The History of VFX

VFX started back in the 1895 and was produced by Tomas Edison and the film 'The Execution of Mary Queen of Scotts' was directed by Alfed Clark

However this was only a short film. Metropolis is considered the first full length science fiction feature film ever made. The visual effects were designed and overseen by Eugen Schufftan. 

Eugen uses mirrors to manipulate the set in order to create the visual effects as shown below.

KING KONG

A classic monster movie made back in 1933 by Merion Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack.

They created this effect by uses stop motion on the great ape, along with the use of a projector.

They did the action in the right side first as it was the stop motion models, then projected the images behind the actors and to react to whats happening.

The effect of this is very similar to the green screen and placing a back drop, which they didn't have back then.

Un Homme De Tetes 1898

inn this film Melies used a double exposere technique to create composite shots which were blocked out by black paint on a sheet of glass, this film was then rewound and a new piece was added to block the areas which where already filmed.

This then leads to the Glass matte effect created by Norman Dawn

With this film makers could augment their sets. the glass sheet contain elements which where not there and created a mask between the subject, actor and camera. The down fall of this was the painting had to be ready on set each time, however the could get round this by making a black screen over the part which was going to be replaced with the paint area.

Black Screen

The problem with the mattes is they had to be still until black screen came in and was then renamed to the travailing matte. they did this by filming with a black background and then increasing the contrast so the figures became white and copied them onto a piece of film then the original was then placed on top.

'The Theif of Bagdad'

The first film to use 'Blue' screen, and won a oscar for the visual effects.

In order to do this they had to use the Dunning effect.

 They highlight the subject in yellow and the backplate is blue creating a smooth removal, however the dew back to this process is the yellow subject therefore it works for black and white films however the their of bagdad manipulated this process.

They used 3 strips of technicolour film, this process used a optical printer which removed the requirements of multiple exposer.

So the actor was filmed against the blue screen.

Shot using the tricolour film strip which was then separated, then on the blue layer created the travelling matte and place correctly then the red and green strips place back over the top to make this remarkable travelling matte and amazing VFX in 1940.