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Milestones In Visual Effects: What Came Before Star Wars

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Since the Star Wars we have seen many wonders on the big screen. But what happened before?

Ever since the very first moving picture special effects has been around astonishing the audience. It has grown from the more early basic tricks to computer spectacles over time. We witness the magic that various advance techniques like stop motion, performance capture on the screen almost every day.. But where did it all begin? That is what we aim to bring out here.

Movies That Set The Foundation To The Visual Effects Of Today

 

1. The Lost World: 1925

Credits: sammoroniesentertainmentfunhouse

Credits: sammoroniesentertainmentfunhouse

The Lost World established a new genre of movies of feature length dinosaur oriented sci-fi movies. Following the creation of the life sized giants in this movie many followed like Gojira, Jurassic Park and Godzilla. Wills O’Brian pioneered the first use of the primitive stop motion animation, especially in the scene where the brontosaurus knocking down people with its tail on the streets of London.

2. King Kong: 1933

Credits: 3.bp.blogspot

Credits: 3.bp.blogspot

The masterful use of detailed stop motion animation and special effects on King Kong and the dinosaurs by Wills O’Brian makes this movie still one of the best effects to ever have been created. The King Kong also employed a combination of matte paintings, miniatures, rear projection and stop motion through many different scenes to have a more realistic effect.

3. Snow White And The Seven dwarfs: 1937

Credits: cartoonpapers.com

Credits: cartoonpapers.com

Snow white and the seven dwarfs was the ground breaking 83 minute film that was built on hand drawn animation entirely. It was the first ever movie to use rotoscopy for the entire length of the feature.

4. The Wizard Of Oz: 1939

Credit: bioskop24

Credit: bioskop24

The Wizard of Oz made considerable use of matte painting projections to make the audience believe the actors where in a different location all together. But the impressive special effects from the 3 different angles on the twister takes the cake and the cherry on it!

5. Fantasia: 1940

fantasia

Credits: yug.me

Fantasia was the first artistic animation movie with classical music. This was also the first film ever to use a multi-channel stereo sound called fantasound.

6. Citizen Kane: 1941

Credits: kamikong

Credits: kamikong

This master piece from Orson Welles used a combination of cinematic and narrative techniques with experimental innovations to create the title character like putting together the pieces of a puzzle.

7. The Ten commandments: 1956

Credits: tmbd.org

Credits: tmbd.org

When the red sea parted, our jaws dropped! This scene is till date one of the most miraculous and expensive scenes in the making of visual effects. Some of the other scenes in the movie that used special effects are the burning bushes and different plagues. Compositing was also used to multiply the number of extras in the scene.

8. 2001: A Space odyssey: 1968

Credits: hdwallpaperbase

Credits: hdwallpaperbase

The star gate and star child sequence along with other special effects helped build this movie that later pioneered a number of such movies in this genre. This was the first movie to have such a realistic image of the space. Miniature models of spacecraft, timer or manually-guided pre-motion control cameras, rear-projection, full-sized props or models and other early techniques were used.

9. A Clockwork Orange: 1971

Credits: wallpaper.com

Credits: wallpaper.com

A Clockwork Orange was the first movie ever to use the Dolby technology to record sound. A technology that has now become a staple.

10. The Exorcist: 1973

Credits: fanpop.com

Credits: fanpop.com

The Exorcist, a horrifying story of a girl possessed by the devil and later the exorcism was a result of some really stunning effects. A lot of the nauseating scenes like the appearance of the words “HELP ME” on the girl’s stomach and also the 360 degree head rotation could not be done without the more basic technology and the ingenuity of the team.

 

These 10 wonders paved the way to the development in technology of visual effects that started a revolution in the form of Star Wars and eventually led to the making of Gravity!

 

 

Utkarsh Salunkhe
Utkarsh Salunkhe
Last updated: March 20, 2024

Utkarsh was honored with the 7th Dadasaheb Phalke film award for his short film "Grey," and presently, he is working on post-production of a Trilogy feature film project called 'SHADES' for which he is responsible as a Writer, Director, Editor and Art Director.


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