Optical Effects
I had to admit that this class was the driest and hardest to catch up with. As a pampered audience, who cares to learn how the filmmakers create all the effects in the movie. However, learning how optical effects are essential and important in making a movie, it is actually quite interesting to know.
From the invention of William process to Sodium Vapor process, it is quite stunning to see how these filmmakers try to push the boundaries of the impossible to possible. People at that period of time could not imagine that the filmmakers could create something out of nothing. This refers to the the combination of real-life footage with traditional hand-drawn cartoon characters. Foreground and background was shot on a different layer, allowing different lights (depend of the techiniques) to pass through them, and each layer was being exposed and thus creating a male matte(a black image around a clear foreground) and then positive was made creating a female matte(the inverse of male matte).
Because of their patience to create these effects, it was later, movie like Mary Poppins was brought to the audience in an outstanding performance of these techniques. It was at a later stage, where movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Space Jam followed the footstep of Mary Poppins. It was a success.
