Special Effects in
Animation and Live-Action
Visual effects have being used since the day movies where
invented and thru out years many techniques have being developed to make
effects as realistic as possible. In the early ages of cinema, movie directors
were experiencing with different resources in order to get the effect they
wanted and had to use handmade props. For example to animate a dragon in a
movie made in the 1930’s, filmmakers had to use maquettes, string and a toy
dragon. It may have look fake but the audience had an idea that it was a flying
dragon. Many years later, technology became advanced and so did visual effects
due to CGI green screens and computers programs that could make objects
realistic and in 3D. For this paper, I will be comparing two movies, The Day
after tomorrow (2004) and The Wizard of Oz (1939) and how they created the
effects of twisters. The day after tomorrow and Wizard of Oz had their own perception
on how a tornado should look like and be as realistic as possible, however both
effects used to create the twisters had flaws and qualities.
The Day after tomorrow is a movie about natural catastrophes and
extreme weather changes in the U.S such as snowstorms, tornadoes, floods, and
massive hail and how people try to survive. In one of the scenes, Hollywood is
being destroyed by three giant twisters, demolishing everything that gets on its
way. But when taking a close look, it is easy to notice that it was made
digitally because it would look like it could belong in a video game. All this
magic was created by a computer program called Maya. Maya is a program that
allows artists to create objects in three dimensions and put realistic textures
on objects. Not only is the object in 3D but it can also be animated. Because
Maya provides such a variety of tools it is easier to experience with different
brush tools and create this cloudy texture that tornadoes have while they are
spinning and the ones in the movie have a believable texture. Not only the
texture was accurate, but the speed of the tornados was about 300 miles per
hour which is the most extreme according to some researches. These colossal
tornadoes are unreal size and the amount of damages done in the city is
proportioned to the size of the twister, which is why the tornadoes were able
to destroy most skyscrapers.
Although Maya may have helped in creating a realistic tornado,
it was not as “realistic” as it is the real world. A person that has no
experience in the art industry may think that those tornadoes look so real that
they can get trapped and fly off. However, a person like myself (Animation/Illustration
major) can easily spot the difference between a real and digital tornado. A
fake one would have a video game texture, it would look too perfect, the
lightning would be off, and the disproportion of the natural disaster. When
watching the movie and comparing it with actual videos recorded twisters, the
three in the movie seemed that they were see thru and made out of glass,
whereas the real ones look like grey cotton candy.
Everyone in the U.S at least watched the famous movie about a
girl, her dog, and a yellow brick road. The wizard of Oz is a story is about
Dorothy who dreams about the Land of Oz and where she meets her companions the
lion, the thin man, and the scarecrow. The movie starts with a scene with Dorothy
in her family’s farms in Kansas and the overall screen is in black and white. After
she comes back from the Doctor or the medium, it starts to be windy and when
she gets home it is extremely windy and tornadoes have formed. Unlike the
digital twisters used in The Day after tomorrow, the ones in this movie were
man-made from thirty-five foot long tapered muslin socks. There were wires and
cotton inside the tube to hold while the tornado spun. To make the tornadoes
move across the screen, a rod was attached to the base of the tornado and was
then pulled on opposite direction to give that snake shape going back and
forth.
Since this movie was shot in 1939, and beginning of the movie
was in black in white, it is difficult to tell whether or not the colors were
accurate but the values are correct. Those tornadoes happened to be the first
hand-made and also considered to be the most realistic props for a movie. When
comparing to another video of a real tornado the one in Wizard of Oz have a
slender tube, it looks like it is made of rubber and the texture is not the
same. Unlike the ones from The Day after tomorrow, the tube look almost rubbery
instead of being build with dust and cloud, it does not have this “cotton
candy” texture, just flat muslin. Just like the other movie both the speed and
the destruction impact of the tornadoes were accurate and believable. Before
Dorothy lands in the Land of Oz, she is still inside the house, who is trapped
in the twister. Once an objects comes in contact with a tornado, it is torn
apart. In the movie, the house is spinning inside the twister but still remains
in contact. In real life, if the house would have
landed on the ground it would have collapsed and possibly killed Dorothy.
When I compared the visual effects of tornadoes of The Day
After Tomorrow and Wizard of Oz, both had qualities and flaws. The Day After
tomorrow used modern technology and computer program Maya to recreate massive
tornadoes while The Wizard of Oz twisters were built out of muslin socks,
wires, and cotton. Depending on the year a movie was produced and on the
resources used, both movies had different interpretations of tornadoes, yet
making them as believable as they could.
