Dahnielson

Introduction

The art of visual effects, is to manipulate all the individual components of the camera and recording medium to create images of the impossible, expensive or dangerous. Things and events that can trick our eyes into perceiving that those images are real.

The visual effect supervisor today do have a big bag of tricks to grab from. And the digital revolution have added a few more. Most people expected in the beginning of the nineties that 3D modeling and rendering would replace most of the model and puppet work done in the past. But it was the digital compositing systems that came with the revolution that had the largest impact on how movies are made today. No optical printer in the world can match the possibilities in today’s digital compositing, that gives you total control over every pixel in the image and let you incorporate a lot of different elements in a whole new way simply because of that.

Today Hollywood use, blow up and crash more models than ever before¹. Animatronics are used widely to replace both humans, animals and other species. Thanks to the digital revolution.

The same is true for motion control. People expected that 3D graphics would replace motion control photography, and to some extent that is true. But the way you can post-process moving images today, makes it possible to take motion control photography to a higher level and the effects you can accomplice with it. The digital revolution have instead of decreasing, extended the possible number of effects you can use motion control in. The applications may have changed, but motion control are still alive.