Hi, my name is John Loughman and I'm going to be
talking to you about the way in which films produced I will also be revealing the ways in
which special effects are done and also maybe even a few film reviews, I myself have a
great interest in film and have worked on two feature films to date. "Under The
Hawthorn Tree" and "Da' Boyz". John's profile features at the end of the
page along with links to the editing and equipment sections.
Webmasters note: This is John's third feature article for Cinemax Online Ireland. In case you missed the other ones, just use your back button to go back to the Feature Articles section and just click on January. Couldn't be easier!
March Feature Article
This month I'm going to talk
about special effects and how they are created.
We all know how the shots in the "Matrix" and other such film were carried out
and if not I will tell you later. There are a few different programmes used I'm going to
concentrate mainly on one 3D studio Max.
This is a programme used by
amatures and professionals alike. Basically 3D Studio max is a 3D animation programme.
This programme is used on many films but most recently it has been used on "The
Beach". It is used in two shots:
1. Where the Shark attacks the travellers.
2. The shot of the Island taken from miles
above the earth.
In these shots it is pretty simple to spot the use of the Animation. On more larger budget
films they can spend hours perfecting the Animation. and as "The Beach" was only
shot with £60,000 of which Lenardo De Caprio recieved £20,000.
Other effects programmes come bundled with the editing software but are less widely used
as the might be seen as freebies. Such effects software includes:
1. Effect* from Discreet Logic
2. Paint* from Discreet Logic
3. Adobe after effects for use with Avid (type
of editing machine)
4. Adobe photoshop for use with Avid
Back to the special effects on the matrix. The fight scenes were shot using a set up of
around 100 still camera's and 4 movie camera's, these camera's were layed out in a circle,
and each still camera was set to take a picture one 25th of a second after the previous.
This therefore cause the lingering effect seen on screen. When Neo leans back on his back
and is held there, the same above effect is used, but Neo is held up on thin metal
strings. These strings are removed in editing causing the illusion that he is hanging in
the air.
 |
If you want to email me on anything in this months article then please feel free to do so by sending mail to johnloughman@yifm.com
The site Cinemax Online Ireland is in no way associated with American TV station "Cinemax". This site is run by Ken McGuire and all graphics and code contained in this site are property of the webmaster. Please do not duplicate without prior permission. All rights reserved.