effects are now made, as you study and analyze
SPFX in movies from the past it is helpful to know
how the principal types were made. Traditionally,
the first category—in-camera effects—has included
such simple illusory effects as fade, wipe, dissolve,
and montage. (Although these are shots in them-
selves, together with editing they create transi-
tional effects or manipulate time; for definitions
and examples, see “Conventions of Continuity Edit-
ing” in Chapter 8.) Other in-camera effects include
split screen, superimposition, models and minia-
tures, glass shots, matte paintings, in-camera
matte shots, and process shots.
The second category—mechanical effects—
includes objects or events that are created by
artists and craftspeople and placed on the set to be
photographed. There are, of course, endless exam-
ples of such special effects, including the different
Frankenstein masks used in the many movies fea-
turing that character, such as Mel Brooks’s Yo u n g
Frankenstein (1974; cinematographer: Gerald
Hirschfeld; makeup artist: Edwin Butterworth).
Other mechanical creatures include the beast in
Ishirô Honda’s Japanese cult film Godzilla(1954;
cinematographer: Masao Tamai; special effects:
Sadamasa Arikawa) and the menacing shark in
Steven Spielberg’s Jaws(1975; cinematographer:
Bill Butler; special effects: Robert A. Mattey and
Kevin Pike).
In the third category—laboratory effects—are
more complicated procedures, such as contact
printing and bipack, as well as blowups, cropping,
pan and scan, flip shots, split-screen shots, and
day-for-night shooting. These complex technical
procedures are outside the scope of this book, but
you can find complete information on them in the
books by Raymond Fielding, Bruce Kawin, and Ira
Konigsberg listed in the bibliography at the back of
this book.Computer-Generated Imagery
Since its first use in film in the early 1970s,
computer-generated imagery (CGI) has trans-
formed the motion-picture industry, particularly
the making of animated, fantasy, and science-
fiction movies. During the subsequent forty years,
CGI improved so rapidly that the major films that
used it during that time now seem almost as old-
fashioned as the process shot. (A process shotis
made of action in front of a rear-projection screen
that has on it still or moving images for the back-
ground.) Yet certain achievements are memorable
for innovations that are landmarks in the develop-
ment of CGI. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space
Odyssey(1968; special-effects designer and director:
Kubrick; supervisors: Wally Veevers, Douglas
Trumbull, Con Pederson, and Tom Howard; cine-
matographer: Geoffrey Unsworth) was the first
film to seamlessly link footage shot by the camera
with that prepared by the computer, and now some
four decades later, its look continues to amaze audi-
ences. Indeed, it set a standard of technical sophis-
tication, visual elegance, integration with the story,
and power to create meaning that remains unsur-
passed.
Other CGI landmarks include Steven Lis-
berger’s TRON (1982; cinematographer: Bruce
Logan), which, through comparatively simple280 CHAPTER 6 CINEMATOGRAPHY
Early special effectsFor Fritz Lang’s Metropolis(1927;
cinematographers: Karl Freund, Günther Rittau, and Walter
Ruttmann), a pioneering science-fiction film, the city of the
future was a model created by designer Otto Hunte. Special-
effects photography (coordinated by Eugen Schüfftan, who
developed trick-shot techniques that are still in use today)
turned this miniature into a massive place on-screen, filled
with awe-inspiring objects and vistas.