How Special Effects Artists Use STEAM to Create Imaginative Visions
Special effects in film refer to a variety of different tools, tactics, and ideas. From real-life explosions that singe the eyebrows to digital dragons who swoop in and save the hero at the last second, it’s hard to imagine most movies without them.
Technology has dramatically changed the movie-going experience and how we create films. The movie industry will continue to change as new special effects technology is developed. Here’s how special effects artists tap into their STEAM (science, tech, engineering, art, and math) skills to create impressive movies that keep audiences coming back.
Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) Brings Characters to Life
One of the most common forms of special effects is computer-generated imagery. From a character losing a leg in a horror flick to actors walking around a fictional world, CGI is almost impossible to escape at the cinema. You might not realize it, but there’s a stark difference between CGI and animation, the team at Geek Extreme explains. The term animation historically meant “a sequence of hand-drawn cells that were played in order.” The 1928 short film Steamboat Willie, which is often considered the debut of Mickey Mouse, was a hand-drawn animated film. CGI, on the other hand, was initially meant to describe adding digital elements to films. Today, most people refer to it as a movie rendered in computer animation software, often making it predominantly digital. But it wasn’t always that way. YellowDog, a platform that speeds up cloud rendering for 3D and VFX (shorthand for visual effects), recently created a guide on the history of CGI and how it has evolved. The first instances of CGI started in MIT labs in the 1960s, and kept evolving through the 1970s and 1980s until the technology was ready for blockbuster hits.Toy Story Created Countless Rendering Headaches
One of the most notable animated films on the list, and in recent memory is Toy Story. YellowDog reports that the production team thought they could make the movie with eight animators, and ended up with 33. The special effects artists also thought it would take 20 months to render the movie, when it actually took 300. The average frame took seven hours to complete and the final film had 114,000 frames. Most editors and producers are grateful that technology has evolved beyond those steps today. This isn’t to say that is has been an easy road for CGI. Fans often love to make fun of bad special effects just as much as they appreciate good creations. Jonathan Figueroa at Screen Rant lists 15 movies in recent memory ruined by bad CGI. You don’t have to be a film expert to appreciate these tragic attempts to use technology to fill in the gaps of physical special effects.Good CGI Can’t Make Up for a Bad Plot
At the end of the day, however, it doesn’t matter how good the CGI and special effects are if the plot is full of holes or the acting is terrible. All elements have to work together to create a great end product. “We know how good CGI is when it's done well, but at the core always needs to be a good storyline,” Bloggers Academy’s Patric Morgan writes. “Just as bad writing distracts the reader from the story, over-the-top or unrealistic CGI guarantees walkouts at the cinema.” Audiences were impressed by Toy Story’s special effects, but they were also moved by the tale, which is why it’s still a favorite movie of both adults and children.Motion Capture Technology Has Also Evolved
Along with CGI, movie directors are more often turning to motion-capture technology to bring their stories to life. The company Xsens brands itself as a leader in 3D motion tracking technology and explains exactly what these tools are and how they are used: “Motion capture is a way to digitally record human movements,” they write. “The recorded motion capture data is mapped on a digital model in 3D software so the digital character moves like the actor you recorded.” Essentially, an actor moves around, reacts to stimuli, and makes facial expressions, all of which are recreated by a digital model.You Can See Motion Capture Technology in Today’s Box Office
Thanos, the villain of Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War, is a digital creation built with the help of actor Josh Brolin and a team of special effects artists. In an article for Digital Trends, Rick Marshall interviewed their team to discuss how technology affected the production aspects of the film and even Brolin’s acting. Visual effects supervisor Kelly Port said they used a combination of performance-capture technology and digital animation to create the villain. When Brolin saw how responsive the technology was to his movements, and understood he didn’t have to exaggerate for the results to show up on screen, he started making the character subtler. The end product is one of the most outstanding villains — digital or otherwise — on the big screen today. While Thanos is an impressive motion-capture creation, he’s hardly the first. Jordan Adcock at Den of Geek gives some of the highlights of this technology, including the first velociraptors in Jurassic Park from 1993, Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace, and even Gollum in Lord of the Rings. Gollum was originally supposed to just be a voice over, but when director Peter Jackson noticed how actor Andy Serkis tied his movements and facial expressions so closely to the character, he ended up putting the actor in a suit to capture and recreate them later.Many Believe Motion-Capture Actors Deserve Credit for Their Work
While these performances are impressive, many argue that the actors are not given their fair due. For decades, motion-capture stars have been passed over because they are not viewed as actors in the performance. Their characters change so much by the time they reach the screen, so the Academy Awards and other nominating committees treat actors like Serkis as part of the special effects team. More people than ever are speaking up, arguing that motion-capture actors need serious acting chops and skill to play their roles. “Is there really a difference between motion capture and extensive make-up and costuming?” Amy Chambers, Ph.D., asks in defense of Serkis. “Surely the Oscars can find a way of truly recognising the VFX teams while also celebrating the unique contribution of the actors.” Similarly, Josh Brolin as Thanos changed his acting style because of the technology. Had he not, the character might not be as believable and the movie not as great as fans and critics say it is, which is a testament to acting skill.Machine Learning in Special Effects is On the Rise
While technology related to CGI and motion-capture tools is certainly impressive on its own, developers are also tapping into machine learning and deep learning tools to improve editing processes and make movies look even better. For example, the team at Foundry has two projects that make VFX easier with the help of deep learning:- The company trained a robot to identify various images and clean them up using technology similar to that used in editing since the 1980s. Instead of a human completing the task, however, a robot handled it.
- To solve existing problems in VFX, deep learning tools (which can identify how lighting would look in various situations) reviewed thousands of images from different light examples and tried to recreate them in video editing.