Since the very first days of cinema, audiences have marveled at the special effects imagery presented on movie screens. While long relegated to the margins of film studies, special effects have recently become the object of a burgeoning field of scholarship. With the emergence of a digital cinema, and the development of computerized visual effects, film theorists and historians have been reconsidering the traditional accounts of cinematic representation, recognising the important role of special effects. Understood as a constituent part of the cinema, special effects are a major technical but also aesthetic component of filmmaking and an important part of the experience for the audience. In this volume, new directions are charted for the exploration of this indispensable aspect of the cinematic experience. Each of the essays in this collection offers new insight into the theoretical and historical study of special effects. The contributors address the many aspects of special effects, from a variety of perspectives, considering them as a conceptual problem, recounting the history of specific special effects techniques, and analysing notable effects films.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Martin Lefebvre and Marc Furstenau
- Concepts
- 1. Mind(ing) the Gap
- 2. Images as Visual Effects
- 3. The Pragmatics of Trucage: Between Feigning and Fiction
- 4. Realism, Illusion, and Special Effects in the Cinema
- Techniques
- 5. Trick-o-logics 1810/1910: The Magic of Tricks and Special Effects
- Between the Stage and the Screen
- Frank Kessler and Sabine Lenk
- 6. Those Ordinary “Special Effects”
- 7. Black Magic: The “Space Between the Frames” in Cinematic Special Effects
- 8. Photography and the Composite Image, or A Portrait of Méliès as Bergsonian Filmmaker
- 9. From Trick to Special Effect: Standardization and the Rise of Imperceptible Cinematic Illusions
- 10. Special Effects and Spaces of Communication: A Semio-Pragmatic Approach
- 11. Image Capture, or The Control of Special Effects
- Films
- 12. Murnau’s Sunrise: In-Camera Effects and Effects Specialists
- 13. King Kong, An Open Perspective
- 14. Uncanny Visual Effects, Postwar Modernity, and House of Wax 3D
- 15. Oblivion: Of Time and Special Effects
- Envoi
- 16. The Effect of Miracles and the Miracle of Effects: Bazin’s Faith in Evolution
- Bibliography
- Index
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