Week 4 - Special Effects and the Digital Turn
Reading 1: Turnock, Julie (2012). “The ILM Version: Recent Digital Effects and the Aesthetics of 1970s Cinematography”. Film History, vol. 24, pp. 158-168.
Author Bio:
Julie Turnock is Assistant Professor of Media and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, in the College of Media. Her 2008 University of Chicago dissertation, Effects, Art and Technology in 1970s US Filmmaking, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press. She has been a Whiting Fellow and an Andrew W. Mellon/ ACLS Early Career Fellow, and has published on special effects in Cinema Journal, New Review of Film and Television Studies and Popping Culture (2010).
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A common notion of realism in special effects involves an appeal to the sense that “it just looks right”. But this notion has been surprisingly unexamined. Is realism to be understood as perceptual realism, an aesthetic that replicates what the eye sees “in real life?” How do recent special effects-driven films, such as Star Trek, the Transformers films (2007, 2009, 2011), or the Iron Man films (2008, 2010) suggest realism, and how does this concept of realism extend to non-fantasy based films such as Munich (2005) or Zodiac (2007)?
(p. 158)
Contemporary special effects, digital imaging does not simply try to imitate a common sense notion of perceptual realism, but instead, replicates an accepted aesthetic photorealistically: rather than modelling its look on the “real” or phenomenal world, special effects’ digital techniques imitate the look of photography. contemporary effects aesthetics allude to a specific time period – the look of certain aspects of 1970s cinematography. Through constant repetition, we have been conditioned to accept this specific historical aesthetic as perceptually real.
(p. 158)
Certainly, not all elements of 1970s filmmaking are part of the photorealistic aesthetic – for example, Scorsese's Godardian jump cuts, or Altman's sound perspective or slow zooms. Instead, effects artists prioritize 1970s techniques that suggest hand-held footage shot on the fly in natural light.
Tom Gunning and others have convincingly argued that there is always an aesthetic distance between “the world” and the fixed image that results on light sensitive surfaces, whether the apparatus that fixes the image is collodion wet plate, dry plate or a computer chip. Andrew Johnston and others have very usefully described the various hardware and software platforms and systems that, as a medium, set the aesthetic parameters for digitally generated images and digital capture.
(p. 159)
Special effects and animation represent major exceptions to the ontological-realist argument. Special effects have always easily exploited cinema’s ability to massage a reality effect through blatantly artificial means (sometimes embarrassingly so), such as the use of mattes, miniatures, traveling mattes, rotoscoping and various other kinds of composites. Furthermore, given the preponderance of visual effects and animation in so much recent cinematic production, any theory of cinematic realism that excludes computer generated images (CGI) cannot productively illuminate the cinema’s relationship to the illusion of reality.
(p. 159)
In terms of contemporary digital production, we can first begin to approach these questions with a look back to the 1970s. The success of such 1970s special effects-driven films as Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) initiated widespread changes in American filmmaking with consequences that still reverberate though today’s digital blockbusters. These films from George Lucas’s effects wing Industrial Light and Magic still hold up to contemporary standards because they set the standards in the 1970s, and continue to do so today.
(p. 159)
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ILM has been the
primary effects house behind most of the films we
consider central to any study of blockbuster filmmaking
for the last several decades, including the Raiders
franchise and all the films by Steven Spielberg
since 1981 – except for his 2011 releases The Adventures
of Tintin, where computer animation was done
at Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital, and War Horse –
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and more recently
the Star Wars prequels, the Iron Man films, the
Transformers films, many of the environments of
Avatar, and numerous others, both spectacular and
more mundane.
(p. 160)
Perceptual realism, is a realism that is based on what the eye
sees “in real life”. On the other hand, cinematographic realism is a photographic realism: it is based on
what the camera sees, not on what the eye sees and
implies the impossible attainment of an “ultimate”
realism. Cinematic realism is not a matter of perceptual
realism but of photorealism. 1970s cinematic
photorealism, for example, attempts to replicate a
style of cinematography that suggests a sense of the
camera spontaneously capturing immediate events.
Since it relies upon the human eye for its controlling
structuring aesthetic, perceptual realism is a wholly
inaccurate characterisation of the aesthetic strategies
involved in cinematic representation.
Confusion between photorealism and perceptual realism is not surprising, since in technical, popular and academic discourse, photorealism is nearly always conflated with an unexamined notion of “it looks right to my eye”.
Confusion between photorealism and perceptual realism is not surprising, since in technical, popular and academic discourse, photorealism is nearly always conflated with an unexamined notion of “it looks right to my eye”.
(p. 160)
The
commonly held special effects industrial formula for
photorealism seems obvious: If x existed in our world
(an alien spacecraft, a Gollum, a fairy-tale castle)
and were photographed, how would it look, and how
would it move? Common sense suggests that special
effects objects should look the way they do when
our eyes behold things in the real world. The most
important component of that formula is “if it were
photographed”.
(p. 160)
In order to achieve their desired look, 1970s
ILM special effects leaders such as Dennis Muren
and Richard Edlund believed that their techniques
had to conform to contemporary standards of live-action
cinematography. This style, based on a
specific kind of “New Hollywood” 1970s cinematography,
did not necessarily attempt to look more
real (to the naked eye), but rather, to look more
filmed. And this approach was to a degree pioneered
or popularised by the filmmakers most associated
with 1970s blockbusters, such as Francis
Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg.
See, for example, Coppola’s The Rain People (1969),
Lucas’s American Graffiti (1973), and Spielberg’s
Sugarland Express (1974).
Taking cues from cinéma
verité and low-budget, independent location shooting,
a primary goal of New Hollywood 1970s cinematography
was to renounce studio-bound slick
professionalism and instead call attention to the fact
that what was in front of the camera was being
filmed. This approach had the paradoxical effect of
feeling artless and spontaneous (and therefore comparatively naturalistic) while at the same time reminding
the viewer of the camera operator behind the
lens.
(p. 161)
Lens Flare: An effect that appears when extremely
direct or excessive light causes internal reflections
and scattering on the surface of the lens, appearing
in the image as a spreading or flickering (often
multicoloured and circular) light pattern.
Poetic Docurealism: A feature fiction filmmaking style with an approach that
thumbed its nose at sleek and polished studio lighting
configurations, stable camera mounts and set-bound
artificiality, using the aesthetic effect of light
artefacts (materialising and even concretising the
light) in lens flares for various expressive purposes.
Whatever aesthetic uses lens flares served in the 1970s, they have now evolved into a stylistic cue associated with or prompting a sense of immediate docurealism, and in fact have become the go-to additive element to the mise-en-scène in contemporary special effects, to cue a photorealistic aesthetic. A lens flare cannot be considered a feature of “perceptual realism”
since, generally speaking, one needs a camera lens
to “see” a lens flare. Therefore, the CGI addition of
lens flares is a chief indication that digital designers
of photorealistic special effects are more often than
not referencing the cinematography of earlier films,
not, as is often assumed, the perceiver’s actual
visual experience of the world.
(p. 162)
Tauntaun scene in The Empire Strikes Back:
In this sequence, the effects team reconceives a
traditional miniature stop motion sequence that
treats it as a faux-helicopter shot. In what traditionally
would have been shot straight on and horizontally
(like a diorama come to life), the motion control
camera rig adds irregular motion on the “z-axis”, or
diagonally across the x-y axis into the horizon. ILM
artists enhanced this energetic effect by adding a
camera wobble into the mechanized motion control
program path that swoops down from an “aerial”
shot to the stop motion figures, making the shot look
as if captured by a hand held camera from an
unstabilized helicopter, like a shot from Apocalypse
Now (1979). This sequence meets the ILM goal of
generating a special effects shot with all the qualities
of a live-action shot: in this case, a subjective camera
shot with excitement and immediacy suggesting,
“you are there on the Ice planet Hoth”.
Through the
1980s and 1990s, as movie goers’ eyes adjusted to
the popular films for which ILM produced more and
more elaborate effects sequences, and as other
effects companies were forced to copy ILM to keep
up, ILM’s aesthetic emerged as an industry standard.
Therefore, rather than becoming “more realistic”,
as is often popularly claimed, special effects
production across the board started to look more like
industry dominant ILMs, and therefore more and
more photorealistic.
(p. 163)
An important consequence of ILM’s photorealism aesthetic is that the dominance of special
effects production eventually meant that it effectively
reversed the design priority in blockbuster filmmaking.
Instead of requiring special effects to match the
live-action cinematography, as was the case with
Star Wars, the priority eventually reversed. With the
greater economic importance of the special effects
driven blockbuster, the live action cinematography is
now conceived and executed (and in many cases
also animated) to match the special effects considerations
– as was certainly the case at ILM with the
Star Wars prequels.
(p. 164)
The perceptual world building of the photoreal effect is not the world viewed of Stanley Cavell, with photography’s privileged relationship to the “world” as we think we experience it, but instead reveals what has always been latent in cinema, the ability to create diegetic environments wholesale with a combination of animation and photography. Intensified but not created by digital technology, cinema can construct from scratch a fully imaginary fantasy world, an historical period, or a seemingly naturalistic contemporary world. Deconstructing the ILM version of photorealism reveals the central role of special effects in forming a contemporary notion of photorealism over the course of cinema history, and not just as a recently important phenomenon. It also means we cannot dismiss special effects practice as exceptional. Lastly, it should give us pause that the marks of 1970s cinematography meant to disrupt a classical sense of seamless realism are entirely absorbed into a mental schema invoking photorealism, and moreover, signalling the truth.
(p. 166)
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Reading 2: Tryon, Chuck (2013), “Reboot Cinema”. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 19(4), pp. 432-437.
Abstract:
This article addresses digital three dimensions (3D) by aligning it with the industrial strategy of the reboot. On the one hand, studios seek to create textual novelty by restarting blockbuster franchises through a return to the characters’ origins. On the other hand, studios, hardware manufacturers, and theatre owners – often led by technological auteurs such as James Cameron and Peter Jackson – have embraced a strategy of technological novelty by seeking to upgrade the moviegoing experience. Both forms of novelty reinforce each other and, in turn, promote what is described as a new form of storytelling that should be understood as a ‘reboot cinema.’
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(p. 432)
One of the motivations behind the Spider-Man reboot was the desire to take advantage of the three-dimensional (3D) format and to provide Sony with new, but familiar, material not only for selling a transmedia franchise but also for promoting the technological shift to digital projection in theatres.
(p. 433)
The reboot is the cultural form that best explains our cinematic moment, one that is characterised by both the widespread promotion of 3D films and 3D technologies and the ongoing reliance upon blockbuster franchises. Te focus on using ‘recycled ideas’ through remakes, sequels, and adaptations is central to a Hollywood business model that thrives on offering a careful mixture of textual novelty with familiar and easily marketable plots and characters. These recognisable features allow studios to exploit familiar narratives and characters in their efforts to reduce their risks when marketing cinematic texts through a variety of formats and commercial tie-ins (Neale, 2000: 237). But in all cases, reboots seek to return us to ‘year one’, to the origins of a character, so that the story can be retold in a different format or style.
(p. 433)
Rebooting also exists as a technological and industrial practice when it comes to movie exhibition. The contemporary revival of 3D filmmaking – spearheaded by James Cameron’s Avatar in 2009 – has served as a means for restructuring movie distribution, in large part by providing movie theatres with an incentive to convert from film to digital projection. Cameron and others frequently described this changeover as an ‘upgrade’, as they sought to promote the immersive potential of 3D projection in theatres, a change that was often depicted as revolutionising cinema (Pierce, 2009).
(p. 433)
The Problem with the RebootThe movie industry is caught in two intertwined notions of the reboot:
- One based around aesthetic and economic attempts to revive familiar Hollywood franchises through the promotion of textual novelty.
- Another based around technological and industrial ideologies of progress meant to invigorate interest in theatrical moviegoing through promises of technological novelty.
These forms of innovation are all caught up in the logic of digital cinema, in which, as David Bordwell (2012) aptly puts it, ‘films have become files’ (p. 8). In other words, movies have been transformed from tangible objects into digital data that can be sent to theatres instantaneously, projected in multiple formats, and stored on servers, rather than on film reels. These changes reshape movie industry practices, turning films into texts that can be upgraded as new formats and platforms become available, a move that opens up digital projection to ongoing ‘reboots’ as technologies change and as audiences grow bored with new storytelling approaches and projection technologies.
(p. 434)
Unlike remakes, sequels, and prequels, reboots work ‘to nullify history and disconnect stagnant or failed product from a new, cinematic experiment’ (Proctor, 2012: 1). Past versions of the Spider-Man story are ostensibly treated as if they never happened, allowing a new director to place his or her own spin (pardon the pun) on a character’s origins, a move that allows the filmmaker to update the story to speak to contemporary concerns, such as the references to the 9/11 attacks in the Raimi’s Spider-Man films.
(p. 434)
The logic of the reboot, as it applies to digital projection, entails a process by which the technologies of theatrical exhibition are subject to perpetual – and often very expensive – upgrades. As Bordwell (2012: 194) has argued, 3D functioned largely as a ‘Trojan horse’ for seducing exhibitors into converting from film to digital projection through the success of early digital 3D films, such as Avatar and Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, 2010), as well as through the promises of increased box office thanks to the routine practice of imposing a $3 to $5 surcharge on all tickets sold to a 3D screening.
(p. 434)
However, much like the worn-out film franchises that have been rebooted, the initial hype that surrounded 3D is now exhausted, replaced by an indifference that now treats 3D as just another ‘price point’ (Poland, 2011, Tryon 2013: 93–94). For example, the Pirates of the Caribbean films, where 3D seemed to have little effect on box office, with many consumers opting for cheaper two-dimensional (2D) screenings when possible, especially for families with several children for whom the surcharge would have been substantial.
(p. 435)
As Bordwell observes, by turning films into files, we now have a situation in which movies ‘are now swept up into that format churn characteristic of information technology’ (2012: 205). These format shifts potentially have powerful implications for archivists who seek to preserve copies of movies and, on the industrial level, negative consequences for art house and independent theaters that may find it more difficult to upgrade projection equipment every few years. In the case of The Hobbit, Bordwell points out that the higher frame rates were given tacit support by Regal Cinemas, which announced that it would upgrade as many as 2700 projectors so that they could accommodate the 48 f/s screenings, illustrating that exhibitors would be forced once again to adapt, often at great expense (Bordwell, 2012: 206; see also Makarechi, 2012).
(p. 435)
Digital projection technologies are tied to a desire to reboot cinema itself, with the hope of producing not only new modes of storytelling but also new ways of maximising profit in an increasingly competitive and unstable entertainment marketplace.
(p. 435)
By looking at the reboot, we are able to begin to see that 3D is defined not just by the fantasies of immersion and pleasures of spectacle but also by the industrial aims structured around the reboot, both in its technological and narrative forms.
(p. 436)
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Reading 3: Wang, Jennifer Hyland (2000). “‘A Struggle of Contending Stories’: Race, Gender, and Political Memory in Forrest Gump”. Cinema Journal, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 92-115.
Abstract:
Forrest Gump revises popular memories of the 1960s through its representations of gender and race and its visualisation of postwar history. This essay examines how political conservatives used the film to articulate a traditional version of recent American history and to define their political ground in the 1994 congressional elections.
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Providing a map through uncharted cultural territory, narratives about American history in popular culture are instrumental in constructing popular political sense. The 1994 film Forrest Gump, about a man with an I.Q. of 75 who narrates his journey through the last four decades of American history, tells such a story.
(p. 92)Since the transformation of Forrest Gump from film to phenomenon, several scholars have tried to explain the overwhelming popularity, cultural resonance, and ideological impact of the film's visualisation of postwar history." Peter Chomo discusses in detail the main character's role as a social mediator and as an agent of redemption in divided times. Robert Burgoyne examines Forrest Gump in his book Film Nation, to illustrate the role that mediated memory plays in constructing concepts of nationhood. Thomas Byers provides an excellent analysis of the "remembering" of patriarchy in the film's narrative and points to its potential political influence as an "aggressively conservative film."
(p. 92/3)
As the political pendulum swung toward a "new conservatism," Forrest Gump played a critical role in the rearticulation of a traditional version of the American story. Through its representation of gender and race and its re-presentation of the 1960s, the movie effectively revised popular memories of the era.
(p. 94)
Contours of the Cultural Landscape: The Cartography of the Family Values Campaign and Gump's Repackaging of History
Opening in theaters on July 6, 1994, Gump was buoyed by these discursive currents. Earning more than $300 million at the domestic box office and attracting millions of American moviegoers, Gump clearly profited from and contributed to the unsettled political climate."2 Billed by its creators as "the romantic, rollicking tale of an innocent at large in an America that is losing its innocence," Gunmp formulated a response to the questions of when and where the U.S. as a nation went wrong and, most important, who was to be blame.
(p. 95)
In addition to actively tampering with historical memories special effects teams digitally altered archival footage, inserting the character of Forrest Gump into documentary footage of actual events."' Forrest's immersion in visual postwar history is thus so seamless that by the end of the film several critics predicted that "viewers will have lost all ability to distinguish real images from clever counterfeits."
(p. 96)
In the film, the historical memories are re-contextualised and reframed so that they are all part of Gump's tale. The audience is invited to share in the production of cultural meaning engendered by this new arrangement of visual memory. As such, the audience may perceive Forrest Gump not just as a story of one man's life but, as one audience member asserted, as a tale "about everybody's life." Through its manipulation of postwar culture, Gump thereby becomes a site at which a new shared experience of modern history is written.
(p. 96)
Free Love and Black Panther Parties: Gender and Race Through the Eyes of Forrest Gump
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Reading 4: Maslin, Janet (1994). “Tom Hanks as an Interloper in History”, New York Times, July 6.
Reading Task:
– Read it once and underline/highlight everything she says about special effects. Then read it through again and focus on those parts in particular. – What kind of language does she use to describe effects? List the adjectives that she uses.
– Make a list of positive things she says about effects (e.g. ‘sheer wizardry’) and the negative or more ambivalent comments. What different claims about FX or concerns about their use/overuse are being brought up here?
The List of Adjectives
- Amazingly
- Amazingly
- Wizardry
- Perfectly
- Unemphatic
- Page-flipping
- Authentic
- Clever
- Dazzling
- Eye-catching
- Superficial
Positive/Negative Impacts and Concerns of Special FX
- Even the opening credit sequence, featuring a feather that drifts along a perfectly choreographed trajectory until it reaches its precise destination -- a fine visual embodiment of Forrest's own path through life -- is cause for astonishment.
- Even the opening credit sequence, featuring a feather that drifts along a perfectly choreographed trajectory until it reaches its precise destination -- a fine visual embodiment of Forrest's own path through life -- is cause for astonishment.
- The President's voice sounds authentic, his mouth movements match his movie dialogue,
and he and Mr. Hanks appear to be on precisely the same film stock, in the same frame.
Special kudos for this go to Ken Ralston, the film's special-effects supervisor, and to
Industrial Light and Magic, pushing the technical envelope further than ever. Superb
gamesmanship like this is its own reward, even if it accounts for only a fraction of the film's
screen time and sometimes is allowed to wear thin (a patently phony shot seating Forrest
next to John Lennon on the Dick Cavett show, with Mr. Lennon's small talk consisting of
"Imagine" lyrics).
- Is Mr. Hanks hitting real Ping-Pong balls at high
speed? Or have the balls and whacking sounds been artificially added? By the time this
sequence comes around, viewers will have lost all ability to distinguish real images from
clever counterfeits.
- The single most dazzling special effect turns Gary Sinise, as Forrest's
Vietnam friend and subsequent business partner, into a double amputee.
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