Visual Special Effects Techniques
To kick off my visual special effects research here is some information and examples of various effects used in film. To read more here is the link to the Wikipedia article.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_effects

Miniature effect
The miniature effect is a special effect generated by the use of scale models. Scale models are often combined with high speed photography to make gravitational and other effects scale properly.

Where a miniature appears in the foreground of a shot, this is often very close to the camera lens - for example when matte painted backgrounds are used. Since the exposure is set to the object being filmed so the actors appear well lit, the miniature must be over-lit in order to balance the exposure and eliminate any depth of field differences that would otherwise be visible. This foreground miniature usage is referred to as forced perspective.

Use of scale models in the creation of visual effects by the entertainment industry dates back to the earliest days of cinema. Models and miniatures are copies of people, animals, buildings, settings and objects. Miniatures or models are used to represent things that do not really exist, or that are too expensive or difficult to film in reality, such as explosions, floods or fires.

Ghostbusters (1984)


Stop motion effect
Stop motion (or frame-by-frame) animation is an animation technique which makes a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved by extremely small amounts between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames are played as a continuous sequence. Clay figures are often used in stop motion animations, known as claymation, for their ease of repositioning. Software applications such as Stop Motion Pro, istopmotion and monkeyjam have made the technique popular among young filmmakers.

The Terminator (1984)

Dolls (1987)

Dolly zoom/Vertigo effect
The dolly zoom is an unsettling in-camera special effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception in film.
The effect is achieved by using the setting of a zoom lens to adjust the angle of view (often referred to as field of view) while the camera dollies (or moves) towards or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout. In its classic form, the camera is pulled away from a subject whilst the lens zooms in, or vice-versa. Thus, during the zoom, there is a continuous perspective distortion, the most directly noticeable feature being that the background appears to change size relative to the subject.

As the human visual system uses both size and perspective cues to judge the relative sizes of objects, seeing a perspective change without a size change is a highly unsettling effect, and the emotional impact of this effect is greater than the description above can suggest. The visual appearance for the viewer is that either the background suddenly grows in size and detail overwhelming the foreground; or the foreground becomes immense and dominates its previous setting, depending on which way the dolly zoom is executed.

Vertigo, Jaws, Poltergeist, Goodfellas, and LOTR vertigo effect compilation

Prosthetic makeup
Prosthetic makeup is the process of using prosthetic sculpting, molding and casting techniques to create advanced cosmetic effects.
This technique is often used in horror to create monsters/aliens/deformities etc. as well as in other films to make a character to look older or fatter etc.

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)


The Nutty Professor (1996)


Wire Removal
Wire removal is a visual effects technique used to remove wires in films, usually to simulate flying in actors or miniatures.
Wire removal can be partly automated through various forms of keying, or each frame can be edited manually. First, the live action plates of actors or models suspended on wires are filmed in front of a green screen. Editors can then erase the wires frame by frame, without worrying about erasing the backdrop, which will be added later. This can be accomplished automatically with a computer. If the sequence is not filmed in front of a green-screen a digital editor must hand-paint the lines out. This can be an arduous task.

Howard the Duck (1986)


Optical effects/Compositing
Widely employed in film and video motion picture production, compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously called “blue screen,” “green screen,” “chroma key,” and other names. Today, most though not all compositing is achieved through digital image manipulation.

Superman II (1980)

Review week - Finding a focus point
This didn't go too well because didn't really do any of the stuff I was told to do but managed to find an area of Multimedia audiovisual design to focus on. Decided to spend my spare time studying special effects and art production in films starting with learning to use Adobe After Effects, will be looking to expand my knowledge to various other artistic/graphical design programs as well as non-digital effects and costumes/set design etc. Will then hopefully transfer these skills into my final year project, at the moment looking to do a documentary on the underground music scene in Nottingham, or maybe West Midlands Safari Park/some other zoo; so will hope to create a documentary with an artistic twist.

I am going to make a more in depth analysis on and study films I feel make exceptional or interesting use of special effects/art production (may also take a look at the scripts as screen writing interests me too) :

Sin City (2005)
Planet Terror (2007)
Natural Born Killers (1994)
Ghost Busters (1984)

Adobe After Effects - Sin City effect
Been trying out a few more tutorials on After Effects, this one teaches you how to apply the artistic and atmospheric effect used in the film Sin City, it basically uses a black and white background but can pick out specific objects from the shot to remain in colour. My attempt is a little shoddy in places, this is partly due to not planning the shot properly and not knowing how to use the program that well. Been trying to do as many as these tutorials as possible but for some reason my computer's sound keeps cutting out when playing flash movies. Having a lot of trouble doing the sky replacement one so going to ask about in AVT surgery.

Team Dynamics
As one of my review assessment tasks I have been asked to read up about team dynamics so to find the most effective method of working in a team. Here is a useful article explaining how team dynamics work: http://pages.prodigy.net/slaurent/CreatPosTeamDyn.doc.
Everyone in a team has their own different skills, interests and approaches to working in a team, in order to achieve successful team dynamics you need to assess each team members values and allocate tasks to them rationally to form a successful combination of values that the team supports aswell as meeting individual needs, so that each team understands them for the benefits for the entire team.

Adobe Aftereffects - Demon Face Warp
Had a go at doing one of the tutorial exercises from the video co-pilot website. Chose the demon face warp as it looked the most fun and is relevant to my interest in horror. Result is ok, need a bit more experimentation to get more interesting effects but overall taught me the basics of how to use After effects, will attempt a few more exercises soon.