Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder (Film and Culture Series)

Pierson suggests new ways of understanding special effects and the popular science-fiction that features them in an analysis ranging from popular science and magic in the late nineteenth century to Hollywood science fiction cinema in the late twentieth century. She examines the role popular publications—science, genre, and computer magazines—have played in the development of connoisseurship; and critiques how film and cultural studies scholarship on special effects has dealt with theorizing their reception. The book touches on landmark films that have shaped the place of special effects in contemporary cinema, including __Star Wars__, __Terminator 2__, __Jurassic Park__, __Independence Day__, __Men in Black__, and __The Matrix__. Designed to trick the eye and stimulate the imagination, special effects have changed the way we look at films and the worlds created in them. Computer-generated imagery (CGI), as seen in Hollywood blockbusters like Star Wars, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Men in Black, and The Matrix, is just the latest advance in the evolution of special effects. Even as special effects have been marveled at by millions, this is the first investigation of their broader cultural reception. Moving from an exploration of nineteenth-century popular science and magic to the Hollywood science fiction cinema of our time, Special Effects examines the history, advancements, and connoisseurship of special effects, asking what makes certain types of cinematic effects special, why this matters, and for whom. Michele Pierson shows how popular science magazines, genre filmzines, and computer lifestyle magazines have articulated an aesthetic criticism of this emerging art form and have helped shape how these hugely popular on-screen technological wonders have been viewed by moviegoers.

From the Carolina Outer Banks to New York's Fire Island, from Iceland to the Netherlands and Colombia to Vietnam, barrier islands protect much of the world's coastlines from the ravages of the sea. Although these islands are vastly different in many ways, they also share many common features. Most dramatic among these is their dynamism -- barrier islands are in almost constant motion, their advances and retreats powerful testimony to the force and beauty of nature -- and their vulnerability in the face of a different kind of force, commercial and residential development.

This first-of-its-kind survey of barrier islands around the globe had its genesis in 1993, when geologist Orrin Pilkey met artist Mary Edna Fraser at Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina. They soon realized they shared a passion for the barriers, one heightened by the many threats the islands face from development and global warming. These fragile and irreplaceable jewels, Pilkey and Fraser determined, needed to be better understood, and, as important, to be seen in a new way, if they were to be saved.

Every bit as dynamic as the islands they depict, Mary Edna Fraser's spectacular original batik artwork (silk cloth colored by hand using a modern variation of an ancient dyeing technique) has been exhibited in both science and art museums. Combined with Orrin Pilkey's engaging and informative text, they create a treasure of a book that is at once beautiful and rigorously scientific. Pilkey identifies three major types of barriers -- coastal plains, Arctic, and delta -- each with its own geological characteristics and particular morphologies, which are themselves shaped by several factors, including the absence or presence of underlying rock formations, tidal patterns, and vegetation. Employing the latest advances in geological mapping, Pilkey also identifies traces of ancient barriers marking long-lost shorelines -- a further reminder that in the geological dance of land and sea, change is the only constant.

Praise for Mary Edna Fraser and her art:

"Pilot with a palette... as much of an artist in the midst of the creative process as Picasso laboring over his easel." -- Michael Kilian, Chicago Tribune

"Fraser's works depict an organization and sensuousness in the land that is visible only from the air." -- Susan Lawson-Bell, National Air & Space Museum

"Exhibited and collected around the world, her batiks have a common theme: promoting the awareness of environmental beauty and change on the planet as seen from the air. " -- Carolyn Russo, Women and Flight

Columbia University Press

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Special Effects and the Popular Media 1. Magic, Science, Art: Before Cinema Natural Magic Science Fictions Scientific American Millennial Magic 2. From Cult-Classicism to Technofuturism: Converging on Wired Magazine The Limits of Convergence Photon and Stop-Motion Animation Corporate Futurism/Technofuturism Home Production 3. The Wonder Years and Beyond: 1989-1995 On Genre Reinventing the Cinema of Attractions Digital Art Effects Retrofuture/Retrovision 4. Crafting a Future for CGI The Case of Editing Disaster Strikes An Aesthetics of Scarcity The Public Life of Numbers CONCLUSION: The Transnational Matrix of SF Notes Bibliography Index Moving from an exploration of 19th century popular science and magic to Hollywood science fiction cinema of our time, this text examines the history, advancements and connoisseurship of special effects. A tribute to the barrier islands of the world invites awareness and conservation efforts, surveys their constantly changing nature, and is complemented by 185 original pieces of batik artwork.