More Special Effects From Old Movies

Earlier this year I posted a great youtube video that examined how special effects were done with primitive technology.

Well, it was successful enough to become a series. As with most things film related, the sequels are not as good as the original but still really interesting and worth watching, I think.

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Special Effects in Old Movies

Before CGI, long before, how were certain special effects in movies created?

In addition to being a big Buster Keaton fan and wanting to highlight his work, I'm also reminded of the tornado in "The Wizard of Oz." That thing was so scary as a kid but still feels incredibly eerie today.

That's Impossible... Even For A Computer.

We can all remember where we were when we first saw the amazingly realistic CGI on the first Star Wars movie.

In this video, the main man Larry Cuba, explains how it was all done:

The special effects for this shot, and the techniques used for pretty much every special effects shot in Star Wars, had to be invented as they went along. In case after case, people set out to create something without knowing how it can be done and then invent ways to do it. The creative process is usually interesting but the special case of "Special Effects", for me, approximates magic more than almost any other.

The creative solutions revealed in this video are surprising for two reasons:

1) How high tech the solutions were. I would have guessed that these were the days before 3D software and digital-pen-like interfaces but clearly both were available. The computers were even powerful enough and the tools were already developed to manipulate 3D images real-time which, again, I would not have guessed.

and

2) How low tech the solutions were. How do you take images from the computer and put them on film? I don't know, put a camera in front of the monitor and take a thousand stop-motion pictures of the screen, I guess.