Visual Effects

This research work focuses on the renewal of the artist’s practice of visual effects simulations in industry. The context of practice in industry now involves increasingly rationalized and rigid production models posing several challenges and discomforts for artists. Over the years, the problem experienced in the practitioner’s work experience refers to an aesthetic fatigue with regard to the tasks to be performed, that is to say to a lack of interest, disenchantment, a loss of pleasure in the act of creation, contrary to the strong passion that animated the beginning of his career. The practice in industry does not provide sufficiently interesting opportunities for the artist to pursue his development and quest for meaning; There is not much room for exploration, discovery, surprise, but on the contrary, its conduct becomes regulated and subject to the adjustments and procedures imposed by the choice of studios for the use of digital technologies. Thus, arising from the work structures where our professional practice is carried out, this malaise would be ideally surmountable by revisiting the traditional techniques of creating visual effects. The creative project will go in this direction ultimately aiming to allow us to regain the pleasure of creating visual effects. This project will consist of custom special effects experiments based on traditional techniques of fluid mechanics. Using the theoretical framework of Schön’s Reflective practice (1994), The goal of this research is to bring new meaning to visual effects artist practice. The project of creation thus takes the form of inquiry process and reflexive and interpretative analyzes, to lead to new senses. The analysis of the results reveals that particular satisfying conditions become necessary to find and regain the pleasure of creating. First of all, the first condition is that the practitioner must be able to make discoveries, that is to say that he must be able to observe and evaluate an emergent and unexpected content in his creation. Traditional techniques have allowed such fortuitous discoveries. While they present limitations in terms of capacity, traditional techniques require a great deal of creativity and adaptation in the artist. Paradoxically, the components then imagined demonstrate a great diversity, originality and efficiency. In contrast, the techniques underlying digital media (e.g., application software), in the context of production pipeline, are becoming instruments for standardizing the way things are done. The second condition, which has been clarified with information from the creative activity, implies that the artist can benefit from a space for his personal expression in the production of a work. The research work concludes on the relevance of offering these necessary conditions in artistic practice in industry. It raises certain issues concerning the development and flourishing of practitioners, by launching the invitation to develop reflexivity in practice. The contribution of this research is, first of all, personal to the researcher practitioner, who has been able to bring a new meaning to his practice, leading to the renewal of his practice. Then, this work serves to enrich the knowledge about new artistic practices, especially those in the creative industries.

The results of the experiments can be viewed at the following addresses:
https://vimeo.com/patrickparenteau/fluidespatial (this editing contains experiments 1 and 2)
https://vimeo.com/patrickparenteau/hadesfluide
https://vimeo.com/patrickparenteau/kirbycrackle
https://vimeo.com/patrickparenteau/europa

Do you aspire to become an expert at Visual Effects? Do you want to take on lucrative career opportunities in Visual Effects? If you have got the dream to take on a perfect route to success in your career through Visual Effects training in Hyderabad, then it is time that you rely on Sahasra. We, Sahasra, are the top rated, the best visual effects training institute in Hyderabad, provides tailored, short-term and long-term training courses in visual effects. Visual Effects (VFX) industry is growing at an exponential rate. There are plenty of opportunities for all those who take on a route to learning VFX. Selecting a right course in it is very crucial. Before selecting the course, it is quintessential that you shall take into account the following factors. Sieving out the best among the best It is always very essential to look for one of the best institutions which train candidates in VFX. Selecting one of the best VFX institutes in Hyderabad makes a lot of difference. Nine times out of ten, learners fail to achieve what they really want to just because of their bad selection. If you can zero in on the best, then you are going to the best learning experience. How will you select the right VFX training institute in Hyderabad? Selecting the right visual effects training institutes in Hyderabad can be easy. Before taking the admission make sure that you focus on what experience the institute holds, how the faculty is, what facilities the VFX institute provides and what benefits you can get in terms of placement assistance. Sahasra, the best visual effects training institute in Hyderabad, is a pioneer in providing customized courses in VFX for the learners across Hyderabad. We have got the most experienced faculty for we know how important experience in VFX teaching or training is. All our trainers are certified and qualified industry experts with years of experience in real-time VFX training and work.

Altered states of consciousness (ASC) can be represented in video games through appropriate use of sound and computer graphics. Our research seeks to establish systematic methods for simulating ASC using computer sound and graphics, to improve the realism of ASC representations in video game engines. Quake Delirium is a prototype ‘ASC Simulation’ that we have created by modifying the video game Quake. Through automation of various graphical parameters that represent the conscious state of the game character, hallucinatory ASC are represented. While the initial version of Quake Delirium utilised a pre-determined automation path to produce these changes, we propose that immersion may be improved by providing the user with a ‘passive’ method of control, using a brain-computer interface (BCI). In this initial trial, we explore the use of a consumer-grade electroencephalograph (EEG) headset for this purpose. Keywords—Altered States of Consciousness; Video Games; Brain-Computer Interface ...

Classical film theory topics, such as the divide between live action and animation, the definition of cinematic performance, and the configuration and impact of the star system continue to shape – while also being reshaped by – discourse on animation labor in the digital age. Focusing on motion capture in contemporary Hollywood, the first part of this article historicizes and examines the diminishment of the animators’ contribution to this filmmaking process in promotional materials and public discussions, and the accompanying overemphasis on the star persona’s performance. In doing so, it aims to contextualize and shed light on the practices and imperatives that determine current labor policies and power dynamics in the industry. The second part introduces questions
of gender relations and gender-based hierarchies of representation into the discussion of motion and performance capture’s labor climate. In order to highlight and reflect on the ambivalence of the motion capture industry’s labor politics, it offers a feminist reading of a distinct, yet related form of disenfranchisement in motion-capture filmmaking, namely digital voyeurism and the objectification of the female performer in films such as Beowulf (Robert Zemeckis, 2007) and
Avatar (James Cameron, 2009), and video games such as Beyond: Two Souls (Quantic Dream, 2013). Finally, by highlighting such interrelated policies of marginalization and erasure of labor, the author aims to emphasize the inadequacy of describing motion capture as a collaborative process
and to call for a reconceptualization of the critical approaches towards its study.

The first Blade Runner released in 1982 which is directed by Ridley Schott and thirty-five years the second Blade Runner film has been released in 2017 which is directed by Denis Villeneuve. In this extended periods of time the wold film industry has been evaluated in a significant amount by the science and technology. The most significant change is the transformation the analog technology into computer-generated digital technology. Which allows the filmmakers to achieve any visual story they want to tell their audiences. Beside cinematography, projection, editing or production design technology, Visual effects artists became very necessary and essential part of filmmaking. The evolution of visual effects artists in the film industry can be shown by analyzing the visual effects technologies of two Blade Runner films. Though it is science fiction the basic concept of the making this film was to showdown how the capitalistic system would end and the passage from human to post-human capitalism? For visual effect, the tendency was to create the futuristic environment. How the environment will collapse after all these capitalistic development. One building will build more massive than another and the competition will force them to make gigantic monuments. In overall to give a message to human civilization that the future will be like this if we do not change our system. So the aesthetics of creating visual effects may be a help to understand why these two films are created like this and how vital this visual effects for making this high graphical films.

""The camera supposedly never lies, yet film's ability to frame, cut and reconstruct all that passed before its lens made cinema the pre-eminent medium of visual illusion and revelation from the early twentieth century onwards. This volume examines film's creative history of special effects and trickery, encompassing everything from George Méliès’ first trick films to the modern CGI era. Evaluating movements towards the use of computer-generated 'synthespians' in films such as Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within (2001), this title suggests that cinematic effects should be understood not as attempts to perfectly mimic real life, but as constructions of substitute realities, situating them in the cultural lineage of the stage performers and illusionists and of the nineteenth century. With analyses of films such as Destination Moon (1950), Spider-Man (2002) and the King Kong films (1933 and 2006), this new volume provides an insight into cinema's capacity to perform illusions." Shortlisted for the And/Or Book Awards, 2009. Reviewed by Deborah Allison at Bright Lights Film Journal: "As the standard model of high-budget filmmaking moves ever closer to twenty-four lies per second, North’s articulate musings on our relationships with cinema and technology are both puissant and timely. His impeccably researched potted history of the most canonical titles of American special-effects cinema is in itself a job well done. Yet the author also has things of importance to say about contemporary culture beyond the bounds of the cinema frame, and it is this that elevates Performing Illusions from a simple history to a challenging and engaging inquiry. Developments in editing, double exposure, and the animation of plasticine may indeed hold their fascinations, yet these somehow fade into the background when one is invited to reflect on the extent to which synthespians embody “our own fear of replication and obsolescence, our replacement by digital constructs capable of outstripping our every ability and nuance.” Here indeed is some real food for thought." (http://brightlightsfilm.com/66/66booksillusions.php) Reviewed by D. Harlan Wilson in Extrapolation: "Performing Illusions is among the finest and most inventive books on film I have read this century [...] Canny analyses and insights regarding the technocapitalist aspects of special effects render unique, often metanarrational readings of cinematic flesh and desire and the relationship between spectacle and spectator." Reviewed in Empire (****): http://drnorth.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/performing_illusions_empire_review1.jpg Reviewed in Total Film (****): http://drnorth.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/performing_illusion_total_film_review1.jpg"

Spectacular Posthumanism examines the ways in which VFX imagery fantasizes about digital disembodiment while simultaneously reasserting the importance of the lived body. Analyzing a wide range of case studies-including the films of David Cronenberg and Stanley Kubrick, image technologies such as performance capture and crowd simulation, Game of Thrones, Terminator: Genisys, Planet Earth, and 300-Ayers builds on Miriam Hansen's concept of “vernacular modernism” to argue that the “vernacular posthumanism” of these media objects has a phenomenological impact on viewers. As classical Hollywood cinema initiated viewers into the experience of modernism, so too does the VFX image initiate viewers into digital, posthuman modes of thinking and being. Ayers's innovative close-reading of popular, mass-market media objects reveals the complex ways that these popular media struggle to make sense of humanity's place within the contemporary world. Spectacular Posthumanism argues that special and visual effects images produce a digital, posthuman vernacular, one which generates competing fantasies about the utopian and dystopian potential of a nonhuman future. As humanity grapples with such heady issues as catastrophic climate change, threats of anonymous cyber warfare, an increasing reliance on autonomous computing systems, genetic manipulation of both humans and nonhumans, and the promise of technologically enhanced bodies, the anxieties related to these issues register in popular culture. Through the process of compositing humans and nonhumans into a seemingly seamless whole, digital images visualize a utopian fantasy in which flesh and information might easily coexist and cohabitate with each other. These images, however, also exhibit the dystopic anxieties that develop around this fantasy. Relevant to our contemporary moment, Spectacular Posthumanism both diagnoses and offers a critique of this fantasy, arguing that this posthuman imagination overlooks the importance of embodiment and lived experience. Publisher Website: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/spectacular-posthumanism-9781501340086/ Preview: https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/5ca77cd25f15030001900ebb

Most of us take Visual Effects (or VFX) in film for granted. We simply; a) criticise the quality of it or b) don't recognise it's there at all! I fall into the first category so this report will address the complexity, history and technique behind VFX and post- production, as well as give you the reader a look at industry standard practices. By the end of this report you will have a concise in-depth insight into the creative art of VFX production that will equip you with the knowledge you need to understand and appreciate fundamental themes of this vast subject field. It is beyond the scope of this report to investigate every visual effect practice used in industry so I have distilled this text into the core concepts that the complete novice should ʻknowʼ when considering production of a visual effects scene.

Gerçek mekânlarda çekim yapmanın kısıtlamalarından ve zorluklarından dolayı, film yapımcıları pek çok projede dış çekimleri stüdyo içerisinde kontrollü bir ortamda yapmayı tercih etmektedir. Bu gibi durumlarda, stüdyo çekimlerinde dış çekim izlenimi verecek yapay bir arka plan yaratmak gerekmektedir. Var olmayan, düşleme dayalı mekânların yaratılmasında da yapay arka planların kullanımı sıklıkla ihtiyaç duyulan bir yöntemdir ve sinemanın ilk yıllarından beri kullanılmaktadır. 1902 yılında George Melies tarafından yapılan Aya Seyahat filminde dekorla uyum sağlayacak şekilde derinlikli çizilen ve yaratılan fantastik dünyayı betimleyen pek çok yapay arka plan kullanılmıştır. 1903 yılında Edwin S. Porter tarafından yapılan Büyük Tren Soygunu filminin istasyon sahnesi stüdyo içerisinde çekilmiş ancak istasyon penceresinden görünen manzara dışarıda çekilerek birleştirilmiştir. Günümüzde yüksek bütçeli filmlerin büyük bir bölümünde bilgisayar ortamında çizilmiş yapay arka planlar kullanılmakta ve gerçek görüntülerle sanal görüntüler yeşil ya da mavi perde uygulaması ile birleştirilmektedir. Ancak son yıllarda gerçek zamanlı üç boyutlu görsellerin kalitesi, bilgisayarların ve dijital oyun motorlarının gelişimiyle beraber, geleneksel yöntemlerle çizilmiş üç boyutlu görsellerin kalitesine yetişmiştir. Bu gelişim sanal arka planların yapım sonrası yerine, daha yapım aşamasında filme eklenmesine olanak sağlamıştır. Geleneksel yöntemlerde arka planın ön plan ile uyumu büyük oranda ön plandaki aydınlatma tasarımına bağlıdır ve böyle bir aydınlatma tasarımı gerçekleştirmek genellikle çok zaman ve iş gücü gerektirmektedir. Lazer yansıtma ve LED teknolojisindeki gelişmeler etkileşimli arka planların aynı zamanda daha gerçekçi bir aydınlatma tasarımına katkı sağlamasını mümkün kılmıştır. Bu araştırmada etkileşimli sanal arka planların hangi yöntemlerle oluşturulduğu ve geleneksel görsel etki iş akışı sürecine göre olumlu ve olumsuz yönleri, örnek iş akışlarıyla ilgili film, haber ve teknik belgelerin incelenmesi yöntemiyle araştırılmıştır. Şimdiye kadar gerçek zamanlı sanal arka planlarla yapılan az sayıda film, dizi ve reklam çalışması olmasına rağmen, bu yeni teknik sinemanın yapım süreçlerinde büyük bir değişim yaratma potansiyeline sahiptir.

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Darstellung von physikalisch korrektem Nebel mit Partikelsystemen in 3D-Echtzeit-Umgebungen, wie sie bei 3D-Spielen verwendet werden. Aktuelle Systeme, wie beispielsweise NVIDIA PhysX, arbeiten oft wenig physikalisch korrekt oder weisen eine geringe Laufzeitperformance auf. Als Lösungsansatz wird hier ein gridbasierter 2D Fluidssolver vorgeschlagen. Dieses System wird anhand von Z-Buffern und Parallax Occlusion Mapping in der 3D Umgebung implementiert. Ergebnis dieser Arbeit ist eine, in Echtzeit berechenbare Nebelsimulation, die als Unity3D Asset implementiert wird und physikalisch korrekt arbeitet. Alle wichtigen Parameter können vom Benutzer frei bestimmt werden. Dieses Asset soll für Spieleentwickler verfügbar und benutzbar sein. Abschließend wird eine Benutzerstudie zur Usability Performanz und physikalischen Korrektheit des Systems durchgeführt.

This thesis deals with the simulation of physically correct fog with particle systems in 3D Environments, as they are used in 3D-Games. Current solutions like NVIDIA’s PhysX are either not physical correct or they have a poor runtime performance. In this thesis a two dimensional fluid solver is proposed. This system will then be implemented in a 3D-Environment with the help of Z-Buffers and Parallax Occlusion Mapping. The result of this work is a physical correct simulation of fog that is computable in real-time and is implemented as a Unity3D asset. All necessary parameters can be chosen by the user. Furthermore this asset shall be available for game developers. Subsequently a user-study for the usability performance and the physical correctness is carried out.

In contemporary cinema, the body, like the digital image, has become a composite, a layered construction able to be altered and manipulated. Just as the digital image is malleable and moldable, so too is the body. Both the image and the bodies within the image are subject to the logic of the digital information age, which requires that all things be reduced to the common equivalent of code, equally exchangeable and transferable with each other. Within this context, bodies become simply another expression of code, something that can be layered and composited within the digital image. Throughout the history of action cinema, the body of the performer has been vital to authenticating the truth of the performance. From the stunts of Buster Keaton to the action-comedy of Jackie Chan, the body-in-motion verified the authenticity of the screen action. This trend continues in the hardbody action cinema of the 1980s, which casts beefy actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, figures whose muscular physiques index both the truth of their embodiment and the labor required to craft such a body. In a dominant strain of contemporary VFX-driven action cinema, however, the body of the performer, while inheriting the gym-obsessed appearance of its 1980s forebears, doesn’t possess their same truth-value. These are bodies situated within and supplemented by digital effects. The phenomenological authenticity of these composite, informational bodies is called into question through their location within a completely malleable screen image. If the 1980s action body was informed by an industrial cultural logic, and the 1990s action body was informed by a postmodern cultural logic, then the action body of the early 21st century is informed by an informational cultural logic. The central claim of this chapter is that digital technologies like performance capture, body scans, and other VFX have both challenged and reworked the relationship between embodiment and authenticity in action cinema. If the hardbody action films of the 1980s were marked by an excessive attention to the body, the VFX-driven action films of today are marked by the seamless integration of the body into virtual spaces. The “truth” of the contemporary action body lies not only in its muscular appearance, but also in its ability to merge into the digital image, one component among many in the final composite. This informational action body creates an anxiety regarding the phenomenological truth of the image. We find this anxiety, for example, in the rhetoric surrounding a film like 300. Commentary in the popular press questioned whether or not the bodies were “real” or the product of “CGI magic.” This kind of commentary is notably absent in the coverage of the Schwarzenegger or Stallone movies of the 1980s. This anxiety also surrounds motion capture performances. Andy Serkis, for example, performs much rhetorical effort to authenticate the presence of his body in the animated image, and he does so by tying his performance to discourses of authentic method acting. VFX are also being used to “de-age” and reanimate action stars, such as Schwarzenegger in the most recent Terminator films and Paul Walker in Furious 7. Here, the physical bodies—or at least parts of them—are placed in direct dialog with their digital recreations, creating a circuit of exchange between actual and virtual embodiment, which fundamentally transforms the historical authenticity of hardbody action stars.

ÖZET Teknoloji ile birlikte değişen ve gelişen 'dijitalleşen yeni dünya düzeni' tüm sanatları etkisi altına almıştır. Yedinci sanat olarak adlandırılan sinema da teknolojiye olan bağlılığından ötürü bu değişimlerden kısa sürede etkilenmiştir. 1927 yılında ilk sesli filmin ve 1930'lu yıllarda ilk renkli film denemelerinin yapılmasıyla başlayan teknolojik devrimler, 1980'li yıllarda kamera ve bilgisayar teknolojik altyapılarının gelişimiyle hız kazanmıştır. Aynı yıllarda yönetmen George Lucas dijital sinemanın gelecekte dünya sinemasında çok daha etkili olabileceğini öngörerek, film yapımında kurgu ve ses sistemlerinin dijitalleşmesinin önemine dikkat çekmiştir. Ardından gelen dijital video devriminin yönetmenlere hafifliği ve ucuzluğu sebebiyle yeni anlatım formları kazandırması, dijital sinemanın bir çerçevesinin çizilmesini de zorunlu kılmıştır. Bu sebeple 2002 yılında Hollywood yapım şirketleri dijital sinemanın tanımını yapmak, tekdüze şartlar belirlemek ve teknik performansın güvenilirliğini arttırmak gibi amaçlarla bir araya gelmişlerdir. Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) / Dijital Sinema Girişimcileri platformunun tanımıyla dijital sinema, dijital kameralar ya da bilgisayarla görüntülerin elde edildiği yapım aşamasının olduğu, dağıtım aşamasının bir paket dahilinde dijital dosya ile sağlandığı ve filmlerin gösteriminin dijital projeksiyonlarla gerçekleştiği çeşitli aşamalardan oluşmaktadır. Pelikül dönemde yapım aşaması ön planda iken, dijital sinemada yapım sonrasında gerçekleştirilen işlemler filmlerin temel nosyonlarını oluşturmaktadır. Bunların arasında en önemlisi ise filmlerin görsel efektlerin gücünü kullanarak üretilmeleridir. Sinemanın ilk yıllarında görsel efektler film şeritlerinin üzerine elle boyama ve çizme yardımıyla görüntüye hareket kazandırılmasıyla elde edilirken, gelişim evresi teknolojik devrimlerle paralel ilerlemiştir. James Cameron'un Avatar filmi için teknolojik yeterliliğin kazanılması adına yıllarca beklemesi bu duruma örnek olarak gösterilebilir. Bilgisayarlar aracılığıyla çeşitli programlarda üretilen görsel efektler yönetmenlere sunduğu yaratıcılıkla kısa sürede tüm dünya sinemasının hakimi olmuştur. Günümüzde sinema seyircisinin tekrar salonlara kazandırılmasında en önemli rolü üstlenen görsel efektlerin film anlatısına ve estetiğine yenilikler getirdiği de yadsınamaz bir gerçektir. Bu bilgiler ışığında, çalışmada dijital sinemanın gelişimindeki 1Prof. Dr. Ege Üniversitesi, İletişim Fakültesi, Radyo Televizyon ve Sinema Bölümü, alev.parsa@ege.edu.tr 2 Doktor Adayı, Ege Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Radyo Televizyon ve Sinema Anabilim Dalı, elcin_akcora@windowslive.com

The success of a contemporary fantasy production such as Game of Thrones (2011–) is heavily dependent upon the use of visual effects to bring its amazing world to the screen. This chapter will attempt to interrogate such creations in order to establish a conceptual rapport between the fantasy genre and the psychoanalytic theory of fantasy. The most compelling account of psychoanalytic fantasy and film comes from Todd McGowan (The Real Gaze, 2007), who offers a four-fold typology of cinema: fantasy, desire, integration and intersection, and it is to this third category that I will attend. However, where McGowan finds a dishonest experience in a cinema of “integration” that conflates fantasy with desire, and where he also passes over the fantasy genre without much consideration, I will, instead, examine the role of computer-generated imagery in the creation of contemporary fantasy film and television as a properly Lacanian “fantasmatic supplement” (the necessary presence of fantasy in our relation to the world) at the formal level. I will suggest that it is, crucially, through the combination of live action with visual effects that a series such as Game of Thrones presents us, as spectators, with an aesthetic experience closely approximating psychoanalytic reality (i.e. how psychoanalysis theorises everyday experience). By paying close attention to “making of” featurettes I will suggest that they offer a particularly Lacanian perspective: laying bare the processes behind the creation of sequences such as The Battle for The Wall in Game of Thrones in order to demonstrate the ways in which the realms of desire (limitation, incompleteness; live action) and of fantasy (plenitude, wholeness; VFX) work together in order to constitute the world. In sum, this chapter will offer a reappraisal of the current neo-Lacanian approach to film theory in order to claim, ultimately, that there is more reality in fantasy than in other, so-called, “realist” modes of film and television.

This study focuses on a green screen keying method developed especially for film visual effects. There are a series of ways of using existing tools for creating mattes from green or blue screen plates. However, it is still a time-consuming process, and the results vary especially when it comes to retaining tiny details, such as hair and fur. This paper introduces an alternative concept and method for retaining edge details of characters on a green screen plate, also, a number of connected mathematical equations are explored. At the end of this study, a simplified process of applying this method in real productions is also tested.

As several scholars have noted, the use of superimposition effects in cinema to conjure such apparitions as ghosts, fairies, devils, and other fantastic creatures finds a significant precedent in spirit photography, a spiritualist practice by which the image of one or more spirits was ‘magically’ captured on a photographic plate. However, arguing for a relationship of direct filiation between spirit photography and the tricks employed in film remains problematic, especially given that spirit pictures were entangled with matters of religious belief. This article calls for a more solid insertion of spiritualism’s visual culture into the pre-history of film practice, giving three main cases in support of the relationship between spirit photography and early cinema. Firstly, the commercial use of spirit photographs within the spiritualist movement suggests that the circulation of these images was not exclusively informed by matters of belief. Secondly, the popularization of exposures of spirit photography operated by numerous stage magicians in the late nineteenth century can contribute towards explaining the insertion of multiple-exposure techniques in the technical expertise of early filmmakers. Thirdly, a documented case in which spirit photographs were presented to a paying public in the vein of magic lantern entertainments demonstrates that the spiritualist visual culture intersected the nineteenth-century tradition of the projected image, too. Thus, by sketching a history of superimposition effects in photography, stage magic, magic lantern, and cinema, this article claims that visual representations of ghosts in the nineteenth century constantly wavered between religion and spectacle, fiction and realism, and still and moving pictures.

В январе 2014 года в Интернете было опубликовано письмо Мартина Скорсезе, адресованное своей дочери. Письмо, в котором один из величайших режиссеров кинематографа рассуждает на тему современной ситуации в кино и его будущего, анализируя ее через взаимодействие технологий и кинематографа и разделяя через данное взаимодействие кино как искусство и как аудиовизуальное развлечение, начинается со следующих слов: “Don't be afraid, future will be bright” . Скорсезе делает акцент на том, что кино, в том традиционном смысле, в котором мы привыкли его понимать, меняется за счет возрастающего участия технологий в кинопроизводстве. Режиссер напоминает, что кино “снимают не технологии, а люди”, и что важно не поддаваться соблазну идти легким путем, соблазну, который с участием технологий лишь возрастает, и который является, пожалуй, ключевым виновником модификации кинематографа.

Abstrak-Dewasa ini teknologi sudah berkembang pesat. Salah satu perkembangan teknologi dapat dilihat pada bidang komputer grafis. Salah satu buktinya dapat dilihat pada visual effects atau efek visual yang terlihat realistis dalam film layar lebar atau video iklan komersial. Salah satu tahap untuk mendapat efek visual yang realistis adalah tahap compositing. Compositing adalah proses mengombinasikan beberapa footage yang berbeda menjadi satu video utuh yang seolah-olah diambil secara bersamaan. Hasil dari proses compositing haruslah terlihat nyata seperti aslinya. Di sini penulis mencoba untuk melakukan penelitian tentang bagaimana cara melakukan compositing efek visual pada footage green screen untuk medapat hasil akhir yang nyata dan realistis.

Since 2000, digital visual effects have played a central role in Hollywood’s governing business model of developing high-budget blockbuster franchises like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, and the Avengers-universe films.  In the first years of the new century, the Lord of the Rings films exemplified this trend, introducing groundbreaking new digital technologies, such as the motion-capture techniques that allowed Andy Serkis to perform as the digital character Gollum, and MASSIVE, a software package that uses fuzzy logic to create thousands of autonomous digital extras.  Less than a decade later, films like Avatar and Hugo took digital effects to dazzling new stereoscopic heights, while Life of Pi stood as the apotheosis of advances in particle effects like water and fur.  Beyond these high-concept spectacles, however, the rapid advancement and decreasing cost of digital technologies has led to the ubiquity of digital visual effects in all kinds of films, converting “special” effects into commonplace tools.  Clint Eastwood’s 2008 film Changeling provides a good example of how methods like 3D character animation, motion capture, MASSIVE, and digital set extensions can be used “invisibly” for historical realism.  Moreover, with the increased use of digital means at every stage, the lines between visual effects and other categories of production have rapidly broken down.  Digital techniques manipulate lighting and color, build virtual sets, tweak costumes and makeup, while also radically transforming film acting.  Visual effects have never been more important to filmmaking, but recently the visual effects industry has proved to be precarious: major firms Digital Domain and Rhythm & Hues declared bankruptcy in the last two years, leading to a protest of visual effects artists at the 2013 Academy Awards ceremony.

Are there Special Effects (SFX) or Visual Effects (VFX) techniques available for use in low budget filmmaking that, while now out of fashion or overlooked, may be viable alternatives to current expensive and technically complex digital solutions? Solutions which are often poorly understood by independent filmmakers.

A critical commentary that presents and contextualizes a film and video making practice spanning three decades. It locates a contemporary visual music practice within current and emerging critical and theoretical contexts and tracks back the history of this practice to the author’s initial screenings of work as part of the 1980’s British Scratch video art movement.

At the heart of the body of work presented here is an exploration and examination of methods and working practices in the encounter of music, sound and moving image.
Central to this is an examination of the affective levels that sound and image can operate on, in a transsensorial fusion, and political and cultural applications of such encounters, whilst examining  the epistemological regimes such work operates in.

A combination of factors has meant that work such as this, arising in the UK provinces, can fall below the historicizing and critical radar – these include the ephemeral and transitory nature of live performance work; the difficulties of documenting such work; the fragility and degeneration of emerging and quickly obsolescent formats; and a predominance of a London–centric focus on curating, screening and historicizing of experimental film and video art practices.

The author's film and video practice has been screened nationally and internationally over three decades, and has been recognized as exemplary practice both in the early 1980s at the inception of the Scratch movement and in more recent retrospectives. The critical commentary argues that this work contributes new knowledge of the history, contexts and practices of film and video art and audiovisual and visual music practices.

Horror has made a lucrative market across a variety of media, including films, television shows, computer games, novels, and theme park attractions over the last two decades. Perhaps, the environment in which it has shared one of its strongest and longest connections is as part of the amusement park and fairground. 'The ghost trains, magic phantasmic illusions, tunnels of love, and freak shows that first scared audiences in Exposition midways and fairgrounds have continued to make their presence felt in amusement and theme parks today and, as will be outlined below, were predecessors
of contemporary horror rides like Revenge of the Mummy - the Ride and Disney's Haunted Mansion. This article examines past effects that influenced contemporary ride technologies.

Looking at the recent remake of King Kong (Peter Jackson, 2005), this essay explores the practical and theoretical implications of motion capture technology, an optical/digital hybrid that records the movements of a live performer and uses them to animate a computer-generated character.  I argue that motion capture represents an example of ‘digital indexicality’, combining indexical traces of actual events with the representational freedom of computerized media.  In particular, I examine the production and publicity strategies Peter Jackson and his team used to create a sense of visual realism and emotional authenticity for their digital Kong.  Andy Serkis, who performed Kong through motion capture (as he had done for Gollum in The Lord of the Rings), played a central role in King Kong publicity, especially in postproduction diaries released onto the Internet in the months preceding the film’s release.  These diaries teach viewers how motion capture works, using discourses of authenticity reliant on character psychology, emotional connection, and the filmic record to familiarize this digital technology.  This strategy of ‘revealing’ the apparatus, but couching it in terms more appropriate to ‘old’ than ‘new’ media, emphasizes how much Jackson and his team wanted to highlight the referential qualities of motion capture—its ability to imbue computer-generated creatures with ‘real’ movement—rather than the fantastical possibilities afforded by digital technologies.

ÖZET Teknoloji ile birlikte değişen ve gelişen 'dijitalleşen yeni dünya düzeni' tüm sanatları etkisi altına almıştır. Yedinci sanat olarak adlandırılan sinema da teknolojiye olan bağlılığından ötürü bu değişimlerden kısa sürede etkilenmiştir. 1927 yılında ilk sesli filmin ve 1930'lu yıllarda ilk renkli film denemelerinin yapılmasıyla başlayan teknolojik devrimler, 1980'li yıllarda kamera ve bilgisayar teknolojik altyapılarının gelişimiyle hız kazanmıştır. Aynı yıllarda yönetmen George Lucas dijital sinemanın gelecekte dünya sinemasında çok daha etkili olabileceğini öngörerek, film yapımında kurgu ve ses sistemlerinin dijitalleşmesinin önemine dikkat çekmiştir. Ardından gelen dijital video devriminin yönetmenlere hafifliği ve ucuzluğu sebebiyle yeni anlatım formları kazandırması, dijital sinemanın bir çerçevesinin çizilmesini de zorunlu kılmıştır. Bu sebeple 2002 yılında Hollywood yapım şirketleri dijital sinemanın tanımını yapmak, tekdüze şartlar belirlemek ve teknik performansın güvenilirliğini arttırmak gibi amaçlarla bir araya gelmişlerdir. Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) / Dijital Sinema Girişimcileri platformunun tanımıyla dijital sinema, dijital kameralar ya da bilgisayarla görüntülerin elde edildiği yapım aşamasının olduğu, dağıtım aşamasının bir paket dahilinde dijital dosya ile sağlandığı ve filmlerin gösteriminin dijital projeksiyonlarla gerçekleştiği çeşitli aşamalardan oluşmaktadır. Pelikül dönemde yapım aşaması ön planda iken, dijital sinemada yapım sonrasında gerçekleştirilen işlemler filmlerin temel nosyonlarını oluşturmaktadır. Bunların arasında en önemlisi ise filmlerin görsel efektlerin gücünü kullanarak üretilmeleridir. Sinemanın ilk yıllarında görsel efektler film şeritlerinin üzerine elle boyama ve çizme yardımıyla görüntüye hareket kazandırılmasıyla elde edilirken, gelişim evresi teknolojik devrimlerle paralel ilerlemiştir. James Cameron'un Avatar filmi için teknolojik yeterliliğin kazanılması adına yıllarca beklemesi bu duruma örnek olarak gösterilebilir. Bilgisayarlar aracılığıyla çeşitli programlarda üretilen görsel efektler yönetmenlere sunduğu yaratıcılıkla kısa sürede tüm dünya sinemasının hakimi olmuştur. Günümüzde sinema seyircisinin tekrar salonlara kazandırılmasında en önemli rolü üstlenen görsel efektlerin film anlatısına ve estetiğine yenilikler getirdiği de yadsınamaz bir gerçektir. Bu bilgiler ışığında, çalışmada dijital sinemanın gelişimindeki 1Prof. Dr. Ege Üniversitesi, İletişim Fakültesi, Radyo Televizyon ve Sinema Bölümü, alev.parsa@ege.edu.tr 2 Doktor Adayı, Ege Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Radyo Televizyon ve Sinema Anabilim Dalı, elcin_akcora@windowslive.com

Visual Efek (VFX) merupakan efek visual yang digunakan untuk meningkatkan dampak respon indra manusia terhadap sebuah objek. Visual efek sering digunakan dalam perfiilman untuk menambahkan visual yang sebelumnya tidak ada menjadi ada. Seperti menambahkan objek manusia, hewan, bahkan menambahkan objek 3D, animasi.
Ada banyak teknik dalam menciptakan effect yang disebut VFX, salah satunya 3D Camera Tracking. Teknik 3D Camera Tracking berkembang semakin pesat. Pada awal perkembangannya 3D Camera Tracking, hanya dapat men-tracking beberapa titik tracking, sekarang dapat men-tracking banyak titik tracking. Tujuannya adalah agar objek yang ditambahkan seolah-olah solid dengan video liveshoot tersebut.
Pada penerapannya 3D Camera Tracking sangat efektif membuat atau memanipulasi gambar maupun video didalam rekaman menambahkan

In this research I have asked; what do we see when we see a virtual set - do we see pixels in a two dimensional picture, or three dimensional environments?  As a starting point I assume that every virtual set deludes our senses, or in other words creates an illusion. In this sense the virtual set continues the tradition of production design illusion technologies, however it is not necessarily similar to those kinds of illusion as realized with traditional illusion techniques, such as trompe l’oeil painting.  This assumption has been important in my research and has led to the question of how the virtual set differs from earlier illusions. Furthermore, it asks how the virtual set meets the challenges that every production design has to conquer in order to be able to create a world of cinema. 
My research is conducted in the light of two virtual set productions: L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (Kroma Productions 2004) and Luonnotar (Kroma Productions 2011). Both of these productions have been shot entirely in a bluescreen studio with virtual sets. Practical examples from these productions are used as information, to show how the virtual set creates believable fictional environments. These productions have also been the test bed for artistic ‘making and matching’, as they form a research result part of their own, for instance when the experiences gained in the making of L’Enfant were utilized in the making of Luonnotar.  As such, my research is an example of a case study, in which practice-based knowledge is utilized.
The theoretical framework of my thesis is formulated by cognitive and ecological psychology, especially the work of ecological psychologist James J. Gibson. His idea of ecological vision comprising an ambient optic array forms a basis of my research. This approach emphasizes the perception of surfaces in the environment. According to Gibson, we don’t live in space - instead we live in an environment consisting of substances and a medium. The medium is a gaseous atmosphere and surfaces separate the substances from this medium.  In addition to Gibson’s work, a variety of film research is emphasized, especially film researcher Richard Allen’s categories of illusion, which are applied within the research.
The central outcome of the research is that the virtual set is identified as a moving illusion, i.e. something alive. This is in contrast to previous illusion technologies, which were only able to create an impression of the three dimensional environment as still images (trompe l’oeil). Thus, a novel concept of the animate optic array is established to depict the kind of mobile illusion actualized by the virtual set. ‘Animate’ stands in opposition to Gibson’s concept of ‘frozen’. An animate optic array emphasizes that the virtual set is a vision of a digital picture that is ‘non-frozen’ and thus subject to constant change. Animate optic array also recognizes the nature of the virtual set as being formed by synthetic, moving surfaces.
The virtual set also puts in place a whole new series of rules for the fictional universe. Within the research, I have pointed out that the experience of production design is analogical to the experience of the real world.  An understanding of such design needs to be based on the perceptual and cognitive processes of everyday life. However, the digital universe doesn’t behave like our everyday world; instead, it promotes unusual experiences. For instance, we can fluently transit from microcosmos to macrocosmos within single shot - spaces becomes navigable. Another example of this new logic is liquid scenery and in the digital universe, scenery surfaces can undergo transformations in an unlimited way.
I have further proposed that production design can also be interpreted through Gibson’s concept of affordance. As an example; a chair can have an affordance in the real world, it can be perceived as ‘sit-on-able’. Likewise in the production design context; the character is positioned in relationship to his environment which in turn is designed to meet the requirements of the story and its events. So, the design provides the chair for character on which to ‘sit’ and based on the character’s active behavior needs, the scenic elements can also be perceived  as meaningful.
The research has provided much needed material in a field where there has little prior research. The use of two of my own productions has provided enlightening examples, on which to solidly base the research. The research results echo the tendencies in current film industry of digital effects and shows that there is much room for further exploration in the area of production design research.  Ecological theory might well provide a valuable means to approach the subject and particularly, Gibson’s theoretical approach to the environment provides a good base from which to examine the theory of production design.
Key terms: virtual set, digital effects, production design, ecological psychology, illusion.

"Visualizing Art History: Experimental Animation and Its Mentor, Jules Engel" by Janeann Dill, phd, mfa

A dictionary begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words, but their tasks.
--- Georges Bataille

It is most often the case when I refer to my work as experimental animation that I am met with the question, what is experimental animation? I am instantly reminded of a story about Louis Armstrong in conversation with Johnny Carson who asked Armstrong, “What is jazz?” Louis Armstrong enthusiastically responded, “Well if you don’t know what it is, I sure as hell can’t tell you!”

In some ways, Louis Armstrong’s response might be said to be universal for questions having to do with art, in that any attempt to offer definition tends to further confuse, bind, constrict and/or be irrelevant, rather than to clarify meaning. As a scholar and as an artist, I am most interested in the unanswerable. As I understand it, to ask the unanswerable is the beginning of an event … if you will, an event of language, timing and gesture, experimentation and conceptualizing. The more important consideration in a “what is ____?” question is not the answer, but the asking.. How is it we know so little about the art form?

Yakın dönemde dünyanın her yerinde güçlü bir şekilde etkisini göstermeye başlayan dijitalleşme süreci, sinema alanında da kendisini hissettirmiştir. Sinemanın dijital dönüşüm sürecinde filmlerin yapım, dağıtım, gösterim gibi tüm aşamaları baştan aşağıya değişime uğradığı gibi filmlerin içerik ve biçimine dair özellikler de farklılık göstermeye başlamıştır. Filmlerde ön plana çıkan farklılıklar, özellikle dijital animasyon ve görsel efekt teknolojilerin sinemada kullanılmasıyla daha fazla belirgin hale geldiği görülmektedir. Hollywood sineması başta olmak üzere tüm dünyada dijital animasyon ve görsel efekt teknolojilerin sinema filmlerinde ağırlıklı olarak kullanılmaya başlanması, son dönemlerde Türk sinemasında da bariz bir şekilde etkisini göstermeye başlamıştır. Türk sinemasında bu teknolojilerin kullanılmasıyla yaşanan değişimlerin birçok farklılıkları beraberinde getirmiş olması, bilimsel alanda araştırılması gereken bir problemin varlığını ortaya çıkarmıştır. Bu çalışmamızda Türk sinemasında dijital animasyon ve görsel efekt teknolojilerin kullanılmasıyla ortaya çıkan farklılıkların neler olduğu sorusuna cevap bulmaya dönük nitel veri toplama yöntemlerinden doküman incelemesi tekniğine başvurulmuştur. Çalışmamızda elde edilen verilerin analiz edilerek yorumlanması içinse, betimsel yöntem tercih edilmiştir.

Ana akım sinema, artık neredeyse tamamen masa başında yapılan bir üretim olmaya başladı. Sanal gerçeklik gibi yeni teknolojilerin ortaya çıkmasıyla, sinema sanatı önemli bir dönüşümün eşiğinde. Tüm bu gelişmelerle beraber, görsel gerçekliğe tek bir perspektiften bakma şansı veren klasik film kamerası tüm ihtiyaçlara cevap veremiyor. Film yapımcıları, etkileşimli filmler yapmak ya da yapım sonrası üretim aşamalarında daha özgürce hareket edebilmek için, tek bir kamera açısına bağlı kalmayacakları çözümler arıyor. Bu bağlamda uzamın görüntüsünü üç boyutlu olarak kaydetmek önem kazanmıştır. Bu araştırmada, uzamın görüntüsünü ya da çeşitli görsel özelliklerini üç boyutlu olarak kaydetmek için kullanılan yöntemler ve bu yöntemlerin ne amaçla, nasıl kullanıldıkları tasarımcı bakış açısından incelenmiştir.
The mainstream cinema is now almost entirely a table top production. With the emergence of new technologies such as virtual reality, the art of cinema is on the verge of a significant transformation. Along with all these developments, the classical film camera, which gives a chance to look at visual reality from a single perspective, can not respond to all needs. Filmmakers are looking for solutions that will not stick to a single camera in order to make interactive films or move more freely during the post production phase. In this context, it is important to record the image of space in three dimensions. In this research, methods used to record the appea-rance of space or various visual features in three dimensions and their purpose andhow they are used are examined from a designer perspective.

In a pilot study, participants were asked to watch sets of short movie excerpts featuring performances of a human actor, and 5 animated characters of varying human likeness and eeriness. After viewing, scales were used to estimate the believability of certain visual, motion and aural character traits and to gain an overall impression of how believable a character was perceived as being. Qualitative data relating to viewers assessments of character believability were also collected and analysed.
The believability of facial and bodily appearance and movement was less in all the animated characters compared with the human actor, and perceptions of these characteristics for the more humanlike animated characters showed greater variability than those for a non-humanlike, eerie character and the human actor. However, overall perceptions indicated that all characters tested were regarded as believable rather than unbelievable, and that they were able to achieve some form of emotional engagement with most of the participants. Analysis of qualitative data indicated that other factors were important in influencing the judgement of character believability, particularly context, which could operate inside or outside the movie. These findings are discussed in relation to the criteria viewers use to determine the believability of animated characters, and future work is proposed to examine the importance of character believability in relation to the animated movie as a whole.

Este trabalho consiste em analisar os diferentes efeitos especiais e visuais empregados na série de filmes do personagem Indiana Jones. São eles são: Os Caçadores da Arca perdida (Raiders of the lost Ark, EUA, 1981), O Templo da Perdição” (Temple of Doom, EUA, 1984), A Última Cruzada (The Last Crusade, EUA, 1989) e O Reino da Caveira de Cristal (The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, EUA, 2008), todos dirigidos por Steven Spielberg.

Trabalho escrito para a disciplina "Tópicos em Cinema B – História dos Efeitos", do curso de Cinema de Animação e Artes Digitais, da UFMG, em 2011.

Digital production has had a transformative impact on the temporal process of traditional screen production, such that screen content is not only “fixed in post” but now also “made in post.” However, industrial ideologies and production protocols related to digital visual effects (VFX) and post-production tacitly maintain distinctions between creative and technical skillsets and labour output across production stages, particularly between principal and post-production. This chapter focuses on the production culture concerning digital VFX, which productively reflects the complex temporal dynamics impacting the value of creativity in post-production more broadly. The production protocol “fix it in post” reflects a history of such ideologies that marginalise and devalue the contribution of post-production in the creative appraisal of screen output; moreover, the protocol expresses creative value in temporal terms, in which “after-ness” in the screen production process connotes technica...

Since the release of Star Wars (1977), science fiction action cinema
has strived to push special effects technologies to new limits, often
immersing the audience in an experience that’s more familiar to
audiences of baroque art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries:
often, screen boundaries appear to collapse and the spectacle
onscreen deceptively appears to share its world with the real space
of the viewer. This essay focuses on the 3D impulses present in the
second of the Matrix films – Matrix Reloaded (Wachowski Brothers
2003). The spatio-temporal articulations favored in the filmed are
explored and compared to the depiction of space and time in the
paintings of the seventeenth century artist Michelangelo Merisi da
Caravaggio and, in particular, the paintings Crucifixion of St. Peter
and Conversion of St. Paul (1601). It’s argued that both works present
fictional spaces that invite the perceptual collapse of the screen or
painted frame, but they also conceptually invoke a science fictional logic in their portrayal of alternate time dimensions that contradict
the linear logic of a fixed ‘reality’.

Présent depuis une trentaine d’années aux génériques français, le superviseur des effets visuels est dorénavant un poste incontournable de toutes les productions, intervenant de la préparation d’un projet à sa finalisation en postproduction. Ce guide d’introduction au métier de superviseur des effets visuels présente les contours singuliers de cette profession au quotidien, ses techniques, ses outils, ainsi que les qualités et compétences nécessaires pour l’exercer, souvent par la voix de superviseurs en activité. Il revient aussi sur les formations existantes et les différentes entrées possibles dans ce métier.

Spectacular Posthumanism examines the ways in which VFX imagery fantasizes about digital disembodiment while simultaneously reasserting the importance of the lived body. Analyzing a wide range of case studies-including the films of David Cronenberg and Stanley Kubrick, image technologies such as performance capture and crowd simulation, Game of Thrones, Terminator: Genisys, Planet Earth, and 300-Ayers builds on Miriam Hansen's concept of “vernacular modernism” to argue that the “vernacular posthumanism” of these media objects has a phenomenological impact on viewers. As classical Hollywood cinema initiated viewers into the experience of modernism, so too does the VFX image initiate viewers into digital, posthuman modes of thinking and being. Ayers's innovative close-reading of popular, mass-market media objects reveals the complex ways that these popular media struggle to make sense of humanity's place within the contemporary world.

Spectacular Posthumanism argues that special and visual effects images produce a digital, posthuman vernacular, one which generates competing fantasies about the utopian and dystopian potential of a nonhuman future. As humanity grapples with such heady issues as catastrophic climate change, threats of anonymous cyber warfare, an increasing reliance on autonomous computing systems, genetic manipulation of both humans and nonhumans, and the promise of technologically enhanced bodies, the anxieties related to these issues register in popular culture. Through the process of compositing humans and nonhumans into a seemingly seamless whole, digital images visualize a utopian fantasy in which flesh and information might easily coexist and cohabitate with each other. These images, however, also exhibit the dystopic anxieties that develop around this fantasy. Relevant to our contemporary moment, Spectacular Posthumanism both diagnoses and offers a critique of this fantasy, arguing that this posthuman imagination overlooks the importance of embodiment and lived experience.

Publisher Website: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/spectacular-posthumanism-9781501340086/

Preview: https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/5ca77cd25f15030001900ebb

Através de um breve panorama histórico focado nos trickfilms do chamado early cinema, este trabalho procura identificar e mapear alguns dos primeiros filmes que utilizaram efeitos de parada para substituição, stop motion e pixillation, comparando as técnicas e comentando os resultados criados por seu uso. Neste sentido, destacam-se as atmosferas cênicas de magia de muitos filmes desse período da história do cinema em comparação com as primeiras experiências de animação após a predominância do cinematógrafo. Também são comentadas as diferentes conceituações de pixillation encontradas durante esta pesquisa-trazendo juntamente à tona a técnica de time-lapse, de forma a completar as comparações de efeitos que flertam com o universo da animação. Por fim, são comparados alguns filmes do early cinema com animações pixillation mais recentes, de forma a destacar o desenvolvimento da técnica em conjunto das propostas narrativas possíveis.