Motion pictures—also called movies, films, or the
cinema—are one of the most popular forms of entertainment, enabling
people to immerse themselves in an imaginary world for a short period of time.
But movies can also teach people about history, science, human behavior, and
many other subjects. Some films combine entertainment with instruction, to make
the learning process more enjoyable. In all its forms, cinema is an art as well
as a business.
The images that make up a motion picture are
all individual photographs. But when they appear rapidly in succession, the
human eye does not detect that they are separate images. This results to from persistence
of vision, a phenomenon whereby the eye retains a visual image for a
fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Although we do not
experience the images as individual photographs, we do notice the differences
between them. The brain then perceives these differences as motion.
There are many types of motion pictures, but
the most significant categories are feature films, animated films,
documentaries, experimental films, industrial films, educational films and ad
films.
Feature films are the movies most commonly shown in
large movie theaters. They typically last at least one and one-half hours and
tell a fictional story or a story based on real events but portrayed by actors.
The list of prominent feature films is far too long to recount in this article,
but some of the best-known include The Birth of a Nation (1914), Metropolis
(1926), Citizen Kane (1941), Casablanca (1942), On the
Waterfront (1954), The Sound of Music (1965), The Godfather
(1972), Star Wars (1977), Gandhi (1982), Jurassic Park
(1993), and Titanic (1997).
Animated movies follow the same format as features, but
use images created by artists. These films create the illusion of movement from
a series of two-dimensional drawings, three-dimensional objects, or
computer-generated images. The first animated feature was the German film Die
Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed, 1926). Other
notable ones include Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Dumbo
(1941), Sleeping Beauty (1959), Yellow Submarine (1968), Heavy
Traffic (1973), the Czech film Neco z Alenky (Alice, 1988), the
Japanese film Majo no Takkyubin (Kiki’s Delivery Service, 1989), Beauty
and the Beast (1991), and The Lion King (1994). In some films,
animated characters interact with human actors, as in Who Framed Roger
Rabbit (1988).
Another form of film is the documentary, which
deals primarily with fact, not fiction. Documentaries do not often appear in
theaters, but they are seen regularly on cable and broadcast television. There
are channels that regularly present various documentaries in order to enhance
the intellect and knowledge quotient of the public or the viewer.
An experimental film is a sequence of images,
literal or abstract, which do not necessarily form a narrative. An experimental
film can be animated, live action, computer generated, or a combination of all
three. Five noteworthy experimental films are the French film Un Chien
Andalou (An Andalusian Dog, 1929), Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), A
Movie (1958), Eraserhead (1978), and Privilege (1991).
Industrial films are made by companies that wish to
publicize their products or generate a favorable public image.
Educational films are specifically intended to be shown in
classrooms. Their aim is to instruct, on subjects from history to driving
skills.
Ad films are short length films that have a primary aim to promote
the product they are endorsing.
Special visual effects have added to the allure of
motion pictures since the early days of cinema. French director Georges Méliès
is considered the most influential pioneer of special effects. His film A
Trip to the Moon (1902) combined live action with animation, demonstrating
to audiences that cinema could create worlds, objects, and events that did not
exist in real life.
Three-dimensional (3-D) film technology was developed in the
early 1920s but did not become popular until the 1950s, when it enjoyed a brief
period of use. Although motion-picture film, like still photography, normally
yields two-dimensional images, the illusion of a third dimension can be
achieved by projecting two separate movies—one made for the right eye, the
other for the left—onto a special screen. Members of the audience wear 3-D
eyeglasses so that the right eye sees one picture and the left eye sees the
other, producing the effect of three dimensions.
Many of the special effects used in
contemporary films were invented before World War II (1939-1945). For instance,
in the silent film The Thief of Bagdad (1924), Douglas Fairbanks appears
to battle huge monsters by means of a technique that involved filming two
scenes separately, then blending them during the printing process. Half of one
negative image was exposed during printing (say, the half with Fairbanks),
while the other half was covered. Then the covered, still-unexposed half was
exposed to the negative with the monsters. The result was a complete single
image formed from two separate scenes. This same split-screen technique allowed
Kevin Kline to play both the president of the United States and his look-alike
in Dave (1993).
Another example of the lasting power of early
techniques is stop-motion photography. The original King Kong (1933)
used this technique, in which the King Kong figurine was repeatedly filmed for
very brief segments and then moved, so that when the film was projected at
normal speed, King Kong appeared to move. The same technique animated the
figures in James and the Giant Peach (1996).
After World War II there was a lull in the
development and use of special effects. Technical advances in the design and
manufacture of motion-picture cameras made it easier to film on actual locations,
and the trend in cinematic storytelling tended toward realism, resulting in
less call for fantastic illusions. Then in 1968 the film 2001: A Space
Odyssey, in which astronauts appear to float weightlessly in outer space,
led to a renewed interest in special effects. Star Wars (1977)
revolutionized the way special effects were created and proved them to be a
potential box-office gold mine. George Lucas, who directed Star Wars,
created his own special-effects studio, Industrial Light & Magic, which
became a leading innovator and was responsible for a series of groundbreaking
special-effects techniques.
In making Star Wars, Lucas used
computers to control camera movement. In this technique, called motion-control
cinematography, the computer’s precise control allows a camera shooting live
action in one studio to move at the same speed as a camera shooting a model in
a second studio that serves as background for the live action. The two shots
can be combined later with full confidence that camera moves will be identical
and will therefore match seamlessly. Motion-control cinematography also allows
cameras to replicate the same series of shots precisely while filming the same
object. With each pass the camera makes, different elements can be added. For
example, in Star Wars different engine glows and running lights could
appear on the spaceships in successive filming passes. The accumulation of more
and more detail results in a complex and realistic-looking object.
Many of the spaceships and other objects in Star
Wars were miniatures, borrowing another technique from early cinema.
Filmmakers have long used miniatures to stage such large-scale actions as the
collapse of a building or a shipwreck, scenes that would be too expensive or
unfeasible to stage. Adding in appropriate sound for the scale of the event
completes the illusion.
Filmmakers draw upon many other special effects to
create illusions in the cinema. Sometimes a film calls for an actor to appear
in a place it will be difficult to film, or doing something that is impossible,
such as flying. In these cases, the filmmaker uses the so-called blue-screen
process, filming the actor in front of a screen that is either painted or lit
to match a particular shade of blue. During printing the filmmakers then replace
this blue background with a completely different image, creating the illusion
that the actors are moving through that setting. In Superman (1978) and
its sequels, blue-screen was used to depict the hero’s flight. The actor,
Christopher Reeve, was filmed with his arms outstretched against a blue screen
in a studio, acting as if he were flying. After images of the city (from the
perspective of a low-flying airplane) were substituted for the blue background,
Superman appeared to be flying over tall buildings.
Another way to place actors in settings that
do not actually exist is through matte photography. This technique involves a
realistic painting with an area blacked out. The painting is filmed and then,
separately, an action sequence that has been carefully framed to fit the
perspective and scale of the blacked-out area is inserted. The combination of
the two images creates the illusion that the action is happening in the
environment of the painting. The paintings used in matte photography range
widely in size, and many matte photographers are now using computers to
generate the paintings. One use of matte photography occurs in the final scene
of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). The scene shows a worker pushing a
crate through a huge warehouse stocked with all kinds of government-owned
objects. Except for the worker and the path he takes, the warehouse is actually
a painting.
In the late 20th century, the techniques used
in creating effects entered a new era, that of digitization. In digitization,
sounds and images are stored as electronic files and viewed and edited on a
computer. Creating a digital version of a filmed image takes a huge amount of
data-storage capacity. To approximate the look of the 35-millimeter film, the
computer must break each frame into millions of pixels (picture
elements). The computer assigns a number value to each pixel that corresponds
to a color and brightness level. By renumbering the pixels so that the colors
change, the image can be altered.
Digitizing images allows them to be manipulated in
almost any conceivable manner, and the computer can also be used to generate
its own images. An example of combined imagery is a scene from Jurassic Park
(1993) where computer-generated dinosaurs are seen charging toward and then
leaping over a filmed man and two children. In Forrest Gump (1994) the
title character seems to meet historical figures such as President John F.
Kennedy and singer Elvis Presley. This was done by digitally merging images of
lead actor Tom Hanks with films of Kennedy, Presley, and other figures.
Another popular computer-generated technique is called morphing,
which is short for metamorphosis on film. Morphing, which is the
featured visual effect in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), involves
the digital translation of one object, or character, into another. The effect
is of the object or character visibly and fluidly changing into another.
Advances in digitization allowed filmmakers to alter
their previous work in ways previously impossible. In the late 1990s, by digitizing
Star Wars and its sequels, George Lucas was able to add new scenes and
creatures, and to improve some of the special effects of the original films.
The digitally remastered films were then rereleased.
The 1997 film Titanic used
computer-generated images, miniatures, and live-action special effects more
extensively than any previous film. Unlike the special effects of previous
films, many of Titanic’s effects did not make themselves obvious.
Instead, they blended into the texture of the film. The result was so effective
it was almost impossible to tell that many scenes onboard or in the water were
filmed in a studio, and not on location, and that many images, including crowds
of people on the ship, were actually computer generated.
Computer Generated Graphics proved itself to be a revolutionary
tool. It almost modulated the rules and the perspectives of film making. Unlike
any other art form, Film making is now considered more to be a business than an
Art. Maybe this is why there are more and even more people who are continuously
trying their hands over films. It is no doubt, that this field has all that,
which is needed to attract anybody towards it, Money, Glamour, Respect,
Creativity, Innovation, and yes the words are unlimited. Today, it is not that
“How you make a film?” it is “how you make the best use of the technologies and
techniques, in order to make your film.”
(Note: - the examples used
are the globally accepted ones, considered to be the milestones. Indian
examples came, far too late and hence are not added in this article)
By: - Saurabh Agrawal
saurabhagrawal088@gmail.com
