Visual and Special Effects Film Milestones

Milestones in Film History:
Greatest Visual and Special Effects and Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)

Part 3

Introduction: From even its earliest days, films have used visual magic ("smoke and mirrors") to produce illusions and trick effects that have startled audiences. In fact, the phenomenon of persistence of vision is the reason why the human eye sees individual frames of a movie as smooth, flowing action when projected.

Cel animation, scale modeling, claymation, digital compositing, animatronics, use of prosthetic makeup, morphing, and modern computer-generated or computer graphics imagery (CGI) are just some of the more modern techniques that are widely used for creating incredible special or visual effects.

(See this site's film terms glossary for definitions and examples, the History of Film by Decade, and an extensive timeline of other Milestones and Turning Points in Film History.)
Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 100 Greatest Films.

Milestones in Visual/Special Effects and
Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) - Part 3
(chronological)
Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10

Film Title and Description of Visual-Special Effects

Example

Bwana Devil (1952)

An exploitative jungle adventure film - noted as the first 3-D feature-length, commercially-released color (and sound) film ever made. The film featured man-eating Tsavo lions leaping toward the camera and flying spears thrown out of the screen. The gimmicky 3-D effect required that the viewer wear special polarization glasses, unlike anaglyphic 3-D that required red/blue glasses to be worn. 3-D technology was employed to try to combat the encroaching competition of television on the film industry.

This is Cinerama (1952)

Paramount's wrap-around, big-screen Cinerama debuted in 1952, a break-through technique that required three cameras, three projectors, interlocking, semi-curved (at 146 degrees) screens, and four-track stereo sound. The first film using the three-strip cinerama process was This is Cinerama (1952), a travelogue of the world's vacation spots, with a thrilling roller-coaster ride. Although there were a few successful box-office Cinerama hits in the 1950s, the process was ultimately abandoned because its novelty wore off and the equipment and construction of special theatres was too cost-prohibitive and cumbersome.

The Robe (1953)

When Cinerama and stereoscopic 3-D died almost as soon as they were initiated, 20th Century Fox's CinemaScope became cheaper and more convenient because it used a simple anamorphic lens to create a widescreen effect. The aspect ratio (width to height) of CinemaScope was 2.35:1. The special lenses for the new process were based on a French system developed by optical designer Henri Chretian. The first film released commercially in CinemaScope was 20th Century Fox's and director Henry Koster's Biblical sword-and-sandal epic The Robe (1953). It debuted in New York at the Roxy Theater in September of 1953.

Other milestones in widescreen formats included: Paramount's VistaVision (used in Hitchcock's well-known thrillers To Catch a Thief (1955), his own re-make The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Vertigo (1958), and North by Northwest (1959), and in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956)); SuperScope (RKO's answer to Fox's CinemaScope), and WarnerScope (Warners' answer to Fox's CinemaScope); MGM's Camera 65 (later called Super Panavision-70 and Ultra Panavision-70); Panavision; TechniScope; and Todd-AO 70 mm (producer Mike Todd's pioneering, independently-owned system); Super Technirama 70 mm. was a Todd-AO-compatible 70mm format

The War of the Worlds (1953)

This film was the winner of the Best Achievement in Special Effects Academy Award, by producer George Pal, for its vivid depiction of the invasion of the Earth by Martians. This was the first visual effects-laden "popcorn" film, featuring vibrant color special effects, and the destruction of various cities and landmarks, including the famous Los Angeles Courthouse Building.

[This film would inspire such films as Independence Day (1996) and Steven Spielberg's remake War of the Worlds (2005).]

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

This classic Universal horror film effectively used a foam-latex costume suit to represent the amphibious creature called the Gill-Man - one of the most famous movie monsters ever created.

Dial M for Murder (1954)

The attempted strangulation scene was filmed alternatively with a 3-D effect, when wealthy Margot Wendice (Grace Kelly) reached into the audience from the screen searching for a weapon (a pair of scissors) to defend herself and kill hired assassin Captain Lesgate (Anthony Dawson) by stabbing him in the back.

Gojira (1954, Jp.) (aka Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956))

Although the special effects weren't exactly revolutionary, they were influential, nonetheless, in this story about a giant monster awakened, irradiated and mutated by atomic H-Bomb tests in the ocean; the effects were created by animatronic models, miniatures of the city of Tokyo, and by a man in a 6 and 1/2 foot lizard suit (framed with wires and bamboo sticks covered in latex).

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

The fanciful Richard Fleischer-directed Disney film based upon the Jules Verne book of the same name, with James Mason as Captain Nemo, won the Academy Award for Special Effects; it was notable for its depiction of the Nautilus and the giant squid fight. One of the other nominated films in the category was Them! (1954), a typical mid-50s B-monster film with giant ants invading Los Angeles.

Conquest of Space (1955)

This was FX artist George Pal's and director Byron Haskin's semi-documentary, visionary sci-fi story about a dangerous spaceship journey to the planet of Mars, following Pal's success with Destination Moon (1950), When Worlds Collide (1951), and The War of the Worlds (1953). The opening voice-over narration of this Paramount Technicolored film proclaimed: "This is a story of tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow...', and the film's tagline stated: "See How It Will Happen...In Your Lifetime". The film's science was based directly on rocket scientist Wernher von Braun's writings and designs in Collier's Magazine. Although a box-office flop with some hokey special effects, some of the more impressive ones including a modified V-2 rocket transporting astronauts into space, a circular spinning space station ("The Wheel"), interstellar vehicles, astronauts with full-pressured suits doing space walks, and the Martian landscape.

[Stanley Kubrick was strongly influenced by this film, and based much of the design and plot elements of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on this film. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) used props from this film as well.]

This Island Earth (1955)

This cerebral 1950's science-fiction film by director Joseph M. Newman required various special effects, including a flying saucer and its landing on the doomed planet Metaluna - both created with models and special camera techniques; it also necessitated alien makeup for the big-headed Metalunans, and futuristic set designs.

Forbidden Planet (1956)

One of the landmark science-fiction films of the 50s was this classic space adventure film from director Fred Wilcox - an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest. It was the first science-fiction film in color and CinemaScope. Its Oscar-nominated Special Effects included miniatures (e.g., the spaceship), innovative set and art decoration (with soundstage scenic paintings), and matte paintings to create the alien environment of Altair IV.

It also included the famed friendly servant prop (probably the most expensive, intricately-wired film prop ever constructed at the time (at $125,000)) -- Robby the Robot, also used as a prop in MGM's The Invisible Boy (1957) a year later. The film also featured an all-electronic music score.

One of the best remembered segments was the 'animated' night attack (using hand-drawn cel animation) of the ID monster on the flying saucer spaceship - in actuality, it was displaying Dr. Morbius' (Walter Pidgeon as Prospero) face-to-face encounter with his own projected sub-conscious, incestuous feelings for his lovely young daughter Altaira (Anne Francis).

The Ten Commandments (1956)

The film won the Best Achievement in Special Effects Academy Award. It was Cecil B. DeMille's remake of his own 1923 silent film, with one of the most miraculous visual effects scenes in film history (and the most expensive special effects to date) -- the parting of the Red Sea. The scene, prefaced by Moses' (Charlton Heston) statement: "The Lord of Hosts will do battle for us. Behold his mighty hand," involved the use of miniatures, pyrotechnics, traveling matte paintings, rear-projection, and a 32-foot high dam or water tank churning out the waterfall. Other special effects scenes included the various plagues, the Burning Bush, etc.; in the massive Exodus sequence, compositing was used to multiply the number of extras in the crowd.

The Birds (1963)

Alfred Hitchcock's most expensive film to date featured a stylized sound track - composed from a constant interplay of natural sounds and computer-generated bird noises. The stark film about an unexplained and seemingly-organized bird attack also played without background music.

Ub Iwerks was nominated for an Oscar for Best Achievement in Special Effects, but lost to Cleopatra (1963); real birds and animatronic birds were used throughout the film; advanced rotoscoping and male/female traveling mattes were used in the 20-second scene of hundreds of birds flying over an aerial view of the town - a combination of real live-action footage with hand-drawn matte paintings; in the scene of the bird-attack at the school, special effects combined the shot of the schoolhouse in the background with kids running on a treadmill in the foreground.

One of the film's most famous scenes was the one of dozens of birds slowly gathering on playground equipment - a complex special-effects shot that optically combined over two dozen separate elements.

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

This Ray Harryhausen-created scene deserved special mention -- the spectacular stop-motion dueling-skeletons scene between Jason (Todd Armstrong) and sword-wielding attackers, in which life-like puppets-models were manipulated and shot one frame at a time.

The film was also noted for its other amazing creatures, including the gigantic moving (and creaking) bronze statue Talos, the 7-headed Hydra, and two half-human, half-bird Harpies.

Mary Poppins (1964)

This film was the first winner of the newly-named Academy Award for FX - Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects. (After 1963, the category was split into two: Best Special Visual Effects and Best Sound Effects.) The musical fantasy blended live-action with animation, such as the sequence in which Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke frolicked with cartoon penguins, sheep and carousel ponies; the special effects technique used in the scene to combine live-action with animated characters and backgrounds was called sodium-screen (or sodium vapor) compositing - a new dual film traveling matte system similar to the blue-screen process, but using different tools.

Fantastic Voyage (1966)

This science-fiction classic film - the winner of the year's Academy Award for Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects, told of an expedition by miniaturized human beings into the bloodstream of a human body, within a high-tech military submarine (full-sized in actuality) that was shrunk to microbial dimensions. The interior of the scientist's body was created by using large, highly-detailed sets of various body parts (i.e., the brain, the heart). Through various techniques, the explorers were seen swimming through the body (the actors were suspended on wires).

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

The Star Gate and Star Child sequence and other special effects helped this revolutionary and pioneering film win the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects. Stanley Kubrick's film featured the most realistic footage of space ever created - and it's still not dated by the passage of time. Miniature models of spacecraft, computer-guided pre-motion control cameras, rear-projection (for the film's many video displays and computer monitors), full-sized props or models (such as the 30-ton rotating "ferris wheel" set of the spaceship), and other early techniques (such as a primitive type of "Go-Motion") were used.

In the film's opening "Dawn of Man" sequence of prehistoric apes learning to use tools on the African savannah, retroreflective matting (front projection) was used to display second-unit background scenic shots projected from the front onto a reflective surface combined with soundstage photography of actors in the foreground - a technique now replaced by computer-processed blue-screen techniques.

Near the film's end in the Star Gate sequence, astronaut David Bowman (Keir Dullea) traveled through the stargate corridor in a dazzling sequence (using a slit-scan photographic technique) - a sound and light hallucinatory journey or whirling lights and colors in which he was hurled through and into another dimension - where he was reborn as a Star Child; other effects were achieved by applying different colored filters to aerial landscape footage and a close-up of an eye, and filming interacting chemicals.

The Yellow Submarine (1968)

Animation and live-action mixed in a fanciful musical adventure with Beatles music and cartoon Beatle characters.

Tiger Child (1970)

The IMAX system premiered with the showing of the first IMAX film - the 17-minute Tiger Child - at EXPO '70 Osaka, Japan.

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

This film contained possibly the first use of 3D rendering (the rotating structure of the underground laboratory). It was another early feature film to use advanced computerized visual effects for its time, with work by Douglas Trumbull ( 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)), James Shourt, and Albert Whitlock (The Birds (1963)).

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Kubrick's film was the first to use Dolby technology for recording sound - the first film to be mastered with Dolby noise reduction.

Introduction: From even its earliest days, films have used visual magic ("smoke and mirrors") to produce illusions and trick effects that have startled audiences. In fact, the phenomenon of persistence of vision is the reason why the human eye sees individual frames of a movie as smooth, flowing action when projected. Cel animation, scale modeling, claymation, digital compositing, animatronics, use of prosthetic makeup, morphing, and modern computer-generated or computer graphics imagery (CGI) are just some of the more modern techniques that are widely used for creating incredible special or visual effects. (See this site's film terms glossary for definitions and examples, the History of Film by Decade, and an extensive timeline of other Milestones and Turning Points in Film History.) Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 100 Greatest Films.
Milestones in Visual/Special Effects and Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) - Part 3 (chronological) Intro \| Part 1 \| Part 2 \| Part 3 \| Part 4 \| Part 5 \| Part 6 \| Part 7 \| Part 8 \| Part 9 \| Part 10
Film Title and Description of Visual-Special Effects	Example
*Bwana Devil (1952)* An exploitative jungle adventure film - noted as the first 3-D feature-length, commercially-released color (and sound) film ever made. The film featured man-eating Tsavo lions leaping toward the camera and flying spears thrown out of the screen. The gimmicky 3-D effect required that the viewer wear special polarization glasses, unlike anaglyphic 3-D that required red/blue glasses to be worn. 3-D technology was employed to try to combat the encroaching competition of television on the film industry.
*This is Cinerama (1952)* Paramount's wrap-around, big-screen Cinerama debuted in 1952, a break-through technique that required three cameras, three projectors, interlocking, semi-curved (at 146 degrees) screens, and four-track stereo sound. The first film using the three-strip cinerama process was This is Cinerama (1952), a travelogue of the world's vacation spots, with a thrilling roller-coaster ride. Although there were a few successful box-office Cinerama hits in the 1950s, the process was ultimately abandoned because its novelty wore off and the equipment and construction of special theatres was too cost-prohibitive and cumbersome.
*The Robe (1953)* When Cinerama and stereoscopic 3-D died almost as soon as they were initiated, 20th Century Fox's CinemaScope became cheaper and more convenient because it used a simple anamorphic lens to create a widescreen effect. The aspect ratio (width to height) of CinemaScope was 2.35:1. The special lenses for the new process were based on a French system developed by optical designer Henri Chretian. The first film released commercially in CinemaScope was 20th Century Fox's and director Henry Koster's Biblical sword-and-sandal epic The Robe (1953). It debuted in New York at the Roxy Theater in September of 1953. Other milestones in widescreen formats included: Paramount's VistaVision (used in Hitchcock's well-known thrillers To Catch a Thief (1955), his own re-make The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Vertigo (1958), and North by Northwest (1959), and in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956)); SuperScope (RKO's answer to Fox's CinemaScope), and WarnerScope (Warners' answer to Fox's CinemaScope); MGM's Camera 65 (later called Super Panavision-70 and Ultra Panavision-70); Panavision; TechniScope; and Todd-AO 70 mm (producer Mike Todd's pioneering, independently-owned system); Super Technirama 70 mm. was a Todd-AO-compatible 70mm format
*The War of the Worlds (1953)* This film was the winner of the Best Achievement in Special Effects Academy Award, by producer George Pal, for its vivid depiction of the invasion of the Earth by Martians. This was the first visual effects-laden "popcorn" film, featuring vibrant color special effects, and the destruction of various cities and landmarks, including the famous Los Angeles Courthouse Building. [This film would inspire such films as Independence Day (1996) and Steven Spielberg's remake War of the Worlds (2005).]
The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) This classic Universal horror film effectively used a foam-latex costume suit to represent the amphibious creature called the Gill-Man - one of the most famous movie monsters ever created.
*Dial M for Murder (1954)* The attempted strangulation scene was filmed alternatively with a 3-D effect, when wealthy Margot Wendice (Grace Kelly) reached into the audience from the screen searching for a weapon (a pair of scissors) to defend herself and kill hired assassin Captain Lesgate (Anthony Dawson) by stabbing him in the back.
Gojira (1954, Jp.) (aka Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956)) Although the special effects weren't exactly revolutionary, they were influential, nonetheless, in this story about a giant monster awakened, irradiated and mutated by atomic H-Bomb tests in the ocean; the effects were created by animatronic models, miniatures of the city of Tokyo, and by a man in a 6 and 1/2 foot lizard suit (framed with wires and bamboo sticks covered in latex).
*20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)* The fanciful Richard Fleischer-directed Disney film based upon the Jules Verne book of the same name, with James Mason as Captain Nemo, won the Academy Award for Special Effects; it was notable for its depiction of the Nautilus and the giant squid fight. One of the other nominated films in the category was Them! (1954), a typical mid-50s B-monster film with giant ants invading Los Angeles.
*Conquest of Space (1955)* This was FX artist George Pal's and director Byron Haskin's semi-documentary, visionary sci-fi story about a dangerous spaceship journey to the planet of Mars, following Pal's success with Destination Moon (1950), When Worlds Collide (1951), and The War of the Worlds (1953). The opening voice-over narration of this Paramount Technicolored film proclaimed: "This is a story of tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow...', and the film's tagline stated: "See How It Will Happen...In Your Lifetime". The film's science was based directly on rocket scientist Wernher von Braun's writings and designs in Collier's Magazine. Although a box-office flop with some hokey special effects, some of the more impressive ones including a modified V-2 rocket transporting astronauts into space, a circular spinning space station ("The Wheel"), interstellar vehicles, astronauts with full-pressured suits doing space walks, and the Martian landscape. [Stanley Kubrick was strongly influenced by this film, and based much of the design and plot elements of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on this film. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) used props from this film as well.]
*This Island Earth (1955)* This cerebral 1950's science-fiction film by director Joseph M. Newman required various special effects, including a flying saucer and its landing on the doomed planet Metaluna - both created with models and special camera techniques; it also necessitated alien makeup for the big-headed Metalunans, and futuristic set designs.
*Forbidden Planet (1956)* One of the landmark science-fiction films of the 50s was this classic space adventure film from director Fred Wilcox - an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest. It was the first science-fiction film in color and CinemaScope. Its Oscar-nominated Special Effects included miniatures (e.g., the spaceship), innovative set and art decoration (with soundstage scenic paintings), and matte paintings to create the alien environment of Altair IV. It also included the famed friendly servant prop (probably the most expensive, intricately-wired film prop ever constructed at the time (at $125,000)) -- Robby the Robot, also used as a prop in MGM's The Invisible Boy (1957) a year later. The film also featured an all-electronic music score. One of the best remembered segments was the 'animated' night attack (using hand-drawn cel animation) of the ID monster on the flying saucer spaceship - in actuality, it was displaying Dr. Morbius' (Walter Pidgeon as Prospero) face-to-face encounter with his own projected sub-conscious, incestuous feelings for his lovely young daughter Altaira (Anne Francis).
*The Ten Commandments (1956)* The film won the Best Achievement in Special Effects Academy Award. It was Cecil B. DeMille's remake of his own 1923 silent film, with one of the most miraculous visual effects scenes in film history (and the most expensive special effects to date) -- the parting of the Red Sea. The scene, prefaced by Moses' (Charlton Heston) statement: "The Lord of Hosts will do battle for us. Behold his mighty hand," involved the use of miniatures, pyrotechnics, traveling matte paintings, rear-projection, and a 32-foot high dam or water tank churning out the waterfall. Other special effects scenes included the various plagues, the Burning Bush, etc.; in the massive Exodus sequence, compositing was used to multiply the number of extras in the crowd.
*The Birds (1963)* Alfred Hitchcock's most expensive film to date featured a stylized sound track - composed from a constant interplay of natural sounds and computer-generated bird noises. The stark film about an unexplained and seemingly-organized bird attack also played without background music. Ub Iwerks was nominated for an Oscar for Best Achievement in Special Effects, but lost to Cleopatra (1963); real birds and animatronic birds were used throughout the film; advanced rotoscoping and male/female traveling mattes were used in the 20-second scene of hundreds of birds flying over an aerial view of the town - a combination of real live-action footage with hand-drawn matte paintings; in the scene of the bird-attack at the school, special effects combined the shot of the schoolhouse in the background with kids running on a treadmill in the foreground. One of the film's most famous scenes was the one of dozens of birds slowly gathering on playground equipment - a complex special-effects shot that optically combined over two dozen separate elements.
*Jason and the Argonauts (1963)* This Ray Harryhausen-created scene deserved special mention -- the spectacular stop-motion dueling-skeletons scene between Jason (Todd Armstrong) and sword-wielding attackers, in which life-like puppets-models were manipulated and shot one frame at a time. The film was also noted for its other amazing creatures, including the gigantic moving (and creaking) bronze statue Talos, the 7-headed Hydra, and two half-human, half-bird Harpies.
Mary Poppins (1964) This film was the first winner of the newly-named Academy Award for FX - Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects. (After 1963, the category was split into two: Best Special Visual Effects and Best Sound Effects.) The musical fantasy blended live-action with animation, such as the sequence in which Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke frolicked with cartoon penguins, sheep and carousel ponies; the special effects technique used in the scene to combine live-action with animated characters and backgrounds was called sodium-screen (or sodium vapor) compositing - a new dual film traveling matte system similar to the blue-screen process, but using different tools.
*Fantastic Voyage (1966)* This science-fiction classic film - the winner of the year's Academy Award for Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects, told of an expedition by miniaturized human beings into the bloodstream of a human body, within a high-tech military submarine (full-sized in actuality) that was shrunk to microbial dimensions. The interior of the scientist's body was created by using large, highly-detailed sets of various body parts (i.e., the brain, the heart). Through various techniques, the explorers were seen swimming through the body (the actors were suspended on wires).
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) The Star Gate and Star Child sequence and other special effects helped this revolutionary and pioneering film win the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects. Stanley Kubrick's film featured the most realistic footage of space ever created - and it's still not dated by the passage of time. Miniature models of spacecraft, computer-guided pre-motion control cameras, rear-projection (for the film's many video displays and computer monitors), full-sized props or models (such as the 30-ton rotating "ferris wheel" set of the spaceship), and other early techniques (such as a primitive type of "Go-Motion") were used. In the film's opening "Dawn of Man" sequence of prehistoric apes learning to use tools on the African savannah, retroreflective matting (front projection) was used to display second-unit background scenic shots projected from the front onto a reflective surface combined with soundstage photography of actors in the foreground - a technique now replaced by computer-processed blue-screen techniques. Near the film's end in the Star Gate sequence, astronaut David Bowman (Keir Dullea) traveled through the stargate corridor in a dazzling sequence (using a slit-scan photographic technique) - a sound and light hallucinatory journey or whirling lights and colors in which he was hurled through and into another dimension - where he was reborn as a Star Child; other effects were achieved by applying different colored filters to aerial landscape footage and a close-up of an eye, and filming interacting chemicals.
*The Yellow Submarine (1968)* Animation and live-action mixed in a fanciful musical adventure with Beatles music and cartoon Beatle characters.
*Tiger Child (1970)* The IMAX system premiered with the showing of the first IMAX film - the 17-minute Tiger Child - at EXPO '70 Osaka, Japan.
*The Andromeda Strain (1971)* This film contained possibly the first use of 3D rendering (the rotating structure of the underground laboratory). It was another early feature film to use advanced computerized visual effects for its time, with work by Douglas Trumbull ( 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)), James Shourt, and Albert Whitlock (The Birds (1963)).
*A Clockwork Orange (1971)* Kubrick's film was the first to use Dolby technology for recording sound - the first film to be mastered with Dolby noise reduction.