ABSTRACT
In fifty-odd years, almost every major film studio has set up its own special effects department to handle problems which may call for the use of small-scale models, trick mirror effects, optical devices carried out in the laboratory and amazing illusionary processes such as the traveling matte. The special effects man is recognized as a highly skilled technician with resources of imagination, artistic good taste and an experience of the technique of motion pictures. The scene of a ship at sea in a storm or the flashing past of a landscape through the windows of a railway train, while realistic in character, are termed special effects because their production calls for special apparatus operated by specialized staff. The special effects of vignetting have been used extensively, even to the point of vignetting scenes from a film into the live scenes in a studio.
