Tackling digital effects such as colourisation, time-ramping, compositing and photo-realistic rendering, this monograph explores how the growing use of these post-photographic procedures shapes our relationship with the image and the world that the image represents. At stake is the ability to critically engage with the digital techniques that mediate perceptions of reality. Through a series of case-studies the book connects the dominant techniques of hybridisation with emergent ways of being in our increasingly hybrid physical-digital world. Pointing at the relationship between mainstream visual culture and the manifold imperatives of digital technology and digital culture, Hybrid Images and the Vanishing Point of Digital Visual Effects highlights how a handful of digital visual effects are coming to shape the way we live.

Examines how digital visual effects reshape our relationship with reality

This book explores how creativity is increasingly designed, marketed, and produced with digital products and services — a process referred to as softwarization. If ‘being creative’ has developed into one of the paradigmatic architectures of power for framing the contemporary subject, then an essential component of this architecture involves its material and symbolic configuration through tools. From image editors to digital audio workstations, video editors to game engines, these modern tools are used by creatives every day, and mastering these increasingly complex technologies is now a near-compulsory pathway to creative work. Despite their ubiquity in cultural production, few have sought to theorize them in aggregate and with interdisciplinary breadth. By bringing disparate creative and methodological traditions in one volume, this book provides a comprehensive overview of approaches for understanding this complex, emerging, and dynamic field that speaks beyond the disciplinary categories of ‘tool,’ ‘instrument,’ and/or ‘software’. It makes a unique intervention in the fields of cultural production and the cultural and creative industries. ​

The definitive 1990s blockbuster, Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park met with almost universal critical and popular acclaim, broke new ground with its CGI recreation of dinosaurs, and started one of the most profitable of all movie franchises. To mark the film's 30th anniversary, this exciting illustrated collection of new essays interrogates the Jurassic Park phenomenon from a diverse range of critical, historical, and theoretical angles. The primary focus is on Jurassic Park itself but there is also discussion of the franchise and its numerous spin-offs. As well as leading international scholars of film studies and history, contributors include experts in special effects, science on screen, fan studies, and palaeontology. Comprehensive, up to date, and accessible, The Jurassic Park Book appeals not only to students and scholars of Hollywood and contemporary culture, but also to the global audience of fans of the greatest of all dinosaur movies.

This elegant Fourth Edition of Chip Sullivan's classic Drawing the Landscape shows how to use drawing as a path towards understanding the natural and built environment. It offers guidance for tapping into and exploring personal creative potential and helps readers master the essential principles, tools, and techniques required to prepare professional graphic representations in landscape architecture and architecture. It illustrates how to create a wide range of graphic representations using step-by-step tutorials, exercises and hundreds of samples.

Examines the face on screen from a variety of critical and historical perspectives

Avatar. Inception. Jurassic Park. Lord of the Rings. Ratatouille. Not only are these some of the highest-grossing films of all time, they are also prime examples of how digital visual effects have transformed Hollywood filmmaking. Some critics, however, fear that this digital revolution marks a radical break with cinematic tradition, heralding the death of serious realistic movies in favor of computer-generated pure spectacle. Digital Visual Effects in Cinema counters this alarmist reading, by showing how digital effects–driven films should be understood as a continuation of the narrative and stylistic traditions that have defined American cinema for decades. Stephen Prince argues for an understanding of digital technologies as an expanded toolbox, available to enhance both realist films and cinematic fantasies. He offers a detailed exploration of each of these tools, from lighting technologies to image capture to stereoscopic 3D. Integrating aesthetic, historical, and theoretical analyses of digital visual effects, Digital Visual Effects in Cinema is an essential guide for understanding movie-making today.