Special Effects: Spectacle's Seductiveness

“Bunch of slack-jawed faggots around here. This stuff will make you a god damned sexual
Tyrannosaurus, just like me.”

ABSTRACT
The aim of this essay is to explain the seductiveness of spectacle of the SFX/VFX in modern art
specifically in cinema. The essay starts with an introduction, and then goes through the brief
history of Special Effects. Later, the Spectacle in the `80s action movie “Predator” followed by
the Spectacle in Cinema, Video games, Music Videos and finally the role of Perceptual Realism in
the spectacle.

INTRODUCTION
Star Wars, Avatar, Iron man, Avengers – This is what comes to the mind of people when we talk
about special effects in movies today. Those thrilling battles and characters like Snoke in Star
Wars, those suit ups of Iron man, the planet Pandora in Avatar, and those super-hero efforts to
save Earth in Avengers; it all became possible due to this very art called Special Effects. This art
opens the numerous door for filmmakers and transforms the movies into something beyond
ordinary. It creates situations, landscapes, and characters far away from reality and yet all seem
realistic.
Special Effects (SFX) (now covered up by Visual Effects - VFX) once considered as mere eye-candy
for the audience, is now the most significant part of cinema. To define Special Effects in layman
terms, it is something that is realized on the physical set of a movie to attain something that can’t
be possible or not feasible in reality while on the other hand Visual Effects (VFX) are added post-
production using the power of computers. It is all started with Hollywood embracing the CGI in
the ’90s.
James Cameron considers Avatar as “The Seduction of Reality”. Therefore, Spectacle’s
seductiveness is a detailed experience with texture to which the people surrender completely. It
has almost become a need for the audience’s eyes; it has indeed become a seduction of reality.
This seduction is to study and transcend the reality rather than to trick the reality. Special Effects
merely provide a more overt kind of construction in filmmaking. As Stephen defines “cinema as
a photographic medium oriented towards live action in which filmmakers arrange performers
and events before the camera during production and then editorial and rhetorical decisions are
made about what to include and exclude, producing a manufactured world upon the screen”-
(Prince, 2012:02)
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SPECIAL EFFECTS/VISUAL EFFECTS
The world’s first ever “Special effects” image was created by Oscar Rejlander in 1857. Then in the
early 20th century, the main driving force of special effects was that Norman Dawn’s
improvements of the matte shot. His technique later became the textbook for matte shots.
During the 1930s, the motion-picture introduction improved the techniques of Special effects.
This was the time where many Special Effects studios were established. ‘As the moving pictures
developed, ‘special effects’ grew increasingly sophisticated to match the changing audience
expectations.’- (Rickitt, 2007: 08) They became a permanent part of the cinema. Later, after the
introduction of color photography and later color videography played its part in bringing SFX
close to realism. After the 1960s, the introduction of Sci-Fi film took the game of SFX and VFX to
a completely new level. George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977) stood out as a groundbreaking project
in the history of cinema with reference to SFX. Not so surprisingly, the CGI took over in the 1990s
and from there the techniques used in imparting special effects took steps higher and only higher.
It is phenomenal how it all started with a motion-control camera system during Stars Wars and
came all the way to rear-projection technique, leaving behind the usual green screen and
mapping in the VFX afterward. The impact of all this is tremendous on the audience.

HOW SPECTACLE IS ACHIEVED IN ‘PREDATOR’

Predator, or as it was initially titled, hunter, written by the back then grasshoppers Jim and John
Thomas brothers and the screenplay bought up by 20th Century Fox and produced by Joel Silver,
John Davis and Lawrence Gordon directed by the also fresh face John McTiernan.
Predator become a classic after it’s initial bad reception, slashed by the critics nominated for
awards goes to cinematic failures and just about break even commercially on its release although
performed very well on VHS and keeps sneaks on you as a “perennial cable favorite” standing the
test of time as action classic. What is the secret of its success?
Predator is like a katana of action movies that just doesn`t loses its sharpness, designed to cut
without much wielding going straight for the kill by ticking the boxes its supposed to both in
respect of story telling and spectacle within its genre. “I wanted to do an old fashioned popcorn
movie, that`s what this is. It`s meant to be an entertainment.” McTiernan J.,(1986)Like Bruce
Lee`s Jeet Kune Do that stripped away of its unnecessary frippery focusing on effectiveness
hitting the right spots intercepting the critics assault and finding its opponent`s weakest point
with the smallest energy invested to the maximum effect possible. So us the bored of life`s
vicissitudes workers has only one thing to do is to sit back and enjoy some justice being served
like a beef steak a simple yet wholesome meal you can always fall back on when fed up with your
diet of overcomplicated regime on calorie and vitamin. A perfect usage of VFX that does not try
to boast about or dazzle the audience for the sake of it but supporting the ever so simple story
which actual brilliance is about the how more like the what since that is so simple that one does
not have to think much but just sit back and enjoy the punchlines over and over again.
There are fan theories out there defending the film that is often judged with hyper masculinity
calling out certain reviewers perception on the actual message of the movie which is about to
say that if you live by the sword you going to die by the sword making it an anti war commentary
sparing only the one lifes who displays inclination to quit his chosen profession that stains his
moral, Major Dutch the leader of the team and making the predator the shadow of killing that
can not go on unpunished. ”Time to let Ol' Painless' out of the bag.”

Retrospectives of Predator often explain its lightning bottle success by focusing on the jungle
setting, the memorable one liners, Arnold and his larger than life crew, McTiernan’s direction and
his life sawing decision refusing to work with the first and infamously bad design for the predator
or as it was initially named the hunter`s character, eventually saved by Stan Winston`s
team incredible work on the character design that became the icon of the intelligent
extraterrestrial species with their own moral code and culture within a hierarchy which members
consider death an inevitable event and killing a sport that has indeed has no prejudice and if you
are in the game you have to fight or you are out.
The creature design, almost stealing but definitely carrying the show by spawning some rather
bad sequels (especially the most recent flop decades later much of the fans disappointment)
evolved based on Joel Silver(producer) idea of a rastafarian warrior by Stan Winston concepting
out the final look including James Cameron hint of having something with mandibles and brought
to life by Kevin Peter Hall, who occupied the costume in the first two parts and completing the
character with his extraordinary height and brilliant mime making the predator a truly menacing
foe shrinking Arnold to a small boy scout. ”What are you gonna try next? Cheese?”
Dutch, the protagonist, moral stance established on killing as a soldier saying that they are a
`rescue team and not assassins` and he also typically dismisses a nostalgic view of warfare
throughout the movie. I believe this is the attitude that eventually saves him as we can consider
his luck of narrowly escaping his imminent death. Whilst he considers himself a moral, or heroic
man, he is at his core – a killer, by that reason he is inviting the mysterious foe who hunts those
who chose to kill.
One of my favorite scene is when the predator first gets wounded after our rescue team mow
down a chunk from the jungle by systematically firing out magazines of bullets and launching
numerous grenades to the opponent believed direction to one of their comrades alarm. You
haven`t seen that many allegedly hyper masculine top of his game soldier loosing their mental
composure.. Settling down on a branch the predator starts to unpack his alien tech med kit we
can first time see his clawed fingers, not only through his own thermal imaging vision (probably
the first movie to use an actual thermal imager back in the day when they were still really
expensive and far from what they are capable nowadays. How to achieve spectacle no.1!) when
investigating the lethal scorpion carcass in his own palm, and reptilian like skin and the opened
wound with the bioluminescent blood(contents of glow stick mixed with K-Y Jelly lubricant)
oozing he proceeds with a slightly shaking hand that one has during a trauma. Adds much to the
realism. At that point for the viewer is still a secret of what the alien actually looks like yet shares
a rather intimate moment with him. himself as he prepares to heal himself his hand roars up
painfully after the finishing touch. This slow introduction, more specific to the horror genre, the
mystery that leads up until to the very end of the movie keeps the audience mind guessing and
alert and makes it truly spectacular by carefully accenting as opposed to boasting about on the
detriment of storyline even if it`s just a pulp fiction that is not trying to be more than it ever could
be.
Practical effects making the visuals timeless.

A military trainer were brought with the cast to help them prepare and add a sense of realism by
forging a sense of comradeship.

Alan Silvestry`s music score is something that I used to put on just to listen to it while sketching
away

SPECTACLE IN CINEMA
Before moving to the art of spectacle through VFX in cinema, we need to know how the computer
graphics evolved and met with Cinema.
As discussed before, the `90s was the time where digital effects took off. Terminator 2, Death
Becomes Her, Forrest Gump and Jurassic Park, a series of movies embracing CGI marked the
initial era of spectacle realism we see today in the movies.
Long before, designed for the U.S. Navy in 1951, “The Whirlwind” came into existence. Later Air
Force (SAGE Air Defense) modified it and it became the first real-time graphics-displaying
computer on an oscilloscope screen. It was controlled with a light pen making it the first
interactive CG system. Then with the programming languages such as BASIC and FORTRAN, it
could perform various tasks useful for mathematicians, artists as well as engineers. The next thing
was painting on a 2D surface creating a depth compensating for the third dimension. For
example, a painter would create a good impression of 3D space that would later be enhanced by
the computer to create that space fully. It continued for years with more modifications until 1977
when Smith invented a 24-bit paint software with 16 million different colors. The next
modification was a 32-bit image. This allowed mimicking the behavior of light with solids, liquid
as well gaseous state with a little alteration in opacity but at a cost of more computing power.
This eventually helped filmmakers with effective matte extraction as it generated high-contrast
images. Throughout history, matte extraction is an essential element for composting (then
optical now digital).
The computer graphics with its marginal development were ready for entry into Cinema.
However, the movie Westworld in 1973 did use the 2D graphics but it was not the mainstream
until two people named George Lucas and Francis Coppola entered the game of special effects
and VFX. These two people played a marginal role in digitalizing Hollywood. Lucas’s three
objectives (a non-linear editing system, a digital film printer and a complementary system for
mixing and processing sound) gave birth to the digital film printer, EditDroid, and an Audio Signal
Processor.
The main vision of George Lucas was not of digital effects, it, however, becomes his image
although it was the artists at ILM who created the effects but it usually gets identified with the
filmmakers. Surprisingly, Lucas embed the visual effects in his films very slowly but firmly. He was
dependent on the motion-control techniques initially. It is evident in the Star Wars series. From
“The Last Hope” (1977) to the character of Snoke in “The Last Jedi” (2017), there is a slow but
effective gain of VFX in ILM movies. This way Hollywood had to accept the SFX as well as VFX.
Though the box-office collections were not that great initially, (The Abyss was a domestic box-
office disaster) but Hollywood kept on with VFX persistently.
Game Changers- Spielberg’s Dinosaurs and Cameron’s Terminator
The very first blockbuster (Global Box Office collection= $500+ million) was Terminator 2 that
used heavy digital effects. Following this, many other filmmakers took advantage of CGI; notable
examples are ‘In the line of Fire’ and ‘Death Becomes Her’. Then in 1993, the success of Jurassic
Park (Global Box Office Collection= $1 Billion) stamped the use of CGI in Hollywood on a
permanent basis. The large scale marketing campaign promoted the movie as a promise to
people that they will watch life-like dinosaurs. The people were awe-struck after watching the
movie and it became a launching pad for the coming era of vivid VFX. This very effect is spectacle’s
seductiveness. The new experience imparted by Jurassic Park created a craving for more in the
viewer`s minds.
If we go into the technicality of the movie, it was a mix of traditional effects and digital effects. It
used only 50 CGI shots. Spielberg did plan to do the movie with stop-motion puppets and full-
sized robotic dinosaurs which turned out to be unfeasible. He finally decided to realize it with the
help of animatronic models (Stan Winston Studio) built with cables and pulleys simulating the
behavior of the character. The “dino-input-device” made it possible to connect the CGI with the
traditional effects techniques. The things that couldn’t be done live or by animatronics were done
digitally. All this technical stuff blending with Spielberg’s direction created a spellbinding effect
for the audience. ‘As moving photographic images, Spielberg’s dinosaurs are referentially
fictional’- (Prince, 1996: 30)
What made Jurassic Park such a great success? Was it VFX or was it Spielberg’s narrative? The
answer is the balance of both. Since the introduction of VFX, the critics have always highlighted
the art of narrative versus the divide of spectacle. According to Andrew Darley Spectacle is ‘the
antithesis of the narrative. Spectacle effectively halts motivated movements. In its purest state,
it exists for itself, consisting of images whose main drive is to dazzle and stimulate the eyes’
(Darley, 2000:104)
The spectacle can very well serve the narrative but at the same time when a spectacle totally for
its own shake combined with bad narrative results in the production of bad films. Though people
may enjoy the spectacle, one such example is Transformers (2007). With its poor script and story,
the film did exceptionally well on the box office solely with the power of spectacle. When a shot
shows the things that people want to see then narrative becomes a responsibility for the
filmmakers. The mix of science and culture or rather say digital effects in the cinema cannot go
beyond the spectacle. This very point grants power to the narrative and hence the Jurassic Park
and Terminator 2 have their own place in cinema even though these are strongly described as
CGI movies.

SPECTACLE OF VIDEO GAMES AND MUSIC VIDEOS

Right after Rock N’ Roll, the Video Games are the biggest generation gap. How do Video Game
creators bind the youth with them? The answer is that the Gaming industry is using the art of
spectacle to the point of exhaustion. The Game creators do everything possible in the range of
VFX when it comes to making a groundbreaking game for the gaming community. If we look at
it, the games are solely based on the visual effects. As the narrative is the driving force of a film,
similarly the narrative, the engaging content, and storyline is the other half of VFX in Video
Games. Video game making it an art form now.
The contemporary music videos attract people with the amazing Visual effects in the videos. This
art form is significantly different from films and video games; here the music itself creates a large
part of the hook, attraction or the spectacle. Apparently, the music industry is shifting its gear to
incorporate the VFX into the videos. Whether it is a video depicting violence, fantasy, dreamland
or reality the Visual effects in almost all the videos play a vital part. This automatically leads to
the relation of music videos with the Spectacle.
PERCEPTUAL REALISM
The concept of reality is more important than the referential status of representation. To
understand in the context of Jurassic Park, the Dinosaurs are the beings of different age and there
is no way to photograph them like regular creatures. There is no way the audience can inhabit
that those are real. The movie still depicts them making them perceptually realistic. ‘Digital tools
give filmmakers an unprecedented ability to emphasize and replicate these cues as a means for
anchoring the scene in a perceptual reality that the viewer will find credible because it follows
the same observable law of physics as the world s/he inhabits.’- (Prince, 2012: 32)
Visual Effects artists aspire to create perceptual realism. There is a kind of persuasion they seek
for the viewers to believe the effects are real within the reference of story. This brings it to the
point that the better a scene evoke perceptual realism better would be the audience’s belief. The
Jurassic park’s dinosaurs baffled no one if they are alive today or not but the perceptual realism
with sharpest details could believe in the story and enjoyed it thoroughly.

CONCLUSION
The photorealistic aspect of digital effects has ushered to the belief that the technology of Digital
Imaging is about to go to the phase where filmed and digitally generated projects will not be
distinguishable. In modern times, the era of Special Effects is over, except for some limited use.
The industry has grown to the mechanical and practical effects and then everything else is now
known as VFX. Moreover, Academy Awards dropped the term “Special Effects” in 1972 and
introduced the new term called Visual Effects. However, the movies nowadays work on box office
solely with the power of spectacle but the spectacle or attraction is meaningless without the art
of narrative. There must be a perfect blend in the narrative and spectacle for a film to be great.
The perceptual realism is the goal of VFX. The art of spectacle through VFX made marvelous
progress in the video gaming world as well as contemporary music videos.

REFERENCE
Prince, S, (2012) Digital Visual Effects in Cinema: The seduction of Reality, New Brunswick, NJ and
London: Rutgers University Press.
Prince, S, (1996) True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images, and Film Theory. Film Quarterly,
49(3), 27-37.

Darley, A, (2000) Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres, New
York: Routledge.

Bukatman, S, (2003) Matters of Gravity: Special Effects and Supermen in the 20 th Century,
Durham, N.C., Duke University Press.

Pierson, M, (2002) Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder, New York, Columbia University Press.

Rickitt, R, (2007) Special Effects: The History and Technique, New York, Billboard Books.

Buckland, W, (1999) Between Science Fact and Science Fiction: Spielberg’s Digital Dinosaurs,
Possible Worlds, and the New Aesthetic Realism, Screen 40:2 (summer)