Special Effects Through the Ages

2001: A space odyssey, set the highest standard of special effects ever seen at the time, so I am interested to find out about some of the other breakthroughs and how they work.

Rotoscoping while labour-intensive, was a very effective animation technique that produced very realistic results. The technique involved tracing over every frame of the film and was used in the first Star Wars films to give colour to their lightsabres by drawing over wooden swords.

Double exposure is another technique of combining two images. This was achieved by filming the same scene twice with items covered in black velvet in one shot and removed in the other. This was an early form of a green screen.

Another clever special effect technique was the sodium vapour process. Actors performed scenes in front of a sodium vapour-lit white screen. Post-production was then able to separate the actor from the background, which produced an image of the actor and their silhouette, this made it much easier for the animators to make their drawings fit with the actors' movements.

3D animation was an industry changing technology allowed by the rise of computers. A ‘skeleton’ 3D model is created and different visuals can be laid over the top producing many different appearances. It allowed animators to take control of every single small movement in the scene producing much more realistic and polished visuals than had been possible before.

Chroma key is what we would know as a green screen. This is a well-known technique in which an actor performs in front of a green backdrop that can easily be edited in post-production to show them jumping over rooftops or flying through the sky.

Motion capture is the most recent addition to special effect technology on this list. Actors wear suits covered in reflective markers which are tracked by multiple cameras to capture their movements. Animators can then create whatever aesthetic they like over the basic shapes that the motion capture has produced. Motion capture is constantly improving, with the technology being so good that it can even capture facial expressions from the actors.

The leaps in special effects technology have been huge and are constantly developing and improving, producing ever more mind-blowing incredible films.