Filming the Fantastic: A Guide to Visual Effects Cinematography, 2nd Edition

Introduction to the Second Edition: New Age, Old School

Visual effects have undergone tremendous changes in the past 40 years. The seventies introduced the digital age with computer-controlled cameras that made the fabulous visuals of Star Wars possible. The effects artists of that era struggled to adopt and employ this new technology just as much as the effects community in the 1990s struggled to adopt digital compositing and computer graphic methods after Jurassic Park became a blockbuster. Today, with the dawn of digital cinema, we struggle to rediscover the streamlined processes of yesteryear’s filmmaking using a dazzling array of new digital tools. Visual effects have gone from “hands on” organic methods to digital hybrid systems (computer-controlled ...