Kiersten Formoso, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Hollywood loves a good monster battle, and where better to turn for inspiration than the animal kingdom? Traits from real animals can provide clues about the fighting prowess of Kong and Godzilla.
Ray Harryhausen with a skeleton model from Jason and the Argonauts.
National Galleries of Scotland.
From mythical beasts to extinct creatures, the pioneering special effects work of Ray Harryhausen inspired a generation of zoologists, palaeontologists and ecologists.
Elisabeth Moss stars in the latest adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel.
Universal Pictures
There are many reasons the movie version of Cats has flopped, not least the unfortunate way in which various characters have been assigned racial characteristics.
Adam Bargteil, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
The first time computer-generated characters interacted with humans on a movie screen was 25 years ago, in ‘Jurassic Park.’ Since then, technology has improved, giving directors more choices.
Many classically trained actors are drawn to motion capture roles, which are increasingly complex and theatrical.
Youtube
Motion capture actors help bring superheroes and fantastical creatures to life on screen. Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in The Hobbit trilogy, is campaigning for these actors to be eligible for Oscars – and it’s time the Academy heeded his call.
Seventy real horses mixed with the fake to create the chaos of battle.
Iloura
An Australian VFX company has won an Emmy for its work on season six of Game of Thrones. Over eight months a team of 120 pulled out every trick in the book to create the visceral ‘Battle of the Bastards’.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been praised for avoiding computer generated effects, but why does CGI deserve such a bad name?
Image courtesy of Lucasfilm.
A growing vocal minority blame poor computer generated images for ‘ruining’ the movies. But digital effects can co-exist with real sets and stunts - and films have always been fake.
The cast of the film ‘Spotlight’ reacts after they won the Oscar for Best Picture at the 88th Academy Awards.
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
The huge success of Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity at this year’s Oscars is a genuine cause for celebration for much of the UK film industry – not least for the many visual effects artists involved in its creation…
Is it a plane? No, it’s Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics.
William West/AFP
Watching films such as Superman Returns or The Day after Tomorrow, you would have seen dramatic sequences of surging water and crumbling buildings. While doing so, mathematics was probably the last thing…