What were the special effects in cinema from the last century to the present day?

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Needless to say, almost no film is complete without special effects that make the viewer, sitting at home on soft sofas, believe in what is happening, while allowing almost all of us to become a part of an exciting plot with our favorite characters and movie heroes. And if with modern cinema everything is more or less clear, because the geniuses of innovative computer technologies are subject to everything.

Today, any picture is created with the help of special graphic programs and other modern wisdom, then for the majority it remains a mystery, but how were special effects created earlier that excite the imagination and consciousness of the viewer

1. The Man with the Rubber Head (1901)

The father of special effects, French illusionist and film pioneer Georges Méliès brought stage know-how and a sense of miracle to the new art of cinema, creating a cinema of the "impossible", filled with alchemists and ingenious inventions of Jules Verne, demons and wayward body parts that live their own lives. His art of effects was not limited to the so-called "stunt films", but thanks to his logic of dreams and technical ingenuity, he managed to create many bizarre surreal scenes, with an exciting and intriguing plot, from which goosebumps ran around the body. In the movie "The Man with the Rubber Head," Melies pulls out a spare head from the box and, oh gods, just think about it, inflates it like a balloon before handing the bellows to his clown counterpart.

2. Travel to the Moon (1902)

For decades, directors such as Georges Méliès have been looking for ways to create amazing cinematic effects that were worth creating with constant experimentation. "Voyage to the Moon" uses quite a few stunning devices created in the theater, but Méliès really amazed the audience with seemingly incredible transformations, which are facilitated by the simplest cinematic techniques: cut and paste. An astronaut's umbrella buried in the cave's ground instantly transforms into a giant mushroom (note: this movie is not scientifically accurate) by combining one image with another. Today this trick seems to be elementary, but for the viewers inexperienced at that time, it was real magic.

3. Haunted house (1908)

For early filmmakers, Haunted House was both a chamber symphony and an attempt to fill a couple of living rooms with handmade decorations. Spanish cinematographer and director Segundo de Chaumont, second only to Melies in his skill of early special effects, casts a long animation sequence of stopping motion and the illusion of rolling, thereby creating the desired effect of moving objects that make the viewer fearful.

4. Faust (1926)

In Faust, light and darkness fight for the human soul in an imaginary, ghostly world of miniatures, grotesque decorations, forced perspectives, puppets, double exposures, fireballs, clouds of smoke and mirrors. And it is not surprising that the images resemble engravings printed in soot, but their ability to transport the viewer to the other world created by Murnau has not disappeared. This is the real stage magic, driving people of that time crazy, making them believe that alchemy lives outside the screens.

5. Metropolis (1927)

Fritz Lang's dystopian masterpiece drew controversy from critics and audiences when it was first released in 1927. And even several decades later, it is still considered one of the most influential films in cinematic history, in no small part due to its innovative special effects. The mesmerizing Art Deco city was built from the ground up using hand-drawn backgrounds and 3D miniatures, and populated using the Schufftan process, a technique that tilts partially reflective mirrors in front of a camera to combine life-size actors and miniature models into a single scale frame. … Accordingly, for a film about a futuristic world ruled by a wealthy tyrant from his personal tower, Metropolis was far ahead of its time, surpassing all expectations.

6. Star Wars (1977)

You may have heard of a small FX company called Industrial Light & Magic, created by George Lucas in 1975 specifically for his upcoming sci-fi saga. ILM (led by John Dykstroy), painstakingly working on the project, built dozens of detailed miniatures that looked an order of magnitude more realistic than any predecessor. This is partly due to the fact that many of them were specially designed to look old, shabby, beaten, while creating the same futuristic picture familiar to many. Groundbreaking and innovative filmmaking helped transform Star Wars into a paradigm shift phenomenon, and the company quickly became a household name, capturing the hearts of audiences with compelling, storytelling films that still inspire delight and admiration in the minds of many.

7. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)

Many people remember the cult for those times animated film called "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" … And here it is worth paying tribute to the legendary Robert Zemeckis, who managed to combine live action with animated characters - a mind-bogglingly complex process that included camera-controlled movements, animatronic tricks and more than a year of painstaking post-production.

8. Terminator 2: Doomsday (1991)

The legendary blockbuster hit of the 90s "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" still makes an indelible impression on most viewers who enjoyed watching the continuation of the fantastic saga about a killer machine, but this time opposing the liquid metal ghost of the T-1000, capable of accepting any shape. Perhaps it was one of the most powerful and outstanding special effects in the field of CGI at the time, on which a whole team worked, led by the future Jurassic Park effects guru Stan Winston. But in addition to computer effects, a huge number of mannequins and "lookalike" dolls were used to create the most shocking and catchy episodes, which were later destroyed in the episode where Sarah Connor dreams of a nuclear explosion. Using a little trick and trick, the make-up and special effects team created a copy of Sarah, pasted over the face of a papier-mâché dummy doll, and then successfully flayed the "skin" with a special air cannon. And I must say, it turned out very impressive and realistic. But the actor Robert Patrick, who played the T-1000, had to walk the streets almost naked in front of the cameras (after which, on top of the human model, a group of computer geniuses overlaid the necessary image) just to shoot a cult episode where a liquid metal cyborg comes out of a blazing fire machine, the creation of which was spent not only several thousand man-hours of time-consuming computer graphics, but also an impressive amount, amounting to about ten million dollars today.

9. The Matrix (1999)

It is impossible not to mention the cult film "The Matrix", which later became a sensational trilogy that brought popularity to the Wachowski brothers, who made a lot of effort to create the most powerful and interesting special effects that combine not only elements of live parkour and performances with fights, but also computer graphics, as well as the most complex camera work and editing, which became the key aspects of this picture.

10. Gravity (2013)

"Gravity" is one of the few films that is a full-length demonstration of how far the filmmaker has come in his ability to portray the physics of outer space. Filming in 3D, director Alfonso Cuarón tells the gripping story of an astronaut trapped in orbit above the Earth, transforming the plot of the film into the ability to skillfully convey a believable sense of zero-gravity motion, so realistic that it is difficult to believe. And as the main character of Sandra Bullock leads a desperate struggle for survival, moving from one stunning obstacle to another, the camera does not stop rotating around her as if she was not tied to the gravity of the Earth.

11. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Before hitting theater screens, Mad Max: Fury Road was heavily color-adjusted and complemented by smoothly blended CGI landscapes, dust storms and flames - all of which, if you've ever seen a low-budget attempt to create a CGI fire, are themselves are extremely impressive. But what really makes Fury Road the absolute pinnacle of modern special effects production is its creative, death-defying practical stunt work, which Miller says accounts for 90 percent of the effects used in the film. Raw footage from production shows absolutely insane accidents, explosions and flips done on custom post-apocalyptic moving vehicles. They are a desperate stuntman, tied to the front of the speaker wall, playing a guitar equipped with a real flamethrower, and real people swinging dangerously back and forth on flexible poles as tons of raw metal sweep across the unforgiving desert below them.

12. Doctor Strange (2016)

Superhero movies have become the dominant form of Hollywood's mega-budget entertainment. But despite all that is regularly spent on their spectacle, the genre rarely offers particularly memorable or unusual effects. Set in a world of powerful sorcerers, the kaleidoscopic Doctor Strange is an exception: a blockbuster that truly makes a lasting impression with a luscious picture and dynamic storyline with breathtaking fights that turn into fantastic patterns against the backdrop of cityscapes, expertly executed by the best digital artists who spare no effort to create truly colorful special effects. And despite all this, many critics and experts argue that some of the most ambitious special effects in this film are not performed at the highest level, and this despite the fact that the age of computer technology is in the yard, but they could not cope with the task at hand. even the most powerful computers and graphics editors, which painted pictures of breathtaking battle scenes and journeys after taking LSD. It is possible that over time this film will become one of the simplest ones, but so far Doctor Strange is, in every sense of the word, the most magical of comic book extravaganzas and who knows how long it will take for humanity to create a mega-computer that solves the most complex problems in the digital world. art special effects.

Continuing the theme - which are waiting with bated breath all over the world.