The Empire of Effects : : Industrial Light and Magic and the Rendering of Realism / / Julie A. Turnock.

Just about every major film now comes to us with an assist from digital effects. The results are obvious in superhero fantasies, yet dramas like Roma also rely on computer-generated imagery to enhance the verisimilitude of scenes. But the realism of digital effects is not actually true to life. It i...

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Superior document:Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE Arts 2022
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Place / Publishing House:Austin : : University of Texas Press, , [2022]
©2022
Year of Publication:2022
Language:English
Online Access:
Physical Description:1 online resource (368 p.) :; 50 b&w photos
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Other title:Frontmatter --
Contents --
Acknowledgments --
Introduction: The ILM Version --
One. ILM Versus Everybody Else --
Two. Perfect Imperfection --
Three. Retconning CGI Innovation --
Four. Monsters Are Real --
Five. That Analog Feeling --
CONCLUSION. Unreal Engine --
Appendix: List of Films Mentioned in the Text --
Notes --
Bibliography --
Index
Summary:Just about every major film now comes to us with an assist from digital effects. The results are obvious in superhero fantasies, yet dramas like Roma also rely on computer-generated imagery to enhance the verisimilitude of scenes. But the realism of digital effects is not actually true to life. It is a realism invented by Hollywood—by one company specifically: Industrial Light & Magic. The Empire of Effects shows how the effects company known for the puppets and space battles of the original Star Wars went on to develop the dominant aesthetic of digital realism. Julie A. Turnock finds that ILM borrowed its technique from the New Hollywood of the 1970s, incorporating lens flares, wobbly camerawork, haphazard framing, and other cinematography that called attention to the person behind the camera. In the context of digital imagery, however, these aesthetic strategies had the opposite effect, heightening the sense of realism by calling on tropes suggesting the authenticity to which viewers were accustomed. ILM’s style, on display in the most successful films of the 1980s and beyond, was so convincing that other studios were forced to follow suit, and today, ILM is a victim of its own success, having fostered a cinematic monoculture in which it is but one player among many.
Format:Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
ISBN:9781477325315
9783110992809
9783110992816
9783110993899
9783110994810
9783110766516
DOI:10.7560/325308
Access:restricted access
Hierarchical level:Monograph
Statement of Responsibility: Julie A. Turnock.