of this effect to inaugurate one of the world's major festivals, such as the San Fermin festival or used in European football competitions, has contributed to the popularization of this effect.

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