"Special Effects" Celebrates 100 Years of FX in Filmmaking

Movie special effects come alive as never before on the Detroit Science Center's giant IMAX Dome in the dazzling new film Special Effects, produced by NOVA/WGBH Boston.

Special Effects features eye-popping visual effects from four recent motion pictures using state-of-the-art fimmaking techniques, including Independence Day, Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, Jumanji, and Kazaam. Audiences will also see King Kong's final battle as well as starship chase scenes choreographed with original star wars models, newly reshot in the awesome IMAX format at spectacular scale and resolution.

Nova, the popular PBS science series and producer of IMAX-format films, was given exclusive large-format access to major film and special effects studios to produce this behind-the-scenes look at how movie makers achieve startling and utterly convincing visual effects.

"Special Effects celebrates 100 years of cinema and the technological achievements that have made special effects a critical part of the entertainment industry today," says the films producer, Susanne Simpson.

The film follows the innovative effects wizardry that goes into blockbuster movies, including backstage glimpses of Industrial Light and Magic at work on Lucasfilm Ltd.'s upcoming Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, scheduled for a 1997 release to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the original Star Wars.

Special Effects similarly explores the making of Twentieth Century Fox's summer 1996 motion picture epic Independence Day, Tri-Star's 1995 box office hit fantasy of a boardgame-come-alive, Jumanji, and Kazaam from Interscope Communications, Inc. (with effects by Rhythm and Hues, winner of the 1995 Academy Award for visual effects for Babe) starring Shaquille O'Neal as a rapping genie with magical powers.

Viewers will also see history repeat itself as King Kong battles airplanes on the giant screen in a 1990s update of the classic story, newly created in IMAX exclusively for the film by Hollywood's masters of movie magic.

NOVA is renowned for making science as accessible as it is fascinating, a task it accomplishes in Special Effects by showing how movie model makers, matte painters, pyrotechnicians, camera operators, animators, and computer graphics artists rely on the principles of visual perception to fool the audience. The film demonstrates how the visual cues we use to orient ourselves in the real color, form, light, motion and are manipulated to create the illusion of reality on the screen. ------

SPECIAL EFFECTS

NOVA/WGBH Boston is currently in production on Special Effects, a large format film funded by WGBH with the participation of eighteen U.S. and international science museums, to be shown in IMAX® and IMAX DOME® theaters. The film tells the behind-the-scenes story of a group of special effects filmmakers creating an extraordinary special effects sequence in this larger-than-life film format. The film begins by showing the early inventors--the Lumière Brothers, E.J. Marey and Edison--and how motion picture technology was exploited by artists such as Méliès. Examples of key concepts in perception, such as persistence of vision and induced movement, will be used throughout the film to explain how filmmakers use science to achieve their artistic illusions. The unique concept of this film is to bring together the history of cinema and the art of filmmaking with the science of perception.

Most everyone has seen the image of an oversized renegade gorilla atop the Empire State Building, immortalized in the classic 1930s movie. While audiences have become jaded towards many visual effects of yesteryear, the masters of today's blockbuster movies make the impossible seem quite believable. Special Effects, a new IMAX film being released in July, takes audiences to Hollywood's back lots (including the studios of George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic) to see the science behind Hollywood's magic.

The film profiles some of this year's­p;and and next year's­p;hottest films including Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, Independence Day, Jumanji, and Kazaam. Chromakey technology, forced perspective and other complicated­p;and sometimes surprisingly simple­p;film techniques produce a variety of stunning visual effects to wow movie audiences. Special Effects also examines the history of visual effects, including a special appearance by King Kong.

Included are backstage glimpses of astonishing new effects produced for the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, scheduled for release in 1997. Although producer George Lucas envisaged these effects when he made the first Star Wars film in 1977, it is only recently that new technology has made them possible. Exclusive footage filmed in the IMAX format­p;a special effect in itself­p;makes the Force more powerful than ever.

Executive Producer Susanne Simpson said of Special Effects, "We want the film to entertain the audience with great special effects, but we also want to get them thinking about the perceptual insights that underlie the illusions, and the human creativity and technical ingenuity that make them possible."