Special Effects Design

 

Television viewers and movie-goers watching a battle scene know thal it has been especially staged for their benefit. They realise that the shell bursts are planted and that the victims are played by stunl artistes. But what they don’t know, and shouldn’t know, is that elsewhere in programmes are dozens of ‘special effects’ designed to make the most ordinary things behave in extraordinary ways.

Diverse and often complex, these unseen effects can range from the breaking of a cup to a vehicle overturning on a bend.

In real life such things happen accidentally; in TV and movies they have to occur on cue and in the right place. Every detail must be preordained and under control.

The special effects designer

An effects designer ...

Get Creating Special Effects for TV and Video, 3rd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.