Take Five Minutes To Watch 100 Years Of Visual Effects

@badsponge: Meh, I'm lazy. Just saying, If I was going to make a video like this, I would put some effort into it.

@okeribok: My guess would be that nuclear bombs create mushroom clouds from that tend to develop halos/rings, and since a planet blowing up is an even BIGGER explosion, they would have to have halos as well. Let's just ignore the lack of atmospheric pressure and oxygen to fuel the explosions in space. But yeah, I think they look cool too.

smekosh

@Scazza: Well, then I'm REALLY looking forward to the video you're going to post in response to this. Yours will probably be 10 minutes long and include all those 100s of awesome films. I'm sure you've already started work on it.

badsponge

Fail, the star wars clip featured a shot from the remastered version. I can't believe I know that.

metaslugx

@ScottRose: Fantastic point. I missed that line at the end or just glossed over it. I am now officially The Douche in the room. In all honesty, the guy who made the video and I have been laughing about most of the youtube comments over the last few days.

TatsuFX

The music is rods and cones by blue man group (slightly edited) in case anyone is interested.

carrick149

You can't possibly leave out 2012 - just look at the trailer!

MePerson

@TatsuFX: No one's yelling "first" or posting ROLFCOPTERS (or whatever it is that the kids on YouTube are doing nowadays). Though perhaps those comments have since been removed by the mods here.

The commenters were just responding to the author's question:

"Did your favorite visual effect get left out?"

Obviously that's going to start people talking about what "should have been" in the video. Sorry you're dismayed by that.

Personally I thought the clip had a great flow, and fit to the soundtrack really well. The target demo does explain why there was a drop in the music track to the vocals from Roger Rabbit.

To answer the author: The Matrix, definitely. Also, the original Star Trek (which is boring as hell, but had some great effects for its day).

@chknstrp: I love this song. I've had it on my gen 4 (non color) iPod since I saw them perform in Chicago about... 7 years ago. Needless to say, my iPod still runs fine. Everyone always mocks it for being so "huge".

Isentropic_Storm

@witeowl: Yeah, but the tennis ball gives the actor something to focus his eyes on. Imagine how freaky it would look if he were conversing with a nearby imaginary character but his eyes were focused on the far wall.

WeedMonkey

@incubushead: What?!? EVERYBODY knows that Michael Jackson invented morphing in his "Black and White" video!

WeedMonkey

What, no Howard The Duck? I'm boycotting!

@TatsuFX: thank you.

taodude

@sick_and_ashamed: The Praxis explosion was the first time I had seen the halo effect. No explanation other than most people think two-dimensionally (KHAAAAAAN) and it looks cool.

@rarukufan: That does look pretty awesome for 1927. And the guy looks like Joachin Phoenix... which doesn't really matter.

I wonder if it was a major step in visual effects as I'm sure the other ones in the video maybe are.

I'm seriously amazed at the comments this video elicits. A friend working in visual effects, made this to show to a classroom full of 5th graders before talking a little bit about working in the industry. Nowhere, anywhere does it say that this is a definitive list of visual effects films, nor does it claim they are the most influential films from the past century. I had assumed when it showed up on Giz that the comments would be slightly more enlightened than those on Youtube. Imagine my dismay. Anyway, go read the notes from the guy who posted it on youtube: "...a collection of clips and making-of footage from notable visual effects films of the past century..." That's it.

TatsuFX

@okeribok: I think they got the halo idea from the opening of Star Trek VI when Praxis explodes and Excelsior gets smacked by the shockwave.

But as for why the Praxis explosion had a halo... well, it looked cool, didn't it?

sick_and_ashamed

@HalenTobias: This was my first thought, but there's tons more people have listed above.

@rarukufan:
Agreed... I really can't see how you could leave it out. I remember watching it and going "how the hell did he do that?" knowing there isn't any CGI.

Stubtify

@morcheeba: +1

The song's called "Rods and Cones" referring to the visual receptors in our eyes, so it pertains to the visual effects content of the video.

I used it for my motion graphic demo reel a few years ago.

TaliaKliggy

Based on this I have learned that Mary Poppins paved the way for the awesome graphics in Star Wars.
Was it the same effects team? a natural transition from ye'old England to interstellar warfare.

ilya687

@LouisJebber:

Yep, Superman The Movie invented like 80% of the techniques used for its special effects including front projection.

COCOViper

Actually, it was Industrial Light & Magic that did those effects... The Genesis Project was the first use of CGI in a feature film I believe. (Although ILM did use a Pixar scanner for Young Sherlock Holmes)

I agreee that the list was severely lacking. Bare minimum (that I haven't seen mentioned yet):
-Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902)
- Blade Runner (1982)
- Luxo Jr (1986)
- Stargate (1994)
-The Crow (1994)
- Toy Story (1995)

MontagueLaenas

Oh yeah, and wheres Willow? The special effects engineers on that movie invented morphing which went on to be the most overused effect for several years after it.

missing the animated Beauty and the Beast, the ballroom scene with hand drawn animation and CG blew my mind when i was younger.

@GitEmSteveDave_♥'sRenegadeIrishman: You think that's air you're breathing?

Brett Benedict

@okeribok: It bothers me too. Shouldn't it be an expanding sphere?

Aunt_Snowman

@Fractal the Meek: Yeah. I remember hearing that they often use a tennis ball on a stick to help actors know where to look while speaking to nonexistent characters. I almost think that seriously having a conversation (or argument!) with a tennis ball would be more difficult than conversing with air.

I'm surprised we didn't see Lord of the Rings. They had some crazy effects in that one, like turning a 500 horse battle charge into a 6,000 horse charge for the final cut, or the Balrog fight scene with Gandalf....that for me remains one of the most badass scenes in the whole trilogy....

Damn the Fanboys

fake. How about some Matrix?

hendross

@Andrew: THAT is the question Neo. If you want to find out, choose a pill..

@dingus: Oh come on. They'd pick Star Trek. Let's not get carried away here. Personally I'd like to see what Stanny K could do with today's CGI. I imagine Benjamin Button technology interesting him a lot for some reason.

JMalky

@styfle: >command+f

Yeah, just to show off your Maciness...

I would say it's missing

Herbie the Lovebug (animatronics)
Citizen Kane (Makeup)
The Exorcist (everything)
The Birds (compositing)
2001: A Space Oddyssey (everything)
Babe (digital effect's first non eye-candy only use)

ridgecity

@deanbmmv: I have to agree, since Jurassic Park, there has been a steady decline in the quality of special effects. Bar a few examples, the vast majority of them look like some teenage, home 3d, not the output of Hollywood studios.

glyphon

@shenanigans: Transformer has not done anything for cinema other that turn the spotlight to Megan Fox. oh mama!

And PIxar has done animation history, not FX, but they did make fx for Star Trek films and some tv.

ridgecity

@Madge Gristle: no. it Disney's Oliver and Company.

ridgecity

@LouisJebber: Titan A.E. was the first? not really, it was done by Filmation on Flash Gordon using rotoscoped ships in 1979.

[www.youtube.com]

ridgecity

@Peter Harris: Was it Babe? man that was awesome, that duck was freekin funny!

ridgecity

@EBone: Speaking of that halo, does anybody know any explanation for it, other than "it just looks cool"? Halo explosions have been bothering me for quite some time now...

okeribok

@pushmonk: could be wrong, but wasn't Beautiy and the Beast the first time CGi and animation were used in conjunction?

No Alice shorts from Disney?

Live action and animation interacting with one another fluidly 65 years before Roger Rabbit (also great tho...)

No, Metropolis, huh?

@LouisJebber: Eh? What did the first Lord of the Rings movie pioneer? The second one at least had amazing motion-capture.

They did miss Star Wars episode 1: The Phantom Menace - he may have been crappy and unpopular, but JarJar was the first 100% digital actor in a live-action movie.

Dreamwriter

@Mozoltov, motherfucker: lol now I know where the "Get ready for a surprise!" phrase comes from when the monkey bomb says it in Nazi Zombies.

tdk08

Ah... Blue Man Group. Awesome soundtrack choice.

Cash907Censored

@Scazza: ... I'm looking forward to your version of this, with your 100's of important films in there. Like you said, it'll be a seriously minimal effort.

This list is bullshit. You guys forgot the greatest scene in special F/X history.

Well, it's a hundred (plus) years of cinema and one TV show. But who's counting. ;)

janai

there was a film made before the turn of twentieth century the story of a pig and the production of the sausage
which was considered to be the beginning of science fiction

Peter Harris

@SashiLemming: yeah, I, too was really surprised about the missing Genesis Project sequence since it was the first fully computer generated cinematic sequence... :-(

@Evan Gilmore: I just did a command + F to find matrix and got to this post :/

styfle

@Kakkoii: It's like getting an extra scoop of ice cream. Bonus treat.

Blasphemy! This is 108 years of Visual Effects, not 100!

None of the green screen mastery propounded by the directors of the Simpsons????

:FAIL

UGA

@Andrew: Absolutely my first thought. Not including the Matrix = history of special effects FAIL.

Evan Gilmore

So this guy went through a handful of his DVDs he had on his shelf and ripped parts of the special features into a shoddy youtube clip? Seriously minimal effort on his part.

I recognize most of the modern films from their dvd commentary/how-tos that he ripped.

Also yeah, he jumped from the 20s to Oz, then to tron, there was 100s of important films inbetween.

@Andrew: Agreed. Any history of effects that doesn't include the Matrix bullet time effect is sorely lacking.

salient1

@thehacker123: Rods and Cones, from their CD, released in 5:1 sound.

@deanbmmv: Well, don't forget the T-rex was animated with a Dinosaur Input Device, so it was both stop motion AND cgi. And without The Abyss, there would be no T-1000.

Uhh... Where was the Matrix?

@Amplified Hustler: Agreed. The CGI work that enhanced Keanu's acting was superb, I almost couldn't tell that he is a wooden puppet. Likewise the subtle digital enhancement to the script to give it the illusion of being deep and meaningful.

quite the gap between 64 and 77. also agreed matrix and or blade/runner should have had an honorable mention.

ugotworms

What always amazes me watching any modern "making of" footage is the acting. Some of the scenes are shot lacking so much of the final substance of the scenes and characters, there's a lot more skill and imagination required on the actors' parts to stay on task.

Crossing an icy (green screen) tundra? Speaking to (non-existent) polar bears and rabbits? Addressing a (not actually) hideous octopus-faced man?

Wasn't as much an issue when things were done by prop and makeup, I reckon.

Fractal the Meek

Wow, someone fell asleep at the wheel putting this list together. What about:
- Max Fleischer's Koko the Clown (way before Mary Poppins)
- Alfred Hitchcock films (long list, he's pretty much the one that everyone grabs his ideas off of - cinematography and visual effects.)
- Clash of the Titans
- Forest Gump
- The Matrix (ONLY the first one)
- Lord of the Rings (ONLY the first one)
- Titan A.E. (hybrid cel and CGI animation)
- Saving Private Ryan (shaky cam CGI w/live action)

I'm pretty sure there are much more pioneering films out there that I didn't mention as well, but definitely much more than what was originally posted.

LouisJebber

@FrankenPC: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

@pushmonk: Ah, two movies I need to go get RIGHT NOW. Thank you.

alowishus finally has his Miata

This was well done. It can't have everything, but what it does have just shows how far we come, Now if only hollywood would realize models and puppets beat cgi most any day that would be great.

xredgambit

@LaurenAmphinomus: DragonSlayer was also a feat of special effects. Hell...what about 2001? That blew the doors off the whole genre.

FrankenPC

It makes me rather sad that they left out The Last Star-fighter :(

LaurenAmphinomus

@DUOPHONIX.com: 2001 has to be the best filmmaking of all time

@DUOPHONIX.com: Show some kids who've never seen 2001 shots of the space station and then scenes from the latest Star Trek and ask them which one looks more fake.

dingus

If anyone's interested the background song is Rods and Cones by Blue Man Group

chknstrp

Awww... This takes me back. *Puts in Tron videotape and kicks back*

@yungjerry703: Correct. The 1977 version did not have the "halo" effect after the explosion of the death star.

PIXAR did the pioneering shots of the Genesis Project from Star Trek II, as well as the stained glass knight from Young Sherlock Holmes-- a pioneering sequence that is missing from this reel.

I'm also surprised that they used the new edition of the Death Star blowing up instead of the original 1977 version.

SashiLemming

@yungjerry703:

You are absolutely correct. I was wondering if anyone else had caught that.

@electricarchie: exactly! All done without even a sniff on a computer!

Ive been doing 3d CGI work professionaly for years and i specialise in doing photorealistic stuff, and even with this bias and love of 3d, the scenes in 2001 are still the most realistic bits of special effects i have ever seen, they look beautiful in HD too!

+1 For blue man group music :)

thehacker123

@DUOPHONIX.com: Thinking about how they made the stewardesses walk from the floors onto the walls and ceilings blew my mind. Also the scene with dave running around the outside of the ring of the spaceship was really incredible.

electricarchie

@shenanigans: Transformers? what did they do special.
And Pixar mainly do full 3D work, their original use as vfx team were taken up by ILM. And I'd say 3D doesn't exactly count as vfx, no compositing with live footage for one.

Ok, here's my gripe.

Where are some of the "firsts"?

Young Sherlock Holmes. The first time a computer animated figure interacts with live action.

The Last Starfighter. The first time computer created sets were used in conjunction with actual sets (ie. you see the bottom of the ship in the hanger, and it's a real set piece, but when they show the whole ship, it's CG).

pushmonk

The hell? You don't even have Transformers in there!
And nothing from Pixar!?!
To be honest, there are too many movies that have pioneered new levels of visual effects. If someone were to do a proper video. It would be well over 20 minutes.

i may not be old enough but i think the star wars clip (when the death star explodes) was from the current spruced up version not the 1977 og version. the ring around the explosion looked fraudulent.

As a Digital Effects student I've watched this video many times over. Just great. When the new year starts I'll be showing this to my tutor right away.
I'm still amazed at Jurassic park though. Still looks great over a decade since it's release, whereas some modern effects are looking crap after a few years.
I'm surprised to see no bullet time though. I guess it was very quickly ground into the dirt though and now is a bit risky to use without looking tacky.
Ray Harryhausen's work is also amazing. Sure it's aged, but it looks good, and would of amazed audiences at the time.
And then there's T2...damn some of the stuff they did then is hard to do now, never mind the primitive 3D tools they had at the time.
and obviously I aspire to one day have some of my work on "The greatest effects of the past 200 years"

@Persistence: Well Watchmen wasn't particulararly innovative special effects. Just alot of polish.

Love it. all really good movies for FX.

JackMatt

Could have picked some better movies toward the end. No Watchmen? Also putting the date for each movie would have been more interesting too. My biggest gripe though is putting the death star explosion from the re-release and using it in the 1977 spot.

The sheer imagination and genius of the Jupiter and Beyond section of 2001 deserves a mention!

Not to mention the rest of the film! Especially considering it was made way before star wars and even Lucas admits modelling his special effects on those from 2001!!!

I mean, making a film set in space and on the moon before we had even seen the earth from an orbit is impressive enough!!!

No Blade Runner? WTF.

radikaled

What, no Matrix?
That was a biggie in terms of visual effects for the span between Jurassic Park and Spiderman 2.