Virtually Immersive

Lord of the Rings: The trilogy of movies that hit the
screens in the beginning of this decade. The first animation movies based on
books by the same name were created in 1978 but it took Hollywood many more
years to create the lifelike special effects of the blockbusters released 2001
onward.

Thats a long journey for special effects50 years to make
it from thought to screen. But with that journey well behind us, we are now
looking at the art and technology of special effects being refined with every
passing day.

There was a time when filmmakers used trick photography to
introduce the element of deception to create visual effects on films. The
earliest effects were produced within the camera or using miniatures. The
classic film, King Kong (1933), made use of stop-motion animation and
matte paintings to create special effects of the period. Then in 1977, a
filmmaker named George Lucas and his company, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM),
made a film called Star Wars. Everything changed after that. Although
2D-generated images had been used in films before, ILMs use of groundbreaking
3D Computer Generated Imagery or CGI and motion controlled camera created the
visuals in Lucass epic space opera. Fast-forward 30 years and ILM continues
to be a leader in motion picture visual effects.

Now we are at a point where if you can imagine it, technology
can recreate it for the screen, whatever the size. Its CGI that creates the
crowds in a scene. Its CGI that fills in gaps that are otherwise difficult
for the camera to capture, or for actors/doubles to execute. For instance, CGI
made it possible to add Tom Hanks to historical footage in Forrest Gump.
Closer home, in Sanjay Leela Bhansalis Devdas, the dance sequence
which had Aishwarya Rai dancing with a lit oil lamp in her palms was shot
without the lamp. It was added later using CGI.

Use of endorphins, software that can create intelligent virtual
characters, for building virtual stunt doubles are now quite common. Troy
was among the first movies to have used them. You can get virtual stunt doubles
to do anything you want, without having to worry about dangers involved or
insurance cover.

All this means that the budgets of movies go up tremendously,
but then the earnings go up as well. Spiderman 3 was made on a budget of
$250 mn which makes it the most expensive film in history. Within a month of its
release it had grossed $900 mn worldwide. Our own Krissh, which cost
Rs500 mn, was a hit at the box office.

Another milestone in the cinema experience is the interactive
movie, where a viewer can change the narrative with the click of a button. Late
Fragment debuted in Canada this August. This is a trend to watch out for.

So what can we look forward to? No film stars, but technology
created characters with the stars being the companies who create them. Digital
characters have also been playing secondary characters in feature films. Gollum
in Lord of the Rings was one. However, we are still a while away from
lead human-like digital characters who are plausible enough and can act as real
actors in movies. There have been attempts, but they have not seen successes at
the box office.

I, for one, am not unhappy with that. The romance and glamour of
films would go away if we had only technology created characters. It would not
be a bad idea for technology to stay away from some areas.

The author is editor-in-chief of CyberMedia, the publisher of Dataquest.

He can be reached at shyamm@cybermedia.co.in