Isn't that special?
January 6, 2009 3:15 AM   Subscribe

 
Excellent - a top X of something list with all the entries on the one page! That's quite a special effect.
posted by crossoverman at 3:27 AM on January 6, 2009 [7 favorites]


I'm glad to see that t-rex scene from Jurassic Park made the list. Even after 16 years (yikes!) it still rocks.
posted by malaprohibita at 3:44 AM on January 6, 2009


So I have the honor of clicking the "next" button fifty times to get to #1? Seems like a cool list, but life is too short.
posted by zardoz at 3:49 AM on January 6, 2009


I'm glad to see Vermithrax Pejorative from Dragonslayer. I loved that dragon.

I hope Jackson gets Smaug right.
posted by homunculus at 3:56 AM on January 6, 2009


"The one unfortunate aspect of this shot is the clumsy addition of exit-vent haze, a real cancer among Hollywood CGI artists, who all need to be shipped off to wherever Britain sold the last of its Hawker Harriers and made to take reference footage." sigh. This kind of statement drives me a bit nuts - to be a really good visual effects artist, you have to have a sort of instinctive feeling for physics, to be able to know how something would look without ever having seen it. Most of the time when something is in a shot that doesn't correspond to how it would actually look in real life, it's there because the director wanted to see a more exciting image on screen. Like sound effects in space, it shouldn't be there, but it adds to the drama. So, there's us artists, having to add things that we know shouldn't be there, and then getting blamed for them when someone notices. It's not our fault!

(ok now that I've ranted, hey I worked a bit on one of those shots! squee!)
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:19 AM on January 6, 2009 [3 favorites]


That was great. Living in the computer age, I take a lot of this stuff for granted, even the older real-world shots. Comments like the one about the dragon in Dragonslayer being unmatched for 20 years really make me realize that these effects can be monumental, and quite rare. It isn't as simple as getting the Great Looking Dragon out of storage or loading up GreatLookingDragon3.0 and going to town. Those things have to be created, often from scratch and without precedent. Both their creation and utilization require tremendous skill and artistry to make them believable.
posted by Who_Am_I at 4:25 AM on January 6, 2009


...a sort of instinctive feeling for physics...

Could you ask around at some special effects conferences and see if anyone has a gut instinct on the Higgs boson or the nature of dark matter?
posted by DU at 4:28 AM on January 6, 2009


"So I have the honor of clicking the "next" button fifty times to get to #1?"

Didn't actually click the link, didja?
posted by Johnny Porno at 4:29 AM on January 6, 2009


Or read the first comment, apparently.
posted by pmurray63 at 4:33 AM on January 6, 2009


"There's more to a great visual effects shot than iconic status, and here are fifty that really paid their way..."

Did they mean 'paved the way'? Or is this an actual phrase? Or is it some kind of pun? I'm confused and it's early and that doesn't make sense to me.

these are the things that bother me
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 4:43 AM on January 6, 2009


What a wonderful list. It's nice to see an otherwise crappy film receive kudos for visual wizardry.

And, because this is a best-of list and because best-of lists brings out the cranky in all of us, I'm peeved that they didn't include the stained glass knight scene in Young Sherlock Holmes, which I believe was the first-ever CG shot, and Gollum. Those two are perfect bookends when discussing fully CG characters.
posted by shiu mai baby at 4:46 AM on January 6, 2009


"I'm peeved that they didn't include the stained glass knight scene in Young Sherlock Holmes, which I believe was the first-ever CG shot, and Gollum."

That's addressed in the comments, which are a pretty entertaining read on their own.
posted by Johnny Porno at 4:49 AM on January 6, 2009


Disappointed that Gollum didn't make it (or anything else from LOTR), but flat out amazed that the asteroid field scene from Empire Strikes Back wasn't there either.

Another classic effect that perhaps should have made the list is the transition from monochrome to colour in Powell and Pressburger's "A Matter of Life and Death".
posted by daveje at 4:59 AM on January 6, 2009


When you're done with this list, go to the top 24 worst (or should that be the bottom 24?)
posted by Johnny Porno at 5:11 AM on January 6, 2009


Top 10 exploding people

Ooh boy.
posted by stargell at 5:11 AM on January 6, 2009


The best CGI work I've ever seen is in the first Bourne film and in Ocean's Eleven. They are filled with CGI that you don't know is there. I only found out about them from the commentary...

It's subtle things: the opening shot under water of Bourne floating is completely CG, the birds that get startled in the confrontation between Bourne and Clive Owen's operative are CG as is the tall grass (it was only knee length in the wider shots and was digitally extended). The dogs at the dogtrack in the background of a scene in Ocean's Eleven. The Chinese guys uplifted middle finger was digitally rotated as he couldn't physically turn his hand to face the camera.

I'm not arguing against this top 50 list (all excellent choices), but I'm more impressed by subtle CG that I find out about after the fact. All the effecs in the above list are impressive and some even jaw-dropping but I was never "fooled" by them.

I'd also say that Children of Men could've done with a mention on the list. Those tracking shots are technically amazing achievements of CG, staging and camera work.
posted by slimepuppy at 5:18 AM on January 6, 2009 [3 favorites]


Like malaprohibita said, I too am glad to see the t-rex from Jurassic Park made it to the top. As far as creature animation goes, I still think Jurassic Park pulls off some of the most believable stuff. It was also a great mix of CGI and animatronics, and animatronics are especially something I miss these days.
posted by pyrex at 5:27 AM on January 6, 2009


This is going to make me late for work. Outstanding find!
posted by Joe Beese at 5:31 AM on January 6, 2009


No Terminator 2? Epic Fail. And Gollum did indeed set a serious milestone for MoCap and character animation, that it's not on the list is just silly. And don't get me started on the fact that Citizen Kane has some amazing effects shots as well.

*And for the record, I'm responsible for motion picture's very first digital fart effect (Spawn), and while I'm not surprised that it's not in any such list, it's impressed kids for years. :-)

posted by dbiedny at 6:27 AM on January 6, 2009


I'm with slimepuppy. The best effects are the ones you don't know are effects. Plus I'm not a sci-fi/fantasy geek so I found that genre hugely over-represented in this list. Spaceships and made-up creatures are easy to fake because nobody knows what they should really look like in the first place.
posted by rocket88 at 6:41 AM on January 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


"11: Return Of The Jedi (1983) - 'There's too many of them!'"

More exciting and better looking than any space moment in the Star Wars prequels. This is an amazing moment. I think I heard once that the most expensive few seconds of film ever made was from Empire Strikes Back when a spinning Millennium Falcon flies towards the camera then suddenly drops out of the bottom of the screen while pursued by TIE Fighters, with two massive Star Destroyers converging in the background. The Star Wars geek in me kind of wishes that was the moment they'd chosen. And that it had been number 1. There's too much CGI in cinema, and too much in this list (though not so much that it spoils it).

I'd have swapped in one of the many scenes from The Dark Knight for one of the CGI entries. The special effects work (as opposed to visual effects work) on the film is amazing. I'd probably choose the moment they flip the 18 wheeler vertically.
posted by nthdegx at 6:44 AM on January 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


No Gollum? We hates them.

In the issue of Cinefex devoted entirely to Titanic, Cameron boasted that some of the night-time sinking shots are completely photoreal. I wouldn't subject myself to a second viewing of the film to evaluate the claim. But after spending $200,000,000, I'll bet he's pissed off that nothing from that film made the list.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:45 AM on January 6, 2009


You can see that brief snippet in this video. It lasts from about 26-to 29 seconds in. It's actually two shots. Don't blink!
posted by nthdegx at 6:47 AM on January 6, 2009


I'm responsible for motion picture's very first digital fart effect (Spawn)

Are you saying that the fart effect in The Nutty Professor (1996) - which predated Spawn by a year - was done in-camera?
posted by Joe Beese at 6:50 AM on January 6, 2009


That was a really enjoyable list, but I surprised myself with what a fanboy I am, I guess, in that I didn't completely relax till I saw:

27: Blade Runner (1982) - Spinners in the rain.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 6:58 AM on January 6, 2009


Also, warm fuzzies for: 9: TRON (1982) - Escape on the light-beam.

*mentally replays accompanying music*
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 6:59 AM on January 6, 2009


On the 2001 depressurization scene:

Arguably the ejection of the oxygen in one blast might have moved the pod away, but that's perhaps an unreasonable quibble.

Didn't the book describe how Dave had the pod clamp on to structures to keep it from drifting? In any case, the movie shows the pod holding the manual door control on the ship.
posted by Mapes at 7:10 AM on January 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


I saw Howard the Duck once, some 20+ years ago. While I remember barely a scribble from the rest of the movie, those scorpion/alien things popped up in my nightmares for many years afterward.
posted by Dr-Baa at 7:21 AM on January 6, 2009


Argh. I will permit myself a third comment and then restrain myself. The opening chaos in the remake of Dawn of the Dead really does sell it, and I realized watching another apocalyptic tale the other night that DotD has become my default for setting the proper tone. And it's all due to the shots described here.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 7:21 AM on January 6, 2009


I wished they could have fit 1987's "The Gate" in there somewhere. It has stop motion work that blew my mind at the time and I don't think I've seen better since. The body falling and breaking into little demons was a cool idea.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:49 AM on January 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


I'm peeved that they didn't include the stained glass knight scene in Young Sherlock Holmes, which I believe was the first-ever CG shot

Genesis Effect in ST2 was, IIRC, the first "big" CGI shot.

Dunno the order of production, but YSH came out after The Last Starfighter.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:03 AM on January 6, 2009


Twister has about a half-dozen different shots that should be on the list somewhere. Main example is when the grain silo cover blows off and cleaves through the rooftop of the farmhouse towards the heroes.

No T-1000 shots from Terminator 2? How about when he slips through the bars, but his gun gets caught because it's "real".. that shot really sold the idea that he was a liquid metal man.

I don't understand the rationale for not including a bullet time shot from the Matrix. Sure the effect had been kicking about in primitive form for a few years (first time I saw it was Patricia Arquette hovering over a bed in a Rolling Stones video), but the Matrix trinity-kick and Neo-bullet-dodge shots are both effective and convincing in that you can't tell the environment is made of CG.
posted by autodidact at 8:23 AM on January 6, 2009


Could you ask around at some special effects conferences and see if anyone has a gut instinct on the Higgs boson or the nature of dark matter?

I'm guessing he means Newtonian physics...
posted by autodidact at 8:42 AM on January 6, 2009


Several scenes from Children of Men are required to be on any special effects list. The entire film is the perfect combination of subtle effects, bold action shots and an intense fluid sense of style. This Mini-doc goes over a few of the techniques that they used.
posted by cyphill at 8:44 AM on January 6, 2009


Like sound effects in space, it shouldn't be there, but it adds to the drama.

No, not really. The lack of sound can actually add to the drama, since we are so used to sound, the sudden lack of sound (in an exterior space shot) can deliver a sharp spike in the tension. It's like suddenly having one of your senses removed.

Would, ifor example, the air lock scene in 2001 been improved or diminished had there been sound?
posted by Thorzdad at 9:04 AM on January 6, 2009


No, not really.

Yes, yes really.

Do you honestly think the poster you're replying to was saying "every space shot must have sound, even the shots from 2001 which are remarkable for not having sound."?

/F.O. w. the hyperbole already
posted by autodidact at 9:09 AM on January 6, 2009


Great list, lots of food for thought. The only screaming omission for me was Carpenter's The Thing, which still looks amazing for the most part (certainly the whole 'head grows legs' sequence).

The most amazing shots in film, for my money, are to be found in I Am Cuba (though arguably these are not 'special effects').
posted by stinkycheese at 9:51 AM on January 6, 2009


No, not really.

Yes, yes really.


Well I'll split the middle and say that "sound in space" can add drama -- but only if you haven't gotten to the point where it breaks your suspension of disbelief. After that, you may as well toss in a laugh track while you're at it.

I do think that the drama of a soundless space shot (and the constant reminder of what that means about the environment you're witnessing) is a largely wasted opportunity.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 10:35 AM on January 6, 2009


Man, I have seen parts of I Am Cuba so many times. When I was working in a video store the future directors used to put it on all the time. I still don't know what it's about, but that continuous shot over the street, up the building, through the rooftop party (and the open windows!) and back down again is just incredible.
posted by Who_Am_I at 10:40 AM on January 6, 2009 [2 favorites]


my biggest "what, no…" is Clash of the Titans. It's still a pretty nice list.
posted by JBennett at 10:43 AM on January 6, 2009


I mean, come ON!
posted by JBennett at 10:44 AM on January 6, 2009


Lack of Bullet Time is inexcusable, no matter how overused it eventually became. (Especially if he includes a prop sword in Excalibur.)

Still, a pretty solid list. Be sure to read the comments, they're interesting as well.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:22 AM on January 6, 2009


It's nice to see a list where someone actually has A) a clue B) reference points C) a background in said field and D) an understanding of said field.

Nice.
posted by Lacking Subtlety at 11:36 AM on January 6, 2009


ahem. "I'm guessing she means Newtonian physics..." yes, I should have said that, thanks!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 11:48 AM on January 6, 2009


I don't know about this list .... I mean, everyone knows that the greatest special effect ever was Kermit riding that bicycle in The Muppet Movie.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 12:10 PM on January 6, 2009 [6 favorites]


Cool site, although I have to take the author to task on one thing: bullets under water being lethal was debunked by Mythbusters. Even shallow water affords good protection. I suppose a round from a 50-cal machine gun might cause injury for a few feet, but I don't know.
posted by wastelands at 12:38 PM on January 6, 2009


Check out Patrick Stewart in the Dune clip! He's one of those actors who always looks the same, age-wise (Angela Lansbury being the prime example of the phenomenon).
posted by wastelands at 12:43 PM on January 6, 2009


Angela Lansbury being the prime example of the phenomenon

This was one of the impressions The Manchurian Candidate left with me. Another is that Angela Lansbury is fucking scary.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 12:48 PM on January 6, 2009


The reasoning to exclude the Matrix bullet-time from the list was bullshit. Others on the list failed the same "overused / etc." rationale.
posted by jca at 12:54 PM on January 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


I thought the bullets underwater thing was a perfect example of how frustrating Mythbusters can be when they kind of half-assedly explore something in an excuse to blow something up / fire a big gun, then proclaim "busted!" or whatever afterwards.)
posted by fleacircus at 1:16 PM on January 6, 2009


I like the observation that the very best special effects are the ones you really don't notice. They just sit in the scene so seamlessly that you only realize later; "Hey, I guess that Delorean probably wasn't actually flying. I wonder how they did that..."

I do wish they had given a nod to the opening of Escape from New York, where they show the wire-frame of the city becoming a prision. It was done in a time period where CG, even as simple and rudimentary as wire-frame, would have been too expensive to do, so they actually built the whole thing out of wood, pained it green and shot it against a black backdrop.

It might be one of the only examples of a practical shot standing in for a CG one instead of the other way around.
posted by quin at 2:43 PM on January 6, 2009


And I'm glad they had Dragonslayer on the list, I just watched that within the last year, and I was still amazed at how... well, amazing the effects are. Watching that dragon crawl through the cave with it's wings folded up was an education to the younger me about how this fantasy stuff could actually be kinda real looking if done right.
posted by quin at 2:45 PM on January 6, 2009


Quin, from what I've read, James Cameron was responsible for the design of the pseudo-CG shots in Escape from New York.
posted by autodidact at 3:07 PM on January 6, 2009


The bit about the special compositing they needed to do for The Birds was fascinating.
posted by smackfu at 3:10 PM on January 6, 2009


Glad the T-Rex was #1.

But I agree....Where's Gollum? He marked the first time a compeltely CG character was convincing enough to get an emotional response from me. That skinny little fucker was acting.

Poor Smeagol doesn't get his dues...
posted by AzzaMcKazza at 4:39 PM on January 6, 2009


I saw the original Star Wars on its first run, back in '77 or whenever it was, and I can tell you that the entire theatre gasped and then shrieked with joy at the scene when Luke flies his fighter into the trench on the Death Star. It was hair-raising.
posted by jokeefe at 4:55 PM on January 6, 2009


Thanks! That was a a really well-written and well-formulated list. Thoughtful, and written for a general audience without being patronizing. The inclusion of something simple and inconspicuous like the nails in Total Recall shows that.

"Excellent - a top X of something list with all the entries on the one page! That's quite a special effect."


I know, right?
posted by Eideteker at 5:24 PM on January 6, 2009


Amusing someone can make a list like this and not actually know the difference between "special effects" and "visual effects".
posted by kcalder at 5:34 PM on January 6, 2009


There's a whole dialogue about that in the comments.
posted by smackfu at 5:49 PM on January 6, 2009


Looking thru kid's eyes and a very faded memory, the battlefield long shot in Gone With the Wind was amazing, and parts of The Wizard of Oz blew me away too.

Jurassic Park was a fair pick. The "cup of water" bit leading up to the T-Rex scene was masterful, too. But I have to vent. The poop they found, I think it was a Triceratops poop. It was about half the size of the actual animal.

Coprophiles would have been getting sweaty palms, that's for sure.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:18 PM on January 6, 2009


Amusing someone can make a list like this and not actually know the difference between "special effects" and "visual effects".

I'm probably guilty of that with my GWtW choice, above.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:20 PM on January 6, 2009


Metafilter: so sombre an ambit
posted by intermod at 7:52 PM on January 6, 2009


re: my previous comment, please ignore; my mistake
posted by zardoz at 8:07 PM on January 6, 2009


No, not really.

Yes, yes really.

Well I'll split the middle and say that "sound in space" can add drama -- but only if you haven't gotten to the point where it breaks your suspension of disbelief.


Well it doesn't really matter as long as it's done right. It's obvious at this point you can get away with doing either in a movie, and the crowds will accept it. I just don't understand the whole "But it's more realistic!" argument that people like to trot out while the very next shot in the same movie has people walking around the inside of the ship in normal gravity. If there are "artificial gravity fields" there certainly is room for "sound inducing lasers" (or whatever made up physics explains it away to your satisfaction.)

I remember Fight Club having some pretty cool effects.

Also, maybe I'm in the minority here, but Golum was never that convincing to me.
posted by P.o.B. at 8:32 PM on January 6, 2009


I don't care that he explained it away at the bottom, the Bullet time in the Matrix matters because it REVOLUTIONIZED slow-mo action shots.
posted by cmchap at 1:04 AM on January 7, 2009


^ I also don't buy the idea that bullet time is severely restricted in how it can be applied. It's high speed photography with a virtual camera. I can think of a lot of uses for that. One thing that bugs me is as soon as I saw the Rolling Stones video, I thought "that could be used to do the slow-motion in the Flash movie." That was in 1995. I really should have gone into film/fx in my 20s....maybe not too late.
posted by autodidact at 2:27 AM on January 7, 2009


Restrictions of proper bullet-time: you need one camera per frame, so the shots are short. And you need to plan out the camera path perfectly. And you have to deal with the bane of stop-motion, the lack of motion blur, since your camera isn't really moving. And if your camera move is complicated, you will have cameras in the background of your shot so you need to do it all in front of green-screen and replace the backgrounds anyways.

Nowadays I think they do most "bullet-time" shots 100% in the computer.
posted by smackfu at 6:39 AM on January 7, 2009


^ "proper bullet time" doesn't use one camera per frame. Proper bullet time interpolates the captured frames for smooth motion and longer shots, meaning 2 or more frames per camera. Cheap and shitty examples use 1 shot per camera with no morphing, or just 2 cameras with the entire move interpolated.

Pretty much all sequences shot in high speed are short. Most high speed photography removes blur due to the tiny exposure times. You don't need a green screen to remove the camera rigs, you need a green screen to replace the background. So if you like the background you can shoot with the rig "in situ" and then mask out the rig from each source frame.

From the criteria set out by the author, the omission of bullet time from this list is a huge mistake. It was the biggest special effect of the late 90s... as much impact as the T-1000 or any shot from Jurassic Park.

I know it's not part of the criteria, but I can hardly think of another shot in film that has become as iconic in the past ten years as the bullet time shots from The Matrix.
posted by autodidact at 8:37 AM on January 7, 2009


« Older GIMME GIMME GIMME!   |   Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds. Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments