Special Effects
Special effects (which typically refers to visual effects in live-action moving-image media but also includes audio effects and other possibilities) are the methods used to produce on-screen (or on-air) events and objects that are physically impossible or imaginary, or too expensive, too difficult, too time-consuming, or too dangerous to produce without artifice. The ethics of the related technologies are seldom discussed but are nevertheless significant.
Origins
Cinematic special effects grew out of trick photography and began with the trick film tradition popularized by early filmmakers such as Georges Méliès (1861–1938), a special effects pioneer who was the first to develop many in-camera techniques. Silent films used a variety of special effects techniques, particularly in the genres of science fiction and horror. Many new special effects technologies became possible after the invention of the optical printer in 1944, resulting in a new generation of science-fiction films in the 1950s that used the new techniques, as well as more realistic-looking effects in other films. Finally, the late 1980s and 1990s saw another advance in effects technology: the rise of digital special effects created in computers, which allowed live-action footage to be combined with anything that could be rendered in computer graphics.
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