Film, as one of the largest and most diverse industries in the world, allows each director to create the universe he or she wishes

"Film does not come from painting, literature, sculpture, theater, but from ancient popular magic. It is the contemporary manifestation of the evolutionary history of shadows, the enjoyment of moving images, the belief in magic" – Jim Morrison.

Nothing more magical than special effects that make us believe the impossible to believe under other circumstances.

Leer en español: ¿Las películas de ahora sacrifican la historia por mejores efectos especiales?

It is a dream factory, as Georges Mèliès explains, where one has the possibility of telling a story with different narrative resources, looking for the way to transmit an illusion within a "real" or fantastic environment.

His film "A Trip to the Moon" is considered one of the first works to implement visual effects, he used very striking sets where he managed to explain the story of a group of scientists who traveled to the moon. Recreate an environment that was almost impossible in his time was what made him be considered the father of special effects.

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The special effects were initially called "tricks", an illusion that envelops the viewer and makes him believe that what he is seeing is real. In cinematography they are used to embellish the narration of stories, being a mixture of several tools that seek to disappear the border between reality and fantasy. Their evolution has made these incorporate IGNORE INTO most movies nowadays.

With the passage of time, different techniques that make possible the creation of universes and realities begin to emerge, through the increasingly sophisticated use of special and visual effects; these are the ones who mask history in favor of the magic of technology.

To my way of seeing, the cinema of now is not sacrificing its stories for the special or visual effects. Currently there are all kinds of narratives, and all kinds of public and spaces to project the work of each filmmaker. The cinema, as one of the largest and most diverse industries in the world, allows each director to create the universe they want, directing it to different media such as: festivals of all kinds, film clubs and the big screen of course. But what is undeniable is that, since the appearance of the digital era, special effects have been incorporated IGNORE INTO all kinds of productions. Since its beginnings, for example, The Young Sherlock Holmes, was one of the first films he experimented using computer graphics, followed by King Kong, and one of the films, which in the history of cinema, in my concept, is important to know: 2001: Space Odyssey. These films show a vision of what could come in the future: the game between perspective, increasing and decreasing the vision of objects (visual effects).

At present, narrative commercial cinema is only made to entertain and disconnect from reality, from the difficulties we face daily in our jobs, families and personal issues. Leaving home to stop thinking for a little while about what surrounds us has been one of the reasons why these narratives, which of course have their formulas and their "rules", fill the cinemas. For this same reason, in theaters, we always find science fiction movies, superheroes and comedies, where special and visual effects act as enhancers of the narrative purpose.

On the other hand, we have the non-narrative author cinema, which occurs when there is a break with the policies set by Hollywood. In these cases no matter the history or the action, much less the logic, it becomes an experimental cinema, where what is intended is, as the name says, to experiment and deceive with images. As an example, we can see the work of Luis Buñuel in collaboration with Salvador Dalí, "Un perro andaluz", a succession of shocking scenes, without any coherence that break all the classic rules that the cinema exposes.

Finally, within the cinema, as a form of human expression, there are all kinds of stories for all types of spectators as I mentioned earlier. The audiovisual treatment will depend on the director and his team, but what is clear is that this remains the same since its inception: the need to tell stories and make dreams come true, so to speak. The only things that could change are the tools and the effects that are used to achieve it. In short, the film is nothing more than a lie that we all manage to believe ourselves by letting ourselves be carried away by the emotions it produces, and in our conception of the world, movies that resemble reality are those that possibly help to change some of our concepts and improve our society.

LatinAmerican Post | Amaranta Úrsula

Translated from "¿Las películas de ahora sacrifican la historia por mejores efectos especiales?"