When I watched The Walking Dead on my 1080i HDTV, the special effects looked seamless. In other words, I knew what I was watching was fake, but it was hard to tell.
When I upgraded to a 1080p HDTV, the show looked more like a Soap Opera and the Special Effects were not as impressive; mainly because the scenes containing CGI stood out like a sore thumb.
Early black and white films with special effects have always seemed this way to me. However, I've only watched them on Television.
If I were sitting in a 1950s movie theater, would my naked eye be able to distinguish real from fake using the technology from that era?
Answer
The recent film "Hugo" references the urban legend of contemporary audiences of 1896 watching the Lumière Brothers "L'Arrivée d'un train en care de La Ciotat" (The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Stations) where the audience supposedly became overwhelmed at the approach of a train because it was shot in a manner that made people believe it was headed mostly towards the audience.
Further, there is the fact that people acclimate to effects in the films. The 1950s film "The Tingler" used mild shocks in the theatre that people weren't accustomed to and thus heightened the sensory reaction. One can say that effects have to improve because audiences grow to find the old effects common-place.
Quoting Arthur C. Clarke's third law:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
No comments:
Post a Comment