Introduction To Movie Special Effects
"How do they do that !". This is the big question in the minds of awestruck movie audiences worldwide watching a well-made Special Effects movie. Humans fly, prehistoric dinosaurs come back to life, space ships engage in dogfights, oceans submerge cities... Is there a limit to what the effects guys can achieve on screen ?!
Infact we are venturing into an era where technology is no longer a limitation to bringing magic onto the screen. Only imagination is. What emerges on the story board, finally lands on celluloid. How that actually happens is what this web site is all about. "How do they do that ?!" Well here's how.
Special Effects is both an art and a science. The science part involves the complete understanding of how the audio-visual sensory parts of our body and brain perceive the world around us, while the art part involves the strategic use of this information to fool the sensory system.
Persistence of Vision
Look at a bright light for a few seconds and then abruptly close your eyes. The image of the light seems to stay in your eyes a little longer even though your eyes are closed.
This phenomenon is termed as Persistence of Vision because the vision seems to persist for a brief moment of time.
When the retina of the eyes are excited by light, they send impulses to the brain which are then interpreted as an image by the visual cortex in the brain. The cells in the retina continue to send impulses even after the incident light is removed. This continues for a few fractions of a second till the retinal cells return back to normal. Until that time, the brain continues to receive impulses from the retina, and hence seems to perceive an image of the source of light, giving rise to the phenomenon called Persistence of Vision. |
