Full Description
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.
Contents
Introduction, Concepts, Chapter 1: (Martin Lefebvre) Mind(ing) the Gap, Chapter 2: (John Belton) Images as Visual Effects, Chapter 3: (François Jost) The Pragmatics of trucage: Between Feigning and Fiction, Chapter 4: (Marc Furstenau) Realism, Illusion and Special Effects in the Cinema,Techniques, Chapter 5: (Frank Kessler and Sabine Lenk) Trick-o-logics 1810/1910: The Magic of Tricks and Special Effects between the Stage and the Screen, Chapter 6: (François Albera) Those Ordinary Special Effects, Chapter 7: (Donald Crafton) Black Magic: The Space Between the Frames in Cinematic Special Effects, Chapter 8: (Benoît Turquety) Photography and the Composite Image, from Recreations to the Digital; or, A Portrait of Méliès as a Bergsonian Filmmaker, Chapter 9: (Katharina Loew) From Trick to Special Effect: Standardization and the Rise of Imperceptible Cinematic Illusions, Chapter 10: (Roger Odin) Special Effects and Spaces of Communication: A Semio-Pragmatic Approach, Chapter 11: (Philippe Marion) Image Capture, or the Control of Special Effects,Films, Chapter 12: (Janet Bergstrom) Murnau's Sunrise: In-Camera Effects and Effects Specialists, Chapter 13: (Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues) King Kong, an Open Perspective, Chapter 14: (Kristen Whissel) Parallax Effects, Uncanny Visual Effects and 3D Cinema of the 1950s, Chapter 15: (Sean Cubitt) Oblivion: Of Time and Special Effects,Envoi, Chapter 16: (Dudley Andrew) The Effect of Miracles and the Miracle of Effects: Bazin's Faith in Evolution, Index, Bibliography.
