Visual and Special Effects Film Milestones

Milestones in Film History:
Greatest Visual and Special Effects and Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)

Part 17

Introduction: From even its earliest days, films have used visual magic ("smoke and mirrors") to produce illusions and trick effects that have startled audiences. In fact, the phenomenon of persistence of vision is the reason why the human eye sees individual frames of a movie as smooth, flowing action when projected.

Cel animation, scale modeling, claymation, digital compositing, animatronics, use of prosthetic makeup, morphing, and modern computer-generated or computer graphics imagery (CGI) are just some of the more modern techniques that are widely used for creating incredible special or visual effects.

(See this site's film terms glossary for definitions and examples, the History of Film by Decade, and an extensive timeline of other Milestones and Turning Points in Film History.)

Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star

are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 100 Greatest Films.

Film Title and Description of Visual-Special Effects

Example

Starship Troopers (1997)

An army of humans were locked in visceral, gory combat against a frightening array of thousands of giant alien bugs or arachnids, entirely created with CGI technology. This was the first film to feature a large-scale CGI battle.

Titanic (1997)

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, defeating Starship Troopers (1997) and The Lost World (1997).

James Cameron's film was the most expensive film ever made - up to its time, at approximately $200 million. With stunning digital effects in a historical epic/drama - computers were used to create the passengers on the ship's deck, the ship's launch, the Titanic's engine room, the helicopter fly-bys, the transition shot of the two lovers at the front of the ship transformed to an underwater shot -- even Kate Winslet's iris that was digitally inserted and morphed into one of Gloria Stuart's eyes. Both CG and miniature models were used to portray the ocean-liner as it tilted, split in two, and sank in the tragic finale.

Antz (1998)

Following Toy Story (1995), this was the second fully computer-animated feature, preceding the release of Disney's all-CGI insect epic A Bug's Life by seven weeks. This was also the first CGI film to feature over 10,000 individually-animated characters in various crowd scenes (such as the Starship Troopers-like battle).

Godzilla (1998)

The vast majority of the film's giant monster/lizard was computer-generated, including the terrifying monster's baby hatchlings, the helicopter shot of the beached tanker found on the Panamanian coast, and the finale's Brooklyn Bridge scene. There were about 400 visual effects shots in the film, including about 235 Godzilla CGI shots.

Mighty Joe Young (1998)

The creation of groundbreaking "hair, fur and feathers" technology for the CGI gorilla.

Pleasantville (1998)

According to Guinness, Pleasantville had the most computer generated effects in a film to date - 1,700 digital visual effect shots, compared to the average Hollywood film which had 50 at the time. Most of the effects involved selectively de-saturating the color film to create striking images of 'colorful' characters in black and white scenes.

The Prince of Egypt (1998)

This DreamWorks SKG's' animated musical feature/epic about the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt was the most expensive classically-animated feature at the time, budgeted at $60 million and taking four years to bring to the screen.

The film included 1,192 special effects -- its three most spectacular and breath-taking moments were: the Burning Bush, the series of Plagues, and the 7 minute parting of the Red Sea sequence. One of its technological milestones was bringing together CG 3-D models and traditionally-drawn 2-D characters and settings in a single shot, using a revolutionary piece of software known as the "Exposure Tool." For example, in the chariot chase (or race) sequence between the young Pharaoh Rameses (voice of Ralph Fiennes) and Moses (voice of Val Kilmer), the chariots and background were 3-D CG models, while the characters were 2-D classically animated (or hand-drawn).

The film also created an animated crane shot that looked very much like a live-action shot - as the camera lifted up to the sky to reveal the wide horizon of the Egyptian Empire.

What Dreams May Come (1998)

This Oscar winner for Best Achievement in Visual Effects defeated the disaster film Armageddon (1998) and Mighty Joe Young (1998).

It depicted an imaginative and impressionistic visuals and landscapes of the after-life world, especially the "paint world" in which the entire world was an expressionistic landscape literally made of paint.

Fight Club (1999)

With extensive and revolutionary use of photogrammetry, a CGI first-person image-based modeling technique. Wire-frame 3-D models were created from photographs or real, still objects. The photos were then reemployed as texture maps, augmented with additional paint work. This allowed for high-speed photo-realistic camera movements around (or inside and through) objects - and other seemingly impossible feats. Examples can be seen in the opening credits reversed pull-back shot (from the "Fear Center" of the protagonist's brain backward alongside various neurons, when he had a gun shoved down his mouth), also in the pull-back tour of the wastepaper basket and its contents, and in the sequence of the kitchen explosion in the Narrator's (Edward Norton) condo when the connection between the gas leak on the stove's burner to the spark on the refrigerator compressor was visualized. Also used in The Cell (2000) and Godzilla (1998).

The Matrix (1999)

This kinetic, action-oriented, science-fiction virtual reality film combined many innovative visual and special effects elements. It came from the directorial writing team of the Wachowski brothers, and included incredible Oscar-winning Visual-Effects (defeating Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) and Stuart Little (1999)).

This popular, imaginative, visually-stunning film made reference to prototypical elements of the 21st century high-tech culture, such as hacking and virtual reality, and included bullet-dodging. Digital effects dubbed "flow-mo" and "bullet time" - slowed-down, rotating action - were created with suspending actors on wires, using motion capture, and filming segments with multiple still cameras from multiple angles. Other features included time-freezing, camera tracking around frozen action, shoot-outs, wall-scaling, virtual backgrounds, biomechanical monsters with tentacles known as Sentinels, and airborne kung fu between computer hacker Thomas Anderson/Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving).

These tremendous visual effects were combined with Eastern world-denying philosophy, metaphysical Zen statements, Japanese anime, Greek mythology, cyberpunk chic, neo-Cartesian plot twists, film noir, Biblical and Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) references.

The Mummy (1999)

This film had the most realistic digital human character ever seen in film, with totally computer-generated layers of muscles, sinew and tissue.

Film Title and Description of Visual-Special Effects	Example
*Starship Troopers (1997)* An army of humans were locked in visceral, gory combat against a frightening array of thousands of giant alien bugs or arachnids, entirely created with CGI technology. This was the first film to feature a large-scale CGI battle.
*Titanic (1997)* Winner of the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, defeating Starship Troopers (1997) and The Lost World (1997). James Cameron's film was the most expensive film ever made - up to its time, at approximately $200 million. With stunning digital effects in a historical epic/drama - computers were used to create the passengers on the ship's deck, the ship's launch, the Titanic's engine room, the helicopter fly-bys, the transition shot of the two lovers at the front of the ship transformed to an underwater shot -- even Kate Winslet's iris that was digitally inserted and morphed into one of Gloria Stuart's eyes. Both CG and miniature models were used to portray the ocean-liner as it tilted, split in two, and sank in the tragic finale.
*Antz (1998)* Following Toy Story (1995), this was the second fully computer-animated feature, preceding the release of Disney's all-CGI insect epic A Bug's Life by seven weeks. This was also the first CGI film to feature over 10,000 individually-animated characters in various crowd scenes (such as the Starship Troopers-like battle).
*Godzilla (1998)* The vast majority of the film's giant monster/lizard was computer-generated, including the terrifying monster's baby hatchlings, the helicopter shot of the beached tanker found on the Panamanian coast, and the finale's Brooklyn Bridge scene. There were about 400 visual effects shots in the film, including about 235 Godzilla CGI shots.
*Mighty Joe Young (1998)* The creation of groundbreaking "hair, fur and feathers" technology for the CGI gorilla.
*Pleasantville (1998)* According to Guinness, Pleasantville had the most computer generated effects in a film to date - 1,700 digital visual effect shots, compared to the average Hollywood film which had 50 at the time. Most of the effects involved selectively de-saturating the color film to create striking images of 'colorful' characters in black and white scenes.
The Prince of Egypt (1998) This DreamWorks SKG's' animated musical feature/epic about the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt was the most expensive classically-animated feature at the time, budgeted at $60 million and taking four years to bring to the screen. The film included 1,192 special effects -- its three most spectacular and breath-taking moments were: the Burning Bush, the series of Plagues, and the 7 minute parting of the Red Sea sequence. One of its technological milestones was bringing together CG 3-D models and traditionally-drawn 2-D characters and settings in a single shot, using a revolutionary piece of software known as the "Exposure Tool." For example, in the chariot chase (or race) sequence between the young Pharaoh Rameses (voice of Ralph Fiennes) and Moses (voice of Val Kilmer), the chariots and background were 3-D CG models, while the characters were 2-D classically animated (or hand-drawn). The film also created an animated crane shot that looked very much like a live-action shot - as the camera lifted up to the sky to reveal the wide horizon of the Egyptian Empire.
*What Dreams May Come (1998)* This Oscar winner for Best Achievement in Visual Effects defeated the disaster film Armageddon (1998) and Mighty Joe Young (1998). It depicted an imaginative and impressionistic visuals and landscapes of the after-life world, especially the "paint world" in which the entire world was an expressionistic landscape literally made of paint.
*Fight Club (1999)* With extensive and revolutionary use of photogrammetry, a CGI first-person image-based modeling technique. Wire-frame 3-D models were created from photographs or real, still objects. The photos were then reemployed as texture maps, augmented with additional paint work. This allowed for high-speed photo-realistic camera movements around (or inside and through) objects - and other seemingly impossible feats. Examples can be seen in the opening credits reversed pull-back shot (from the "Fear Center" of the protagonist's brain backward alongside various neurons, when he had a gun shoved down his mouth), also in the pull-back tour of the wastepaper basket and its contents, and in the sequence of the kitchen explosion in the Narrator's (Edward Norton) condo when the connection between the gas leak on the stove's burner to the spark on the refrigerator compressor was visualized. Also used in The Cell (2000) and Godzilla (1998).
*The Matrix (1999)* This kinetic, action-oriented, science-fiction virtual reality film combined many innovative visual and special effects elements. It came from the directorial writing team of the Wachowski brothers, and included incredible Oscar-winning Visual-Effects (defeating Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) and Stuart Little (1999)). This popular, imaginative, visually-stunning film made reference to prototypical elements of the 21st century high-tech culture, such as hacking and virtual reality, and included bullet-dodging. Digital effects dubbed "flow-mo" and "bullet time" - slowed-down, rotating action - were created with suspending actors on wires, using motion capture, and filming segments with multiple still cameras from multiple angles. Other features included time-freezing, camera tracking around frozen action, shoot-outs, wall-scaling, virtual backgrounds, biomechanical monsters with tentacles known as Sentinels, and airborne kung fu between computer hacker Thomas Anderson/Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving). These tremendous visual effects were combined with Eastern world-denying philosophy, metaphysical Zen statements, Japanese anime, Greek mythology, cyberpunk chic, neo-Cartesian plot twists, film noir, Biblical and Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) references.
*The Mummy (1999)* This film had the most realistic digital human character ever seen in film, with totally computer-generated layers of muscles, sinew and tissue.