Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Far from Houdini: The ‘Magic’ of the VFX Breakdown

Far from Houdini: The ‘Magic’ of the VFX Breakdown VFX (visual effects) breakdowns are short ancillary videos that advertise the digital animation work undertaken by a VFX company for a particular film or television programme. Claiming to take viewers ‘behind the magic’ of VFX, breakdowns disassemble a wide variety of shots and sequences, and point to the extensive use of computer-generated imagery in contemporary blockbuster cinema. But, as much as breakdowns reveal some illusions, they conjure others. Breakdowns operate in a register of speed, fluidity and efficacy, showing neither the many people nor the extensive periods of time that it takes to painstakingly generate all these VFX. In this article, the author reveals how the omission of labour and duration in VFX breakdowns both reflects and contributes to a broader (mis)understanding of digital effects as immaterial, instantaneous and magical. His case study is Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), a film that links VFX with magic, evokes the breakdown in some of its spectacular visuals, and even outright villainizes those effects artists who seek fair recognition for their work. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Animation SAGE

Far from Houdini: The ‘Magic’ of the VFX Breakdown

Jones, Nick
Animation , Volume 18 (1): 17 – Mar 1, 2023
Download PDF
17 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/sage/far-from-houdini-the-magic-of-the-vfx-breakdown-4R8OsyIYlH

References (48)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2023
ISSN
1746-8477
eISSN
1746-8485
DOI
10.1177/17468477231155541
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

VFX (visual effects) breakdowns are short ancillary videos that advertise the digital animation work undertaken by a VFX company for a particular film or television programme. Claiming to take viewers ‘behind the magic’ of VFX, breakdowns disassemble a wide variety of shots and sequences, and point to the extensive use of computer-generated imagery in contemporary blockbuster cinema. But, as much as breakdowns reveal some illusions, they conjure others. Breakdowns operate in a register of speed, fluidity and efficacy, showing neither the many people nor the extensive periods of time that it takes to painstakingly generate all these VFX. In this article, the author reveals how the omission of labour and duration in VFX breakdowns both reflects and contributes to a broader (mis)understanding of digital effects as immaterial, instantaneous and magical. His case study is Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), a film that links VFX with magic, evokes the breakdown in some of its spectacular visuals, and even outright villainizes those effects artists who seek fair recognition for their work.

Journal

Animation – SAGE

Published: Mar 1, 2023

Keywords: CGI; digital labour; magic; making of; Spider-Man; VFX breakdowns

There are no references for this article.