Introduction

The process of designing, planning, executing, and completing visual effects requires interaction and collaboration with nearly every department on a project. Visual effects can be added to live-action capture, or used to create a scene entirely artificially, through techniques such as matte painting, computer graphic objects, characters, environments, character and effects animation, and compositing of disparate images recorded in any number of ways. The important thing to remember is that today special effects and visual effects artists and technicians work hand in hand during filmmaking. Close collaboration between the visual effects and special effects departments on a production is essential, and lines are blurred constantly. Although the reader might think this is a relatively new development, it is not. The very first visual effect audiences saw on film was The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots.