Patrick Stoner welcomes
your questions about movies and the people who make them. Send your
questions to
pstoner@whyy.org.
Patrick Stoner welcomes
your questions about movies and the people who make them. Send your
questions to
pstoner@whyy.org.
Here's the current question and answer...
Q: How do they do those special effects in films like INDEPENDENCE DAY?
A: It's Magic.
Well, it's not really magic, but it might as well be for those of us who are non-technicians.I used to understand the workings of most special effects because the basic concepts were pretty simple. It was only their smooth execution that was complicated. Some effects were remarkable for the technology of their time. Some were remarkably poor. (Cecil B. De Mille and Ed Wood come to mind as representatives of the two schools.)
Ironically, INDEPENDENCE DAY uses more of the old-fashioned technology than you might suppose. In fact, they even resorted to the infamous Ed Wood technique of dangling models in front of a miniature set. (Although, again, execution of the technique is SLIGHTLY better in the new film.)
What creates the magic for me these days, however, can be summed up in one word -- "digital."
Many of the best special effects require the images be transfered from film into data on very powerful computers, and then back into film again. All images on any computer monitor (and TV sets, too) are made up of "pixels"--the smallest points of light the screen can distinguish.
Now, blow up one part of an image--say, Jeff Goldblum's ear--so large that you can easily see the individual pixels. By changing the nature of each pixel, you can alter the larger image either subtly or rather drastically. Use your computerized Paintbox, step back, and Jeff's ear is now a rosebud.
Computers have become remarkably sophisticated in their ability to manipulate pixels, and that technology has probably improved since I began typing this answer. That has been a boon and a curse to filmmakers.
On the one hand, Roland Emmerich, the director, co-writer and executive producer of INDEPENDENCE DAY, found he could convincingly use computer graphics in his movie's foreground because the state of the art had improved that much since making STARGATE just a couple of years earlier. On the other hand, some composite shots near the end of the new film already look old-fashioned and cry out for digital help.
Nonetheless, INDPENDENCE DAY has more of the new-fangled technology than any other film yet released. There are 360 special-effects shots (made up of more than 4,000 individual elements). To give you some perspective, this film has more than seven times the number of digital creations than did JURASSIC PARK.
For those who want to explore the specifics of the making of INDEPENDENCE DAY, let me guide you to THE source: 20th Century Fox has a web site that will answer all questions in detail. Go visit Fox Interactive. Happy pixels!