“So it comes back to inspiration and freedom. This begins with the blank page…

It’s that first magic moment when anything is possible. So, if you can have who you want, what you want, where you want, any time you want –then what’s holding you back?

This is why digital fx are inspiring and their potential has yet to be realized. That will only happen if storytellers demand what they dream. And nothing of substance will happen it they don’t dream in the first place.”

(McClean, 13)

For today’s film and video makers, the pervading and enlightening nature of digital video techniques provides them with a creative palette limited, perhaps, only by imagination. Past scripts and ideas once deemed too difficult, have become possible and achievable; notions never thought before have been cultivated in this digital world of possibility. With these techniques it is within our capabilities to make the unreal realistic, to give life to impossible characters, to improve upon past filmic techniques, and even to mimic past techniques. By analyzing elements of pertinent films, and looking at some specific examples of digital video techniques it can be seen how this wave in cinematic history really does inform contemporary film.

From digital video has stemmed a bounty of effects and techniques that may now be considered standard tools in contemporary cinema making. From simple things such as cleaner results using blue and green screens and better quality sound, the potential to digitally erase and correct mistakes to more complex processes of generating fantastic characters and creating a whole new virtual world, these techniques are continually improving and pervading contemporary films. The possibilities that these processes pose, is lending a sense of creative freedom to today’s filmmakers. McClean quite rightly states that it is “inspiring to use [digital effects] as a way of confirming that, yes, anything is possible”. (11) Digital effects and digital techniques are now available even to smaller budget filmmakers, are an integral part of the filmmaking process and should be considered as a means of boosting creativity and the films particular realism. The digital wave could even be considered a blessing upon the environment, with the potential to artificially mock up explosions and disasters removing the need to actually blow up a carefully constructed set or small portion of the world. Quite boldly McClean also suggests that “the old ‘pre-shoot-post’ linear progression thing [is] over”, due to the fact that the use of effects will affect the entire shooting process. (18) As early as scripting digital techniques can be used as a source of inspiration, and as late as post-production the people who make the effects happen are likely to still be working. So, contemporary cinema is being pervaded by possibility and the process of filming is becoming a non-linear event. This is giving filmmakers free reign, allowing them to create without restraint.

When The Abyss was being made, the filmmakers had an idea for a scene, but they could not be certain they had the capabilities for it to turn out. Hence this scene was written in such a manner as to be easily removable from the film if the effects people could not pull it off. The actors themselves had to perform the scene interacting with a piece of hose. What eventually came out, the shimmering and malleable water creature far superseded what anyone believed possible. Cook states that the CGI used in this particular scene “demonstrated that complex digital effects could be both remarkably credible and nearly as cost-effective as optical ones”. (954) In the making of The Abyss filmmakers began the first vital step in the creative process: they had an idea. From this idea digital techniques were developed to cope with the filmmakers’ imaginations. From those first little sparks of creativity a whole new world of possibility, an enormous and far reaching creative palette, if you will, has been spawned. Digital video techniques continue to be developed and the quality of what can be achieved is always improving.

“Computer imaging has begun a revolution in animation”. (Bordwell, 49) Whenever a CGI character is created for the purposes of film, say giving life to the extinct dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, what is essentially being created is an animated character. Computers can be programmed to do the hard work, to “perform the repetitive task of making the many slightly altered images needed to give a sense of movement”. (Bordwell, 49) What this process enables filmmakers to do is more or less run riot with their imagination. If they can think it they can generate it and put it on film. Just as importantly, however, is now, with these improved digital techniques, filmmakers can achieve a level of realism never before attainable with methods like stop-motion. Films like Final Fantasy take it one step further. The animation is not just being used to enhance the films realism it is the entire film. This creation of a wholly different, virtual reality (still with an extraordinary level of realism applied to the digital characters) and the fact that the audience will accept what is presented to it, speaks volumes on how digital effects allow more creative freedom. As long as need for it exists, it is possible to develop techniques that would allow filmmakers to generate images of the ‘impossibilities’ they wish to film and to create their own subjective reality.

We have seen how it all began, and the potential digital techniques hold for cinema, so now we shall examine the evidence of how it has pervaded contemporary cinema. The Matrix is a wonderful example of how blue screen work has been improved and taken to the limits. The 360˚ shots were achieved through the use of a green screen (or more accurately room) and multiple cameras taking still shots. The quality of the finished piece is amazingly real and aesthetically incredible. It is the effort the filmmakers go to that makes these scenes so incredible, and ultimately why they are so worthwhile. The safety and integrity of actors has even been taken into account. In Terminator 2, scenes that involved Robert Patrick driving were arranged so that there was a hidden stunt driver, so that Patrick sat in the passenger seat where he could concentrate on acting. These shots were later reversed (this had been accounted for so well that number plates were made in mirror image). One street sign slipped in and had to be digitally altered later. The creation of the mercury-like T-1000 in this film was a more complex and awesome achievement, the filmmakers even incorporating Patrick’s natural limp into the movement of the computer generated cyborg. Digital techniques are, without a doubt, an integral and malleable process of filmmaking. One of the most common digital techniques used in contemporary cinema would have to be the fine-tuning and touch ups that seem to occur in almost any film. A prime example would have to be The Crow. Brandon Lee’s unfortunate demise obviously threw a spanner in the works when making this film, but through the use of digital techniques, the filmmakers were able to insert the actor’s image into footage shot after his death. Prior to the onset of digital video, the film would have had to have been recast, drastically altered or even scrapped. In many films mistakes have been erased or digitally painted out, and photographic elements have been integrated.

A particularly excellent example of how digital video has affected very recent filmmaking is the recent production of the film Destination Mars. Tor Lowry, an amateur filmmaker, working in collaboration with he brother and a few others, has managed to put together a film that has been billed “as a lost film that has recently been recovered and restored”. (“Everything old…”) Emulating the 50s style, doomsday Martian movies, Lowry has used simple digital equipment and everyday software to produce a film with remarkably high quality. Even more astounding, the budget came in at less than $10 000 US. According to the filmmakers it is the compatibility of the software they used, and the user-friendly nature or it all, that made the project viable. The film was shot on mini-DV against blue and green screens, and digitally touched up and enhanced in programs such as After Effects and Photoshop. To keep with the 50s feel, past techniques of hand painting frames to achieve the desired effect were replicated digitally. For instance, scenes with gunfire had the effect of flashes and smoke painted digitally onto each separate frame. The filmmakers have produced a very low budget film with, considerably high image quality, using equipment that is readily accessible. What they have also done, however, is show that digital video is not just about replacing the ‘old ways’, they have shown that digital video is about possibility; Destination Mars uses new technologies to mimic the past, and has done so convincingly.

And what of the future? Filmmakers are constantly looking for a way to make their images and their soundtracks more realistic for the audience. Paradoxically it seems to be through the use of digital techniques, by tweaking and fine-tuning images and sound through artificial means, that these filmmakers achieve this sense of realism. The line between what is real and the unreal is constantly blurring. The continued development of digital video will provide filmmakers with the opportunity to present to audiences many versions of what we call ‘reality’. Primarily through the use of special effects, CGI and electronic compositing, the impossible has become possible. Moreover, it will become more credible, more economic and in many ways less difficult to produce this fantastic cinema. It is this constant battle for aesthetic quality that challenges the filmmakers’ imagination, that makes them ask the question ‘how would I go about creating this?’. Ultimately this is how digital video has broadened, and shall continue to broaden, the creative palette of today’s filmmakers, for without the desire or curiosity we would never have come this far.

It can therefore be seen that the wide-ranging possibilities of what can be done with digital video and digital techniques do indeed allow today’s filmmakers more creative freedom. Reality is not a boundary nor is it fixed, it may be twisted and manipulated, hence just about anything one can picture can be captured on film in one for or another. No longer do we exist in that archaic period of film history where a script may have been shelved because it simply was not possible to shoot. Furthermore, filming is becoming more economic, less linear, and even user friendly. It is only through the aspirations and stubborn ‘why nots’ of filmmakers in the recent past that we have arrived at this point. A little imagination has spawned the creative basis for an entire generation of new filmmakers. As long as the ideas keep flowing, contemporary cinema, whatever its form, shall continue to grow and flourish. It would seem that filmmaking is riding the crest of a new wave.

WORKS CONSULTED

(2001) “Digital Video Editing.” http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/

(2001) “Everything Old is New Again.” http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2001/08_aug/features/dlold.htm

(2001) “Sciflicks.com.” http://www.sciflicks.com/

The Abyss. Dir. James Cameron. 20^th Century Fox, USA, 1989.

Bordwell, David, Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. 5^th ed. New York, 1996.

Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film. 3rd Ed. W. W. Norton and Company: New York, 1996.

The Crow. Dir. Alex Proyas. Edward R. Pressman Film Corporation, USA, 1994.

Cubitt, Sean. Digital Aesthetics. Sage Publications: London, 1998.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Dir. Hironobu Sakaguchi and Motonori Sakakibara. Square Co. Ltd, Japan, 2001.

Jurassic Park. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Universal Pictures, USA, 1993.

McClean, Shilo T.. So What’s This All About Then?: A Non-User’s Guide to Digital Effects In Filmmaking. Australian Film Television and Radio School: North Ryde, 1998.

The Matrix. Dir. Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski. Village Road Show Productions, USA, 1999.

Terminator 2 - Judgment Day. Dir. James Cameron. Carolco Pictures, USA, 1991.