Movies have come a long way since the first movies. The evolution of visual effects has gone from the effects you would see on a stage to the most sophisticated computer-generated images. The evolution has been long and interesting, and speaks to the advancement of technology; as technology evolved, so did the effects. The history is hard to look at in brief, but it is interesting nonetheless.
The First Effects
When movies first started, there were few if any effects; the first movies were just short snatches of real-life action. When the movies got a little longer, the effects person was frequently a person who did stage magic or helped with the effects on stage; they were very practical, such as using smoke grenades and bright lights. The first major innovation was when someone figured out how to stop filming and start it up with no sign that it had been turned off; this allowed people and objects to disappear. It may sound minor, but it was the first camera-dependent effect.
And Then Animation Became A Thing
Animation also evolved, Stop motion animation allowed filmmakers to create some incredible monsters for film, while hand-drawn animation allowed for lightning and other effects. By combining these with practical effects, models, prosthetics, and techniques used with marionettes, they were able to evolution of visual effects they could think of, even while recognizing that the filmmaking was still somewhat crude. Over time, electronics made some of the effects a little more advanced, especially with remote-controlled and animatronics.
Computers Made Life More Interesting
Interestingly, while the first computers were little more than glorified number-crunchers, they quickly became more advanced every year. Interestingly, the entertainment industry helped advance what they could do as computers needed to match the power and sophistication required for special effects. While computers were initially used as props and to design graphics, their effects would soon be felt in various projects; one such area was blurring motion; dubbed “Go-motion”, the computer would blur some areas of the moving figure, smoothing out some of the problems with stop motion. Eventually, computers would be used for a wide variety of special effects, replacing a number of techniques.
Special effects have gotten much more sophisticated than the mere stopping and starting of the camera, but still have a long ways to go. The evolution of special effects is ongoing, and it should be interesting to see where that evolution will take them.
