2. My chosen Discipline: Film
What I know already:
VFX has evolved massively since the 70s, including making Live Action films
entirely out of CGI or seamlessly walking the line between the two
forms/expanding the realm of possibility (with camera movements as well as
what’s on the screen).
Questions I have heading into my research:
• What are the differences between techniques on set from Spielberg’s films
in the 70s through to the present day
• What are the differences between techniques in post-production from
Spielberg’s films in the 70s through to the present day
• Which of Spielberg’s films are best to be used as a comparison to one
another, in terms of VFX
• How did Spielberg films change as technology increased in quality and
furthered the realm of possibility
3. My Chosen Discipline
• What are am I looking at: The evolution of Visual/Special Effects within
Spielberg films (not Spielberg himself).
• Why: His long, decade-spanning career covers numerous technological and
technique upgrades
• How: By analysing 3 films from Steven Spielberg’s long career (Beginning-
Middle-Present)
• What experience I already have (previous projects): I’ve been a part of 4
professionally made short films, as well as creating a short film trailer and a
music video last year at college.
• What I hope to learn: How VFX in films has evolved since the 70s, how Spielberg
pioneered a lot of changes with how VFX appears within blockbuster films
4. Jack's Movie Reviews. (2016). Jaws - How Spielberg Creates Tension. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGTcUTCbWmU. Last accessed 2019.
Main points/notes of video
• First ever film to hit $100 million at the box office
• Only used practical effects (1975 release – the first recorded 3D CGI in a film was created by *Ed Catmull and
Fred Parke, two University of Utah students, debuted in 1976, Futureworld). *Went on to be the co-founder
and president of Pixar Studios
• Used 3 animatronic sharks (nicknamed Bruce after Spielberg’s Lawyer) made up of steel skeletons with a
rubber skin and air-powered movement capabilities, that cost up to $500,000 to produce, and footage of
real Great White sharks filmed from a diving cage off the coast of Australia (the diver in the cage was 4’11”
to make the 15 foot real sharks look more akin to the 25-foot animatronics). They worked perfectly on land,
but as soon as they were submerged in salt water, the tubes were flooded and all the electricals inside and
made the sharks majorly unresponsive for the majority of the shoot, which was scheduled to be 55 days, but
ended up being 159 days long. One of them sank to the bottom of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts,
where they were filming the ocean scenes. The crew eventually were able to bring it back up onto land after
delaying production even further than they already had done.
• They worked around the issues by filming scenes without any actual real or animatronic sharks and only
playing on people’s animalistic imagination to fill in the gaps e.g. the opening scene with the woman
swimming
• Also used a variety of camera techniques and in-camera effects (e.g. long takes, iconic dolly zoom etc.)
Summary of how this information will help/inform me for my essay:
• Gives me background on the production
• Explains how they made the special effects
• Goes in depth on the VFX
5. Cosmavoid. (2018). The True Story of Jurassic Park's T. Rex Animatronic. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFTsYGgdR9k. Last accessed 2019.
Main points/notes of video
• T-Rex scene worked so well because of the VFX being far ahead of their
time, plus a practical hydraulic animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex that was, at
first far too heavy, so they had to reinforce Stage 16 on the Warner
Brother’s backlot in order to hold the 12,000lbs weight of the animatronic
• The animatronic was covered in latex, much like the shark from Jaws and
also had problems dealing with water – the main scene the Rex was used
for was at night during a rain storm. The Rex started shaking uncontrollably
when the latex rubber was soaked, because the calculations of the
movements were based on the weight when the animatronic was dry but
of course when water weight was added, the calculations were off.
Summary of how this information will help/inform me for my essay:
• Allows me to compare animatronics between Jaws and Jurassic Park and
how advanced they had become in around 15 years
• It provides me with anecdotes to use within the essay
6. NowThis Nerd. (2018). Populating the OASIS: Character Design in Ready Player One
| NowThis Nerd. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEotRb_7Zzw. Last
accessed 2019.
Main points/notes of video
• VFX artists were designing characters to fill the Oasis with for over 2
whole years, as well as recreating various characters from pop culture
• A separate company, “Aaron Sims Creative”, designed the characters
before handing them off to Industrial Light and Magic to include into
the animation of the CGI final battle scene and more
• Only practical effects were explosions, that even then was redesigned
in CGI
Summary of how this information will help/inform me for my essay:
• Shows me that more and more VFX companies exist rather than the
standard ILM production
7. List of other sources
• BBC Radio 1. (2018). Steven Spielberg on Jurassic Park, ET and his greatest movie
memento. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMv1iTHUTtc. Last accessed 2019.
• Corridor Crew. (2019). VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi 2. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4nGxX2mHOs. Last accessed 2019.
• Cosmavoid. (2018). The Time the Animatronic Shark Nearly Ruined Jaws. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfR1dFXhP44. Last accessed 2019.
• FilmIsNow. (2018). READY PLAYER ONE | Motion Capture Featurette. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jo_SfurgkE. Last accessed 2019.
• FilmIsNow. (2018). Ready Player One "Steven Spielberg" IMAX Featurette. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy4hw5RycLE. Last accessed 2019.
• FilmIsNow. (2019). READY PLAYER ONE | VFX Breakdown by Digital Domain (2018). Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAp3VLirGSM. Last accessed 2019.
• ILMVisualFX. (2018). Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of Ready Player One. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqVhbpBR8Lw. Last accessed 2019.
• Jack's Movie Reviews. (2016). Jaws - How Spielberg Creates Tension. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGTcUTCbWmU. Last accessed 2019.
• Steven Benedict. (2012). Steven Spielberg's techniques and themes. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uCBYFHRHU0&t=677s. Last accessed 2019.
• StudioBinder. (2018). Steven Spielberg Directing Style Explained [Point of Thought]. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XjJMFD-Vz8. Last accessed 2019.
8. My chosen Discipline: Film
• Reflective summary on the answers to the questions I started with
- The best Spielberg films to use comparatively are Jaws, Jurassic
Park and Ready Player One
- The biggest difference between FX in the 70s and in the present
day is the extinction of practical effects and rise of computer
generated imagery
- Spielberg slowly integrated more and more CGI into his films as
the technology improved up until present day (100% real
practical FX in Jaws and 60% of Ready Player One being entirely
made up of CGI)
- Spielberg films have become more and more like a VFX spectacle,
rather than an actual film with substance
