At this year’s Academy Awards, Avatar—unsurprisingly—won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. While the effects were truly stunning, there’s something to be said for older special effects and the time and dedication put in to make imaginative masterpieces without the help of a computer. How did people come up with the cornerstones of modern film effects when the medium itself was brand new? Here are some of the most interesting special effects created before there were special effects.
It Starts With Beheadings
The first special effect came in an 1895 Edison Film, when Alfred Clark recreated the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots. He had all the actors hold completely still, with the exception of the actress playing Mary, while he paused the camera. Then Mary was replaced with a dummy before filming started again.
Clark’s effect may seem minor, but it was not only the birth of film special effects, but also stop-motion videos and animations. It’s been said that some audience members thought a woman had actually sacrificed her life for the picture.
Straight to the Moon
One of the earliest “special effects” flicks was 1902’s Le Voyage Dans La Lune. As the Avatar of its time, the film left viewers marveling at the stunning fantasy worlds depicted onscreen. The effects were largely creations of George Melies, who directed hundreds of short films before working on this masterpiece. Melies brought together the effects used in these other films into one work of art, including double exposure, split screens and dissolves and fades.
Drawing Me In
If you’ve ever wondered about the birth of animation, you may want to see The Enchanted Drawing. In the film, the cartoonist for the New York Evening World, Stuart Blackton, draws a cartoon character and then adds things like a top hat, a bottle of wine and an empty glass. He then pulls the other items out of the picture and the picture’s expression changes as they interact together. As you can see, the film inspired the future of animation.
The best known of these really early animations, though, was Gertie the Dinosaur, a film that featured newspaper cartoonist Winsor McCay interacting with an animated brontosaurus. This was the first example of a person appearing to enter an animation and interact with the cartoon, but it is often mistaken for the first animation ever. Even so, it was one of the first highly successful animations because audiences were so enamored with the personality of the massive beast.
Making Super Models
You probably already know that, even today, filmmakers use miniatures paired with forced-perspective photography to create realistic large-scale actions that are expensive, if not impossible, to do for real. You may not know that this effect dates all the way back to 1900. The 22-second film by director R.W. Booth and producer Robert W. Paul called “A Railway Collision” is agreed to be one of the earliest examples of this practice, but it’s possible that earlier films, lost through the decades, may have also featured the effect.
One of the most famous early examples of model use was 1925’s The Lost World. This ground-breaking film featured actors interacting with giant monsters. Willis O’Brien, who was later involved with King Kong, used small puppets that were filmed one frame at a time on mini-sets. The actors were then added by putting two negatives together on split screens (more on how they did that later).
The best-known examples of these effects came in the original Clash of the Titans. Only time will tell, of course, how modern computer animation stacks up against this historical film.
Screening the Blue Screen
You’ve probably heard of blue screening, the technology that lets your local weather person predict the future with a cool interactive map behind them. But how the heck did they do these types of things before you could tell a machine to put video A everywhere that blue appears in video B?
Of course, the process was much more complex in the beginning. When The Lost World portrayed humans running away from stop-motion animated monsters, they actually had to film things with an optical printer. This required blacking out all but the actors on the top film, then blocking out where the actors would appear on the stop-motion film and printing them onto a third roll of film.
The first film to use a blue screen behind the actors (which made it easier to print only them on the film) was The Thief of Bagdad (1940). Using this method, the film would be developed with a number of color filters to ensure that the blue background would disappear, while the actors and intended background would show up.
The effect first became digitized for The Empire Strikes Back. Nowadays, a green background is more commonly used. Why? Because blue is a more common clothing color.
The Background of Backgrounds
As you may have guessed, it was a lot harder to put people in front of imaginary background locations before computer animation was created. Instead, painted backgrounds were often used to portray most settings. Giant glass panels were originally placed behind the actors during filming. The first time this was done was in the 1907 film Missions of California, which used a massive matte painting of crumbling missions.
You likely have a better recollection of the glass matte paintings used in The Wizard of Oz though, which allowed Dorothy to travel to a massive city made of emerald.
For situations where a background needed to move—for example, when a dust cloud or wind needed to be incorporated—directors would often use a background projection instead. This required playing footage of the background on a screen behind the actors, then filming both at the same time, in the same frame.
The 1927 film Metropolis managed to create elaborate sets by projecting the top of a massive-looking building (often just a model) onto a mirror located in the top portion of the camera frame. The camera would then shoot the actors performing in front of a wall, which appeared to have the tops of the impressive sets seen in the projection. As you can see in the trailer, they also used a lot of models to create the urban cityscapes pictured.
Animated About Animatronics
One of the biggest complaints about CGI technology is that it still looks inferior to well done animatronics. These tricky effects actually were first used over 100 years ago, when Richard Murphy created a mechanical eagle for D.W. Griffith’s Rescued From An Eagle’s Nest in 1908. While the bird was not the best animitronic device, it set the stage for Jaws and other famous animatronic monsters.
Looks a Lot Like…
When it comes to special effects, my personal favorites are some of the most simple—the use of one thing to portray another. For example, the tornado seen in The Wizard of Oz was actually just a twisted silk stocking being hit by the wind from a fan. When close-ups were needed, they instead used a burlap bag that emitted a massive cloud of dust.
I’ve heard that the original Star Trek used a lot of clever tricks to create space sets, like pouring oatmeal over a lightbulb to create a sun. I couldn’t find much information on this while researching this article, so maybe my mind is playing tricks on me. Has anyone else heard something similar? And what are your favorite old school effects?
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I personally love the lightning in “The General” with Buster Keaton. Also, the cut and paste method to put his girl’s face in a hole in the tablecloth. Classic! It totally adds to the comedic effect of the movie.
posted by Sandimonium on 3-16-2010 at 9:15 am
How about the background city scape in Vertigo with working lights. I think that CGI has made some film industry people lazy. Yes, it has a purpose, yes it can be utilized to amazing effects but there is something to doing a physical effect to its pinnacle. After all, what’s better, imperfect CGI that screams fake, or something real and tactile the actor(s) can actually interact with?
posted by nihil on 3-16-2010 at 9:30 am
CGI v special effects
My case: John Carpenter’s The Thing
Theres no way you could make this look better using CGI imo.
posted by mitchsn on 3-16-2010 at 10:11 am
In defense of CGI . . .
As a lover of the old special effects (and one who steadfastly refuses to see a non-Harryhausen Clash of the Titans), I must nonetheless point out that many of these non-CGI effects, to our eyes, were badly done but were impressive to the viewing public at the time — over time, they got better (Metropolis is AMAZING, but over time we ended up with the near-flawless 2001). My point is that CGI is (over?)used extensively today and is often still noticeable as CGI, but as time goes on, digital actors that make the NaVi look like hand puppets will grace the screen, and we’ll wonder how anybody could have EVER suspended disbelief with physical SFX. Again, I’m not sure if this is a good thing, but it’s cheaper and more flexible in use, so pay CGI some respect — it’s the granddaddy of your Holodeck.
posted by Michael on 3-16-2010 at 10:41 am
Totally awesome post.
posted by Elissa on 3-16-2010 at 10:47 am
Re:mitchsn…TOTALLY agree, and one of the creeeeeepiest movies of all time. Wilfred Brimley at his finest.
posted by Helenann on 3-16-2010 at 11:08 am
Too bad you guys didn’t talk about Jean Cocteau’s films, like La Belle et la Bete and Orphee. I really find the visual effects in those films quite compelling.
posted by Martin on 3-16-2010 at 11:34 am
Movie monster transformations and the resulting monsters. The best example that comes to mind is the use of prosthetics in An American Werewolf in London.
posted by kirsten on 3-16-2010 at 11:38 am
when we were little we used to pretend we were genies and used alfred clark’s trick. this stuff fascinates me…i always feel like they were before their time! and animatronics – seriously. jurassic park, anyone? i still can’t get over it. animatronics > cgi for me.
posted by nicole on 3-16-2010 at 11:46 am
I heartily recommend the Jack Black/Mos Def movie “Be Kind, Rewind” to see some really funny and awesome low budget special effects.
posted by Jina on 3-16-2010 at 12:47 pm
Another old school effect: The “blood” seen in the original Psycho was actually chocolate syrup since it had the right consistency and being shot in black and white, you couldn’t tell the color. Very cool!
Also, Lon Chaney was a one-man special effects studio!
posted by BorgQueen on 3-16-2010 at 12:53 pm
Remember the old “Lost in Space” series? They must have used miles of Saran Wrap to create weird landscapes and sets. I think they only had, like, 3 sound effects too.
posted by Jon on 3-16-2010 at 1:20 pm
Yes, Ray Harryhausen was the stop-motion miniature master.
Some of the best tricks were the simplest. How did Steve Austin jump onto a 6′ wall? He simply jumped off the wall then they played the footage backwards.
The best extended backwards scene ever is in the Val Kilmer spoof “Top Secret”
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 3-16-2010 at 1:28 pm
I heard on the commentary of “John Carpenter’s The Thing” that the title sequence was nothing more than a metal sign covered by a trash bag. The bag was then lit on fire with a bright light behind. The whole sequence was nothing more than melting plastic.
For another special non-special effect was on “American Were-Wolf in London”. The very first wolf attack was nothing more than the front half of a fake wolf attached to a wheelbarrow. Which was flexed in front of the camera. Simple but effective.
posted by MonteD on 3-16-2010 at 1:39 pm
Jurassic Park was a combination of animatronics and cgi (which I think is best). I am more impressed by movies that make you believe that they are real, movies where you don’t even notice the special effects.
To me, avatar is the kind of thing that a special effects house would make to showcase what they can do. There is a line that you cross where the CGI ceases to be a “special effect” and it basically becomes an animated movie with some life action spliced in.
As far as effects, the last Pirates of the Carribean film as much much more innovative and impressive than Avatar is. Look up how they created Davey Jones and the whirlpool scene.
There is still tons of innovation going on in the digital effects realm and it is an art that takes tons of work and render time, but it isn’t the end all be all of the future of film making. CGI will never replace the feeling you got when you first saw Ridley Scott’s alien.
FYI: Blue and Green screen effects techniques are called chroma-key.
posted by Troy H. on 3-16-2010 at 3:00 pm
What about the creepy baby in Eraserhead. I read a few articles on it and from what I understand Lynch still hasn’t revealed how he created that. If you’ve heard different let me know, because it was quite convincing and totally horrifying.
posted by Lindsey on 3-16-2010 at 3:35 pm
I heard that in the old Star Trek series, they just swirled glitter in a water glass for the transporter effect, and I believe they continued to use it up through The Next Generation.
posted by laurie b. on 3-16-2010 at 4:05 pm
for good low budget low tech effects i nominate ” spacehunter – adventures in the forbidden zone ” ( 1983 ) starring peter strause and molly ringwald. see this in good quality video at crackle. cheers.
posted by dirk alan on 3-16-2010 at 7:28 pm
Jason and The Argonauts is my all time special effect movie. The big bronze statue coming to life is still very cool.
posted by chrisr on 3-16-2010 at 9:31 pm
Have to give a shout out to Tom Savini, who made me want his job when I was growing up watching his great – and physical – SFX in horror movies. I liked the movie Punisher: War Zone a lot, but if they didn’t use CGI for gunshot wounds which looked like they were made using Paint (crap.bmp), I would have loved it. I have seen Mr. Savini in a movie about his work and it seemed really cheap and easy to make bullet wounds that shot out blood to great effect. I wonder if it seems TOO easy for the new generation of movie-makers to go that route and feel that EVERYTHING has to be digitized even if they can’t keep the blood in the same spot as the actor falls to the ground. Side note: Pig intestines look like human intestines, and we are always hacking those things up – they are delicious.
posted by Blotto on 3-16-2010 at 9:58 pm
I remember reading in one of the many “behind the scenes” books about Star Trek that the original sparkle transporter effect was created by punching random pinholes in the film negative.
Talk about a relevant CAPTCHA: 1960′s modes – the modes of special effects used in Star Trek! I love it!
posted by Gordon Daily on 3-17-2010 at 11:56 am
There’s an episode of Reading Rainbow where LeVar Burton talks to a guy on the Star Trek set about special effects, including the glitter one mentioned above. You can see it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR4AzMfcnjU
posted by Ruth on 3-21-2010 at 2:29 pm