Special effects are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual world. It used to be called SFX but this short form has also expanded to include “sound effects” as well.
Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process. It can also refer to computational art that uses and engages with digital media.
The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both the visual and performing arts. It offers Bachelor of Fine Arts, Master of Fine Arts, Master of Arts, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees through its six schools: Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music, and Theater.
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began production on the original Star Wars, now the fourth episode of the Skywalker Saga.
Digital intermediate (DI) is a motion picture finishing process which classically involves digitizing a motion picture and manipulating the color and other image characteristics.
Visual effects is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action footage or CGI elements to create realistic imagery is called VFX.
Lisa Foster is a retired Canadian actress, model, visual effects artist, animation producer, and video game developer. She was the star of the 1983 film, Fanny Hill.
Dennis Muren, A.S.C is an American film visual effects artist and supervisor. He has worked on the films of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron, among others, and has won nine Oscars in total: eight for Best Visual Effects and a Technical Achievement Academy Award. The Visual Effects Society has called him "a perpetual student, teacher, innovator, and mentor."
Karen Ansel is a visual effects specialist in the United States.
Virtual cinematography is the set of cinematographic techniques performed in a computer graphics environment. It includes a wide variety of subjects like photographing real objects, often with stereo or multi-camera setup, for the purpose of recreating them as three-dimensional objects and algorithms for the automated creation of real and simulated camera angles. Virtual cinematography can be used to shoot scenes from otherwise impossible camera angles, create the photography of animated films, and manipulate the appearance of computer-generated effects.
April Greiman is an American designer widely recognized as one of the first designers to embrace computer technology as a design tool. Greiman is also credited, along with early collaborator Jayme Odgers, with helping to import the European New Wave design style to the US during the late 70s and early 80s." According to design historian Steven Heller, “April Greiman was a bridge between the modern and postmodern, the analog and the digital.” “She is a pivotal proponent of the ‘new typography’ and new wave that defined late twentieth-century graphic design.” Her art combines her Swiss design training with West Coast postmodernism.
Previsualization is the visualizing of scenes or sequences in a movie before filming. It is a concept used in other creative arts, including animation, performing arts, video game design, and still photography. Previsualization typically describes techniques like storyboarding, which uses hand-drawn or digitally-assisted sketches to plan or conceptualize movie scenes.
Technicolor Creative Studios UK Limited, doing business as The Mill, is a British VFX production company and creative studio headquartered in London, England, with three offices in the United States, three others in Europe and three in Asia. It is owned by Technicolor Creative Studios. The Mill produces real-time visual effects, animation, moving images, design, experiential, and digital projects for the advertising, games, and music industries.
Greg Jein was a Chinese American model designer who created miniatures for use in the special effects portions of many films and television series, beginning in the 1970s. Jein was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on the films Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and 1941 (1979), and also nominated for an Outstanding Special Visual Effects Emmy for his work on Angels in America.
Marc Weigert is an Emmy-award-winning film producer and film/TV visual effects supervisor and 2nd unit director.
Wynne Greenwood is a queer and lesbian feminist performance artist who works in various media such as installation art, photography, filmmaking and music. One of her well known projects include the electropop and video project group, Tracy + the Plastics. Wynne works out of Seattle, Washington, and was an instructor in the Department of Art and Art History at Seattle University.
Craig Barron is an American visual effects artist and creative director at Magnopus, a media company that produces visual development and virtual production services for motion pictures, television, museums and multimedia platforms.
Identity FX, a post-production division of Identity Studios, Inc., is a Visual Effects (VFX) company and Stereoscopic 3D design studio located in Los Angeles. The company specializes in full-service visual effects and stereoscopic 3D conversion in post production.
Barbara McCullough is a director, production manager and visual effects artist whose directorial works are associated with the Los Angeles School of Black independent filmmaking. She is best known for Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification (1979), Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space (1980), Fragments (1980), and World Saxophone Quartet (1980).
Laurie Haycock Makela is an American graphic designer and educator. She co-chaired the design program at Cranbrook Academy of Art in the 1990s along with her husband, P. Scott Makela. Both were honored with the AIGA medal in 2000.
