ery in a way that was convincing, rather than just weird. . . In this case, we used the computer not necessarily to create imagery but to distort it, which would have been impossible to do with the camera (Chris Pizzello, 1994, 23).
Kristoff also points out the nature of the effects trade today and the degree to which innovation is always necessary:
The visual sophistication of the public is growing at an incredible rate. . . The tools that are available allow us to do more and more complex, realistic and imaginative things, but the public catches up very quickly with their sophistication. Somehow, we're going to have to keep leapfrogging ahead of them (Chris Pizzello, 1994, 24).
Special effects are often associated with science fiction and horror films in the public imagination, but in truth there are many uses of special effects in other types of films, often in ways that goes completely unnoted by the public. Some films make the public wonder--the dramatic intercutting of history and new footage in Forrest Gump or Zelig, for instance, raises questions--while more subtle efforts may not be perceived as effects at all--such as the way George Lucas used a shot of five or six horsemen for an episode of the Young Indiana Jones television series and through careful computer imaging repeated those few horses and riders to make it seem there were some thirty or so horsemen surrounding the hero.
A recent non-science fiction film that made overt use of a special effect to create a startling moment on film was The Hudsucker Proxy in which a character falls 44 floors from the boardroom window of a corporation to the sidewalk. This effect is a computerized composite of blue-screen work. Shots of the character are combined with scenes f
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