Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Uncanny computer-generated animations of splashing waves, billowing smoke clouds, and characters’ flowing hair have become a ubiquitous presence on screens of all types since the 1980s. This Open Access book charts the history of these digital moving images and the software tools that make them. Unpredictable Visual Effects uncovers an institutional and industrial history that saw media industries conducting more private R&D as Cold War federal funding began to wane in the late 1980s. In this context studios and media software companies took concepts used for studying and managing unpredictable systems like markets, weather, and fluids and turned them into tools for animation. Unpredictable Visual Effects theorizes how these animations are part of a paradigm of control evident across society, while at the same time exploring what they can teach us about the relationship between making and knowing.

Animated films --- Film, TV & radio --- Film theory & criticism --- Animation --- Film/TV Industry --- Film Theory --- Film and Television Industry --- Visual Effects --- Live-Action Cinema --- Economics --- Mechanical Control --- Socio-Political --- Engineering --- Open Access --- Performing arts --- Film history, theory & criticism

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Just about every major film now comes to us with an assist from digital effects. The results are obvious in superhero fantasies, yet dramas like Roma also rely on computer-generated imagery to enhance the verisimilitude of scenes. But the realism of digital effects is not actually true to life. It is a realism invented by Hollywood—by one company specifically: Industrial Light & Magic. The Empire of Effects shows how the effects company known for the puppets and space battles of the original Star Wars went on to develop the dominant aesthetic of digital realism. Julie A. Turnock finds that ILM borrowed its technique from the New Hollywood of the 1970s, incorporating lens flares, wobbly camerawork, haphazard framing, and other cinematography that called attention to the person behind the camera. In the context of digital imagery, however, these aesthetic strategies had the opposite effect, heightening the sense of realism by calling on tropes suggesting the authenticity to which viewers were accustomed. ILM’s style, on display in the most successful films of the 1980s and beyond, was so convincing that other studios were forced to follow suit, and today, ILM is a victim of its own success, having fostered a cinematic monoculture in which it is but one player among many.

Cinematography --- Computer animation --- Digital cinematography --- Motion picture industry --- Motion pictures --- Realism in motion pictures --- Special effects --- History. --- Aesthetics --- special effects, special effects in filmmaking, film production, cinematography, Star Wars franchise, Star Wars, film technology, blockbusters, Visual Effects. --- Realism in motion pictures. --- Special effects.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"Precarious Creativity examines the seismic changes confronting media workers in an age of globalization and corporate conglomeration. This pathbreaking anthology peeks behind the hype and supposed glamor of screen media industries to reveal the intensifying pressures and challenges confronting actors, editors, electricians, and others. The authors take on pressing conceptual and methodological issues while also providing insightful case studies of workplace dynamics regarding creativity, collaboration, exploitation, and cultural difference. Furthermore, it examines working conditions and organizing efforts on all six continents, offering broad-ranging and comprehensive analysis of contemporary screen media labor in such places as Lagos, Prague, Hollywood, and Hyderabad. The collection also examines labor conditions across a range of job categories that includes, for example, visual effects, production services, and adult entertainment. With contributions from such leading scholars as John Caldwell, Vicki Mayer, Herman Gray, and Tejaswini Ganti, Precarious Creativity offers timely critiques of media globalization while also intervening in broader debates about labor, creativity, and precarity"--Provided by publisher.

Labor and globalization --- Mass media and globalization --- Mass media --- Cultural industries --- Precarious employment --- Industries --- Business & Economics --- Globalization and mass media --- Globalization --- Globalization and labor --- Employment, Precarious --- Labor --- Creative industries --- Culture industries --- Employees --- Social aspects --- SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies. --- adult entertainment. --- analysis. --- anthology. --- collaboration. --- conglomerations. --- corporate. --- creativity. --- cultural difference. --- culture. --- exploitation. --- globalization. --- herman gray. --- hollywood. --- hyderabad. --- international. --- john caldwell. --- labor conditions. --- labor. --- lagos. --- luminos. --- media production. --- media workers. --- media. --- modern world. --- political science. --- prague. --- screen media. --- tejaswini ganti. --- true story. --- university of california. --- vicki mayer. --- visual effects. --- worldwide. --- Mass media and globalization. --- Labor and globalization. --- Social aspects. --- Employees. --- Non-standard employment