Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder [Paperback]

Michele Pierson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0231125631 | ISBN-13: 978-0231125635 | Publication Date: July 15, 2002

Designed to trick the eye and stimulate the imagination, special effects have changed the way we look at films and the worlds created in them. Computer-generated imagery (CGI), as seen in Hollywood blockbusters like Star Wars, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Men in Black, and The Matrix, is just the latest advance in the evolution of special effects. Even as special effects have been marveled at by millions, this is the first investigation of their broader cultural reception. Moving from an exploration of nineteenth-century popular science and magic to the Hollywood science fiction cinema of our time, Special Effects examines the history, advancements, and connoisseurship of special effects, asking what makes certain types of cinematic effects special, why this matters, and for whom. Michele Pierson shows how popular science magazines, genre filmzines, and computer lifestyle magazines have articulated an aesthetic criticism of this emerging art form and have helped shape how these hugely popular on-screen technological wonders have been viewed by moviegoers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

It is something of a cliché to think of special effects as 'movie magic,' but Pierson helps us to understand the substance behind that cliché, tracing our current fascination with computer-generated imagery back to discourses about magic and popular science in the late nineteenth century. Much as these earlier magicians helped to excite public interest and shape popular perceptions of emerging technologies, Pierson shows how CGI has become one of the most visible aspects of the digital revolution and how effects-laden films have often sought to examine their own precarious position somewhere between simulation and reality.

(Henry Jenkins, Director, Comparative Media Studies Program, MIT author of Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participator )

Intriguing.... This is not a 'nuts and bolts'history of onscreen magic, but a specific analysis of the 'cultural reception'that visual effects have enjoyed throughout the history of cinema.

(American Cinematographer )

[A] ground-breaking book... Pierson's journey through the history of special effects offers us an important new perspective which has previously been left out of cinema-related academia and formal criticism.

(John McGowan-Hartmann Senses of Cinema )

About the Author

Michele Pierson is lecturer in film studies and visual culture at the University of Queensland, Australia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (July 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231125631
• ISBN-13: 978-0231125635
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,248,226 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Contents, August 4, 2008

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Curupira (Salvador, Bahia Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder (Paperback)

Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Special Effects and the Popular Media 1

1. Magic, Science, Art: Before Cinema 11
Natural Magic 17
Science Fictions 22
Scientific American 33
Millennial Magic 46

2. From Cult-Classicism to Technofuturism 52
The Limits of Convergence 58
Photon and Stop-Motion Animation 66
Corporate Futurism/Technofuturism 77
Home Production 89

3. The Wonder Years and Beyond: 1989-1995 93
On Genre 101
Reinventing the Cinema of Attractions 118
Digital Art Effects 123
Retrofuture/Retrovision 131

4. Crafting a Future for CGI 137
The Case of Editing 140
Disaster Strikes 145
An Aesthetics of Scarcity 149
The Public Life of Numbers 155

Conclusion: The Transnational Matrix of SF 159
Notes 169
Bibliography 201
Index 227