simona fitcal - the digital dream - between surreal and fantastic

7/28/2019 Simona Fitcal - The Digital Dream - Between Surreal and Fantastic

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S i m o n a - M i h a e l a F i t c a l

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C O M P O S I T I N G D I G I T A L V I S U A L E F F E C T S

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Simona-Mihaela Fitcal

Submitted in partial requirement for the Degree of

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Under the supervision of

Prof. Roland KersteinProf. Joachim Hofmann

Digital Media Master ProgrammeUniversity of the Arts

Bremen, Germany

29th October 2012

b e t w e e n S U R R E A L & F A N TA S T I C

C O M P O S I T I N G D I G I T A L V I S U A L E F F E C T S


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Acknowledgements

I am foremost grateful to my parents, who supported and encouraged me

throughout my studies.

I would like to express my deep appreciation to Prof. Roland Kerstein for his

professional advice and for inspiring me to pursue my style. Also, I wish to thank

Prof. Joachim Hofmann for sharing his knowledge in the field of short film.

A great help during the production of my film-project came from my boyfriend, who

played the central character; for this I want to thank him sincerely.


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Confirmation of authorship

I hereby formally declare that the work submitted is entirely my own and does not

involve any additional human assistance. I also confirm that it has not been

submitted for credit before, neither as a whole nor in part and neither by myself nor

by any other person. All quotations and paraphrases, but also information and ideas

that have been taken from sources used, are cited appropriately with the

corresponding bibliographical references provided.


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Contents

Introduction 1

1. Dream, surreal and fantastic: the originators of visual effects

1.1 The influence of dreams on artistic creation 3

1.2 From surrealism to surreal 8

1.3 From fantasy to fantastic 13

1.4 At the border between surreal and fantastic 16

2. Challenging reality through visual effects

2.1 Defining digital visual effects 17

2.2 Theories about visual effects 19

2.3 Towards a classification of visual effects in films 21

2.4 Experimental short films 34

3. Practical approach:

techniques of achieving visual effects in Transhumant (2012)

3.1 The concept 393.2 Compositing 41

3.2.1 Matchmoving 43

3.2.2 Mattes 45

3.2.3 Rotoscoping 47

3.2.4 HDRI 48

Conclusion 49

Bibliography 50


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1

Todays media and art promote strangeness and fantasy. Everything that is out of

the ordinary is a way of attracting the publics attention. Commercials, news,

magazines, books, Hollywood movies, mainstream art, reality shows, all try to paint

the supernatural as real as it can get. Digital era has made it easy to manipulate

every existing image and piece of information. The human urge to make imaginary

things come to life is reflected everywhere around us in the objects or inventions

that fill our lives. The marriage of art and science led to amazing results in

converting ideas into physical outcomes. Cinema is one of the arenas in which

scientists and artists work together to achieve the incredible. In the field of visual

effects, a significant progress has been made regarding the fusion of CG0F

1 elements

with live action footage. The primitive vector computer graphics (Tron 1982) led to

realistic computer generated characters (Jurassic Park 1993, Lord of the RingsTrilogy

2001-2003, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 2008).

In this thesis, I am looking at the aesthetic of digital visual effects that are so

abundant in mainstream cinema, as well as in many independent movies and videos.

Despite their popularity, they are not on the radar of film theorists. Most of the

visual effects movies are still understood as part of a long tradition of trick films and

illusionism. Therefore, they are regarded as captivating, but low in meaning and

narrative. Stephen Prince is one of the few film theorists who write about thisoverwhelming invasion of visual effects in movies. His discourse contains many

arguments that most visual effects in fact supplement the narrative and offer a

better understanding of the message. He even goes to the point where he asserts

that without visual effects, we have no cinema (Prince 2012, p. 221). He cites

Richard Allen to point out the issue of visual effects in the eyes of film critics: the

1CG = Computer Generated


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Introduction

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idea of illusion has played a central role in sustaining the negative characterization

of mass culture against high art (Allen 1995).

Peoples predisposition towards strangeness and fantastic has a long history. There

is a constant need to create, as well as experiment out of the ordinary

circumstances, which still preserve a strong connection with reality. Movies and

videos are a physical mirror of imagination, as humans are capable to see and

generate images in their minds. Visual effects come from a deeper place of the mind

that is easily accessible while dreaming. The metaphorical meaning of digital dream

can be found in the philosophical definition of the virtual world as something that is

not real, but may display the significant qualities of the real. We can say that boththe world of dreams and that of digital belong to the virtual. Both their borders

coincide with the borders of imagination. Therefore, people can easily translate the

world of dreams into the world of digital. The aim of this paper is to establish a

connection between dream, visual effects, surreal and fantastic on aesthetic level.

The terms surreal and fantastic are associated with the states of strangeness and

unreal. However, they often interpolate in the same visual narrative. The border

between surreal and fantastic is not clearly defined, especially when it is used in

visual mediums.

Even though it is a term invented by the Surrealism movement, surreal defines

something that was always present in the history of humanity: a superior reality,

which is beyond reason. In Surrealist cinema, for example, surreal signifies the

alternation of dream and real life sequences in a manner that they would become

indistinguishable, because it was believed that it led to a greater knowledge. We

can assume that contemporary photographical visual effects are surreal in their

attempt to challenge our perception of reality; they do this by blending digital

(unreal, virtual) with live action footage (real).


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In average, we spend one third of our life sleeping. Dreams are a part of our

existence, but we often ignore them. Sometimes we even find ourselves

daydreaming or imagining. These activities are the key to a world filled with

extraordinary substance. Surrealists have praised dreams, and tried to emphasize

that they bring a greater truth when combined with reality. Fantasy is the next step

that takes us deeper into the world of dreams and results in a complete isolation

from the real world.

1.1 The influence of dreams on artistic creation

I use the term dream to label all similar activities and products of the mind like

daydreams, fantasies, imaginations etc. The basic definition of dream is a series of

thoughts, images or emotions occurring during sleep1F

2. It is considered opposed to

wakefulness, which involves full consciousness, awareness, and alertness2F

3 .

Dreams phenomena are captivating and mysterious territories and their existence

has not yet been completely elucidated, despite the technological development and

scientific progress of the present. This fact leaves enough space for various

interpretations and theories concerning the dream state. Throughout history, many

beliefs existed concerning the occurrence of images during sleep. Ancient

civilizations like the Greeks and the Egyptians had a mystical approach in the

interpretation of dreams. The oldest preserved document about dreams is an

Egyptian papyrus, from around 2000 B.C., which contains pictures of common

dreams and their interpretations as prophecies (Barnard and Spence 2005, p. 250).

2 Dream. Merriam-Webster. The Free Dictionary. 2012.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dream3 Waking. Farlex Trivia Dictionary. 2012.http://www.thefreedictionary.com/waking
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dreamhttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dreamhttp://www.thefreedictionary.com/http://www.thefreedictionary.com/http://www.thefreedictionary.com/http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dream


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The Greeks believed that dreams were divine communication and that they had the

power to predict or influence future events. Priests were the only ones to interpret

them. Theocentrism and Christianity also preserved the idea of divine dreams. The

predictions and interpretations of dreams were supposed to be exposed by God to

elected people, prophets, for greater purpose than individual benefit. They were

intended to deliver divine messages to the masses. The visions revealed to regular

people that were not in a high spiritual connection with Godwere thought to be of

demonic nature (ibid.).

In ancient Greece, Artemidorus, a divination4 practitioner who lived in the 2nd

Century B.C., was the author of Oneirocritica, one of the first known manual of

dreams and their interpretations. We can understand from the English translation

accomplished by Robert J. White that the Greek author categorized dreams as

significant comprised of predictions that eventually come true in real life, and

insignificant that have no real meaning for the future (Dodson 2009). The content

of the dream was one of symbolic imagery that he carefully analyzed in his writings.

For example, the serpent, due to its qualities, signifies a king, the time, the power of

regeneration, wealth and possessions. Aristotle had the revolutionary idea that the

dream comes from the self and not from divinity. He asserted that the faculty by

which, in waking hours, we are subject to illusion when affected by disease is

identical with that which produces illusory effects in sleep (Aristotle 350 B.C.).

The nature of dream-life that feels as real as waking life led philosophers of all times

to conceive skeptical hypotheses about dream and awaking. The famous question:

"Am I a man who dreamt about being a butterfly? Or am I really a butterfly who now

dreams about being a man?" belongs to the Chinese Philosopher Chuang Tzu (4th

Century B.C.). Many philosophers have tried to develop a theory based on the

power of the senses to deceive the mind into believing that reflection of mental

images might be real. Much later, in the 17th century A.D., Ren Descartes, whose

work remained a bridge between medieval and modern philosophy, influenced the

4 Divination = the art or act of foretelling future events or revealing occult knowledge bymeans of augury or an alleged supernatural agency.


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future approach upon the dichotomy of reality and fantasy. By using his method of

doubting everything, Descartes came to doubt the reality of life and looked into the

possibility of dreams as being veridical (Descartes 1641). This fact made future

rationalists to make a clear distinction between physical world and the world of

dreams or imagination. Nonetheless, the old beliefs could not be totally replaced

and certain cultures or individuals still perceive dreams as a spiritual connection

with divinity or as symbols that will predict the future.

In Western Europe, along with the advance of scientific knowledge, the dream

came to the attention of various scientists. The term Oneirology indicates the

interest in researching the relation between dreams and brain activity. One of the

earliest writings that mentioned the term was the one of marquis D'Hervey de

Saint-Denys, Les rves et les moyens de les diriger; observations pratiques

(Dreams and the Ways to Direct Them: Practical Observations), who talks about

lucid dreams, the state of being conscious while dreaming and about ways of

controlling it. The state of lucid dreams has been further researched and it still is of

high importance in dream studies. The ability to go directly from a state of being

awake into a dream-like state is not only explored by philosophers, scientists or

theorists, but is also a method that has been perfected trough the practice of

meditation. Monks, priests or other spiritual people might achieve the state of

consciously dreaming in search of existential answers. The oneirologists Nathaniel

Kleitman (1895-1999) and William C. Dement, together with their students, were the

first to map out the multiple discreet stages of sleep."5. Kleitman and one of his

students discovered the rapid eye movements (REM) during sleep and associated it

with dreaming.

It was not long until dreams became the key in mental disease treatment. Sigmund

Freud developed a method of psychological analysis of dreams in his treatise, Die

Traumdeutung, which he called psychoanalysis. He believed to have found the

5Allan Rechtschaffen, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Chicago andformer director of the University's Sleep Research Laboratoryhttp://www.uchospitals.edu/news/1999/19990816-kleitman.html
http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/1999/19990816-kleitman.htmlhttp://www.uchospitals.edu/news/1999/19990816-kleitman.htmlhttp://www.uchospitals.edu/news/1999/19990816-kleitman.html


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royal road as he named it to the unconscious thought, through which the

psychoanalyst could uncover the suppressed wishes or feelings of the patient. For

Freud, the representations somebody sees during the unconscious stage of sleep

were symbols of the individual dealing with events and emotions from his waking

life. Following the idea of Aristotle (that dreams are self-related) and reviving the

ancient practice of dream interpretation, Freud managed to find a modern, original,

functional method. His work remains one of the most influential ones, not only for

his time, as many followers used his methods of treatment, but also for our time.

Carl Jung, one of Freuds scholars, who adopted the psychoanalysis in his practice,

made further assumptions on this theory. Jung categorized the symbols not only as

related to the individuals knowledge, but also to general human knowledge. He

named the latter category of symbols archetypal images, which were comprised of

representations of mythological motifs. In this theory, the images are a statement

of deeper emotional issues, including earlier life experiences, while the common

dream images are about current waking emotions. Jung also states that the

interpreter of dreams must be familiar with various myths, cultural beliefs, religious

and spiritual practices, fairytales.

Freud opened the door to the fascinating world of the unconscious mind and its

power of influencing the life of individuals. A psychological technique, which acts

like an instrument of manipulation for the unconscious mind to heal physical illness

or to influence the course of life, is the Cou method of autosuggestion. Emile Cou

himself acknowledged that this method is a dangerous instrument; it can wound

or even kill you, if you handle it imprudently and unconsciously. On the other hand it

may save your life if you know how to employ it consciously (Cou 2009, p. 26).

According to him, repeating words or images enough times causes the

subconscious6 to absorb them. Cou affirms that the training of imagination is the

key to a successful application of his method and that the only impediment is ones

willpower (p. 25). His method was adopted by New Age, a spiritual movement

6

Although Freud rejected the term of subconscious as opposed to conscious, today it isinformally used as a synonym to unconscious.


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formed in the 20th century, which talked about the possibility of using the

subconscious thought as a tool in improving life quality or achieving personal goals.

This idea is also a subject of interest in dream study.

Deirdre Barrett (involved in the IASD7), a clinical psychologist who teaches at

Harvard Medical School, is the author of numerous books about dreams and

dreaming. Her emphasis has been on its relation to creativity and objective

problem solving, dream incubation [...] 8 . Barrett believes that dreams are

essentially thinking in a different biochemical state and that they can be extremely

helpful because of focusing on our life-issues from a very different perspective. 9

Patricia L. Garfield, one of the six co-founders of IASD, holds on to the idea that

creative dreams can be self-induced and not only artists or creative persons can

benefit from it, but anyone who dreams. She states that the power to have

interesting dreams comes from the personality of the dreamer9.

Neuro-pshychoanalysis is a movement that began in the 1990s, formed by

psychoanalysts and neuroscientists. They relate unconscious functioning,

discovered through the techniques of psychoanalysis or experimental psychology,

to biological brain processes. Deirdre Barrett wrote: Mark Solms found that the

areas of the brain that are active in dreaming are ones associated with visual

imagery and emotional, metaphoric thinking, while those associated with some fine

points of logic are quiet10. This makes it possible for a person to have intense

experiences during sleep.

7The International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) is a non-profit, international,multidisciplinary organization dedicated to the pure and applied investigation of dreamsand dreaming.

8 http://dreamtalk.hypermart.net/member/files/deirdre_barrett.html

9Garfield, P. L. 1974. Creative Dreaming. Chapter Three Learning from Creative Dreamers.http://creativedreaming.org/

10 http://dreamvity.blogspot.ro/2010/01/chapter-i-12-how-are-dreams-formed.html
http://dreamtalk.hypermart.net/member/files/deirdre_barrett.htmlhttp://dreamtalk.hypermart.net/member/files/deirdre_barrett.htmlhttp://creativedreaming.org/http://creativedreaming.org/http://dreamvity.blogspot.ro/2010/01/chapter-i-12-how-are-dreams-formed.htmlhttp://dreamvity.blogspot.ro/2010/01/chapter-i-12-how-are-dreams-formed.htmlhttp://dreamvity.blogspot.ro/2010/01/chapter-i-12-how-are-dreams-formed.htmlhttp://creativedreaming.org/http://dreamtalk.hypermart.net/member/files/deirdre_barrett.html


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Night dreams, daydreams, fantasies, and imagination are closely related and might

be the fastest way to access the unconscious mind. Well-developed methods, which

incorporate the above-mentioned terms, manipulate the human mind at the

subconscious level, thus influencing how one acts or thinks. Cinematographers,

computer game developers and advertisement researchers are relying on the

unconscious desires of the public. The visual aesthetic is dictated by the human

hidden desires.

1.2 From surrealism to surreal

It is a challenging task to define the term surreal. Although it originated from the

Surrealism, it has been commonly used to denote something slightly out of the

ordinary, not necessarily connected to characteristics of the historical movement.

The French assigned the term surralism to represent a superior reality. In English

though, the word has no real meaning, rather it was formed from the French word.

Andr Breton defined surrealism in the first manifesto published in 1924 as a

"psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express verbally,

by means of the written word, or in any other manner the actual functioning of

thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by

reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern" (Breton 1972, p. 26). He was

very strict when talking about what makes a work surrealist. Many artists whose

works did not entirely respect the rules were expelled from the group, evenSalvador Dal, who is an iconic figure in Surrealism, was rejected by the members

because of different political views.

The question that many tried to answer is: does surrealism exist outside the period

of the group activity and manifestos or is it limited by the historical existence of the

official group? J. Schuster, to whom Breton left the leading role in the movement,

announced the dissolution of the group in 1969, after Breton had passed away. Inhis public discourse, he indicated the existence of a historical surrealism, which


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covered the period between 1924 and 1969 and an eternal one. We can understand

that surrealism existed long before its organized manifestation and will continue to

exist in the human desire to revolutionize the mentality of the era. In the Historical

Dictionary of Surrealism, Keith Aspley (2010) suggests that hints, traces, aspects,

and elements of Surrealism have been discerned in artwork, literature, ritual, and

many other forms of human activity since the beginning of time. He also adds that

it becomes a matter of subjectivity to choose material that can be places under the

general heading or label of pre-Surrealist. Aspely gives the example of the ancient

Greek oracles to which Breton refers to as la voix surraliste, the grotesque

aesthetic and associations in Hieronymus Boschs paintings etc. In my opinion, the

same subjectivism applies when linking materials that occurred after Surrealism to

the features of the historical movement. In his book Surrealism and Cinema,

Michael Richardson strengthens the claim made by Luis Aragon that the true

essence of surrealism remains beyond our grasp and that in cinema it will be found

wherever one has a sense of transparency in the dark (Richardson 2006, p. 171).

Opposed to other art movements that plead for a unified style, the Surrealists unite

in the desire to transfigure the conceptions and moral values of the contemporary

society. The production of works is not their main goal but only a residue of the

practice. Therefore, it becomes hard to speak of a common aesthetic in surrealism.

The fusion of dream and reality might be the strongest relating factor of their

works.

The Surrealists certainly do not reject rationality outright, as if

embracing a thoroughly irrational approach to the problems

of art and life. [] but insist that a deeper, more profoundform of absolute knowledge of the world exists, a form of

intuitive understanding that is essential to forming a more

complete worldly picture, which precedes and grounds truth

of a logical and reflective nature. (Alquie 1965, p. 84)

The cinematic experience creates a habitat for the dreamer. Within the darkened

movie theatre, a sense of depersonalization occurs; the outside world is locked out

and the attention of the spectator is focused on the screen. As described, the


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connections with surrealism, not only that they are a hybrid of oneiric and real, but

they are also subversive. The extensive preoccupation to develop new technical and

representational conventions, to explore psychological and social issues is still

present in blockbusters nowadays. However, for most of the people today,

surrealism is what Salvador Dal, an ex-member of the official group, defined: I

myself am surrealism. Despite the fact that his work is commercial and goes

against the underground exchange that Breton and the other followers pleaded for,

he keeps the fundamental spirit of the movement. Dal sustains that Surrealism is

destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.

He had to approach every aspect of pop culture in order to change it: fashion,

jewelry, performance, advertisement, object design, film, and animation. His work

contains shocking imagery, phobias, optical illusions, combination of objects, which

have nothing in common, absurd and ironic images. He managed to change the

mentality of his society and opened a door to imagination for many followers,

contemporary artists and designers like Jeff Koon, Damien Hirst, Alexander

McQueen etc.

Some recent movies like Melancholia (2011) or The Cell (2000) turn to various visual

artifices that depict human phobias, very wide spaces, extremely long shadows, just

as Dal used to do in his paintings and films. In Hitchcocks movie, Spellbound (1945),

the painter was asked to design the dream sequence that the main character

describes. Dal used his unique style to construct the dream similar to his paintings.

One of his tricks to create an unreal world was the practice of very long and dark

shadows with a large set populated by small characters in relation to huge objects.

Melancholia (2011); director Lars von Trier


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The Cell (2000); director Tarsem Singh

Spellbound (1945); director Jeffrey Blitz, scene design Salvador Dal


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An example of Salvador Dals influence on todays media can be found in the official

poster of the film The Fall (2005), which recreates the optical illusions and makes

image associations characteristic to surreal paintings.

.

The Fall (2005). Film poster Salvador Dal Mae West

1.3 From fantasy to fantastic

The International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis defines fantasy as a product of

imagination that takes a form of a script in a theatrical or cinematic sense and

deployed in support of a wish-fulfillment. It may be a conscious creation, a

daydream created by the subject to procure an imaginary satisfaction that is erotic,

aggressive, self-flattering, or self-aggrandizing in nature.11F

12 The function of wish-

fulfilling draws a link between fantasies and night dreams but it might also

encompass symptoms or behavior with similar purpose. It must therefore be

supposed that all these manifestations have a common origin, namely unconscious

12http://www.enotes.com/fantasy-99219-reference/fantasy-187597
http://www.enotes.com/fantasy-99219-reference/fantasy-187597http://www.enotes.com/fantasy-99219-reference/fantasy-187597http://www.enotes.com/fantasy-99219-reference/fantasy-187597http://www.enotes.com/fantasy-99219-reference/fantasy-187597


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phantasy.13 The conclusion is that the unconscious fantasy constitutes the spring

of all mental images triggered by the desire of wish-fulfillment.

The film is a satisfaction of human fantasies. Roger Scruton and Kathleen Stocksustain that cinema is the perfect medium for a fantasist. Scruton gives the example

of a person who fantasizes of seeing dead bodies, but this desire is censored by his

moral distaste for this goal (Stock 2009, p. 2). While seeing photorealistic dead

bodies on the screen for instance, the fantasist fulfills his wish without feeling guilty.

The capacity of imagining oneself from the inside, as well as from an external

perspective, makes film an effective medium for that kind of cravings that

transform into fantasies. Fantasy might have two different purposes, one

hedonistic and one cognitive. For example, the fantasy to see dead bodies might

not be pleasurable; instead, one might desire to see dead bodies for the purpose of

cognition. Scruton built his theory on the Freudian model of the artist, who

accomplishes a passage through fantasy back to reality (Scruton 1983, p. 127). The

spectator makes no imaginative effort in cinema. Scott Bukatman sustains the

theory that cinema is already an artificial and technological paradigm that will

realize utopian fantasy (McClean 2007, p. 207).

The cinematic experience of today has changed, because we are not witnessing the

concept of the authoras it used to be in the early times off cinema. In mainstream

films, we rarely contemplate the inner vision of the filmmaker, poetically exposing

his own ideas. The target is to amaze the public, rather than transpose ones

feelings, visions, and personality into the medium. Therefore, movies become

manipulative, playing with the fantasies of the viewers, anticipating their reactions,

absorbing their minds. Movies simulate fantasies, which are hidden in the

unconscious, as everybody craves for romance, for witnessing supernatural events,

wishing to be a hero etc. Neil Coombs presents theories about spectatorship 13: the

film operates on the viewer at a subconscious level to transmit messages;

13

An area of semiotics with psychoanalytic elements, which analyses the relationshipbetween the viewer and the screen.


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advertisements and commercials operate in a similar way. Another theory belongs

to Lacan and Mulvey, which believed that the spectator makes his own meaning

and thoughts through associations (Coombs 2007, p. 36).

According to the definition, fantastic is something that is unreal and exists only in

the world of fantasy. Although it comes from a world that does not exist, judging by

the physical laws, it always connects somehow with the real world. On defining the

fantastic in cinema, Vivian Sobchack writes about three genres, which are the most

representative for their unreal scenery: horror, science fiction, and

fantasy adventure. These three are also the genre where visual effects can unleash

their true power.

The fantastic has a strong connection with folklore and myths. The era in which the

fantastic was most influential in artistic and social behavior was the Middle Ages.

The terrifying stories and imagery survived times passage, but received a new gaze

in the context of contemporaneity. The fantastic in mythology provides us with

elements and concepts that might be universal, available in some areas, or only

local. The legends and myths come from a desire to explain the unknown. When

they are depicted in movies by the use of special or digital visual effects, such

movies automatically become fantastic.

Tzvetan Todorov proposed a definition of fantastic in his paper The Fantastic: A

Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (Todorov, 1975). He affirmed that the

fantastic denotes every event that happens in our world and seems to be

supernatural. There are only two ways to process the fantastic: as something real, a

strange event that has a reasonable explanation, or as something imaginary that

build its own reality. He named these two possibilities the uncanny and the

marvellous. As any information we receive is first subordinated to laws of logic and

reason, these two divisions show how human mind understands the inexplicable

and unusual. Another stage might emerge from the two mentioned above, one of

uncanny with no reasonable explanation. If unreal events happen in real worldwithout warning, then this becomes surreal.


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1.4 At the border between surreal and fantastic

Surreal and fantastic in movies or literature should not to be considered genres or

factors of classification, but manners in which the subject is treated. In contrast to

the aesthetic of fantastic, the surreal one does not bring creatures or other

elements from an imaginary world, rather it plays with real ones. Therefore, an

original mixture of existing objects, ideas, resources or situations might emerge.

Surrealists qualified their work as marvellous, which means causing wonder or

astonishment. This kind of marvellous has to be differentiated from the fantastic

marvellous of Todorov.

Richard Leonard, in his book The Mystical Gaze of the Cinema: The Films of Peter Weir,

pointed out the distinction between the marvellous and the fantastic (2009, p. 14)

made by Ado Kyrou.

Everything fantastic is not marvellous. The fantastic without

marvellous (in which case the fantastic becomes the enemy of

the marvellous) does not belong here: I gladly leave it to the

priests, Cocteau and the spectacular revues. I dont confusemonstrances with lanterns and I dont get ecstatic about every

vampire or every apparition (Kyrou 1953)

Kyrou tries to explain the term fantastic as something that people are already

familiar with and does not result in producing the desired astonishment to the

audience, which Surrealists are looking for.

Melancholia (2011) and Tree of Life (2011) are both successful movies that make use

of stunning visual effects in order to create the proper mood for the story. Their

creators achieve the marvellous by presenting the story from a very subjective point

of view, instead of following the objective reality. The defining feature of Surrealist

cinema is the attempt to challenge our perceptions of reality by rejecting

conventional ways of telling stories and structured narratives.


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Visual effects are a continuously growing phenomenon and mainly refer to a

combination of live action footage and computer generated material. Many

producers of Hollywood blockbuster allocate huge budgets for the creation of

products that would amaze the audience. Also, advertising agencies use visual

effects (VFX) in their commercials as a mean of both communication and persuasion

of their target public. Video commercials that involve a surreal digital look are

relatively young, but they are a fast growing industry, as the VFX company Psyop 13F14

clearly demonstrates. However, visual effects are not only used to create spectacle,

they can also pass unnoticeable when elements in a scene have to be removed or

added. In most of the feature films, television commercials, TV shows and even

documentaries, viewers do not even know that, sometimes, certain images had

been manipulated.

2.1 Defining digital visual effects

A short description and some of the significant historical facts must be exposed

before commencing a more profound analysis of visual effects and their relation to

dreams, surreal and fantastic. A clear distinction between special effects and visual

effects is necessary. The term special effect refers to the optical and mechanicaleffects done on set. Since 1977, the term special has been dropped and the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences started awarding Oscars for a

category called Best Visual Effects. The industry still uses the term special effects to

designate the stunts or practical effects done on set. Special effects and visual

effects simply describe a different era, but the goal remains the same. Stephen

Prince provided an explanation of the term special associated with visual effects. He

14www.psyop.tv
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writes that visual effects were regarded as tricks and they were called special

because the connections between the elements included in the effect were

obvious, as opposed to visual effects (Prince 2012, pg. 3). Once with the emergence

of digital filmmaking, a greater distinction has to be made.

Prince adds that modern visual effects are coextensive with the narrative film, and

digital tools have made them more expressive, persuasive and immersive (pg. 4).

They can be divided into multiple categories: on-set models, like animatronics,

miniatures, and stop motion techniques; matte paintings, like digital paintings or

photographs that serve as background replacement for keyed-out and rotoscoped15

elements; on-set effects, like using green screen or tracking markers as preparation

for the postproduction etc. In the digital era, some of the above-mentioned

techniques have been completely replaced or complemented by digital ones. In

Jurassic Park (1993) for example, Steven Spielberg used full-scale animatronics in

order to have realistic movements of the dinosaurs, but he combined them with

digital models whenever the dinosaurs had to make more ambitious movements.

Digital effects keep the same concepts of the traditional ones, but in addition bring

the possibility to simulate realities that mirror the natural movement or phenomena

of our world. Avatar (2009) creates an imaginary world, but makes it believable

through the multitude of added details. The animators need to learn and apply the

principles of physical world, while also integrating the virtual elements into it. It is a

difficult task to make something imaginary imitate nature, because people are used

to visual changes in nature, so they can detect even the slight abnormal movement,

lighting or colors in movies. Most of the big productions that accept this challenge

are sustained by numerous specialists from various fields. Although the world of

Avatarnever existed, it still obeys most of the physical rules of our world, except

when they are intentionally infringed. Cameron worked for many years on this

project and insisted on extensive use of details. A specialist in linguistic created an

imaginary vocabulary of approximately 1000 words for the language of the Navi

15Rotoscoping: see page 47


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(inhabitants of the fictional moon Pandora); designers made use of traditional

paintings and sculptures, combining them with digital artwork, in order to bring a

complete fictional ecosystem of flora and fauna to life. In Jurassic Park,

paleontologists and go motion16 specialists collaborated with the digital animators

to create realistic movements of the dinosaurs and to portray them as animals

rather than monsters. These two movies had a great impact on public exactly

because they combined the art of storytelling with the magic of spectacle.

For the purpose of this thesis, I am going to refer predominantly to digital visual

effects (DVFX) in the next subchapters. Nonetheless, it must be understood that a

great deal of preparation is done on set to support the integration with live action.

2.2 Theories about visual effects

When people think of visual effects, they think of specific genres that proliferate

this kind of images. Science fiction, fantasy, horror and action-adventure often

abound visual effects, sometimes taking the monopole over narrative. Annette

Kuhn writes: When such display become a prominent attraction in their own right,

they tend to eclipse narrative, plot and character. The story becomes the display;

and the display becomes the story. (Kuhn 1999, p. 5). Contrary to this belief, Shilo

McClean (2007) argues that the trend in DVFX today is not only to create a visual

show, but also to derive its elements from the story and fuse them together.

Even if visual effects seem to belong exclusively to cinema, they have a long history

in theatre and the practice of illusionism. According to French director Franois

Truffaut, two opposed aesthetic directions dominated the cinema since its very

beginning: realism versus fiction. One originated from the Lumire brothers and

16Go motion is a variation of stop motion.


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was oriented towards the documentary purpose of film, while the other was initially

linked to the work of Georges Mlis, which emphasized the tricks and spectacle in

the creation of fantasy (Sobchack 1996, p. 312).

Early semioticians have seen photography and film as a new language. Hence, it was

documented and theorized. Roland Barthes declares himself unable to separate

photography from cinema and declares that every photograph is a certificate of

presence (Barthes 1981, p. 87); moreover, that the signifier and signified are glued

together (p. 5). This concept of cinema depicts its indexical purpose. Some

theorists have struggled to demonstrate that the camera reveals aspects of reality

(Marie Epstein), which are not perceived by the naked eye, while others have

emphasized on its capacity to imitate the human sight (Roland Barthes). Andr

Bazin, an adept of realism in cinema, militated for its quality to reproduce, rather

than manipulate reality. He thought that the photograph was superior to drawings

or paintings, which imitate the nature, because it was not created by human hand.

Theorists of those times praised the indexical value of cinema, thus ignoring

everything that was hand-made and intended to deceive, like animations or early

special effects.

Another aspect of film was later revealed, as theorists shifted their attention to the

relationship between the on-screen representation and the spectator. The

semiotic-psychoanalytical model of Malcom Turvey, from his paper Doubting Vision:

Film and the Revelationist Tradition, points out that the majority of theories about

film are built on a distrust of human vision and a belief that spectators are deceived

by pictorial illusion. The brain can be tricked into believing that reality is something

that it can perceive through the senses. In the case of optical illusions, even if we

know that it is only an effect, we still see it and perceive it as being real. The eye

might be the easiest of the senses to be tricked.

In the technological era, we face a paradox of the digital photographic medium, as

digital effects tend to be constructed by naturalistic laws. Viewers are not sure

anymore about the existence of what they see on screen or in a photograph.


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The obvious paradox here creating credible photographic

images of things which cannot be photographed and the

computer-imaging capabilities which lie behind it challenge

some of the traditional assumptions about realism and the

cinema which are embodied in film theory. (Prince 1996, p. 28)

Stephen Prince also talks about a perceptually realistic image [...], which

structurally corresponds to the viewer's audiovisual experience of three-

dimensional space (p. 32). However, the visual experience is not always reliable,

because the eye has certain flaws: chromatic and spherical aberration, lack of

clarity and optical uniformity in the crystalline lens, the blind spot and other gaps of

retina (Prince 2012, p. 41). In the process of perceiving objects, we also involve our

previous knowledge of their properties (size, shape, color etc.) together with our

sensory system.

While there is a struggle to bring the look of digital world close to reality, there is

also a tendency in visual effects to glorify the artificial and artistic look. Movies like

Sin City (2005) or 300 (2006) have delighted the eyes of the spectators by imposing

an original visual style.

2.3 Towards a classification of visual effects in films

One of the aspects that connect dreams, surrealist film and experimental video is

the same type of disrupted narrative. Surrealist films were the result of avant-garde

spirit and concepts; their purpose was to change societys way of thinking.

Consequently, the authors needed to find a method to break the conventional

filmmaking. Recipes of how to enhance stories through editing tricks, which help

transmit the message more easily, were always of prime interest in the industry of

moviemaking. One of such recipes is described by Richard Raskin in The Art of theshort Fiction Film (2002, p. 165), where he proposes seven parameters for designing


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a story. Although the model is designed to be implemented in short films, it can be

useful in feature films and other media as well. He describes the steps for reaching a

captivating story as following (p. 172):

1. Character - focus/Character interaction the main character(s) must

interact to avoid the risk of static portraiture and to capture the interest

of the viewer;

2. Causality/Choice main character(s) need(s) to make things happen, to

conduct the story forward;

3. Consistency/Surprise the character(s) need(s) to be consistent in order

to emphasize the element of surprise, which can consist of smaller

surprises thoughout the film, or one big surprise at the end;

4. Image/Sound the sound is as important for the story just as much as the

image; hence, it needs to cooperate with the character(s);

5. Character/Object and Dcor a plus of realism can be brought by

enhancing the laws of physical world and making the character(s)

interact with objects. The latter is not a random factor, but a significant

one for the story. Therefore, the subjectivity and interior life of the maincharacter(s) would have a comparison factor in the exterior world;

6. Simplicity/Depth the audience needs to have a simple path of the story

in order to engage in it;

7. Economy/Wholeness the author must remove all superfluous elements.

The above categories apply to most films, but less to experimental ones, where

rules and common practices are often avoided.

A structure is needed in order to better comprehend how visual effects and

narrative work together. My own hierarchy of movies with visual effects (from

feature to experimental films) is based on their theme and narrative flow, involving

the following possible categories.


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a) Journey into the mind of the main character or into a land of imaginationMost of the movies in this category explain the use of unnatural phenomena, which

overlap reality, by clearly determining that the protagonist enters a strange world,

caused by a dream, insanity, use of narcotics etc. Although they make use of surreal

effects, their story is completely rational and well structured, which is why they

often land away from the true meaning of surrealism. Clearly defined, the realms of

real life and imaginary alternate frequently during the film. This section is closest to

the aesthetics of dreams, because the theme deals with visualizing the insides of

human mind. I selected a few examples to demonstrate my theory.

The Cell (2000) is a movie about a therapist, who by the mean of technology

enters the mind of a criminal. Half of the movie is a normal plot: a detective movie

with very realistic and simple shots. But when the therapist enters the criminals

mind, the scenery becomes grandiose and sinister. Almost every shot, if separated

by the rest, can become a story in itself. Nevertheless, the striking images are not

essential to the story, their role is to generate mixed emotions, in this case

repulsion, but at the same time attraction towards them. The director does not try

to use the images as symbols that help analyze the criminals mind, because this is

not the main goal. The imageries are purely surrealist, taken from the unconscious,

and undressed of any meaning. The famous scene where the horse is cut out into

pieces by glass containers is a CG animation integrated into live action. This is a

reference to the shocking sectioned animals signed by artist Damien Hirst. The shot,

showing the beating heart of sectioned horse, is constructed with attention for

details and creates great distress to the viewer.


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Damien Hirst: Some comfort gained from theacceptance of the inherent lies in everything

(glass, steel, plexiglass, cows, formaldehyde)

The Cell (2000) dismembered horse scene

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) does not leap so much into the

fantastic, it rather keeps the action into reality. Still, visual effects are no less

abundant. The story is about manipulating ones memory by erasing chosen pieces

of it. The hero of the movie wants to have the memories of his ex-girlfriend erased

from his mind. This leads the audience on a journey into his mind, which is often

alternated with reality. The memories resemble dreams and they are often

combined with each other. As opposed to the previous example, the visual effects

here are subtle and preserve a realistic look. It is the reason why the audience gets

confused in the end, because it becomes hard to separate the real life of the

character from his remembering. As the protagonist realizes that he does not want

to lose all his memories, he revisits the already erased ones. This is when the images

become surreal, as people lose their faces or they are gradually erased.


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MirrorMask (2005) also deals with the unconscious, painted by visual effects. The

plot is about a talented young girl, who involuntary enters the world of her

drawings while dreaming. The aspect of the setting feels less real than earlier

described visual effects, but the live action and CGI compositing makes it believable.

The viewer is first introduced into the troubled life of the heroin, in order to draw

references between the two worlds and better understand her internal tumult,

caused by the illness of her mother. The style leans towards surreal digital paintings,

although they are somehow monochrome and dominated by darkness.

MirrorMask (2005); director Dave McKean


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Pans Labyrinth (2006) unfolds somewhere in 1944, when Spain was under thedictatorship of Francisco Franco. Just like Alice in Wonderland and the girl from

Mirror Mask, the child tries to deal with her suffering through imagination. In an

interview, Guillermo del Torro talks about the meanings of the labyrinth; just like

Surrealists, he gives the same importance to the imaginary world as to the real one:

I can ascribe two concrete meanings of the labyrinth in the

movie. One is the transit of the girl towards her own center,

and towards her own, inside reality, which is real I have

found that [the inner] reality is as important as the one that

Im looking at right now.16F17

If someone wants to seek symbols in this movie, there is a great amount to be

found, but because it was released internationally, the cultural variance generates

diverse ideas. The magical labyrinth is the passage to her interior life, but the

strangeness comes when the imaginary escapes from the labyrinth while the girl is

alone. Inspired by Francisco Goya and Alices Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis

Carroll, Guillermo del Torro lets his imagination create a new and original story.

Similarly to Dal and other Surrealist painters, del Torro got the idea of the faun

from childhood experiences with lucid dreaming. He stated on the Charlie Rose

Show that every midnight he would wake up and a faun would gradually step out

from behind the grandfather's clock. The feature that connects this movie to surreal

aesthetic is the blending of reality with fantastic. Although surrealists were totally

against symbols, for the creation had to come unpremeditated, in the field of

cinematography this freedom is hard to achieve.

Pans Labyrinth (2006); director Guillermo del Torro

17http://movies.about.com/od/panslabyrinth/a/pansgt122206.htm
http://movies.about.com/od/panslabyrinth/a/pansgt122206.htmhttp://movies.about.com/od/panslabyrinth/a/pansgt122206.htmhttp://movies.about.com/od/panslabyrinth/a/pansgt122206.htmhttp://movies.about.com/od/panslabyrinth/a/pansgt122206.htm


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Pans Labyrinth (2006); director Guillermo del Torro

Francisco Goya Saturn Devouring His Son

Alice in Wonderland (2010) is one of the oldest stories that presents a little girls

unconscious fantasy. Tim Burtons unique style has a similar dark strangeness

associated with death and combined with a hint of comic. However, in Alice in

Wonderland Burton suffered the influence of Disney, therefore, his characters

became less strange and more cute. Thanks to the stereoscopic technology, the

movie is not only blending the dream with the real life inside the story, but also with

the reality of the spectators who watch it in the cinema hall. The famous story,

which was screened several times in various styles, also fascinated Czech surrealist

Jan vankmajer to produce a thirteen minutes stop motion short film. During his

film, the girl changes herself back and forth from a puppet to a real girl, along with

the landscape. Death is one of the themes preferred by surrealists, because it is

always present in the unconscious. Animal corpses and skeletons are the characters

that vankmajer animates in his story.


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Alice in Wonderland (2010); director Tim Burton

Alice (1988); director Jan vankmajer

TheImaginarium of Doctor Parnassus(2009) presents an imaginary world, controlledby the mind of Doctor Parnassus, which is presented to the audience in the form of

a travelling theater. The visitors would enter this world and their dreams would

temporarily come true. The entrance into this world is physically delimitated by a

portal and aesthetically by its surreal appearance, which reminds of Ren Magrittes

style.


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The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2010); director Terry Gilliam

Ren Magritte - Decalcomania

b) The action takes place in a fictional time, where most of the landscape is

created digitally

This category, together with the next one, encompasses movies that are richest in

grandiose digital visual effects. Most science fiction movies fall into this category,

because their worlds need to be designed from the ground up. Star Wars: Episodes I,

II, III (1999-2005), The Matrix Trilogy (1999-2003), Avatar(2009), Tron: Legacy (2010)

and Prometheus (2012) are just a few examples. They present entirely imagined

worlds, with their own laws of existence. However, they also inherit certain aspects

from our reality, which makes them comprehensible to us. Even though the

environment is completely imaginary, the surreal influence is still present. For

example, the scene from Un Chien Andalou (1929), where the mouth of the main

character is vanishing, resembles the shot from Matrix (1999),in which Neo suffers

the same modification.


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The Matrix (1999); directors Andy and Lana Wachowski

Un Chien Andalou (1929); director Louis Buuel

c) The film is based on a universal, mythological, or fantastic story

Movies like The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003), Clash/Wrath of the Titans

(2010/2012), Spider-Man (2002), 300 (2006) or Hugo (2011) enter this category. BothSpider Man and Hugo have environments that determine us to place the action in

certain times. In Spiderman for example, the buildings, infrastructure, as well as the

dress code of the characters are similar to present times, while in Hugo the same

elements are designed to depict the 1930s. The realism of the times in both movies

is obscured by fantastic elements or visual effects, which results into a completely

imaginary landscape.


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d) The content unfolds in a non-linear way, with emphasis on the artistic

composition of the images

The Mill and the Cross (2011) is a film meant to explore the stories behind Pieter

Bruegels paintings. The film does not have a normal narrative flow, except of the

voice that guides the way through the images. Continuous compositing and matte

painting had to be done in order to replicate the atmosphere of the famous painted

canvases. The surreal look comes from the symmetric and static compositions,

which remind of the surrealist movie The color of Pomegranates (1968).

The Mill and the Cross (2011); director Lech Majewski

The color of Pomegranates (1945); director Sergei Parajanov

The Tempest(2010), similarly to the previous two movies, is also a tribute brought to

past artistic personalities. Just like TheMill and the Cross brings to life the paintings

of Pieter Bruegel and The Color of Pomegranates represents the life of the Armenian


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poet and musician Sayat Nova, The Tempest is an interpretation of a play by William

Shakespeare. Visual effects bring an enhancement in the stylistical field, because

they can picture imaginary components, in contrast to the real ones from Sayat

Novas story.

The Tempest (2010); director Julie Taymor

e) Action is placed in the real life, where the element of surprise is the main story

driver

Strange elements appear without any explanation, without causing any reaction

from the characters. For instance, in Le fabuleux destin d'Amlie Poulain (2001), the

lamp is transformed into a character while Amlie sleeps; although other animated

CGI are integrated in the rest of the movie, this disruption remains realistic, avoiding

a cartoonish style. Only the fusion of dream and reality can make up the complete

human life says Jan vankmajer, the renowned surrealist filmmaker and artist, in

the opening of his latest movie Surviving life (2010).

In Melancholia (2011), the visual effects parts might be seen as the internal stuggle

of the main characters. The inspiring images apparently have no connection with

each other, except that they all share the same stylistical value. The feeling of the

movie is one of depression, as depicted by the visual associations like a golf field

with a consistency of snow, electric discharge from the main characters finger, thestrange lighting of the scenes, and the accentuated slow motion. The presence of


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the opening sequence from Melancholia (2011) is not justified in the realism of the

story, therefore, from the aesthetic point of view, it is separated from the rest of

the movie. This is build on the structure of operas where the overture tries to sum

up the main theme. Even if the surreal scenes do not appear as a surprise because

they open the movie, the rest of the story which is realistic and lacks other similar

parts becomes the surprise.


f) The message has a clear informative or persuasive role and is usuallyunfolding in a short amount of time

Experimental short videos, commercials and even music videos are extending

through internet at a very fast speed. Most of the time, these videos must have

shocking or out-of-the-ordinary imagery in order to draw attention or convey a

message. Visual effects in this case have a fresh and innovative implementation. I

am going to extend the analysis of this last category in the next subchapter.


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on. Experimental film is the perfect platform for searching new aesthetic or

technical manners of blending live action footage and digital imaging.

The stories of experimental films are usually not conventional. Between classic waysof telling stories and storytelling trough abstract art, music or poetry, there is

another kind of narrative that blends the characteristics of both. Although closer to

poetry, this kind of nonlinear discourse still preserves some narrative features. For

instance, a classical written narrative structure is organized into several temporal

segments18:

- Exposition (introduction of characters, usually good and bad),- Rising action (conflicts, obstacles etc.),- Complication,- Climax,- Reversal- Falling action (conflicts head towards a resolution, but the action is still

tense),

- Dnouement (final confrontation between protagonist and antagonist).This structure can be transposed and adapted into a visual sequence, which also

develops its content in time. But most experimental films with DVFX do not tell a

story merely through a series of interconnected actions; instead, a single action can

be fractured into pieces, extended in time, a scene might jump to a completely

different one with no logical explanation or other various unexpected happenings.

Even though the intention is to break conventions, these apparently unlinked pieces

are also subordinated to a pattern. The narrative flow will most likely appear in the

beginning, together with the introduction of the theme or character of the film; this

happens very fast though, because of concentrated action in a short amount of

time. Certain points of the story, where the content is full of intensity or conversely,

might be correspondent to other parts of the classical narrative (Rising action,

Climax, Falling action). In DVFX experimental short movies, it can be noticed that

18

According to the dramatic structure proposed by Gustav Freytag for Greek andShakespearian dramas:http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Freytag.pdf
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Freytag.pdfhttp://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Freytag.pdfhttp://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Freytag.pdf


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the amount by which the narrative is degraded varies. However, the most important

connection between all experimental artistic films remains the focus on the

techniques and the look of the finished outcome. The story remains on a secondary

plane, only used as a pretext to transmit an idea or purely to use an effect or a

technique.

New ways of expression are emerging. For example, a music video of the band

Memory Tapes resorts to an original combination of images that complements the

poetics of the lyrics. Yes I know18F19is experimental in the way that it leaves a lot of

room for interpretation and in the way that it looks at reality through a filter. The

visual effects spread a sense of nostalgia and loneliness, because the theme of the

song is about losing close people. The main character is going through changes:

holes in his skin break him apart. The scene looks surreal because the holes in the

skin are not depicted as injuries, but as actual holes in the body, which make him

look unearthly.

Memory Tapes Yes I Know; director Eric Epstein

19http://vimeo.com/24637555
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Another good example of mixing experimental film with visual effects is a recent

short film named Solipsist19F20from director Andrew Thomas Huang, which was

rewarded the Special Jury Prize for Experimental Short at Slamdance Festival.

Shot with a professional digital camera (RED), the short demonstrates how far one

can go with todays available tools. Its three parts belong to the same stylistic field,

but they do not connect into a linear narrative. There are two ways of

understanding this film, one at a visual level and the other at a rational level. Some

viewers could be satisfied only by the strong visuals, while others could start

wondering if there is any connection to historical, mythological or ideological

elements. Most of the visual effects were practical effects done on set, but the

wonderful compositing was realized digitally.

Solipsist (2011); director Andrew Thomas Huang

http://vimeo.com/37848135http://vimeo.com/37848135http://vimeo.com/37848135http://vimeo.com/37848135


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The short Butterflies20F21 of director Sandro Miller, starring John Malkovich, proposes

very disturbing feelings through its imagery. It tackles notions like surreal and

experimental, under the pretext of madness that was so frequent with Surrealists.

The literally short video (1 minute and 20 seconds) describes a middle-aged man

who lost his family and job, slipping into depression and contemplating suicide. His

inner world is depicted by uncanny moving photographs, scattered with an

abundance of visual effects. The film is accompanied by a poetic text, which plays a

key role in understanding the concept and the mood of the video:

I have this idea in my mind for a painting about butterflies.

Blue and green and yellow butterflies, tumbling out of my

brain. I think its going to be good. I feel like I can almost touchthem... like theyre right there for me to grab as theyre flying

away... out of my skull and taking all those dark thoughts and

little devils with them. Just fluttering away and leaving the

good stuff behind. Butterflies. Im going to get my canvas and

my paints. I think Im all better. I think Im ready to leave.

Butterflies (2011); director Sandro Miller

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Jean Cocteau once said that film will only become an art when its materials are as

inexpensive as pencil and paper. The tools available today are not as cheap as pen

and paper, but they did become more accessible once with the introduction of

digital videos. DSLR21F

22 cameras are very popular nowadays, because the images they

produce resemble the ones on celluloid, while being much cheaper to achieve. This

occurs as a consequence of their sensor chips and the fact that a wide variety of

interchangeable lenses is available.

3.1 The concept

In order to illustrate my theory about the way surreal and fantastic intersect the

aesthetics of todays visual effects, I have created a short film that encompasses

various DVFX techniques. This can be watched online under the following link:

www.transhumant.simonafitcal.com

The theme of my film originated from the idea of globalization, a product ofmodernity, which affects national identities and traditions. Modernity means

change and progress, to which the protagonist surrenders; however, he is not able

to adapt as fast as his surroundings. Therefore, the two realms of modern and

traditional start to blend into a hybrid. I have chosen to portray this by bringing two

antagonistic paradigms together: the urban and the rural environments. The

character is alone in both worlds, which symbolizes his feelings of solitude and

22Digital Single-Lens Reflex


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3. Practical approach: techniques of achieving visual effects

40

anxiety. He is dressed in white and wears a traditional Romanian mask, which

depersonalizes and transforms him into a representative figure. The mask is also a

mythological element, used in rituals for influencing the destiny or communicating

with spirits.

The images can be interpreted as real information mirrored in the characters

unconscious. Hence, it resembles the Surrealisms preoccupation with the

unconscious thought. The footage from urban landscape, as well as the one from

rural environment suffers gradual transformations. The film aims to take an

experimental form, presenting an interrupted narrative and focusing on aesthetic

communication. The style of the visuals lies somewhere between painting,

photography and CGI animations.

Transhumant is both an adjective and a noun. It is derived from transhumance,

which means transfer of livestock from one grazing ground to another [], with

the changing of seasons23. Consequently, the character needs to move his

lifestyle and traditions forward, as the times demand.

In the industry of visual effects, a team of specialists covers all the steps involved in

delivering a final product. In experimental films on the other hand, the team is

restricted to just a few persons, who need to be familiar with a series of techniques.

Following this assertion, I describe several visual effects techniques that can be

managed even by one person alone. Each technique is sustained by samples from

the work stages of my short film.

23Transhumance. Merriam-Webster. The Free Dictionary. 2012.http://www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/transhumance
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transhumancehttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transhumancehttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transhumancehttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transhumancehttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transhumancehttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transhumance


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However, in recent years, the taste for this type of montage has decreased in favor

of hyper-realistic images.

Digital compositing was originally developed from the optical printer, a device thatconsists of one or more film projectors mechanically linked to a movie camera25.

The purpose was to achieve optical effects like fading, dissolve, slow motion, and to

obtain mattes for combining more footage. These effects are still in use, but the

time of work has decreased considerably once with the enhancement of software,

which comes with fully controllable incorporated effects. However, the workflow

has not changed that much; the overlapping layers and the use of mattes to

combine images have been transposed into a digital interface. Software like After

Effects (appeared in 1993) works with layers, masks, and different blending modes,

which are able to join overlapping pixels.

There is also another kind of compositing workflow, the node-based systems

promoted by software like Nuke and Fusion. This implies connecting the output of a

node (an imported image or video) to the input of other nodes (effects, commands,

viewer etc.) in a procedural map. Because of the similarity to the optical printer, the

layer-based program is more intuitive to use. All the transformations that take place

over time are memorized by interpolating key frames. These changes are stored as

matrices, which determine the position of pixels within an image. All actions are

based on complex mathematical calculations that happen in the background,

without compositors being aware of. In After Effects, there are two types of

compositing: 2D and 2.5D. The latter involves faking a 3D perspective by projecting

an image onto a plane, which can be modified on three axis. The technique has its

limitations though, as the camera can only moves on short distances.

25Optical printer. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.


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3.2.1 Matchmoving

Real life is captured by cameras and then projected onto 2D surfaces, such as

photographs or videos. For visual effects to be introduced, these 2D projections

have to be remapped into a 3D virtual space. In order to do that, it is necessary to

generate a virtual camera and virtual reference points, which allow placing other

objects into the scene. Although there is a various range of software available on

the market able to accomplish the abovementioned task automatically, there are

some optional steps that can improve the quality of the outcome. It is very useful to

have real measurements of objects, and physical reference points on set, so the

scale of the scene would remain proportional with the actual setup. Another

important thing is to know the camera settings, such as focal length, lens distortion,

film back, to match these settings in post-production. Examples of software that

can track features of an image sequence are Boujou, Mocha and and the

open-source Voodoo26.

Depending on the type of the object that needs to be placed inside a clean plate

(live action footage) and the perspective of the camera, there are two kinds of

tracking. One is a 2D tracking, where the position, rotation and scale of one or two

pre-indicated moving points are followed through the timeline, resulting in a set of

key frames. With the help of these key frames, it is possible to link other layers to

them. A 3D camera track, as described above, is more complex and involves

generating a camera with the same features and movement as the real one. This is

based on Photogrammetry, a technique that can transform photographed data into

virtual 3D space, based on certain known facts about light and photography. In thecase of DSLR cameras, the light is captured by a sensor, instead of film, which

comes in various sizes (medium format, full-frame, APS-H, APS-C etc.).

Although camera tracking is a practice that is not visible in the outcome, it

constitutes the basis and the most important stage in integrating an object into live

26

A software developed for research purpose at theLaboratorium frInformationstechnologie, University of Hannover, Germany.
http://www.lfi.uni-hannover.de/http://www.lfi.uni-hannover.de/http://www.lfi.uni-hannover.de/http://www.lfi.uni-hannover.de/http://www.lfi.uni-hannover.de/http://www.lfi.uni-hannover.de/


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action. I use this technique extensively throughout my film, as most of the footage

originated from a free moving camera. For example, in the scene with the water

mill, I introduced a black metallic liquid that flows down in the place of water.

Because the liquid had to leave shadows on the geometry of the wheel, it was

necessary to reconstruct some of the environment, besides tracking the camera.

One of the problems I faced in this process was the presence of lens distortion,

which made the 3D objects hard to align with the background; also, the lack of on

set measurements made it difficult to keep the real proportions of the wheel.

Transhumant (2012) matchmoving in Cinema 4D and final render


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Motion tracking is required when CG elements must be linked to another moving

object in 3D. I involved this technique in a scene where CG vines extended from the

moving hand of the character. The tracker needs to have obvious points that it can

follow throughout the movement. When shooting this scene, the actor had colored

points attached to his hand, which were removed in post-production, after the

tracking process. It is also possible to track both a moving camera and a moving

object. In this case, they are tracked separately by isolating the object with a mask.

Transhumant (2012) motion tracking with markers

3.2.2 Mattes

Mattes are basically masks that cover certain areas of an image, enabling the

combination of multiple footage. Mattes come from the tradition of superimposing

frames on film. The dark area remains unexposed and can still react to light at a

later time, unless it is processed. Digital mattes use the same principle, improved by

the introduction of the alpha channel.

In 3D scenes, the mattes play an important role by allowing the rendering of

separate files comprised of shadows, speculars, reflections, refractions etc. The

images composited in software such as After Effects are much easier to color

correct, avoiding re-rendering in 3D software. This technique is called multi-pass and

permits files to be remerged together by using the blending modes in the

compositing software, therefore, creating a final image called beauty pass.


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Transhumant (2012) illumination and shadow passes

In most visual effects films, the final look of the background does not correspond

with the initial one that was captured by camera. Matte paintingis an old technique

that was widely used before the digital era. It involved actual paintings captured on

film and mattes used for integrating characters into it. Digital matte painting is now

achieved with 3D objects, a series of photographs, or both. The matte artists need

to research how light, atmospheric conditions, and depth alter the colors and

shapes of objects. Once with the rise of the digital realm, matte paintings became

dynamic elements in the scene. The 2.5D perspective and the camera mapping

technique allow short camera movements through the painting.

In Transhumant, I used matte painting for several scenes where the environment or

parts of it needed to be reinvented. The shot where the bridge builds itself in front


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of the running character is a good example. To accomplish the reconstruction of the

bridge, I had to create a 3D replicate of the real bridge, which I fractured into pieces

and then applied rigid body dynamics onto it. In compositing, I removed the real

bridge from the background, which implied a great deal of reconstruction. I utilized

several photos and the stamp tool 26F27 to recreate part of the buildings and then

added a couple of animated elements like birds, moving water, and sky replacement

to retransform it into a video.

Transhumant (2012) matte painting

3.2.3 Rotoscoping

When multiple overlapping elements are brought into one composite, a matte of

foreground objects is most of the times mandatory. If, for example, a character is

shot on green screen, the matte is easy to accomplish. In many situations though, it

is impossible to install a green screen on set or to match the correct lightingconditions in a studio. In this circumstances, rotoscopingis inserted. The technique

is time consuming, because it implies frame-by-frame control of a spline that

outlines the moving object. After Effects introduced a tool called Rotobrush, which

acts like a magnet, shaping and separating the selected pixels. Hence, the process

of obtaining a matte is faster. Nevertheless, it is difficult to achieve perfect margins

of a mask, especially when there is fur or hair involved. I employed this technique in

27A brush that duplicates selected pixels, available in Adobe Photoshop and After Effects.


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many scenes of my short film, because certain CG objects had to be overlapped by

the character or by other elements in the footage.

Transhumant (2012) rotoscoping

3.2.4 HDRI27F

28

This procedure implies capturing a set of differently exposed images of the same

scene, which allows lightening dark areas and darkening overexposed areas inpost-production. The dynamic range refers to the highest overall contrast that can

be found in an image, also called contrast ratio. The purpose of involving HDRI in my

short film was to light 3D objects that had to be integrated into a clean plate. This

way, they could inherit the original light and correct reflections from the set. In his

book The HDRI Handbook, Christian Bloch (2007) explains the correct integration of

HDRI in CGI workflow. One of the techniques he describes is the mirror ball

technique that captures the reflections of the environment. I used a mirror sphereto capture a panoramic view of my scenes with differently exposed photographs,

called light probes. The following rendered pictures demonstrate how these light

probes easily and efficiently calculated and applied the light in the scene.

28High Dynamic Range Imaging


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Contemporary digital visual effects have become accessible in our time, as opposed

to the past, when their secret never left the studio. Due to this accessibility, there is

a need for re

simona fitcal - the digital dream - between surreal and fantastic

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