How the workshop is organized:
- 30' - Guided tour of the exhibition. With the aid of iPads with software for augmented reality, by framing a film poster, you can discover the trailer or the making of films that left a mark in the development of special effects.
- 30' - Let’s play with the green screen. With a green background, the kids pose for a short scene. Thanks to programs for the Chroma Key technique, a subject is filmed with a solid colour background (blue or green). The background is then deleted and replaced by still or moving images (Compositing).
- 30’ with Scilla Valsangiacomo, graphic designer. After a specific training at the C.S.I.A. in Lugano, she worked for many years in the production of movie special effects in Los Angeles, for many post-production companies such as Warner Digital Studios.
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Scilla Valsangiacomo shows the work of a digital artist in order to obtain a digital movie Compositing: use of a digital plug-in (“Keylight”, which is included in the special effects program “After Effects”) that allows to “cut out” the subject from the solid colour background and put it (Compositing) on another background. Short demonstration of the program After Effects.
An interactive journey in the history of digital special effects
The special effects are both Art and Science.
The Science part implies complete understanding of how the sensory part of our body and our brain perceives the world around us, while the Artistic side entails the strategic use of this information to deceive the sensory system.
But when did cinema start to use special effects?
The first artist to use tricks in cinema was Georges Méliès.
He came from theatre, he was a magician and an illusionist and his job was just to amaze the audience. Méliès’ film tricks were still unsophisticated, imaginary worlds and characters were made with the aid of cardboard and wood set designs, models, perspective effects (trompe-l’oeil), drawings... In the first science-fiction film in the history of cinema, “A Trip to the Moon”, the image of the rocket that lands in the eye of the moon is iconic, it enters in the popular imagination... finally it is cinema!
All new techniques are created from techniques that already existed and they have been added to other tools available for directors.
The director of today can use a very flexible and less restrictive technology that can be adaptable to the universe that he wants to show. It allows a certain kind of realism - the possibility of creating a movie world as if it were real, whether it is a real or imagined world.
Today, thanks to computer generated images, CGI, or synthetic images or virtual images, it is possible to create landscapes, characters or situations that do not exist in reality. Simple drawings are re-elaborated to give the illusion of volume, matter and movement.
Special effects artists create elements that cannot exist, situations that cannot happen in real life. They intervene when real shootings are too expensive or too dangerous or impossible to do.
For a beginner in this field, the Special Effects of a super-production may seem very complex and difficult to understand. But all the scenes with special effects can be analyzed and decomposed to reveal the COMPOSITING elements.
With the knowledge and understanding of these tools available to the director, it is now easy to understand how a specific effect has been created.
INTERACTIVE PROJECT BY MARCO LURATI AND EDY RADICE
The magic of special effects is recreated within an interactive exhibition dedicated to the movies that have marked the history of stage tricks in the film industry.
Through a tablet application, especially developed for the festival, visitors can discover multimedia contents that use augmented reality, that is the vision of the real world with superimposed virtual elements. By framing a film poster in the exhibition, it is possible to discover trailers and videos that tell how some of the most famous special effects are made.
Marco Lurati
Engineer in Microthecnics, with a Master in Interaction Design.
He currently deals with the development of research projects at SUPSI, related to interactive museum installations, web for accessibility, digital fabrication for assistance devices.
Edy Radice
He has a degree in Visual Communication and a Master in Interaction Design at SUPSI.
His main interest is to understand and improve the interaction between men and their technological spaces (real and digital), through the creation and the integration of objects and interactive installations able to provide to the user an experience going beyond the mere use.
Ideation and workshop by Scilla E. Valsangiacomo.
After a specific training at C.S.I.A. in Lugano, thanks to her passion for animation and visual arts, Scilla worked for many years in the production of movie special effects in Los Angeles for many post-production companies, such as Warner Digital Studios, Computer, Film Co., Sony Pictures Imageworks, Stazione X Studios and Hammerhead Produzioni. She now works in the RTS graphic studio in Geneva.
SPECIAL EFFECTS WORKSHOP
- 30' - Guided tour of the exhibition. With the aid of iPads with software for augmented reality, by framing a film poster, you can discover the trailer or the making of films that left a mark in the development of special effects.
- 30' - Let’s play with the green screen. With a green background, the kids pose for a short scene. Thanks to programs for the Chroma Key technique, a subject is filmed with a solid colour background (blue or green). The background is then deleted and replaced by still or moving images (Compositing).
- 30’ with Scilla E. Valsangiacomo, graphic designer. After a specific training at C.S.I.A. in Lugano, she worked for many years in the production of movie special effects in Los Angeles, for many post-production companies such as Warner Digital Studios.
Scilla shows what is the work of a digital artist in order to obtain a digital movie compositing: use of a digital plug-in (“Keylight”, included in the special effects program “After Effects”) that allows to “cut the subject out” from the solid colour background and to put it (Compositing) on another background. Short demonstration of the After Effects program.
Scilla E. Valsangiacomo hold a masterclass Nov. 22 at 11.00 AM, upon special effects and her working experience in Los Angeles.
