History of Special Effects

 
The earliest invention of special effect was the spotlight which was created in the 1600s. Candles were used to light the
stage. Candles offered very little control of the stage lighting. In 1816, Thomas Drummond applied an oxyhydrogen flame to
a block of lime to create a bright light that he then directed with mirrors. This light reflected on to the stage. This new
spotlight was used to follow performers and create special effects, such as sunshine and moonlight. Thus the phrase "in the
limelight" was born.





The 1895 film Execution Of Mary Stuart, The Queen of Scotland is thought to be the first film that incorporated special
effects. In this movie, freeze frame was used to create the appearance that Queen Mary's head was chopped off. In reality,
shooting was stopped, Mary was removed, and a dummy was put in her place. When the separate takes were run together, it
looked as though Mary's head had really been chopped off.





In 1895, the first paid motion picture show was staged. Thirty-two years later, sound entered the picture, and as we headed
through the mid-point of the 20th century, color and added special effects found their way onto movie screens.With a
background in mechanical engineering and building equipment, Robert W. Paul was commissioned to copy Thomas Edison's
Kinetoscope. Although he originally refused, he was convinced to undertake the project because Edison had failed to obtain
an international patent.





This gave Paul a legal market for his work. In 1896, he had devised and built a film projector, which he sold in large 
numbers due to the Lumieres' restricted sales. In 1897 he built Europe's first film studio, complete with trap doors, a
hanging bridge and dolly track on which to move his cameras. In 1905, he shot the short film The Motorist, which pioneered
several special effects techniques. The film was about a couple that drove so fast that they escaped the Earth's gravity 
and traveled through the solar system before returning home.





Now that we have advanced technology and major corporations, we can use computers as a tool that short cuts our way to
creating special effects in movies, commercials, and web site. Computers helped revolutionized the world of Special Effects 
in movies. Now with computers we are able to create sceneries we would never think possible. With the technical
assistance of computers we can create people, buildings, animals, monsters, aliens, and many other creations without paying
for immense production costs. Inanimate creations in the computers can become animated with a touch of a button.





In the earlier times,past films that were revolutionary in the special effects movement were Superman, King Kong,
Godzilla,etc. People were convinced that Superman could fly through the sky with clever manipulation of the video camera.
But what was new and modern at the time has become passé and cheesy. King Kong busting up the Manhattan building is no
longer convincing compared to the advancements we have made today with recent movies such as Final Fantasy, Titanic and
Armegedon.
 
 
The 1933 movie King Kong was one of the earliest experiments with special effects. King Kong himself was an animated model,
brought to life on screen with the use of stop-motion filming. It is a very labor-intensive method: models have to be moved
a fraction of an inch, their facial expressions changed, and then shot, with 24 different shots being taken for just one 
second of film. King Kong's costar’s actress was Fay Wray. The filmwriters needed to create the illusion that King Kong, an 
inanimate object was chasing after Fay Wray. A technique used to create this illusion was called "optical printing."  The 
producers filmed Kong and Fay Wray separately. They then projected the two films together and used another camera to record 
the information on a third reel of film. As a result, with this method it looks as though Fay Wray is being chased after 
King Kong.The separate elements — animation, scenery, and human characters — were merged to appear as though they all 
existed together during filming. The scene appears real. This blending of shots is now known as compositing. This method of special effects is still used till this day, but done in different methods. Thanks to Linwood G. Dunn, the creator of the 
manufactured optical printer.
 
 
The old technique of optical printing has been replaced with digital compositing. One important tool in digital compositing
is the "blue screen." Movie stars perform a scene in a studio, in front of a blue screen. Later, computer programs are used 
to replace the blue background with a real background, such as an ocean scene. So, even though the actor was filmed in a studio, it will look like he was filmed out at sea. The blue screen was used several times in the movie Forrest Gump. In
one of the most memorable scenes, actor Tom Hanks appears to shake hands with President John F. Kennedy — who in reality 
passed away over 35 years before the movie was made. The movie producers filmed Hanks in front of a blue screen, pretending 
he was interacting with the President. They then used computer technology to isolate Hanks and insert him into an old film 
clip featuring President Kennedy.
 
 
The Nickelodeon movie Clockstoppers uses the technique known as "time-slicing." It was importantfor the Clockstoppers plot
that objects appear to be frozen in time. In the movie, the camera seems to rotate around objects, giving you a three-
dimensional view of them as they stand still. In fact,a ring of cameras is positioned around the object, and the cameras 
all take a still image at the same time. When the images are played together, it looks as though there is one camera moving 
around the object, caught in one moment of time.