Review 4: Invisible VFX

How does technology affect film/animation storytelling?

Technology has the great habit of making our daily lives easier. With it, tasks are made easier, or even automatic. It also provides new possibilities that were never possible before, opening up entire new industries and professions.

In the world of film and animation, it is just as revolutionary. It was not long after moving pictures were invented when people realized it could be tinkered with to do magic tricks of sorts, such as creating the illusion of people disappearing and reappearing at will. Still, this required footage of real people and a real set to complete. This 'limited' film makers to capturing only the physical, the real. While films became more ambitious, an industry in props and effects grew, leading to improvements in all aspects of set and character design. Still, the creators were limited to things that could only exist in the real world.

Computers came along and changed everything once again, with the ability to create something completely digitally and add it to the frame. As this technology improved, it became easier and easier for artists to create anything they desired. No longer were they restricted to things that could be physically represented. It could be taken to the extreme as well, with it being possible to create an entire movie with CGI. In this way, entire new realities could be constructed and represented without being confined the laws of the natural universe.

For the future, computer graphics will only become more and more realistic, as well as more and more easily obtainable. This means completely realistic stories can be filmed and produced without the need for any real actors. Anyone with a computer and the right software will be able to write and create their own computer generated films with all of their favorite actors. This trend will ultimately condense the entire film-making/animation process into its most fundamental parts: the creating of the story itself. In this way, your imagination and story telling skills will really be the only limit to what you can create.